Tag Archives: winter

Refresh — Regroup — Relaunch

You may have noticed a significant absence of posts for the last three months — and that’s because Mark has been working away like a busy little bee over in the 1400s house. And I’ve been carefully building a base of clients for my writing and editing business.

We took a much-needed weekend escape at the end of February — over to the far western side of Normandy in beachside Brehal. We didn’t do a lot — ate, slept, read, watched movies, and had a few outings in the icy cold weather. But it was a good break and we came back feeling refreshed.

Mark looking out to sea in Brehal, Normandy, France

A moules (mussels) farm at the seaside in Normandy, France.

On an afternoon drive along the seacoast, we stumbled upon this medieval chateau ruin from the 14th Century in Regneville sur Mer and had a quick walk around. It’s a tiny but very pretty village facing the sea.

The corner of a 14th Century chateau ruin in the seaside village of Regneville sur Mer, Normandy, France.

What was meant to be a short hop back over to England for Mark’s parents’ 40th anniversary party ended up being a two week visit instead. It’s always wonderful to visit with them and see all of the other assorted family and friends, but everyone in the house ended up sick as could be with whatever lurghi was hanging around England at the time and I ended up in A&E getting meds for a chest infection when our local GP couldn’t see me. Aarrgghh!

Margaret & Brian Harmes at 40th Anniversary Party

We arrived back in France exactly 4 weeks after our icy cold visit to the seaside in Brehal — and everything here at the farmhouse in Notre Dame de Fresnay had burst into bloom!

View of the Normandy countryside through the bedroom window in Notre Dame de Fresnay.

Daffodils beside the old well.

Down by the duck pond.

We’re preparing to move on from here in three very compressed weeks. But we’re headed to the OTHER large house belonging to the owners of this house — and we’ll be there for 6 weeks whilst Mark does renovation work on it. I’ll send pictures of that project as it progresses.

The REGROUP and RELAUNCH part of the title refers to us regrouping, going over to England for several weeks at the end of June, and trying to decide if we want to settle down or continue to work and travel for awhile longer. That’s a longer stand-alone post about the turbulent social and political factors at play here in Europe right now, so we’ll save that for another time.

I have to be truthful, it’s one of those things that sneaks up on you a bit as you get older — the mental cushion of a home base. And right now our ‘home base’ is a huge storage unit full of our possessions in England — one we refer to far too often when we reach for something and then realise that it’s in the $%^&£@! storage unit!

In the next couple of months, we will be relaunching ourselves away from here. And I have ALSO just relaunched my personal website — but I’ll leave that for a follow-up post.

Back soonish!

Christmas Lights in Calvados, Normandy, France

It’s the first week of January in an icy cold winter and we had a short ramble around Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives on a Friday night after Christmas. It was only 8 PM and we were rather surprised at just how few people were out and about. The streets were practically empty — but that did allow me to get some good photos of the Christmas lights.

Enjoy!

Christmas lights in Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives in the Calvados region of Normandy, France.

Christmas lights in Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives.

Christmas lights on the town hall in Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives.

A cold and wintery night outside the medieval market hall in Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives in the Calvados region of Normandy, France at Christmas time.

The only place in the village that was busy on a Friday night — the kebab shop!

And finally — my favourite image — Mark in silhouette as he walks down a narrow street near the market square.

A man walks down a darkened street in northern France in mid-winter.

Black and White from Ballarat

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.

COPYRIGHT
©Deborah Harmes and ©A Wanderful Life
Please respect the words and images on this page.
All rights reserved.

Ice Cream in Winter — By The Sea?

When Mark and I met in London at the beginning of 1994, I commented one afternoon on an activity that the Brits engaged in — quite regularly — that I considered to be quite odd behaviour given the weather.

That activity? Eating ice cream — LOTS of it — usually in cone form — in the dead of winter. No matter how icy the temperatures were, we saw people in every city we visited perched on a ledge eating an ice cream cone or sitting on a bench at the seaside doing the same thing. There might be ice on the roads, occasionally even a smattering of snow, but there they sat, bundled up to the eyeballs and eating an ice cream.

