Fabulous Fontainebleau

I’m blogging Fontainebleau first in order to leave the blushing bride time to blog about her own wedding first (she said it was fine to steam ahead, but no bother).

So the morning after the big day, I woke up in the “prostitute hotel” (apparently a favourite with local hookers due to the fact that you can get a triple room for 30€) feeling a bit out of shape but not too terrible. I actually slept quite well, no prostitutes within earshot, although perhaps not as long as I would have liked. I had accidentally booked two rooms – although, name and shame here, what actually happened was that the Formule 1 site froze in the middle of my transaction, I refreshed, waited a while to make sure that I didn’t get a confirmation of the booking, then booked again. I got a confirmation email HALF AN HOUR LATER to say that I had, in fact, booked two rooms. Then they wouldn’t refund my money even though it was clearly a mistake. Seriously, I’ve never been double-charged in all my years of buying stuff online, and the one time it’s with bastards with a no refund policy. Anyway, it had a happy ending since Ella kindly put me in touch with some fellow guests who were looking for a hotel room, and they bought it off me. Anyway, this meant that I had decided to leave the wedding the night before at about 2.30 am, since they were getting a ride back to the hotel (about a kilometer out of town) and I was pretty tired after a long day of wedding fun.

I had planned to take a trip to the nearby château of Fontainebleau, hangover permitting, since I was in the area. Deciding I didn’t feel too seedy, I got ready in a fairly leisurely manner and calculated that it would probably be okay to knock on the door of my fellow guests at about 10.30 and see where they were at in the getting-ready process. Turns out the answer was “still in bed in their underwear” but they actually got ready super quick and we set out together towards town on foot, suitcase in tow, having failed to reach either the groom, the groom’s father or the local taxi for a ride. Hungry and thirsty (especially thirsty, in my case) we were eventually rescued by Aurélien, the groom, going above and beyond on the morning after his wedding. I was dropped off at the RER station just in time for the next train (and they even came back to deliver my suitcase, which I'd managed to leave in the boot in my hungover state) and from there it was just a quick trip to Fontainebleau.

I hadn't really done much forward planning on this front, and mistakenly believed that the train station was right by the chateau. Turns out it's nearly 3 kilometres away, well-signposted for the most part, but with a significant portion running through a large park. Despite my hangover, I tried to view it as a fun Sunday outing, rather than as a neverending forced march through trackless woods, but I wasn't 100% successful...

After a sandwich and a Coke at the château (I normally can't abide Coke, but the situation called for a bit of a caffeine injection), I was feeling slightly better, although my first impressions of the château were not great. The tour started off with a series of poky little guardrooms, which didn't particularly impress me. However, as soon as I got into the first of the royal state rooms, the bedroom of Anne of Austria, I shook off my hangover in order to marvel at the amazingly sumptious furnishings and, especially, the lavish wall and ceiling decorations. Whatever you picture when you think of magnificence, Fontainebleau is it.

It was a shame I didn't have the time to go on any guided tours to the parts of the château that aren't open for independent visits, and even more of a shame that the guy who sold me my ticket didn't tell me that the audioguide was free, so I missed out on all the historical detail, but it was still definitely worth the trip, much better than lying in bed in the prostitute hotel feeling sorry for myself. And it didn't rain, unlike in Paris where it was absolutely bucketing down while I waited for my train! I arrived back home tired but happy after a great weekend, and collapsed into bed at about 9 pm, feeling very grateful that the next day was a holiday as well.

Going through my photos, it seemed about half didn't come out due to lighting or other issues, but that may be a good thing since I still ended up with a ton...

The ballroom

The chapel

In the Chinese museum

Ceiling in the throne room

There was an exhibition on the influence of Fontainebleau's art and design - here you can see some of the notable features, chiefly the huge "frames" for paintings and the decorative use of nude figures

Not the most lavishly-furnished room in Fontainebleau, but that little table is supposedly where Napoleon signed his abdication papers

Napoleon's "camp bed"

Napoleon's throne room

More of the signature Fontainebleau style

DJ Pie

Just a few photos from some recent celebrations before I come to you as Special Correspondent from Ella's wedding. We went out for at least two rounds of drinks to celebrate my getting a job and staying in Tours. The first, at the Cave à Manger, was meant to be a sophisticated mid-week soirée, but predictably turned in to us wandering from bar to bar and, in a particularly low point, paying for cloakroom facilities at a gay bar only to find there was NOBODY downstairs on a Wednesday night. And that the shots were 5€ each! But for most of the night, the bubbles were rolling (to the constant cry of "To Gwan! Bubbles!", which I enjoyed very much.

