Christmas 2010

A great day with Helen and Josh and the lovely new Sophia - with cooking inspiration care of Ottolenghi.......
Oops...

Fat Family at the Fat Duck

After many attempts to secure a reservation at The Fat Duck (apparently they receive up to 30,000 phone calls a day), we finally managed to bag a table for Hamish's birthday. Taking photos was frowned upon, but we stopped caring about the rules at about glass five. We chose to do the wine matching with the tasting menu (13 courses!)

Our photos were terrible, and as we don't want to ruin any surprises for people thinking of going, we'll just add a few as a taster.....

Christmasy Copenhagen

A few snaps of our cafe crawl, visit to the Tivoli Christmas markets and stroll in the snow in Copenhagen.

Paris weekend

Highlights of our weekend in Paris:

• A rugged up Friday evening walk along the river.
• Walk in the Luxembourg Gardens.
• Semi Finals of the ATP Masters (Soderling defeated Llodra 2 - 1 and Monfils defeated Federer 2-1)
• Crepes in Montmatre for dinner.
• Getting some photography tips from a Parisian local.
• Tasting 16 different cheeses (the best being a 4 yr aged Comte).
• Snail and mushroom filo pasty for dinner!

Croatia - Plitvice National Park (the reality)

Very cold and a little bit rainy, but an absolutely stunning park to see the seasons changing in Croatia:

Waiting for the boat to take us across the lake:

Croatia - Plitvice National Park

We left our chief photographer (Hamish, obviously!) in Split, so had to rely on Mum and Dad's camera for part 2. While I'm waiting for the photos to come through from them I thought I'd add a few that I've found online from the absolutely, stunningly beautiful Plitvice/Plitvicka National Park. This place is amazing!


Further info: http://www.np-plitvicka-jezera.hr/eng/index.php

Croatia - Dubrovnik and around

Hamish and I met up with Mum and Dad in Dubrovnik after their week in Italy.

I cannot speak highly enough of Dubrovnik - what a beautiful city! We had a great time wandering around the cobbled streets for a couple of days, however we'd timed our trip a little late and realised that the ferry service to the outer islands had ended on the 30th of September which ended up changing our plans a little. Nonetheless, we managed to amuse ourselves with a walk around the city walls and up to one of the forts, a day trip around some of the local islands and a drive to Ston and Oberic.

Walking around the Dubrovnik city walls and forts:
Oberic: A drive through the wine region of Peljesac led us to Oberic, which is a tiny little port town across the water from the island of Korcula.
The towns of Ston and Mali Ston: A massive fort - it's outer walls are around 5km in length (and up the side of cliff). It's also known for its saltworks.

Ross & Joan hit the Big Smoke

It took a while, but we finally managed to get Mum and Dad/Joan & Ross over to visit the big smoke.

Our first day tour of London managed to take in quite a few of the sights:
Wandering down the river towards Tower Bridge and the Tower of London
A boat trip down the Thames to Westminster
A quick stroll under Big Ben, down Whitehall, through Trafalgar Square, and then through Leicester Square where we stopped in Chinatown for some yummy yum char.
We also managed to squeeze in a trip to the National Portrait Gallery for the Portrait Prize.

Mum and Dad amused themselves during the week with a day tour to Oxford and the Cotswolds, the Imperial War Museum, the Tower of London and Design Museum.

On Friday we celebrated Dad's 65th birthday with a great night out at the Wimbledon Dogs:

The birthday celebrations continued on Saturday with a quick trip to Borough Market, and then on to a football match (Fulham v Everton at Craven Cottage). We finished the night off at Jersey Boys - a fantastic show which had everyone up and dancing by the end of it.

Sunday was rainy and miserable, but we did a quick drive and walk around Richmond Park and then finished off the day with a (slightly disappointing) tour of Wimbledon.

Ross hanging out on centre court and Joan trying to take shelter from the rain with her Wimbledon gift shop bag: