Day's break #winewomanandsong

The timing was a bit unfortunate, but it had been booked a while ago and at the time 5 girls taking off for a day of wine tasting in Burgundy seemed like a good idea. 

It still was a good idea, but wine tasting at 10am? It took me a while to get into it.

Still, I made up for it soon enough. It was an absolutely beautiful day. Around 1.5 hours from Paris by TGV (that's around 400km south), it was a total break from all the work and travel that came before. 

It was lovely catching up with the girls, walking through Burgundy and sampling at least 30 times that very tasty Pouilly-Fuissé.

Encountering the gore #huntingandnaturemuseum

It seemed only fair that after almost 2 weeks of hectic travelling (nope, I don't spend my days in a spa when I'm away), El Puma get a break.

So on literally the first day he could, he hopped down to Nantes by TGV to see his Mamie, and sell his flat. He's had it for 13 years, but we have bigger plans.

Actually, we don't. With the money from the sale we can afford about 6m2 in Paris, no joke. But that kind of works out at about a third of a studio. Which means someone else can help pay off the rest of the two-thirds (like a tenant). And at the end of the day, we'll have a little pied-à-terre in Paris. Which sounds lovely, although we'll probably never use it. Although I'm hoping the next generation might (cousins welcome too!).

So having not been around the kids for a large number of days, I felt very ambitious. I was tired from work but it's a totally different kind of tired, and so I decided to tackle a museum. The musée de la chasse et de la nature (the hunting and nature museum).

I went there because it was recommended to me, and because I thought all the big ones would be stuffed full on a bank holiday weekend.

Well, it was awful.

I mean really shocking. I should have thought it through really, but all that hunting + nature basically just means lots of foxes being killed by dogs in paintings, in brass, in lamp stands and all the rest of it. I said they were all playing but not sure the kids bought it.

There was also a room full of hunting rifles, a room full of heads of shot and stuffed wild animals and a massive white polar bear called Viktor on its hind legs that the kids could only inch past in terror every time they had to cross its path to get back to the central corridor.

I was ready to give up when the security officer noticed us looking a little forlorn. He came over to us and asked if it was our first time. He then took us on a little tour, showing us a little mouse hole where Ratatouille lives, a little dog basket where Oscar the dog from the painting behind us usually lives, and can we find his little paw prints on the parquet floor in the next room? (yes). And finally, he introduced us to Alexandre, the white boar's head in the picture below.

Alexandre can talk. The first few seconds of him grunting (via a loudspeaker in his moving mouth) scared the living daylights out of all 3 of us. But then it became quite funny. Small Fry loved it and had a conversation with him but Fingerling never quite relaxed. Eventually the security guard told Alexandre to stop scaring the little princess in my arms and he quietened down.

If it hadn't been for that man, it would probably have been a disaster of a trip. But instead I had two very excitable kids over lunch telling me all about how great the museum was and all about the great boar Alexandre. If only all museums were like that. 

Happy again now that it's lunch

Survivor's Instinct #SeafoodGlobalExpo

What makes a successful day?

Sometimes, I think it's just surviving.

That must mean it's that time of year again...the Seafood Global Expo in Brussels...my 6th, I think. 

A couple of things were different about it this year. First, I was a speaker at the one-day European Tuna Conference the day before the Expo started. I got a 5-minute NGO slot to give my pitch to the tuna industry members from across the value chain. It was probably my highest profile chat to date, probably the largest audience (I'm guessing 250) and certainly the largest audience with the biggest bucks. I'm told it went quite well but it's always difficult to tell. Not so hard to see that it is still very male dominated.

And then on to two intense days at the Expo. No visiting it as a Parliamentary Assistant this year, sampling the wine and testing the various seafood products on display. And no visiting it as a curious PhD-student trying to get interviews with various members of the industry.

This year we had meetings. Lots of them. From 8.30am until 23h, back-to-back. Partly we wanted meetings with them (supply chain members such as retailers, importers, NGOs, funders and country representatives) while others wanted meetings with us...and that's because one-by-one tuna fishing (i.e. one hook, one line, one fish at a time), is really all the rage and a number of value chain actors have made commitments to it in a big way recently. So that's pretty cool and makes my job a bit easier, but now it's a case of trying to get investments from these members into the small-scale developing country fisheries that desperately need it. But there are many challenges to all that, as you can imagine.

Didn't stop me heading straight for the Scotland stand as soon as I got a chance. Alas I didn't get a picture of it, or anything else. It was literally that busy.

Here I am with our Communications Director and Managing Director outside the Expo.

And here's the buses they commandeered to get everyone from the Expo in and out of town in the mornings and evenings. 

And it appears to all have been very successful - for the expo itself, but also for us as an organisation.

Ultimately though, true success was getting back to the lovely Lucy and her fabulous family each evening instead of staying in a hotel. Thank you!

