A weekend on the beach

Last year fro Christmas, Paul's parents gave us a voucher for a weekend at a dog friendly house in Apollo Bay. We finally got around to using the voucher and it ended up being pretty good timing. You know that feeling you get when you come back from a great holiday and you're depressed and don't want to be here. Well, this gave us something to look forward to.

The house was lovely. It wasn't on the beach, but it was walking distance from the main street and the waterfront, so it was in a great location.

After much coercion and some reluctance on Paul's part, we took the girls down to the beach. Myf had been before, but wasn't keen on the waves. Morgan had never seen the beach before. We found a quiet little spot where a stream met the sea, so the girls could play in the stream and not get buffeted by the waves. Myf was quite hesitant at first, but Morgan thought it was heaven.

I took loads of photos and got quite a few action shots of the girls that I think are hilarious.

This is how it started. Morgan bounding through the water, whilst Myf tests the waters and is careful not to splash.


Who put this ball here? Now I have to get all wet trying to get it out!


They each have to have a ball, otherwise Myf gives up chase and lets Morgan get the ball, as she's faster on her feet and will get it anyway. And Myf needs the exercise!


Morgan action shots...



Morgan's impression of a water dragon:

Swimming!!


A sequence of three shots of Morgan going for the ball...
She sees it...

She dives for it...

She gets it...


A sequence of three shots of Morgan shaking...
It starts with the head...

Then it moves to the body...

And finally it ends at the rear...


Myf shots (not all of which are action shots)
I'll get it eventually, I just have to wait for it to reach dry land.

Ready, Myf...

Go!




Some shots of the two of them...


Myf did eventually get a bit bouncier in the water, but this was towards the end of the second day, so it took her a while to warm up.


After a day (or an hour) at the beach, you need to get in some hard core sleeping, so that you're ready for the next day.


Morgan is such a poser. I think she was a model in a previous life.




Myf is quite the opposite. She just won't sit still for photos. Consequently most photos of her are when she's asleep or when she's playing.




And here are some random shots from the beach...

Photos of the Progress

It's 9:30 and I'm tired and my laptop is in need of charging, so I'm going to be brief. I discussed the double glazing and the courtyard in my previous posts so here are the photos.

The french doors in the master bedroom with a temporary set of curtains from Spotlight.


The window at the bottom of the stairs, which is now opaque, so it lets light in, but you can't see through it, so we don't need to hang a blind there anymore.


The kitchen window - yes, there is light coming in!


The sliding door in the lounge room looking out onto the treeless courtyard.


The clean slate (aka courtyard) all ready for the real transformation to begin.

Looking Good

We're really starting to get somewhere with the house. The painting has fallen by the wayside as other things have taken priority. The double glazing is in and is looking good. It's also been fantastic for noise levels. We can barely hear the traffic noise from our bedroom now.

We have had a minor setback in our planning though. The guys who came to install the windows discovered there was water damage to the flooring inside the french doors in the bedroom. Fortunately we had a chippy coming over to quote on the decking out the back and he said he could fix it, so he's adding that to his quote, which we should receive soon.

We've finally got rid of all the trees in our backyard. Well, we've removed them and we'd scheduled someone to collect them, but because of the bad weather, they've been delayed until Wednesday. So we currently have a whole garden of lilypilly trees in our garage.

Now that we can see all of the garden and it's a blank canvas, I'm so excited to get cracking on it. I really hope that the chippy is able to fit us in before Christmas!!!

I guess I should probably post some photos of the windows and the garden. I'll try and remember to take some tomorrow morning.

Back home and busy again

I need another holiday. We've been back less than a week and I'm already feeling the stress. Okay, it's not quite that bad, but we certainly are busy. Work hasn't been too bad for me, but Paul seems to have had meeting after meeting since getting back. Tonight will be another late night for him. I could go to the AGM at my company after work, but I think I'll go home and sort through the holiday photos instead.

The main event at home is the double glazing that's going in tomorrow. Just the master bedroom, living, kitchen and dining this time and then after we've saved up a bit more cash, we'll do the bathroom, study and spare bedroom.

