One day in Bilbao.

We spent a cloudy old day walking around Bilbao admiring the architecture and taking in the amazing artworks before we boarded the 25 hour ferry across the Bay of Biscay to Portsmouth.

Hanging out at the Guggenheim Museum

Bourgeois' Maman Spider

Jeff Koon's Puppy

ArchetecturalLee

Christmas in Pau.

We spent Christmas in Pau with  David, Sandra, William and Guillaume. On Christmas morning, when we stepped outside, we saw a thin layer of white on all the roofs.
It was the first frost of the season!
 ALMOST a white Christmas.

 For breakfast we had delicious smoked salmon and eggs on toast and then opened our presents. Maisy, William and I had bought and wrapped up a Barbie doll for Guillaume as a trick, and in return William and Guillaume wrapped up an onion and nuts for us, it was pretty funny!!! Guillaume played with his Barbie all morning rearranging all the different body-parts and turning it into a headless monster.

Guillaume also got a kite and a trumpet. William got a magic box and a puzzle. Maisy got hoop earrings and Moroccan pyjamas. I got a beautiful heart locket necklace and a watch. Then we all got a massive surprise…we all got our own Kindle with a different coloured case with books already loaded onto it. I had the Skulduggery series, Percy Jackson series and Twilight series on mine. I was so totally amazed! Maisy spent as much time on hers that day fiddling and working out EVERYTHING, she was even more than a quarter of the way through one of the Percy Jackson books by the end of the day.

As a tradition, David and Sandra took us to the Pau Race track to watch the horse race. I thought number 3, a stunning brown horse would win and that number 4, a magnificent Black Beauty would come second looking at the shape of the horses, their stride and how the jockey was positioned. Amazingly the 2 that I guessed got the places I thought they would and the number three only won by a nose. I don’t know how I guessed that!??? But sadly, all the horses were panting so heavily and breathing the frosty air some had very, very red nostrils that looked like they were bleeding.

Then it was time to go back home and have a Christmas feast with one of the neighbours, Albert. We had turkey and loads of roast vegetables with brussels sprouts and chestnuts and heaps of gravy, then lemon tart, toffee oranges and a chocolate log for pudding. All D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S!!!
I loved it all. 

We even fired some party poppers and party crackers with small gifts and jokes;

What is always coming, but never appears?

Tomorrow.

&

Why did the skeleton not go to the Christmas party?

Because he had no-body to go with him.

That night we watched Ratatouille and then Doctor Who.
 Such a fabulous Christmas.
We were all so lucky.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE
 AND A HAPPY NEW-YEAR!!!!

From Charlotte
X X X X

A White Christmas Eve.

The day before Christmas we went on a freezing walk in the snow. It was meant to be a 2 hour walk but we were all so frozen we could only stand it for like 20 minutes. David and Sandra took us up to the top of the Pyrenees. It was a windy road all the way up and I don’t like windy roads at all but the snow outside my window was bedazzling. It helped me to forget how I was feeling. At the top we got out of the car and threw snow balls at each other and soon it was too cold to move (or at least that is how I felt). Charlotte, William and Guillaume slid down a little hill and got wet bottoms and looked like penguins sliding on their bellies. Mum and I fell over on the ice. It was so slippery and then we had to go so carefully.

We all decided we wouldn’t continue on our walk so dad and David walked back down the hill to bring the car up for us.  We drove a little bit further and then we were in Spain again. We all had a cup of hot chocolate except Charlotte who had a cold chocolate. We also had a big slice each of Spanish chocolate cake. There was a fireplace in the café but it couldn’t even warm us up. We were sooooooo cold.

The Carr Brothers direction sense...

When we were all in the car ready to drive back down David came up to us holding a plastic water bottle, he explained to us that if you keep a little water in the bottle with the mountain air and screw the lid on tight when we get down to our normal altitude the bottle will crumple from the pressure of the air so we tried it. The bottle did actually slowly cave in and it was like someone had squeezed the air out. We also all had a guess at what time we would get home. Our ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival). Mum guessed exactly right. Boooo! Any way it was a wonderful white Christmas Eve.

M@D!$oN

School in France.

Whilst we were staying in France with our cousins, William and Guillaume,

we thought it would be an excellent experience for Maisy and I to go to school for a little while with Guillaume. So on Guillaume’s second last day of school Maisy and I joined in. Mum walked us all to the gates, and by the time we were in the playground Maisy and I were like tourist attractions. Guillaume said there were only 108 people in his school but I think the whole 108 people were staring at us. With Guillaume and I a clear head taller than anyone else everyone came to look at us. Guillaume got asked more than 100 times what our names were, how old we were and where we were from. When the lunch bell rang we were lining up for class. The teacher was also smaller than me and we were the tallest in the class. We were doing Christmas art and craft. We made clever Christmas cards and baubel type decorations. The card was an A4 piece of paper folded in half with a neat rectangle cut out of the front. In the inside of the card we stuck a sticky sheet of see through contents and the decorated it with little sequences and stickers. Because the front was now sticky, we then had to put another piece of contents on top so the sequences were stuck in the middle and could not escape. We then wrote ‘Joyeux Noël’ meaning Merry Christmas. The next step was to cut 4-5 circles out of wrapping paper and then stick them on the card to make balloons. In the end, the card looked like this:

inside

front

We had an excellent time at French School and would love to go again. Thank you Guillaume for being our translator.