A picture tells a story #nokidding

Happy Easter #it'snotaboutthechicks

I mean, it's not really about the trifle, champagne or fun times with friends either, but those three are not a bad end to Easter Sunday.

Of course it started with a wonderful resurrection service at St Michael's Church. There's something very joyful and almost magical about worshipping together on Easter Sunday. I suppose that might be because Easter Sunday is pretty much the day on which the whole Christian faith turns...without that empty tomb, it really is all meaningless. But we celebrated our one-ness and unity yesterday morning in the belief that He is Risen - and that changes everything.

But back to the trifle. My first one. With homemade custard (because I cannot for love nor money find custard powder in France).

So, voilà. Raspberry trifle with sponge and raspberries, vanilla custard and slightly-sweetened cream with....hundreds and thousands. I was so proud. It tasted good too. And we only got through half of it because lunch before that had been a-m-a-z-i-n-g (honey seared salmon with lemongrass and ginger, lentil salad and greens in case you're wondering. Not made by me in case you're not wondering).

And the special time was seeing these three families with 6 kids between them come together for possibly the last time. Asher (second from the left) and Molly (third from the right) will be heading with their parents to Canada come 1 May. We are very, very sad about this and will miss them a lot.

 And finally, after all that chocolate, a chance to get some fresh air:

Got my easter tree up just in time #trytranslatingpussywillowinFrench #delay

A fond farewell #garderie #movingonup

It's Fingerling's last day at the garderie today...3.5 year after we first had a Gonzales-Kelling attend there.

I have absolutely thought that they are brilliant. Our kids have thrived there and I've come to really know and appreciate the staff.

I'll miss the set up, but I know Fingerling is going on to bigger and better things: she will join Small Fry at the jardin d'enfants, which is equally impressive and inspiring.

So we gave each of her teachers a bunch of flowers and a little note, signed by both Small Fry and Fingerling. Not all of Small Fry's signatures turned out looking like this! - some are still signed completely back to front while others are just certain letters backwards. But this one was perfect. I guess he got a good start in life ;-)

What a lovely day for the park #saideveryoneinParis

With Small Fry safely on his way to Brittany for a couple of days with Moon and Abuelo, Fingerling, El Puma and I hit the park...like everyone else in Paris on a warm Spring day.

What a mess. I need my own garden.

But it did provide Fingerling with the perfect opportunity to practise her photo-taking skills. These are all taken by her:

Ground zero #anda5thanniversary #It'saboutfamilyandfriends

Today we celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary. I can hardly believe it. Not the staying together bit, but that 5 years have shot by so quickly!

At Becky and Michael's wedding on Friday in London, we were reminded again (very timely) of those most beautiful of declarations and wedding vows from the Church of England, the ones we also used in our marriage service. 

N, will you take N to be your husband? Will you love him, comfort him, honour and protect him, and, forsaking all others, be faithful to him as long as you both shall live? I, N , take you, N , to be my wife, to have and to hold from this day forward; for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part; according to God's holy law. In the presence of God I make this vow.

It seems to me that they are entirely complete - nothing need be added nor taken away. They are also extremely powerful, and attending someone else's wedding is a good reminder of what it is we promise that day and how much we need each other's and God's help.

Becky was my flatmate for 6 months in Brussels, and also my roommate on our Mali trip in 2007 (10 years!!!). It was a pleasure to watch her get married to her tall German, and to catch up with the Brussels urban family. 

And of course a wedding without kids means a day without kids while you wait for your flight back to Paris. And that means sista-time under the best of circumstances: with fiancé, husband, sun, drinks, and a winner-take-all game of Kubb.

And today itself we spent the morning cheering on friends running the Paris marathon, having biked from home to secure a spot along the road.  

It's been such a wonderful 10 days. It's been such a wonderful 5 years really. So for being able to park our hire car so that the boot misses the back wall by 2mm, and being able to brush 2 kids' teeth at the same time, and for so, so much more, happy anniversary El Puma!

Mallorca #Easterholiday #Worthit

Mallorca, the largest island in the autonomous community of the Balearic Islands (since 1983). The name means 'the larger one' in comparison to Minorca, 'the smaller one'. Like Minorca, Ibiza and Formentera, the island is an extremely popular holiday destination, particular for the Brits and Germans. So I guess that was reason enough for me. But really this was our rescheduled originally-October holiday to visit Zak, Small Fry's best friend at school. Zak and Small Fry originally met at the garderie after Zak's American mum and I realised we were both anglophone and struck up a friendship. (Incidentally, Zak's dad is the famous conceptual artist, Mounir Fatmi, so this is the first professional artist I have become friends with).

Their house in Mallorca was originally a holiday residence where she from California and he from Morocco could find some sun. Eventually the quality of life appealed to them more and more and last September they moved there more or less permanently. Mallorca has 300 days of sunshine, as it proudly declares at the airport, and would you know, we only saw 3 of them.

