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Archive for August, 2007

For the first time in ages, it feels like summer again. We’ve had a beautiful bank holiday weekend with temperatures in the mid-20s and clear blue skies. A perfect opportunity to celebrate what’s left of our summer…

We spent most of Saturday running around town getting last-minute things done for the wedding. Neil will be happy to know that I managed to find a tie… We had lunch at one of the pubs in town with a big beer garden – it’s gone through a total transformation now that the smoking ban has been implemented across the UK. Gone is the old collection of a few picnic tables, replaced with elaborate marquees, lighting, heaters and new tables to make the smokers more comfortable. The only downside to all this “improvement” is that you’re now sitting in the de facto smoking section if you choose to dine al fresco.

Nevermind. We did some al fresco dining of our own today – Jiri and Ann Marie invited us to Whitstable to eat fresh Whitstable oysters (which turned out not to be from Whitstable) and fresh sea bass cooked on the barbeque. If I’d been less stupid, there would be pictures of champagne and oysters on here, but since I forgot to insert the memory card into my camera until mid-meal, you’ll have to use your imagination.

The highlight of the meal was Jiri’s lightning-fast reflex in killing a fly, then a David Attenboroughesque moment when we fed the newly-squished fly to the spider outside. Jiri and I were eleven years old again. The girls weren’t nearly as impressed.

The weather forecast for tomorrow is good as well. Fingers crossed for another summery day!

Aude enjoying the summer sunshine

Aude enjoying the summer sunshine

Ann Marie smiles for the camera

Ann Marie smiles for the camera

Jiri with his camera

Jiri decides to play “who’s camera is bigger” and proves that I’m not the only one with a camera surgically attached to my hand.

Aude strikes a pose

Aude strikes a pose

Jiri

Jiri

Matt

Matt enjoying the sunshine

Jiri

Jiri

Entertainment

The afternoon’s entertainment, provided by a squished fly, a hungry spider, and Jiri’s quick work with a sandal.

Aude appears unimpressed with the show

Aude appears unimpressed with the show

Jiri, on the other hand, is fascinated.

Jiri, on the other hand, is fascinated. Then again, he doesn’t have a Sky TV subscription at home.

Ann Marie manages to keep her sense of humour about the whole thing...

Ann Marie manages to keep her sense of humour about the whole thing…

Spider

Dinner, packaged to go!

The sea bass was a success, too...

The sea bass was a success, too… Not much left for Daisy and Calypso!

Just a few shots from my trip to Paris a few weeks ago…

La Defense

La Defense

La Defense

La Defense

Our Paris offices at La Defense

Our Paris offices at La Defense

What a miserable weekend it’s been, with constant rain for most of the time. I’ve given up any hopes of summer arriving this year — at least we should get some sunshine in the south of France in a few weeks.

Saturday was largely a futile trip to London to get some bits and pieces for the wedding. Despite trawling all over London, I didn’t have much success and came home empty-handed.

Saturday afternoon was a Hawaii-themed barbeque at a friend’s house in London, in the pouring rain. The excitement was all too much for Aude…

Aude

Aude

I set up this blog ages ago when I thought I was off to Malaysia for six months, but since then the answer to “Where’s Matthew” seems to have been “he’s at home” or “he’s someplace nice on vacation.” One by one, I’m having to hand back my airline platinum cards, exchanging them for gold, silver, and eventually, blue. I was beginning to enjoy the quiet life, the regular hours, and even the quiet time on my commute.

Now it seems that there’s been a real shift, driven by the increasingly global nature of the projects we’re taking on at work. Three weeks ago, I was in Paris meeting with a number of the partners there – any easy trip, via the Channel Tunnel, that had me home in time for dinner.

Two weeks ago it was a quick stop in Washington to spend the weekend visiting with my parents, then on to Chicago for a week-long training course – great fun, but I never even got to see the outside of the hotel.

Now it looks like I’m about to head off onto a project in Singapore, directly after the wedding. Just what every bride wants to hear – you return from honeymoon with your new husband, only to be told that he’ll be halfway around the world until Christmas.

After Christmas, it looks like I’m likely (as likely as it ever looks, this far from the date) to be working on a project with a hotel group across Europe, so I will be spending both my days and nights in hotels, and presumably, a lot of time on trains. Still – it stops me from getting bored, and there are still plenty of duty free opportunities worth having.

One by one, I’m building a new arsenal of premium metal cards, too – AA platinum here, UA gold there. I’m even making good progress on my Eurostar “Carte Blanche”…

Contrary to appearances (and the fact that I haven’t updated this website in nearly a month), I’m not actually dead.

Quite busy travelling — Paris, Washington and Chicago in the past few weeks. I’ll provide more of an update when I’ve got a little more time, but I didn’t want this website to die of neglect.

Oh yeah. I also discovered Facebook. And thereby said goodbye to any free time I had!