Follow Matthew's travels around the world…
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!
And now some pictures for those of you who are more visually-minded (or don’t speak English, or are just too lazy to read all the way through this entry).
Just back after four days in the south of France, where we enjoyed some truly superb weather and managed to sort out a lot of the final details around the wedding. The menu is chosen, the photographer is booked and briefed about what we’d like, we’ve seen the band and we’ve met with the DJ. Incidentally, apologies to anyone coming to the wedding – the DJ was a mandatory requirement of the Chateau (apparently he makes sure the place doesn’t get destroyed) and let’s just say that we don’t exactly share one another’s taste in music. I think we’ll sit Julien next to the DJ and hope for the best…
I also learned that the Mediterranean sun in the middle of the day is a little stronger than we’re used to in the UK. Which is why I mostly look like a lobster in these pictures.
Back at work now, and the treadmill is turning just as fast as it ever was… I’d put my nose to the grindstone if it wasn’t so sunburnt!
Happy Independence Day to all my family and friends in the US. To my British friends, sorry we had to kick your ass all those years ago, but let’s face it – you had it coming to you.
It’s been quite a while since my last blog entry, a testament to the fact that I’ve been very busy at work recently. It’s appraisal time, so on top of my already busy schedule I have to carve out time to write and deliver appraisals for my team. Which means that I suspect I may have worked even more hours than Jerome this week.
Congratulations, incidentally, to Jerome on his promotion to Associate. From now on, he gets to buy the drinks.
We’re off to France today for a long weekend – sadly, not relaxing, but rather taking care of the final details for the wedding. And in an ironic twist (or a testament to our phenomenally poor sense of planning), we’re going to be in France on the one day that the ‘Tour de France’ passes through Canterbury – it hasn’t been in the UK since 1994, and it will be the biggest event Canterbury has seen (or will see) for a long time. Daisy and Calypso will have ringside seats, however, and have promised to tell us all about it when we get back.
The weather forecast said that it was going to be sunny all morning on Saturday, with heavy rain in the afternoon. I based my day around these assumptions, and ended up getting everything wildly wrong. I set out to polish my car on Saturday morning only to be caught in a rain shower, then in the afternoon we were treated to sunny, clear blue skies. That just goes to show you that you can’t trust the weathermen.
Determined to take advantage of the afternoon sunshine, I fired up the barbeque and we had some steaks with Anne Laure and Neil. At least we got to enjoy a little of the sunshine.
We’re just back from the British Hot Rod Association’s South East Custom & Classic Show in Paddock Wood. I had the car detailed on Friday and it’s come up beautifully, so I thought I would take the opportunity to enjoy the good weather with some other enthusiasts. As an added benefit, the car was granted entry into the show and I didn’t have to pay to get in.
Obviously my time working at an audit firm has paid off and fostered in me a new-found attention to detail. Only a few short days after posting our wedding dossier to the Mairie in France, we just heard that the dossier is complete and correct, and our wedding banns will be published later this week. While this is a good achievement under any circumstances, the fact that we managed to get all the right documents, certifications, translations, and endorsements in the face of conflicting guidance from the French authorities makes it an even greater achievement. I’m actually shocked they didn’t find a reason to reject it just as a matter of principle.
Since starting my blog, I’ve realised that a picture really is worth a thousand words. And most of the people who read my blog would much rather see a picture than read a thousand words. So I took my camera out today to add a few more pictures, since my last few entries have been heavy on the text but light on the visuals.
Yesterday was a beautiful, warm sunny day. Today promised to be the same, with some very slight scattered cloud. We sat in the garden for lunch, and the weather seemed perfect. So good, in fact, that we decided to get out the Corvette and drive down to the coast for a walk along the beach.
We’d barely made it out of the garage when we spotted the heavy clouds overhead. And despite Aude’s reassurances that it wasn’t going to rain today, ten minutes out of town (with the top down and windscreen wipers that were last used in the ‘70s) it started to sprinkle. Luckily it didn’t get much worse than that, but it still wasn’t ideal beach-walking weather.
Nevertheless, we had a nice long walk down the beach. And took lots of pictures, for those of you who don’t have the attention-span to read the text!
