From Paris to Istanbul

Rod and I have spent many hours researching ideas for our trip to France and Istanbul in September-October, with R & M providing support and quality control. We've got most of it booked now; our big cheque to the Flight Centre tomorrow will tie up the all important flights (Singapore Airlines), insurance and car hire for our five week trip.

My specific tasks were to book an apartment in Paris for our 2 week stay and a village house for our week in the Vaucluse region of Provence. This proved much more difficult than finding the right Paris apartment. Remodelled medieval houses in country France have many pitfalls for the unwary especially if you inadvertantly pick a village frequented by hordes of English people on summer holiday.

Check out my choice at http://www.frenchholidayhomes.com/show.asp?p=2326 in the village of Dauphin, roughly level with and about 70km east of Avignon. It doesn't appear to have too many overhead oak beams to duck under or precipitous stairways, nor is it in the direct path of the Peter Mayle A Year in Provence experience seekers. We are all very excited about it.

We've had a week of showers and cool weather in Canberra and we are all hopeful our dams will get to 50% capacity. We had to rely on the dense canopy of the gleditzia and the golden ash in Rodney's play area to keep us dry on our play date last Thursday. The big O seemed so much older and more mature after a really successful week starting play school and resuming some of his other extension activities.


Little A and Miss E took things more quietly. Ella had just taken delivery of new shoes, her first leather early walkers, a green pair and a cherry red pair with a white star. She loves to stand up and go walking with her mummy.