Celebratory bubbles at the Cave à Manger

Then just before starting my new job (I always like to start off fresh), I hosted some more drinks at my place. I decided to make mini mince and cheese pies (that's beef mince, not Christmas mince) for the occasion, to give a bit of New Zealand flair to the evening. If I do say so myself (for the second blog post in a row), they were a Great Success. Probably no-one was more excited than myself, which for some reason led to me being christened, or christening myself, DJ Pie for the evening.

DJ Pie's pies

DJ Pie

DJ Pieface

Bubbles!

We also recently had an Xbox Kinect night at Philippa's place, which involved dancing, karaoke, and getting a bit cray cray.

The très classy Domaine de Cray Montlouis bubbly

Plus we celebrated Marcia's birthday at The Pale pub, which was also celebrating its own birthday. To mark the occasion, they were giving out free drinks to the regulars all evening. Unfortunately though, we were all too dim to figure this out! Each of us just went up individually for a round when it was our turn, and then just thought "hey, they shouted us a round, that was nice" without actually working out that ALL the drinks were free. Would have had more if we'd realised, d'oh!

Anyway, that's all in this round-up, I'll leave you with a couple of pretty pictures while I jet up to Paris!

The Cher on one of the rare nice days we've had!

I put the ipad version of this on Twitter, but the colours weren't right at all

Great success!

May is a busy old month for me - this weekend (and week, with the bonus two public holidays in the middle) is a quiet pause, but otherwise, with the society wedding of the season and a visit from my sister coming up, things are pretty hectic. The same went for last weekend, when I finally hosted my Kiwi friend Amber in Tours. She had meant to come around a year and a half ago, but the trip was cancelled at the last minute when she realised she'd lost her passport, and never rescheduled.

So this time, I wanted to make sure the trip lived up to its long-awaited hype. And, if I do say so myself (using the most current pop-culture reference in my bag of tricks), it was a Great Success! I tried to achieve a balance of the different experiences the Loire Valley has to offer: from châteaux to good food to (obviously) wine, and mix in some of the more off-beat experiences you might not have on your list as the average tourist. And we were lucky enough to have perfect weather, despite forecasts to the contrary, and some interesting unexpected encounters thrown in.

After a girly wine and nibbles evening at La Cave à Manger on Friday night, we were up relatively bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for a short (c. 30 minute) road trip to Azay le Rideau, where we enjoyed a delicious lunch in a sunny courtyard and checked out the château. Azay was mainly chosen because Philippa and I had yet to go there, but it is also to be recommended for its beautiful setting on a small island on a lake, and its small but pretty style. It probably only took around an hour and a half to see, with the interior not being particularly outstanding, but I think that was plenty to be satisfied but not bored traipsing around for hours. Just taking photos of the beautiful exterior was probably the highlight.

I was brave and had the "goats cheese and raspberry crème brûlée" for my starter at lunch. It was nice, although it could have passed for a dessert, to be honest

Me and Amber at lunch in Azay-le-Rideau

A strange optical phenomenon in the sky - around the sun was a dark circle lined with a perfectly round rainbow. I did some research afterwards and found that this is a 22° halo, caused by the refraction of light in tiny ice crystals in the clouds. It was pretty impressive seeing it in this setting, and imagining what people in the Renaissance period might have made of such a sight. In fact, a related phenomenon, "sun dogs", is believed to explain the appearance of "three suns" in the sky before a key battle in the Wars of the Roses.

A pretty café in the château grounds which was presumably once a gatehouse or something

Me in front of the château

The château and its lake

Me and Amber at the château

View from the castle windows

On Saturday night, I rounded up the ladies to check out one of the premier events in Tours' glittering social calendar - the Foire de Tours (tradeshow)/Fête Fouraine (carnival). According to one of the vendors I spoke to on saturday night, this is the biggest event of its kind in France outside Paris (whether it's true, I don't know). By day, you can check out a variety of stalls selling everything from plumbing to furniture (exciting stuff), but you can also take in carnival rides to your heart's content or - and this is where it gets interesting - sample the delights of the massive "gourmet village" i.e. eat and drink as much as humanly possible. And so we did, in a bustling (and crowded - my floor-length dress was, in hindsight, not smart) fairground atmosphere.

