100th Birthday in Oxford

My twin brother and sister (Bill and Lulu) celebrated their joint 50th birthdays on Saturday September 28th (the actual day was the 29th).  We drove up from Paris to England for the weekend to join them at the party at Lulu's house in Combe near Oxford.

On Friday we drove 2.5 hours to Calais and drove the car onto the car train for the 30 minute ride under the English Channel.  We weren't sure what to expect from an underground/underwater tunnel. Pippa was worried that we should be bringing our own scuba gear.  It was actually really cool to drive our car onto a train and then just hang out in and out of the car while we traveled under the water.

We popped out of the tunnel at Dover and then had another 2.5 hour drive to Oxford.  Although the drive was long, the saving of 4 train fares ($800) helped soothe the pain, and the overall door-to-door travel time was nearly the same.  We arrived very late at night and were greeted by happy siblings, nieces and nephews and cousins and all the stress of driving instantly melted away.

We woke in my nephew, Jamie's comfortable bed (he and others slept out in the garden in tents) and gradually rolled outside into the misty morning to have coffee and breakfast by the campfire in the garden.  Bill lit the fire and started breakfast and gradually sleepy people emerged from tents and the house.

Although our family tries to stay in touch through email and Skype, it isn't as fun or as nurturing as staying together under the same roof and waking up together with bed head and morning breath.

Cousins and siblings who hadn't seen each other for over a year were instantly connected and friends again over scrambled eggs, sausages and fried tomatoes.

The party was a "festival" theme.  For those who haven't been to one in a while, or ever, festivals have made a revival in recent years since Woodstock and now are an almost weekly occurrence around the UK during the summer.  In good festival fashion, Lu and Bill's party was to have proper English cream tea (tea and crumpets), 2 bands, dancing, a paella stand and fireworks.  Lulu had been planning this for many weeks and we turned up for the day of the event and just had to help with the setup.  Some were more helpful than others....

In the late afternoon people started arriving and the party moved into action.  The food was amazing and the bands were great. One was my nephew Adam Campbell's band, Blank Frank (he plays drums and sings, and filling in on other instruments when needed).

The party went late into the night with fireworks and long conversations around the many campfires throughout the gardens.  I chatted with friends I hadn't seen in 20 years and met lots of new ones as well.

The following morning, those who stayed rolled out of bed for another campfire breakfast, this one to celebrate the actual day of the twins' birthday and mine that was the following day.  It was a glorious sunny morning and we all swapped stories from the night before, laughing over the timelessness of personalities and wishing the family members who didn't make it could have been there (Mum and Jamie in Australia and Dad and Adrienne departed).

Some of the girls even managed to find the energy to do some more dancing.

After a hearty breakfast of scrambled eggs, sausages, fried tomatoes and baked beans this time, we said our goodbyes and made plans for more visits and sadly set off back to Paris.

For me, the weekend visit was a wonderful validation of part of the reason we came to Paris - easy access to my side of the family in England.  Jemma and Pippa both remarked with amazement at what a large family they never fully realized they had.  It will go down in our family history as one of those (hopefully many) unforgettable lifetime events.

You can see the full photo album at http://goo.gl/lthZvU.  Thanks as always for reading.

Shirley's birthday weekend in the Loire Valley

Paris to Tours

We just returned from a wonderful two-day visit to the Loire Valley, famous for its chateaux, to celebrate Shirley's birthday.  I have never been much good at organizing these kinds of things, so this time I tried to make an uncharacteristic effort to do something special.

We drove the 2.5 hours from Paris to the centre of the Loire after Jemma's Saturday morning cross country meet (yes... Jemma is doing cross country!).  Unfortunately, the weather was not cooperative to my plans and it rained the whole day.  Nonetheless we took the scenic tour down through Orleans, Chambord, Blois and Tours, arriving at our chateau hotel in the late afternoon.

Le Domaine de la Tortinière Hotel

The tower bedroom in our suite

The Domaine De La Tortinière is an 19th century chateau that looks across the Indre river valley and the lovely town of Montbazon, just south of Tours. We had a suite in one of the corner towers looking out over the valley and river.  The whole experience was a cross between Disney castle and Downton Abbey, and we were all excited to be in "our own" chateau.


After a brief bit of lounging and exploring at the hotel, we went to dinner in nearby Tours at La Maison des Halles. With an unforgettable combination of delicious food, menu variety and creativity and ridiculously reasonable prices, this might have been one of the best meals I have ever had. We all had a wonderful time enjoying each others' dishes of foie gras, scallops, duck, and steak. They even had a child menu for Pips!  We rolled out of there very happy and several pounds heavier.

Walking in the hotel woods

Wild cyclamen in bloom

With no cat-cockerel to wake us at 6 am, the girls slept in and I managed rally for a little dawn run down by the river in Montbazon. After a grand hotel breakfast, we packed up and headed out for a day of chateaux viewing, but not before a walk through the quiet woods around the hotel.  The wild cyclamen were in full bloom made the whole experience rather magical.

