Le Sud de France: the rest

Going to catch this blog up if it kills me. Right. Back to France, circa early April.

As the trip was essentially two days in France bookended by two days of travel, the itinerary was pretty simple: one day of sea, one day of mountains. Heading into the weekend, we were keeping an eagle eye on a threat of rain that danced constantly from Saturday to Sunday, waiting to see which 50% of our plans would be scuppered. As it happened, though, the first drops made their appearance just after sunset on Saturday, and by dawn the next day, the skies were clear once more. Quelle chance!

It was, therefore, an absolutely gorgeous morning for my first (figurative) taste of the Mediterranean:

To Market, To Market

On the south bank of the Thames, tucked under the elevated railway viaduct, there is a wonderful place. It is all about food...

Coming Attractions

Now, in my defense, I have already kept up with this blog longer than pretty much any other autobiographical documentation I've ever attempted, and that includes personal diaries. That being said, I realize that it looks here as though I'm still in southern France, and - while I rather wish that were true - I have done and seen a decent number of pretty cool things since then. As I'm trying to keep this in more or less chronological order, here are some pictorial highlights to tide you over, which will (hopefully) be fleshed out into proper entries at some point in the near future.

Le Sud de France: le premier jour

Last weekend! was, for real, why I decided to move to the UK. Much love to London, Bath, etc., but the fact that in the space of 10 days, you can go from "hey, want to go somewhere?" to sipping sangría on the French Mediterranean, on a holiday weekend, without pawning a vital organ, is amazing.

Ch-Ox-olate

Who knew that there'd be so many punny ways to work Oxford into post titles?

This won't be so much a post, anyway, as basically a bit of gratuitous food porn from the Oxford Chocolate Festival over the weekend. I'm not even a great chocolate person, but I must say, Broad Street has never looked more delicious.

Sing hey! for the Bath at close of day

Had a handful of days off last week, so I hopped on a bus and, two hours later, was strolling through 2000-year-old Roman ruins.

Ah yes. That's why I moved here.

Ramble on

a.k.a. Gratuitous Pastoral Scenic Shots.

Rambling (UKese for - well - walking) is Britain's most popular outdoor recreation. At least, so say the Ramblers, Britain's self-styled walking charity. Whatever the potential bias of this claim, it's certainly true that walking enjoys a pretty impressive popularity here. It's logical, if you think about it; this country rather lends itself to it, what with its moderate climate, relatively small size, and largely level terrain. There's something simple and lovely, too, about just stepping out and striking off when a spell of rubbish weather has broken, which is precisely what I did the other day.