Time to blow some of the cobwebs off this website and make a new entry or two. Between getting everything ready for the baby at the end of last year and constantly running after the baby since she arrived, I haven’t been able to give this site the attention it needs. That, combined with a relatively light travel schedule last year, means that ‘Where’s Matthew’ has become somewhat neglected, if only because reading that Matthew is ‘at home’ is hardly a compelling prospect.

Nevermind.

Tomorrow, it’s off to Fort Worth, Texas for the week.

I’m a well-traveled man, but something tells me that Texas will be more strange and foreign to me than many other distant lands.

At least one thing has made its way into my suitcase that I’m sure wasn’t on the packing list!

Caught! Daisy maintains she wasn't in the flowers, but her yellow nose tells a different story!

It’s a beautiful spring afternoon and we just finished lunch on the balcony.  The barbecue has had a real workout over the past few days, Aude has been busy potting plants, and all around us the trees are beginning to bloom.  It’s getting tougher and tougher to spend time in the office, staring out the window at the glorious weather outside and hoping that it lasts until the weekend.  This weekend we’ve been lucky — the weather has lasted and the weekend as been picture-perfect.

I made the mistake of taking my winter tyres off too early last year, just in time for a late surprise snowfall, but this year I think I’ve left them on long enough.  We’re about to go on vacation for a few weeks, but after we get back I think I can safely remove them without the danger of an early May snowfall.

We are getting excited about our upcoming vacation — a few days in Singapore followed by a week-and-a-half in northern Vietnam.  Friends of ours were scheduled to visit Tokyo at the same time, but they’ve sensibly decided to take a detour and will be coming to Vietnam instead, so we’ll be able to catch up with them in Hanoi for dinner. 

For today, though, we need to juggle a mountain of laundry and my US tax return with a walk in the forest and some beautiful spring sunshine.  I suspect I know where my priorities lie…

The sink is blocked again....

This seems to happen every morning.  😉

Day five of the vacation, and time for me to head back home. Owing to the unexplained disappearance of our gardien, we found ourselves with no one to look after the cats while we were away. Rather than the more orthodox approach of asking a neighbour to look after them (all the neighbours seemed to be away on vacation as well), I flew my father in for the week from Paris.

For him, it was a chance to explore a city he hadn’t visited in nearly twenty years. I cut my trip to the south of France a few days short and came back to spend some time with him.

The only downside? My cats seem to hate him.

Jim finds his road

 

Relaxing in the Jardin du Luxembourg

 

On the Seine

 

Look at me!

 

Posing by the fountain. Seconds after discovering that the wind was blowing and getting drenched with the spray from the fountain. Oh, how the other tourists laughed and pointed!!

 

Holding the Eiffel tower. Look, I am a tourist!

 

Cat-sitting

 

Striking the casual, pointing stance in the Marais.

 

Aude & Jim

 

Jim & Matt in front of the Centre Pompidou. The ugliest building in Paris, according to my father.

 

Jim in front of Paris Plage

 

Matt & Jim in front of Paris Plage

 

Matt & Aude in front of Paris Plage