By some miracle, Amber, Liz, Philippa, Mel and I were all up and at 'em again on Sunday (after about 5 hours' sleep) and ready for the last of my planned activities, a wine-tasting trip to the nearby small town of Vouvray, an area particularly known for its sparkling wines. (Did you know the Loire Valley is France's second-biggest producer of sparkling wines, after Champagne? And at a fraction of the price too.) I'd carefully researched half a dozen wineries that were open for tastings on a Sunday, and plotted out the route between them on Google Maps. First stop was the splendidly named Domaine d'Orléans-Bourillon, which Liz had seen on Facebook was having an open house that weekend. This turned out to be a fortuitous discovery, an experience a little bit more special than some other wine tastings I've been to in the region, where you were invited to spit your wine into the gutter of a barn (not that I think I'm too good to spit in a drain, of course). From the original glimpse of the cave (French for wine cellar, but also often literally a cave, as in this case), which was decorated with candles and an illuminated picture of Marilyn Monroe, this was a special visit.

The cave's tasting area

Amber and I enjoy a VIP tasting of 30€ moelleux wine

Basically, the people who turned up for the open day were the owner's mates, and us. So it didn't take long before we were basically being treated like the owner's mates too. This included being treated to free Thai food, quickly moving to addressing everyone as "tu" like old friends, and basically being just given whole free glasses of wine, rather than the tiny tasting sips you often get at these events. We even got escorted into a special posh tasting room and treated to a 30€ bottle of moelleux wine as a special VIP treat. I didn't really get too much out of the wine side of things, since I don't drink a lot of white wine and particularly detest sweet wine (I slipped my glass of the expensive moelleux to Liz when the owner wasn't looking), but the whole experience was a lot of fun!

It was one of the more bizarre encounters we've had, and I hope (and imagine) that it was a different experience than Amber would probably have had if she was just your typical tourist. It's not every day you end up spending an entire afternoon (because yes, we failed to move on to any other wineries as planned) basically hanging out with a vintner and his mates. There wasn't a lot of dégustation in the sense of really focusing on and discussing the wine, but the fun atmosphere more than made up for that I think! And maybe it provided a contrast to the often snobby and stand-offish reputation the French (or should that be Parisians who work in the tourist industry) have amongst tourists. We left with bisous all round, bottles of wine in tow (he managed to sell two of the 30€ numbers, and even I got a white wine for guests). So I think I can declare it a successful weekend in Touraine!

How to date a Frenchman*

*if he's a dick and you're a doormat.

I first came across this article on thelocal.fr  linked by an acquaintance on Facebook a while ago, left a sarcastic comment and moved on. Then I stumbled across it again yesterday, after following a different link on Twitter. Once again, I made the mistake of reading it all the way through, and it made me mad enough that I was still thinking about its stupidity today.

Basically, the message is that the Frenchman is the "holy grail of international lovers" (actual quote), and you should do anything to please him and mould yourself into whatever Stereotypical Frenchman deems acceptable in a woman. God forbid you be yourself, have an opinion, reflect your own culture and background, or disagree with him.

Some of the top tips:

- Apparently, Frenchmen will text you all the bloody time. This includes sending kisses and plenty of emoticons. Okay, some allowances can be made for a romantic honeymoon period, but seriously guys and gals, is there anything more irritating than constant contentless texts reading "salut" (or "slt", which always makes me think they're starting off by calling me a slut), "ça va?" or, worst of all, the dreaded "coucou"? The man-catching advice doesn't deal with what to do if you want to shut down the stream of verbal branlage altogether (gosh, that wouldn't be very sweet and feminine of you), but it does offer the gem that you should definitely not try giving him a call, since "he might not take too kindly to it because you’re invading his 'guy space.'" I didn't know 'guy space' extended into the airwaves, but makes sense. After all, most guys I know also have very strict no-fly zones and maintain exclusive fishing areas which are universally recognised by International Man Law (or just "the law"). 

- If he says he loves you after a few weeks, don't freak out, just say it back! Chances are, he doesn't really mean it anyway, and if he does, meh, who are you to have feelings that differ from the almighty French man god? In the same vein, we're later told to "get used to being in a relationship the second he kisses you". Again, you have no agency in this relationship. The kiss of a Frenchman has all the magic relationship potency of some sort of gypsy curse.

- Don't let him take a photo of you because he'll probably make it into his screensaver by the second date. Firstly, this seems an awfully specific situation. Secondly, and not to draw any hysterical parallels, shouldn't the advice be "hey, creeper, don't be weird about photos of girls you barely know" instead of "woman: man with camera steal your soul. Be heap careful"?