Chenonceau over the Cher River

The queen surveying her minions

By the time we finally got going it was already around 11am and so we decided to only do one chateau, and so chose to go to Chenonceau, famous for its beautifully restored interior.  We spent a lovely couple of hours touring the 16th century chateau that housed Catherine de Medici among others.  We took the excellent audio tour and learned about all the skulduggery that went on throughout the chateau's history.  The chateau's most notable feature is the 2 storey hall that spans the Cher river.  The gardens were also beautifully maintained and manicured and there was also a maze for the girls to play around in.

After that we were pretty exhausted and jumped back in the car to head back to Paris and our lovely modern home - such a contrast of glass and steel to the richness of the Chenonceau's silks and gilded furniture.

After we got home, I showed the girls a picture of the last time I was at Chenonceau - July 1989. Plus ça change!

Mark at Chenonceau in 1989

Jemma in the maze

You can see a few more photos here.  Thanks for reading.

Vélo Vie

I saw this guy while on an early morning run - I guess
he didn't make it home after a boozy night.

Paris has become one of the great biking cities in the world (up there with Amsterdam and Kisumu, Kenya). Our arrival here in the holiday month of August has given me, and to a lesser extent, Shirley and Jemma, a chance to enjoy getting to know Paris "en vélo".

The easiest part of cycling in Paris is Velib - the city-wide bike share program. By paying a low daily, weekly or yearly fee you can go to any one of the thousands of Velib bike stands around the city and just get going.

We have 6 stations with 180 bikes within 5 minutes walk of our house, and there are 180 stations with 20,000 bikes all around Paris and the suburbs. Paris is about 8 km north/south and 12 km east/west so it takes less than an hour to bike from one end of the city to the other.

While I love going places by metro, bus and tram, I get a special joy getting around (and inevitably getting lost) by bike.  It feels like a better way to get to know my way around and to enjoy this beautiful city.

There is a large number of bike lanes and bikes get to use the safer bus lanes as well.  Cars are just a little more aware of cyclists as well because there are so many of them about. This is good because most people don't wear helmets, which would have been unthinkable for me, not to mention Shirley and Jemma, back in Toronto.  In Paris, it's the way things are done here. 

Coulée verte bike path

Bike path on a bridge

There are also a growing number of "coulée verte" or green corridors that wind their way through the city.  On Friday, I took one of these routes on a 45 minute ride coming back from getting our residents parking permit sorted out (Paris bureaucracy stories for another post). It was absolute bliss pedaling easily through a well paved, tree-lined bike path in the middle of town.  Even some of the bridges over the Seine have bike paths down the middle.

Road rash or impressionist
masterpiece?

As well as cycling to get from A to B in the city, I am getting back into cycling as part of my triathlon training.  After a bad start with a fall on my first big ride into the countryside, I am back on the bike again and enjoying one of the most popular French sports after football, boules and cigarette flicking.  

Less traffic early in the morning

They take road cycling pretty seriously here.  I was out this morning doing a few laps around the outside of the Longchamp horse race track.  When I started around 8:15, there were only a few dozen riders going around the 3.6 km circuit. It was fun to hang onto and occasionally lead the medium speed peletons, while watching the faster pace lines zip by (I was averaging low- to mid-30's km/h, the fast guys were up above 40 km/h).  But by 9:30, the number of riders grew so large that at one point I was caught in the middle of a peleton of at least 50 riders with at least a couple of riders on either side of me: no way to speed up, slow down or turn left or right. It scared me so badly that I called it a day after that. I won't be joining the Tour de France any time soon!

Thanks for reading and as always, you can see additional photos at my Google+ photo page.

Jemma's Chantilly triathlon

Beautiful Chantilly Castle set up for the triathlon

Even a cold and drizzly day didn't scare off Jemma and her devoted entourage from this epic event. Sadly Mark had to bail out of his triathlon event due to a bike wipeout the weekend before.

Jemma in a wetsuit ready for her swim with Pippa

Jemma successfully swam through the giant carp and even larger teenage boys in her first open water triathlon. The muddy trail and stripped gears unfortunately ended her ride and race before the finish. Good timing, however, because Granny would have missed her train back to London! Chantilly is definitely worth another visit, perhaps on a sunnier day!

Pippa and Granny trying to stay dry

Jemma coming out of the woods on the first bike lap

More action shots available at Mark's Google+ album

Settling In

Our local bistro on congé

I cannot believe it has been just 2 weeks since we've arrived. I feel like we have done so much, yet have only scratched the surface of discovery of this spectacular city. It has been a busy couple of weeks as I have been feverishly nesting and trying to get us all feeling settled and comfortable in our new abode. Arriving during the month of August has been for the most part advantageous. As most Parisians are away (pour le Congé) and thus many shops and restaurants are closed, we have been able to get to know the city in a more quiet and relaxed setting. It is a strange dimension, however, because we are trying to set up our life in a place that has previously been a holiday destination.

Camembert, pain au chocolat and baguettes have quickly become our breakfast routine. However, we were all strangely comforted by the recent purchase of a rice cooker and chopsticks. And the thrill of discovering the local Chinatown (or more accurately Vietnamese-town) is a direct bus ride from our house. The RATP (Paris' TTC/Tube) mobile app and Velib bikes and trottinettes (scooters) have become our most coveted transport methods.

