Annual gastronomic trip

Towards the end of the year, we usually go away for a gastronomic outing with our friends in the village, Sile and Martin. This year we went to Lyon, a 2.5 hour trip from home and all by public transport.

This is the time of year for the annual 'fête des lumiéres'in Lyon which is rather like Blackpool illuminations. The origin of the fête is to celebrate the patron saint of Lyon, Mary. Everyone puts out lights (usually rea lights) on their window ledges. However, the celebration has now become commercial amid is incredibly crowded, so very crowded had booked to avoid it. Following the recent attacks in Paris, the fête was cancelled and the city was far more quiet than we had anticipated. This year, the tea lights will be out on balconies, so reverting to the traditional celebration

After booking into our hotel, we went for a brief trip around the city. The were reminders of the state of alert everywhere, such as armed soldiers outside the Cathedral and security personalel in shopping centres.

The arch of the cathedrals for St John the Baptist.

Apartment blocks with open staircases

 

The basilica at night

 

Before returning to the hotel, we called into a wine bar for a glass of wine. The waiter asked what we liked and reappeared with a selection of 8 bottles for us to choose from and described each wine in turn. He opened bottles for each of us and we feared that this might have been an expensive stop, but it was not the case. We were charged by the glass! It was a remarkable experience and well worth it! Needless to say, we returned the next day.

Views across the Rhone on the way back.

By now it was time to return to the hotel and get ready for our evening trip to La Mere Brazier, a Michelin 2* restaurant and the focus of our visit to Lyon.We very much enjoyed our meal at La Mere Brazier, and were pleased with our choice. Details are here: https://www,Aureum.biz/links

The next morning, we started with a trip to Les Halles, the indoor food market of Lyon and then continued across the river to the cenral area and museums.

 

We spent some time in the Musée des beaux-arts, which is opposite one of several hotel de ville (town halls) in Lyon

This Hotel de Ville is in a large square with the Musée and a grand fountain

Later, we went up the hill on ththe funicular to the Basillia

 

View from the Basillica

The old town

In the evening, we went out in search of a particular kind of restaurant. Bouchons are a traditional Lyonnaise restaurants serving very meat based French cuisine

Our meals were interesting and very different style from the previous evening.

The following day, we did a little shopping in a large shopping centre, before taking the train and bus home.

All we have to do now, is decide where we will go next year!

 

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Brussels and Broadstairs

Sophie had invited us to visit her and Jim in Brussels. Merging this with a visit to Broadstairs made a lot of sense, especially when we found that there was a train from Montpellier to Brussels.

We arrived in the evening and Sophie was there to collect us. The centre of Brussels is being pedestrianised, with the planning based on trial and error, so finding a route between point A and point B was not easy for Sophie. Eventually, we found a the car park and Sohpie took us to our hotel, the Metropole.

Pat's father, Ernie had been in Brussels towards the end of the war, when they camped at the Heysel stadium. At that time, the Metropole was an American hotel and off limits to UK troops, but this didn't stop them getting in through the kitchens to hear the music. Ernie had fond memories of the hotel and we had taken him there in 1997 on a day trip.

The hotel has kept its character and so we enjoyed ourselves with the cameras

While we were settling in, Sophie was looking at her Facebook account and saw the early reports of the shootings in Paris which started shortly after we arrived in Brussels.

When Jim arrived from London later in the evening, we enjoyed some wine in the bar. In 1997, we sat in the same bar with Ernie, under the signature of Vera Lynn

Around 1997 we took Ernie back to the Metropole where we sat beneath the signature of Vera Lynn.

This was the spot.

The next day, we wandered around the centre of the city, browsing in shops on our way th the Grand Place. The first stop was the 'speculos shop', selling biscuits, breads, spreads etc, all including cinnamon.

It was a grey day with rain from time to time, so not the best day for photos, but there were plenty of people milling around. Maison du Roi

The Guild Halls

Inside the beer museum

We met with Sophie and Jim in the late afternoon and walked around various museums and night sites

At 6pm we were in the Grand Place again, observing a minute's silence at the Town Hall, bathed in the colours of France.

Then we warmed up in bars, sampling wines and beers. One of the bars we visited served a 'half and half' mix of wine and fizz.

Then we moved on to Sophie's favourite restaurant for an excellent mealexcellent.

The next day, we toured the flea market, eating lunch in a cafe by the market and then searching for 'fancy dress'. Later, we visited the Jardin d'Egmont, with its staues. The Eglise Notre Dame du Sablon was just by the exit from the park; Jim, John and Sophie are in the foreground.

 

Before we headed for the EuroStar to Ashford, vwe called into a chocolate shop for hot chocolate and macaroons. It was a short journey on the train to Ashford and then on to Broadstairs by the train replacement bus, which dropped us at Ramsgate, where we picked up a taxi for the short journey on.

The next few days passed in a whirl of Ernie, Lenny and helping around the house.

Sand has been piled high on the beach at Broadstairs, presumably, to protect the beach huts etc but more importantly for Ernie, providing entertainment.

John de sanding Ernie, after lots of fun on the 'slopes'

We finished our stay with a trip to one of Ernie's favourite places, the London Transport Museum. As we arrived at St Pancras, we found this year's Christmas tree which is made of Disney characters.

The on to the Transport Museum by taxi.

Inside the museum

Our trip back was less than ideal. This time the EuroStar was on time, but not our onward train from Lyon. This, along with a train in front of us carrying a suspect package meant that we were 2 hours late and could not catch the blast bus home, so a taxi was needed.