- One of my favourites - no makeup. We've all noticed that many French women eschew heavy makeup, so (other than the obvious "I'll wear as much makeup as I bloody well please" reaction) my beef isn't so much the basic advice here. It's the icing on the cake: "French men like their women to have beautiful, flawless skin naturally. If you’re not blessed with dermatological perfection, you can either scream in frustration or rethink your skincare routine." Oh, well as long as we still have *options*. 

On an unrelated topic, I like my men to have [redacted, since my mum reads this]. If you're not blessed with [redacted] perfection, you can either scream in frustration or rethink your genetics. Up to you, lads!

- You're not allowed to get mad if he's late, or be unavailable if he texts you (of course texts, haven't you learnt he's incapable of calling) at short notice to go out. Not only that, but "Of course, this means you have to look fabulous all the time, just in case." Except obviously looking fabulous doesn't include wearing any of your whore paint. Save that sheer foundation for the street corner, amirite?

 - Pretend to be allergic to everything he eats, so he won't feed it to you. WTF? Leaving aside the logistical nightmare of keeping this one up - and my gut instinct tells me being an insanely fussy eater probably contravenes some other secret French relationship commandment - is it really that hard just to say "no, I don't want to eat off your fork"? God knows your resolve hasn't been worn down by refusing to capitulate over things like makeup, chronic lateness or whether you love him. In all fairness, you did already have to fight to the death to avoid him taking creepshots of you though.

 - The article rounds out by telling you that you have to be cool socialising with all his exes and you're not allowed any hang-ups in the bedroom. At this stage, I can't even get worked up about that - standard women's mag advice, really.

 So where can I sign up for one of these prize catches? And where did those of you in happy couples find all the good ones?

Workin' girl

Yay! The first (4-day) week of work is done! I am soooo tired. Lucky I came home to cat vomit on my bed to help relax me...

The work

So far, I've only been shown how to do one thing. Which I have done over and over and over again in the past 4 days. Hundreds of times. As you can imagine, this is not very exciting. On the other hand, I have been praised for working quickly and accurately, so yay for me. That bodes well for successful completion of the 2-week trial period. I hope next week they show me how to do more stuff, because it's probably not great to already be super bored after less than one whole week of work :( Honestly, not to be ultra-negative, but there have been many times this week where I've thought "I have a Master's degree in THIS?!?" It is literally: scan barcode, check the PDF looks ok, tick a couple of boxes, add a name and date, change a couple of drop-down menu options, scan next barcode...

I have my own barcode scanner and printer though! #everygirl'sdream

The colleagues

We have The Boss, let's call him Michel (I will probably forget these names later). He's quite good looking but is in a different office, so I don't see much of him. On the first day I had to sign a confidentiality agreement and he goes "oh, you just write your name? You don't have a real signature?" (with accompanying scribbly motion). Yes, fine, I have a child's signature, thanks for pointing that out. I think I got my first bank card at about 13, and after a while you're pretty much locked in to your signature, unless you change your name. Not only is it unsophisticated, it's also really *long* having to sign my full name. I get a cramp if I have to sign more than one document at a time! And it never fits in boxes on forms. But anyway, I read once that a legible signature is more fraud-proof than a scrawl, so suck on that, Mr. Grown-Up Signature. Other than hitting a signature sore spot, though, he seems very nice!

Moving on, in my office there are two women and a guy, all around about my age. Honestly though, I feel like I come from another planet than these women. They are both married with a toddler and building/renovating their first homes, and 80% of the conversation (and there is a LOT of talking going on) revolves around that. Especially the kids. If you want to hear the entire plot of a children's book recounted in great detail, or see a demo of a 2 year old's poo face, come work with me. It's pretty painful.

In between the insufferable kid-chatter, however, they are nice people - friendly, patient if I make French mistakes and interested in learning more about me and my culture, which is all good. I feel already like I've known them for more than a week, probably because of all the talking!

The office man, on the other hand, seems to see me as a kindred spirit. This manifests itself in rolled eyes when the other two are going on about stuff and questions as to how I'm putting up with the girls when they are not in the room. It's nice that he thinks we're on the same wavelength (and I do probably have more in common with him, from the bits of conversation we've had thus far), but I am a bit nervous of being lured into bitching about the other two every time they turn their backs! (Please note this, everyone who thinks men never gossip or bitch.) Besides, they are actually nice people, even if I find anecdotes about children a colossal bore. He's also a bit of a mumbler (pot calling the kettle black there) which means I generally have to ask him to say everything twice. Sometimes three times.