But first, getting there. Either my kids look like waifs or have huge beggar eyes but they got free diluting juice, chocolates, bonbons, biscuits and bananas between arriving at the airport and landing in Mallorca. So a great start to the holiday for them.

And the best bit, at least at the beginning, was seeing Small Fry and Zak be friends again. But Zak is an only child and suddenly having 2 siblings invade his space and use his toys every day soon became a bit much for him, but he did well!

The boys being boys and the girl sitting sweetly and eating well

When it all got a bit much, the telly made friends of them all

We stayed in an apartment beside theirs in Port Sòller, on the north coast of the island, about a 30 minute drive from the capital of Palma. Port Sòller is a bit off the beaten path but seems to get its fair share of tourists. A 5km long tramway, built in 1913, links the port to Sòller proper inland.

 It also has a very impressive Gothic cathedral.

 And free swings, would you believe (not common in Paris).

We spent a lovely couple of days discovering Zak's new home town. The bay is extremely sheltered from the less-than-choppy Mediterranean and was very safe for kiddies. The port is overlooked by two lighthouses at the entrance to the bay, which command fabulous views.

On the other days we visited both Deià and Valldemossa. Deià is a small coastal village on the northern ridge of Mallorca, about 16km north of Valldemossa. It's known for its literary and musical residents as well as its landscape of houses clinging to cliff sides and orange and olive groves, as well as celebs who have houses here, like Richard Branson. It is a tremendously beautiful village and the poor weather that day kept it nice and quiet for us. 

From the top of the village (including Blaire's mum visiting from California)

Looking down on to part of the village

Valldemossa is another larger, equally beautiful town. It's less steep but also has amazing views and a certain charm that makes it one of Mallorca's top tourist destinations (and long-time home of Michael Douglas).

Warm enough for ice cream. Yay!

Of course we also spent a day visiting Palma de Mallorca, its capital. Almost half of the total population of Mallorca live in Palma and its airport serves about 22 million passengers per year. Its marina is also famous and generally celebrity-filled in the summer months. Almost 80% of the working population is somehow linked to tourism in the city. It's really a beautiful place and a manageable size. It also has a really interesting mix of luxury boutiques and old winding side streets with artisanal producers and sellers of oranges, lemons, olives and almonds. 

We didn't have much time there and decided to do a hop-on, hop-off bus tour, without the hopping. The round trip took about 1h15 minutes and was well worth it as we got a far bigger overview of the city and its main attractions than we would have been able to on foot. 

Originally built on a previous mosque, the vast Cathedral was started in 1220 and finished in 1601, although local architect Gaudi was commissioned to restore it in the early 20th century.

It also provided Fingerling with the perfect opportunity to fling her comfort blanket from the moving open bus. Poor El Puma had to get the bus to stop and then sprint back up the hill until he found it. Bravo papa!

Somewhere, somehow, Small Fry learnt to 'pose like a model'. We call it his Blue Steel look (from the film Zoolander). He loves doing it and we find it hilarious.

Before

During

After

The marina

At certain times of the year, the sun shines through the rose window in the photo above this one, and the colours illuminate the blank walk in the photo above.

One of the attractions of Mallorca is its cycling routes, and the place is hoaching with ant-like cyclists in lycra, crawling up mountains and zooming down the middle of the road on the other side. Overtaking them can be quite stressful, especially when you encounter quite a large peloton. But once you've overtaken a couple of thousand of them, you soon get into the swing of things.

The Germans, the Brits, the Spanish and others really make the place feel very international. As El Puma said, it's like a mini-Europe. There is IKEA, Carrefour, quark in the local stores and tapas everywhere. You hear as much German as Catalan around and everyone in the service industry seems to speak at least 4 languages. I definitely get the attraction of the place. And then there's lovely little tucked away villages like Fornalutx, which was simply stunning.

I have a wonderful little video of Fingerling singing her way along the little streets, but my other videos don't seem to have worked, so ask me to show you it sometime!

On the same trip we dodged another bazillion cyclists on windy roads and passing stunning scenery in order to visit the monastery at Lluc, which is the most important pilgrimage site on Mallorca. It's also known for its boys' choir, which was founded in 1531. The monastery is also used as a starting point for many walking tours, which makes it quite a busy little place.

But its most attractive feature in the middle of the monastery must have been this:

A most awesome soft play area!

And on our final day we finally did some hiking ourselves when Blaire showed us some less-beaten paths around the local village and we got to enjoy some freshly squeezed lemon and orange juice. 

 And the final night involved an amazing sunset from a cliff-top restaurant (lots of cliffs in Mallorca!) and...Sangria. And children that were tired and didn't behave, so we left early, which actually gave us more sunset time :)

All in all we had an amazing break and highly recommend it as a holiday destination. It's pretty developed but there are definitely more authentic spots and amazing views and way of life that will leave you very, very pleased that you gave it a try. Who knows, you may even stay ;-)