 

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The end of our visit and return home.

We had not booked our return crossing on the EuroTunnel so that we were sufficiently flexible if we were needed. At Helen's request, we extended our stay in the flat and the UK by a week.

We still had a few things on our list, although we knew that it was unlikely that we would manage all of them. The most important outstanding job was to get Jim's wine up to his flat in Hackney and this meant the dreaded trip in London in a French car! Previous experience of driving around London on the wrong side of the car has not been good. Thankfully, there were no issues this time; we arrived safely and, having parked the car in Jim's parking slot, we walked down to a small Turkish cafe on Kingsland road and enjoyed our Gozleme, a Turkish flat bread stuffed with cheese, potato or spinach, or any combination. Delicious!

In the evening we ate at a very good Turkish restaurant which serves superb kebabs. We have eaten there many times and each have our favourite dish and always order that.

The following day, John went up to Cambridge to attend to a few things at our house and Pat returned to Broadstairs.

Our final meeting was with Andew and Elisa. Andrew is an old friend of John from school in Northern Ireland. We had been trying to get together for a few years but failed up to this point.

We met in a pub at East Malling and spent an interesting couple of hours catching up.

Now it was time to clean the flat, pack up the car and take Ernie out for a scoot and an ice cream. Once we are on the promenade and there is no traffic, the scoot usually just means trying to keep up with Ernie for as long as he wants to scoot. On this occasion, we ended up at Stone bay.

It may have been cool, but Ernie is game for the beach at almost any temperature. We were trying NOT to get our feet wet and had good fun on our way back waiting for the high waves without getting drenched

We ate with the family that evening and so time for a cuddle with Lenny; here is a happy Grandad.

The next morning, we set off bright an early for the EuroTunnel. There was a short delay while we retrieved John's passport from the flat, but nevertheless, we made our appointed checkin time with 2 minutes to spare.

We stopped at our usual overnight stop in Montluçon in the centre of France and enjoyed a good meal at a Le Grenier à Sel, where we had eaten before.

Unfortunately, we had a slow pucture and so the next morning, John pumped up the tyre sufficiently that we could limp round to a tyre repairer, who identified a nail in the tyre and repaired the tyre in minutes.

As we drove south, chinks of blue began to appear between the clouds and the countryside became very colourful and as we drove on, we anticipated an evening on the terrace with a glass of wine.

 

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At last ....

By the next morning, we had news that the baby should arrive shortly. We took Ernie off to a soft play at Quex park, which includes a museum, gardens, a good vegetable and cheese shop as well as the soft play. We were there by 10am, when it opens (Ernie having woken at 0630) and he had a great time with one or other of us playing with him on the slides, tunnels and other equipment. There were not too many people there, unlike the afternoons when lots of children are there after their childcare or school day.

It was after lunch that we heard that a baby boy had been born just before noon on Friday, October 2nd and that Ernie would be sleeping at his own home that night. When we delivered Ernie back to Mum and Dad, he went upstairs to meet the baby. After a while, he came downstairs to get his favourite tram then raced back upstairs to show the baby. We had a brief glimpse of the new arrival and then left the exhausted family to recover.

We managed to get a peek at the new arrival on the next day and by Sunday, John's birthday, mum and baby were downstairs and meeting Uncle Jim, who came to Broadstairs for lunch.

Our job now was to help out in anyway that we could, so collecting Ernie from his childcare, entertaining him afterwards, shopping, getting the pram ready for use, various jobs relating to the house renovation, etc have kept us busy. After a few days, Helen and Nick announced the names that they had chosen, Leonard John Herrett (Lenny), names from a Great-Grandad and a Grandad, just as Ernie.

A happy Nana

The days have whizzed by since. We had one booking that we really could not miss. Our bridesmaid from 45 years ago, Olive, from who lives in Preston, was to be in London and had the afternoon free. Pat was determined to meet her if at all possible. We were joined by another friend from our school days, Frances. We had lunch in the Booking Office, a bar restaurant at St Pancras (this being a convenient location for everyone).

Here we are, three out of the 'four maths girls'.

John's cousin Sandra, from Belfast, came to Broadstairs for the weekend. Sandra knows Broadstairs well, having visited regularly with her parents to watch cricket in Canterbury. We spent a most enjoyable couple of days together. Here we are in Ramsgate

With Ernie in the flat

Ramsgate

Ernie demanded that he was to be picked up from childcare by Nana and Grandad for the next couple of days, so we were out and about. We had had a lot of rain, so there was a small problem when Ernie's scooter came to a stop in a deep puddle. Wet shoes didn't stop him however and, despite the temperature, he was soon running around on the beach and into the sea. Fortunately we had a change of clothes to hand.

Early on in our visit, Ernie had mentioned the London Eye. When I asked Nick about it, the Eye was mentioned in one of Ernie's books. The first time that I asked, Ernie wasn't sure whether he would like it and we had gone to the Science Museum, but subsequently (and after much reading of the book), he thought that he would like to go.

We told him that we would take the usual blue train to London, then a taxi to the Eye. By the time we got out of the taxi and he saw it, he was very excited. Tickets bought, we then had 30 minutes to kill, so we went to hear Big Ben strike one (Big Ben is also in the book, Charlie and Lola).

By the time we reached the Eye, Ernie was very positive and greatly enjoyed the ride and looking down on the trains arriving at Waterloo and Charing Cross. This is towards the end of the trip when we are over County Hall.

So we had a great day out and I expect that we will be back.

On our return, John caught this magic moment when Ernie asked to hold Lenny

 

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