Adapting

As I said, I have been exhausted this week! I feel like I'm 50 years old, and/or have been doing manual labour all day, rather than a 30 year-old sitting in a chair. (I really do despair for what I'll be like when I'm old...) However, so far waking up in the morning hasn't been too difficult. Whether this is due to early, exhausted bedtimes or the Sleep Cycle app I bought (it monitors how heavily you're sleeping according to how much you're moving around and then it wakes you up up to 30 minutes before your alarm time, when you are in a light sleep phase) I don't know. Although I've been tired, I've run errands every day this week after work, whereas there have been plenty of times in the past year I've been unable to bring myself to do one thing in a day despite having all the time in the world. So that's good.

Hopefully next week I'll be less tired and I will be given more interesting things to do! I don't think anything will change on the King Biscuit Kid Chat Hour, so will just have to learn to live with that one! And now for some post-work wine :)

Moving on, staying put

So, as many of you already know, I've found a new job, and to everyone's enormous surprise, it's here in Tours! I honestly didn't think in a million years that I would find something here - it's not exactly the hub of the intellectual and commercial worlds, especially when looking for English-speaking stuff.

So on the one hand, I'm happy not to have to pack up my apartment and leave (yet), rehome the cat, say goodbye to my friends etc., and on the other hand there's a big part of me that has been itching for a change of scene for some time now. That said, the initial contract only runs until the end of August, so there's plenty of scope for me to be back out on my arse again shortly (they have said there is a good chance of another contract at that point though).

I'm also kinda terrified at the prospect of going back to work! There's the whole issue of just adjusting back to a normal routine again, on top of the normal nerves from starting a new job. Plus it's a role I've never done before (electronic document and records management), and in a private company, which I've also never experienced either in France or in my professional career (not counting jobs here and there when I was a student, etc.) And while I feel my French has obviously improved over the last few years, the prospect of writing reports in French and perhaps having to deal with people over the phone gives me the jitters!

But on the bright side, yay a job! I just sent the contract off today, so it's all official! I'm still not sure what the net salary is, but the gross is looking pretty good for someone coming off the chômage, and it is a really good chance to get some new skills and experience in a different field of information work and environment. Plus it gives me some permanence for the next few months, since I've felt in a state of limbo, never quite knowing what would be around the corner and if I'd suddenly have to leave town or even the country. This means I've been able to plan (separate) visits from a friend and my sister, and a weekend in Paris for Ella's wedding, yay! And I am already plotting ways to spend the extra cash - nothing too dramatic, but all the little things I haven't been able to indulge in for the past year.

So, I know some of you have been wondering about the outcome of the IIO job in Brussels. The bad news is, I didn't get the job :( The good news is, they put me on the waiting list for future positions. Normally, I would think that was the employment equivalent of "but can we stay friends?", but they have asked me to do some fairly involved follow-up stuff which makes me think it is a little more meaningful than that. I'm not banking on something coming of it, but I'm taking it as a positive sign and presumably I would be in a stronger position in the future. I would still love to work there, so let's hope so! Looking back at the fact that two of the other candidates at my interview already had some sort of IIO connection going makes me wonder if they basically always waitlist people before hiring unless maybe someone exceptional with just the right experience comes along...

Party all the time, party all the time

Hello long-lost friends! It has been too long since my last blog post, although in my defense, not much blog-worthy has been going on. This doesn't mean I've been in winter hibernation (although I think everyone is ready for spring to bloody well be sprung) - there have been Fun Times Aplenty, but not really of the variety that make for a good blog post. Although I'm now going to run through them quickly anyway.

Sadly, my good friend Laura left Tours (and then she came back again a few weeks later for the weekend, but then left again for good). Such is the nature of expat life - people come and go and sometimes only stay for a short period of time (a year, in her case). On the upside, it means that expats are usually pretty open to meeting new people and making friends in a shorter time-frame than might be the norm (certainly for France!), but the downside is saying goodbye to your friends just as quickly. Of course these days it's much easier to stay in touch with things like facebook, and even though that's a poor substitute for real-life friendship, it does keep things ticking over in the hope that one day you might be able to reconnect with a handy network of people flung out all over the globe.

