Just a few quick pics today of our quiet just-us-two Christmas in France.
Back soon!
Festive touches in the French farmhouse.
A bit of Christmas in the French farmhouse.
A tiny bit of candlelight for dinner.
Pull that cork, Mark!
Prosecco on the way…
Bubbly in the farmhouse…
Selfies in the kitchen as we cook…
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We’re feeling quite grateful this holiday season — grateful on several levels.
We are finally back in Europe and living in a country that we love — France. Mark’s health has returned, we are enjoying life again, and we are happily filling our days.
The past week was a bit chaotic, to be truthful — but we managed because we are both feeling more resilient once again — and now we’re having a quiet Christmas. Our household goods somehow managed to leave Australia at the same time that we did at the beginning of November and they arrived in the UK a mere 6 weeks from pick up at our house. That sort of time frame is a rarely-or-never kind of thing.
As a result, we’ve felt a bit roller-coaster-ish for the last 8 days. Last weekend we had the happy highs of the weekend wedding of dear friends — Polly and Vincent. Mark and I both took cameras with us to document the day (as requested by the bride!) — but gads — rather a lot of the photos ended up being either out of focus due to shifting light conditions or being constantly jostled by the phone-camera-clutching throngs who were packed into the Mairie (the mayor’s office) for the wedding. Those group shots where someone always managed to have their eyes shut were a bit of a challenge, too. (smirk!)
Polly Watt and Vincent Morel exchanging rings on their wedding day.
Mark with his camera inside the Mairie after the wedding as the crowd began to disperse.
Deborah, camera in hand, leaving the Mairie after the wedding ceremony.
Two days later it was a leaving-long-before-dawn race back to the UK on Monday, meeting the movers in England on Tuesday, doing catch-up errands on Wednesday, then heading back to France on Thursday. Whew!!! Are we tired? YES! But Mark went straight back to work the next day and part of Saturday and I sat like a little pudding doing editing. Yes — we ARE taking all day Sunday and Monday off though and we’re hoping it won’t be too soggy for some gentle rambles through the lovely Calvados countryside.
Here’s a few more pictures from the last wildly busy week. More soon!
Up and down the stairs between decks on the Brittany Ferry.
The Deck 9 wifi lounge on the Brittany Ferry.
During an afternoon crossing between England and France, Mark is buying 2 expressos at the bar on one of the upper decks of the Brittany Ferry.
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These beautifully handcrafted wood and metal cars are just the right size for a toddler to enjoy. And they are displayed attractively right off the main street in Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives.
Lovely little things, eh?
Toddler sized toy cars outside shop in Normandy, France.
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Just a quick flashback to a walk around the lake in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia in the winter. With the exception of one bizarrely bright bird, absolutely nothing was colourful that day and the wind was icy cold and quite gusty.
I briefly glanced at these when I first took them, but since we were already up to our eyeballs in packing boxes and mess, I didn’t have the energy to devote any time or inspiration to them back in August.
Here I am back in France, happily and cozily parked in front of the fire in December, and now I’m glad I saved these for the right time. Some of these are potential book covers or perfect for doing a matte and frame treatment. I can tell when my heart is happy again because my productivity level just soars. That’s a lovely thing to be able to say at my age!
All of the images in this short photo essay are from Lake Wendouree in Ballarat. Enjoy!
Unidentified woman and child walk along the lakeside on a cold winter day.
Partially submerged tree and water grasses in a rain-swollen lake.
A bench at the edge of a swollen lake.
Wind whipped dunegrass alongside the water’s edge of a lake.
And finally — the ONE SPOT of colour…
An Australian bird with a bright red face and deep blue chest picks its way through the marsh grass of an inland lake.