What I found even odder, and sweetly funny, were the people who would drive to the seaside to purchase their ice cream from a mobile van or a beachside hut and then sit in their car with the heater running as they gobbled it down whilst watching the icy waves crashing upon the seashore.

Even on the coldest winter day, British people seem to love to go to the seaside to sit in their heated cars, staring at the crashing waves in freezing temperatures, and eat an ice cream cone.

The lighthouse at Whitley Bay, a seaside town near Newcastle UK, on a stormy winter day.

So here we were on a wintery day two years ago in the north of England, at Whitley Bay on the seacoast just outside of Newcastle. The wind was so high that afternoon that it knocked me sideways when I got out of our own vehicle! The second picture that is just of the seaside and the lighthouse is a more accurate idea of how bleak it was that day. Absolutely no one was game to sit on those seaside benches to watch the waves on that particular afternoon. Brrr!!!

But back in the parking lot — yes — the Mr. Whippy van was doing a good business. The lot near the lighthouse was full of people happy to sit with their engines running and the heater on as they ate their ice cream and watched the crashing surf beyond. Crazy, eh? Or just sweetly eccentric perhaps.

Blue On Blue in Melbourne, Australia

The thin blue light of a cold and wintery day matches the tonality of these blue Yarra Trams on Swanston Street right in the heart of the CBD (Central Business District) in Melbourne, Australia.

Blue trams in Melbourne, Australia on a cold winter day

Safely Back in the UK

Wrapping up the last week of life in France was incredibly compressed. But I am happy to report that we are safely home in Norfolk at Mark’s parents’ house. What a trip back though! I thought the 10-plus hours of travelling on Friday was bad — on Saturday we did 12 hours.

We drove through a full day of torrential rain that the windshield wipers barely kept up with on Friday. And may I just say that spending just short of THREE HOURS in wall to wall traffic on the Paris ring road was not a happy experience! The next day we had to deal with a really scary hail and ice storm in northern France which turned to snow just before we got to Calais. There were lots of car accidents north of Paris and we were driving slowly to be sensible and safe.

Then due to the weather, the P&O Ferry sailed from Calais to Dover an hour late in gale force winds. Thank heavens for motion sickness pills! After that we had another three hours of driving from Dover up to Norfolk. There was just enough ice on the road up here that Mark skidded the car a bit a mere 1 km from his parents’ house. Whew!

Gosh I slept hard — and so did Mark. We’ve had a marvelous and restorative day so far, a scrumptious brunch out, my darling mother-in-law is cooking pork roast for dinner, and after the movers arrive tomorrow we’re going to start looking for a new van for driving on the UK side of the road.

I took some wonderful photos at a museum outside Paris yesterday and I will try to start posting those — and the other huge backlog of articles and photos from the last month — in the coming week. Be patient — we’re taking it a day at a time right now and trying to get quite a LOT accomplished in a very short time.

Life is good, we’re happy to be back, and we’ll keep everyone posted!

9 Days to Christmas In A French Town

Taking a break from all of the photos and articles on Spain for a glimpse of a French town when there are 9 days left before Christmas.

The local town council has attached Christmas trees to the lamp posts on both sides of the bridge over the river.

Cyclists on the bridge in St. Girons, Midi-Pyrenees, France

View from the bridge in St. Girons, Midi-Pyrenees, France at Christmas time

This charming little dog was waiting for his/her owner to finish shopping in the toy store.

A little dog waits patiently for its owner to finish shopping in the toy store.

The weekend market now has a wintery Sunday version that has vintage goods for sale. It was quite enjoyable to be able to walk freely through the bare-branched avenue of trees without being jostled by the large throngs of people that attend the Saturday market. We didn’t actually find anything we wanted, but it was certainly was pleasant to walk in the fresh air and have a look around.

Shoppers at a winter outdoor market in St. Girons, Midi-Pyrenees, France in December 2012.