We hardly need an excuse, but of course people leaving also mean parties! I think Laura's leaving do was the week or so after I came back from Belgium, and we had a lovely evening consuming her left-over alcohol stocks (including too much of the aquavit I brought back from Norway for her - that stuff is lethal!), playing a game of Secret Santa where the prizes were all the little trinkets she hadn't managed to rehome or sell up to that point (I scored some tupperware and little serving dishes for dips or olives or what have you), and busting a groove to a dancing game on Xbox Live.

 This is hard to see, but I'm pretending to eat the box because it has "not for human consumption" written on it

Liz and Charlie. I wish I had their ways with scarves!

Liz, Philippa and Charlie

A couple of weeks after that, Cute Neighbour, who you may remember from my birthday party, invited me over to watch the rugby at his place. I'm not a rugby girl, but in any case he accidentally (?) invited me round 3 hours early, and we spent the time chatting about all sorts of things and it wasn't at all awkward. Pity he still has a German Girlfriend. The only downside was that he smoked so much I felt ill and had to shower when I got home! In return, the next week or the week after I invited him round to Liz's place for a cocktail evening, which turned into an all-nighter out on the town.

Me and Charlie

Me, Liz and Charlie

Gangstas

Me and Cute Neighbour. There is photographic evidence that I had my hand on his thigh for quite some time. Whoops!

Then Laura came back for the weekend last week, and we had a pretty restrained time of it by our standards. This included going out Friday and Saturday nights for a quiet couple of pints at the pub and having a couple of glasses of wine with lunch on Saturday though, so it probably still wasn't exactly what the doctor ordered.

Snapping a few selfies in the kitchen: no night is complete without it!

Also somewhere in here was the time we went out and Caroline and I ended up staying out until 7 am or so when the clubs closed and then I was lured back to her place for an 'after'. I did actually want to go home, but she guilt-tripped me into not letting her go off by herself with 4 blokes, so the night ended drinking gin smoothies (much, much better than I would have imagined) as the sun came up - until after 11 am, in fact!

That brings us to this weekend, which had all the makings of a classic: Saturday was the Fête des Vins de Borgeuil, Caro and Marcia wanted to watch the rugby on Saturday night, it was Philippa's birthday and St. Patrick's Day on Sunday, plus after the long winter break, the Formula One was finally back!

It was pretty rainy and miserable for the Fête des Vins, but that didn't stop us having a good time. How can you not have a good time at an event where you pay 2€ to buy a tasting glass (to keep) and then you can sample as much wine as you like? As well as the usual suspects, we were joined by a new friend Mel and her husband. In a Gwannel Sandiego first, I was emailed by Mel last week via the blog! I have met up with people, mostly in Paris, via the blog before, but this was the first time someone in Tours came across the blog and contacted me. It feels a bit weird - while I'm not silly enough to think it's not "out there" on the internet, I kind of don't think of it as something that people in Tours are going to be reading. But, that aside, we clicked really well, so it is great that it has brought us together. What was I saying at the beginning about expat life and making friends?

Liz and I stayed on at the Fête until nearly 7 pm, after everyone else had called it a day, which meant a bit of a mad rush when I got home to get showered and changed and redo my ruined nail polish (I need to learn it's never a good idea to try to rush doing your nails), while watching a replay of the F1 qualifying from the morning (it actually got rained off, but I still wanted to watch it again because there was a lot of action before that).

And then off to stand in the pub while the rugby was on. We were pretty late, but seeing that I stood with my back to the screen, I didn't care. Poor Scottish flower Caroline was a bit deflated by the result though, and ended up going home not much later. As for me, I stayed on until closing time (2 am) but considering we had started at the wine festival at 2 pm, I decided not to go out clubbing and probably got home around 3 (after quite some time of wandering around collectively trying to decide what to do/chatting in the street). I probably should have got some sleep, but I tried to stay awake to watch the F1 at 7. I actually did quite well, only falling asleep for the last half an hour or so, and then unfortunately waking up to get a glimpse of the podium ceremony, so I spoiled the result for myself. Oh well.

The Tours Goat has made an appearance on the blog before, but I had to take a snap of him all gussied up with balloons!

Wearing green (nail polish too) in honour of St. Patrick's Day - it was after midnight by this stage!Also, I want to know what's going on in the background with Charlie and some cute blokes... I was too busy watching the F1 (they ran the rest of it late because of the rain) to notice at the time.

So, fun times, even if writing about them all at once does make me feel like a bit of a drunken disgrace!