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This has been an odd week weather-wise and the heavy-soggy-blustery nature of it all finally took a bit of a break today. I feel rather relieved since I don’t sleep well when it feels as if the house is going to lift off the foundations. We’ve had cyclonic bursts of wind hammering the sides of the house along with constant, heavy rain — then it all swirls and hits the exact opposite side of the building. Rain alternates with hail. The temperatures plunge and snow falls then melts. Most unsettling…
The mood of the weather is rather a match to the mood of the world right now — but I choose not to focus on that.
The house has been on the market for two weeks — and now we wait. Oddly, since I am not always known for saintly levels of patience, I am feeling quite calm and purposeful.
Really looking forward to what will be coming in the post in the next few days. I’ve waited and waited until the time was right and the PRODUCT was right size-wise. I no longer enjoy huge honking camera bodies with humongous lenses dangling off the front. They make my wrists and shoulders ache and they’re a pain to worry about because they’re so expensive to replace if damaged or stolen. And with the ever-smaller equipment nowadays, it seems like the right time to downsize before we leave here.
On Sunday I bought a GoPro Hero 4 Session at a 20% off sale. Then I got accessories like hand grips, telescoping mono-pod, foam-cube protectors and the like, and a bike handlebar mount for Mark to try it out. And since this toy-sized video camera is so tiny, it will fit into a purse. It is seriously teeny-tiny — and we noticed that the Tour de France riders were all using them during the last few weeks.
I’m ready to start making videos in addition to doing still photography and my agencies in London and New York have asked if I plan to add that sort of additional artwork to my portfolio since it now sells so well. Even wee burst videos of 2-ish minutes at 8 megapixel clarity seem to do well!
Happy that I will get ANOTHER my-brain-will-never-get-old-and-fuddly learning curve with a new editing program (ask me again how I feel about that statement in a week!) to master.
And other than the %^&*£@! flu that we’ve both picked up from all of the %^&*£@! sick people in Ballarat — life is good!
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Giving in to the overwhelming urge for a nap, this older couple simply parked on a street in England, locked the car, and gave in to that urge. They were completely oblivious to the amused pointing and kindly laughter of everyone passing by. Sweet, eh?
An older couple in England were apparently overwhelmed by the urge to sleep!
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It was such a retro look that my head fairly well snapped when I saw it on ample display in Newcastle Upon Tyne in the north of England. Really ‘Big Hair’ on women of all ages. I don’t think I’ve seen such a generous use of the teasing comb and cans of hairspray to create that sort of back-combed volume since the 1960s.
What was even funnier was that we were in a vintage bookstore at one point during our four weeks up there and there was a book on sale that was a ‘Look Back to 1960s Newcastle’ — and all of the women in that book would have been the mothers or grandmothers of the people we were seeing on the streets. Some of the folks in the North of England seem to have gotten stuck in a time warp!
Regional trends included the messy buns — the sort of teased up and pinned up look that Brigitte Bardot used to do so well — or tight buns — teased up and smoothed into not-a-hair-out-of-place firmness with gel or hairspray. And we saw this look on women from teenagers to senior citizens. We were checking out at the grocery store one afternoon and it was everything I could do to not snap a quick pic with my iPhone of the middle-aged check-out clerk who had a bright red beehive hairdo that was towering above her small face!
Then there was the range of hot pants on display (on some icy days in February?) — thankfully on the really young girls and not on the middle-aged gals who shared their love of Big Hair with a large percentage of the Newcastle demographic. Interesting too that once we returned to London and Norfolk from our month up north, we never saw a beehive, teased bun, or hotpants look down there!
Apologies for the graininess of some of these. I did snap a few of them on my phone!
Teased up back-combed hair on young girls in a Newcastle mall going from the most bouffant on the left to the least voluminous on the right. This was taken on an icy cold day at the end of February.
Interesting fashion and hair at the hardware superstore.
Two young girls with teased chunks of hair sitting on the tile floor in a shopping mall.
Hotpants (even on the coldest winter day!) and big teased up hair are very popular amongst many of the teenagers of Newcastle in the UK.
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©Deborah Harmes and ©A Wanderful Life
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