We've booked the puppies in for a full day assessment at doggy day care, tomorrow so we can still head off to work and they'll be looked after. If they pass their assessment, it means that we can send them off there for some play time and grooming every now and again, if we get busy and don't have time to walk them in the morning or when other things start to happen around the house.

Tomorrow morning, we're also having a chippy come out to quote us for some decking in the backyard. We were hoping we'd be able to get that done before Christmas, but it's coming around too quickly and I dare say it'll be difficult to get it booked in before then.

Lost in France: Part Sept - Coming to a Close

I haven't posted a photo of it yet, so before we leave, here's a photo of the house we've been staying in, complete with statue of David and stream running out the front.

Monday was a public holiday in France for all saints day, so we decided to stick close to home in case things were shut. We climbed up to the chateau ruins above Mas. Unfortunately it was drizzling, but we managed to get a few minutes of sun and for those few minutes, the view was great.

The ruins aren't well maintained like the others that we've seen, so they're covered in vines and have trees growing out of them. In some ways it gives them more character.

From the ruins, we walked to the nearby town of Roquefere, which is very pretty. There is a chateau (or really big house) in the town that's built on top of some rocks, like most houses in this area seem to be.

We turned up at the local Auberge, which had come highly recommended, to see if we could have lunch there, but it was all booked out, so we had to go home and eat this instead.

The rest of the day was spent relaxing and drinking wine.

We went for a drive along the coast on Tuesday. We started out in Narbonne, which isn't strictly on the coast, but it used to be before it silted up and now it's 10km from the coast. There's a massive cathedral there, but after they'd finished building the Choir and the Towers, the halted construction, so it's only half finished. It does look a little funny, but it's massive now, so I can't imagine how huge it would have been with a Nave added on. Here's a tower and the choir to the right. Unfortunately it was a bit difficult to get a photo of the church in full because the other buildings were so close.

There's a museum of archaeology next to the cathedral with apparently a fine collection of roman mosaics and paintings on stucco. Unfortunately we discovered that it's closed on Tuesday. So we made do with wandering around the cathedral before we headed off.

As we drove south, we could see the mediterranean to our left and the pyranees to our right. Pretty impressive!

It was really windy, though, so we couldn't spend much time on the beach at all. We managed to get this photo of me on a mediterranean beach before the sandblasting drove us away. Poor Paulie did not even want to get out of the car, but I forced him to so he could take the picture.

We drove as far as Port Vendres, which is a Catalan Port, despite being in France. Apparently Catalonia extends into France. It's all very confusing, but it did mean that they have tapas bars, so I just went with the flow.

The architecture here is a blend of French, Spanish and seaside, which makes it quite quirky, unlike many of the towns we'd driven through that looked like French versions of Noosa or Surfer's.

One thing that I found particularly disturbing is that they park their boats in the same haphazard way as they park their cars. There were no marina berths, you just tie up to the harbour next to another boat. Crazy!

Our final full day in the south of France was spent castle hunting again. We started out at Chateau de Puilaurens, which was built on another rocky mountain. We arrived just as it opened, so we were the only ones there right up until we were leaving. The views were spectacular (again).

The next castle on the list was Chateau de Puivert. This one was on a plateau, so a lot easier to get to than the previous. The owner was apparently living there whilst rennovating. Hmmm... rennovating, you say... I guess there was some scaffolding there in some areas, but it wasn't looking super sturdy and there weren't even handrails on the spiral staircases. I'm pretty sure the owner must have been a crazy/eccentric old man. You'd want there to be central heating in the areas you were living in!

The view from the top of the central tower was pretty amazing, but due to lack of handrails, I got to the top of the staircase took my photos, yelled at Paul to be careful and then bid a hasty retreat.

The final castle was called Chateau de Arques. This was in a valley, so even easier to get to. This one was partially rennovated. Although it was pretty good, Paul and I both agreed that it could be improved with the addition of some replica furnishings, so you get the idea of how it would have looked at the time.

We're now in the final stages of packing up. The bags are packed, the house has been cleaned and we're about to sit down to a farewell lunch of pate, roquefort, saucisse and tarts. A fine way to bid farewell.

We've had an awesome time here in France and have already started planning the next trip. Although we're sad to leave, we're looking forward to seeing family, friends and our puppies again.