Charlotte

JJJJJJJ

San Sebastian.

We all loved this town in northern Spain but only spent a very short day here.

Great tapas.
Beautiful shopping.
Spectacular coastline.
Marked down as a place to return to.
San Sebastian  Donostia

A drink with old friends - Santillana del Mar.

Before going back to my brother's in Pau for Christmas, we looked up an old friend that I grew up with in Harrow. Rob is now married to Becky and has Francesca (10) and Tobias (6) and now lives near Santander in north western Spain.

Living on 13 acres of countryside with beautiful sea views, they have renovated a large farm house that now combines a family home with 3 self-contained flats that get rented out as a nice little income. We stayed 5 nights and the days went by so fast.

The time was spent enjoying wine and beer and great food and hospitality only to be marred by a fall by Francesca that ended in hospital for 6 stitches above the eye and 2 front teeth broken off. She was so brave and was back to herself the next day. What a trooper!

After Christmas we left Davids on the 28^th Dec to get the ferry from Bilbao to Portsmouth and guess who was on the ferry to surprise us??? ------------------ More drinks!!






Thanks for a super week Becky and Rob.
Hope to see you Down Under sometime soon.
Paul

Picos de Europa.

We have been staying with Rob, Becky, Francesca and Tobias in Santillana del Mar in the north of Spain. Rob and dad were friends at school a loooooong time ago. Yesterday we went on an 18 kilometre hike in the Picos de Europa.

First we went on a cable-car up to the top of the mountain. When we got up there, there was snow. We went on a metal grated floor over- hanging the cliff and we all jumped on it, and got our photo taken. Then we set off for the long, long walk over mountains back down to the little town.

Rob was in the lead with 2 baguettes hanging out of his back pack {they looked like ski poles}. We followed him wherever he went because we knew we were going to put chocolate in them for lunch. The Spanish like to eat a roll with half a block of chocolate in it. Dad really liked it but I had to eat mine separately.   So about 3-4 hours later we stopped by a river to eat and drink water. Tobias and I walked up stream a little, crossing over one way then back to the other.

Another few hours later we were walking in the woods and a big, black bull jumped down onto the path and blocked our way. Dad dared Rob to go over and try to get it off the path. Rob went about 5 metres close to the bull and tried clapping but it didn’t even look up from drinking in the puddle. It had huge, pointy horns so we had to go up into the bushes and around on the high ground and 20 metres after the bull we hopped back down on the well-worn track.

After another couple of hours we were all very tired and our thighs were burning red hot and by then we were at the end of our walk, it ended where we had left the car. And to our delight and joy there was a restaurant there that sold very good hot chocolates.

 So it ended like this, we all had a hot chocolate each and some nuts. What a lovely day.

M@D!$oN

Back to Barcelona.

After a fabulous 5 weeks in Morocco we were back on the 26 hour ferry to Barcelona. Our original plan was to drive up through Portugal and Spain but a smashed car window and staying an extra week in Northern Africa we were pressed for time and needed the glass replaced (in France for insurance). The boat trip back was very easy this time and we decided to stay in Castelldefels again.
It was fiesta time in Spain with Constitution Day and the Immaculate Conception which gave the Spanish a 4 day weekend and another reason to party. 

The little town of Castelldefels put on a great fireworks display right on the street infront of our very eyes. I'm sure it would have broken every rule of Australian Health and Safety regulations but we had a spectacular time dodging the sparks and waving away smoke. The town was lit up with Christmas lights and a pretty Nativity scene. The night market was thriving and the girls had their hair cut and coloured (see below).

One last shopping trip into Barcelona to find Santa and learn about Uncle Pooper (not his real name - I can't write it here ) who teaches people that at Christmas time no matter how poor you are, you always have something to give...
The streets were heaving with Christmas shoppers and we had never seen so many people since 5pm on the streets of Ho Chi Minh City. It was mayhem but everyone was happy and the Christmas spirit was alive and sparkling.

Happy Christmas

JoyfulLee

Last night while we were walking around the town, Maisy and I got our haircuts. Dad and Mum thought that we should both go for a different style sooooo Maisy decided that she would try a side fringe. Then when she heard that this hair dressers salon was known locally for dying hair, Maisy thought she would have a go at a blue and red streak, the colour of the Barcelona football team. Dad showed me a picture of a lady with a fringe just above the eyes and with a hot pink streak. The salon didn’t have pink though, so instead I decided to get a red streak and a fringe. Here’s how it turned out.

                                               Charlotte