Yesterday we visited a couple of private tennis clubs for me to join. Tennis Club de Paris seems the winner as it offers everything I am looking for in a club setting. Hey, if it's good enough for Tsonga, Simon and Mauresmo, it's good enough for me!

Philippe, Dawn, Lucas & Maya + us

We've already had visitors come and help us tour around the city and get to know even more restaurants, parks and shops. First, the Lacamp Family in keeping with their tradition of being our first visitors wherever we have moved: California, Toronto and now Paris. Charlyn, who came with our bunny and a well researched list of restaurants and shopping to explore. Next week, Jessica (Mark's mom) will be visiting and hopefully testing out our new sofa bed - or what is known to many Europeans as "le clic clac".

Here are some latest pics. I'm curious to see how many pictures we can take that don't have the Tour Eiffel in the background!

https://plus.google.com/u/1/photos/113764481965364247361/albums/5910123277742935985

Hope all of you are well and we look forward to having you all visit soon.

Leaving and arriving

The lead-up to our July 31 departure was absolutely crazy.

We sold our business on June 24 and I conducted a 4 week handover to the new owners. We finally found renters for the house in early July, but they needed us to install hardwood floors in the top floor because of allergies. Our basement flooded with sewage on July 8 requiring 4 weeks of repairs.  We packed and moved tons of stuff into storage.  I sold our car the morning of our flight, spending quality time with the buyer at the bank and Ministry of Transportation.

We had numerous farewell lunches, dinners, parties, and tennis games with friends and family, and hosted one final party two nights before our flight, eating take-out and watching the kids play hide-and-seek among the full packing boxes. 

Everything seemed to magically come together and align at the very last moment before our flight, but it was slightly stressful and emotional.

Our FBI operations transport

We had 15 bags, carry-on and a cat (the rabbit is flying separately with Shirley's sister). I am normally pretty self-reliant (read: stingy) when it comes to luggage and hate to pay others to transport my bags, but this was a special exception. We hired a black limo "van" to take us to the airport and a porter to transfer the bags the 50 ft. to check-in.

Too many bags to lift by myself

Everything went smoothly with checking in the extra luggage and a cat, though not without a certain level of astonishment from the check-in staff at what we were bringing. Going through security was fun when we realized we had to take our terrified cat out of her carrier and carry her through the scanner as she clawed her way up my neck.

On the flight, we were instructed by the vet to syringe water into the cat's mouth and administer a few drops of a black molasses-like substance to calm her. She didn't like either and fought me the whole way. A couple of times during the flight I tried to do this and Katu ended up looking like a drowned rat covered in water and black molasses, with very little of it inside her.

Farewell to Grey Road

The Paris airport did not have porters, so we managed to load 15 suitcases, carry-on bags and a cat onto 5 luggage trolleys (Pippa had 1 and I had 2) and crawled our way to customs to declare our household goods for arrival.  We had prepared endless forms, I had been to the French consulate in Toronto, and Shirley had been to the Canadian food inspection agency (which, strangely, handles the export and import of pets) to get everything prepared for entry to France.  We were ready for this.

As we pulled up to the customs area, there was no-one there.  We waited for a while, and then finally I went into the back office to find someone. I gingerly knocked on a door and interrupted 5 customs agents deep in conversation and said in my best French "we're moving to Paris ..... and we have a cat...." (thinking that the mention of the cat would cause pandemonium and an instant unsheathing of their holstered weapons).

There was a deep sigh from the group of agents as they all looked at each other, and then clearly the most junior of them slowly got up and followed me outside the office to our camel train of luggage. He took a cursory look at one of the sheaf of papers I showed him, as an afterthought looked into the cat carrier to see that the animal was real, and with a "bienvenue en France", waived us through.

We had arranged for a van to meet us in Paris and had an easy trip to our new home. We were exhausted but elated to finally be here. After all the stress and anxiety of the preparation and travel, we could finally enjoy the fruits of our labour.  Let the fun begin.

Here at last

We're here. In Paris. At last.

After a year of planning, chaos and stress, our move to Paris has finally happened. We are settling into our new home (Shirley is nesting), and starting to enjoy the many delights of the city.

The house we are renting, La Maison Bleue, is in the quiet one-way rue Santos Dumont in the south 15th arrondissment.  Only built a few years ago, the house is very modern with lots of glass, steel and slate. Although the footprint is small (approximately 20' x 40' on each floor), it feels bigger because of the open plan design with split levels and plenty of light streaming in from many windows.

Main floor sitting room and kitchen

Top floor master suite

La Maison Bleue

The fully furnished house has 3 bedrooms, 2 sitting rooms, a basement movie theatre and a garage. High on our list of things to do is to convert the second sitting room into a comfortable guest room for the many friends and family visitors we are hoping to see over the coming 2 years.

We plan to use this blog to share stories and photos of some of the fun things about our lives here with friends and family. So please subscribe to get regular updates, come back often and comment or ask questions.