Gabrielle's christmas goodies

Turning thirty!

Marseille

Highlights: One of the most fluent All black test wins I've seen; the number of friends we bumped into on the walk back from the ground; numerous hilltop villages in the Provence countryside; 15 degree temperatures in November.

Regrets: Missing out on bouillobaisse fish soup!

Les Baux de Provence

St Remy de Provence

View from our apartment on Rue de Rome, Marseille

Luberon

Gordes

Roussillon

Cassis

Ice rink at the Natural History Museum

ATP Tour Finals at the O2

We managed to be ringside for three big matches at the O2 Dome in North Grenwich:

Federer def. Verdasco

Davydenko def. Nadal

Del Potro def Federer

Berlin

Some selected pics from our long weekend in Berlin. It was still warm enough to enjoy a few walking tours loaded with history.

The Victory Column overlooking Tiergarten:



Holocaust memorial:

Brandenburg gate:

Currywurst!

Ze Berlin Wall:

Autumn on Bolingbroke Grove

Arsenal 3, Birmingham 1.

World Cup qualifiers

A night in the Bobby Moore Club at Wembley care of GLG to see England thump Belarus 3 - 0.

Bearded Beckham, who's Man of the Match award after being subbed on in the 60th minute caused a bit of a stir, but it wouldn't be football without a stir now would it.

Oxford

So the story goes that way back when, the Saxon's used Oxen to ford the river Thames, giving the name Oxen-ford to the settlement. Not long after loads of smart people must have shown up there and started telling everyone about it.

Over our weekend there , we took a stroll through Magdalen College where cricket loving Lord Denning sharpened his fountain pen. After much speculation we finally figured out that undergraduates are taught in tutorials at the Colleges and this teaching is then supplemented by the University's classes and lectures.






And of course we went punting. In "rivers" that are narrow enough to provide a challenge, the passenger sits with his back to the direction of travel. My main memory of the trip was as we drifted slowly and inevitably toward a group of overhanging trees and Gabrielle saying to me "Watch your head" closely followed by "Oh shit, what I am going to do?"



Backgammon at the Old Parsonage hotel while we waited for our room to be made up.

Cycle to Brighton

9am: Fit and raring to go outside the Castle on Bolingbroke Grove

2pm: 58 miles later at the Brighton pier. Helen is clearly less troubled by the ride than Dean and I.

Oh, jolly well done England on winning those Ashes

Definately a day for for the scrapbook to see the deciding day of the 2009 ashes series at the Oval.

Edinburgh festival

Out of the hundreds of shows on offer, we managed to get to 14 - a good run rate over 3 days. We went to comedy in pub basements, theatre in warehouses and drama in university lecture theatres. A good mixture of established names, up and comers and a festive atmosphere around the town.

The Tattoo - at the gate of the castle with a line up that included The Tongan Royal Corps of Musicians, the She Huo Cultural Act from China, Swiss Army Central Band, Top Secret Drum Corps also from Switzerland as well as representation from the Auckland Police Pipe Band amongst the masses of pipes.