Annecy

I'm camping by lake Annecy, somewhere near the French alps, at the moment. Have been here for a few days now with the Bish and we're both loving a bit of a rest. So far we've cycled 450 odd miles.
Started down the northwest coast and into Paris, via Giverny and Monet's somewhat overrated gardens. In Paris we watched the Argentinians upset the French in the opening game of the Rugby World Cup on a big screen in the middle of the city. Was (very quietly) cheering for Argentina in a crowd of a few thousand excitable French. Caught a train from Paris to Bourg St Maurice and cycled from there over to Annecy.
Have a look at our route on google maps, it's quite impressive.
I'll apologise at this point for any random spelling errors as I'm using a retarded French keyboard and half the keys are in the wrong place.
It was Bishs' birthday on Tuesday, great timing, and we celebrated by riding over a couple of mountains to another lake and back again, only took us eight hours. We've had two days of rest since then and are taking tomorrow very easy and ending watching the England South Africa match with a few cold ones.
Saturday we train it down to Avignon (have abandoned the cycle everywhere plan and started using trains so that we actually get to spend some time in the places we want to see. So we'll do a few days along the Ardèche Gorge and then another train to Bordeaux to check out some wineries. Another train from there to Paris and then on the Eurostar to London and we're home!
Annecy is truly stunning. Could easily spend the whole month here if we didn't want to see anything else. I randomly woke at 5am the other morning, pretty much unheard of from me, and was rewarded with a magical view of the pre-dawn mountains. Tried to replicate the feat this morning but neither of us could actually drag ourselves out of our relatively warm sleeping bags (we may have erred in basing our choice there on how small the bags packed away rather than how warm they are) to see it. Might have another crack at it. Then again. Might not. We shall see.
That is all
Ciao

Up Off and Away

Am off to France in an hour. Train down to Dover. Ferry to Calais. Then Cycling as far as we like each day and camping wherever we can. Gonna be AMAZING! Rugby World Cup is on while we're there as well. May fork out some dosh to see a match if we get close enough. Otherwise will just sit in the pub and watch as many games of an afternoon as we can manage.
Contact for the month will be via email, comments here, or facebook.
See you in a month!

Paintballing

The week of awesomeness continues... I'm going paintballing tomorrow! The youth from church threw a surprise leaving party for me this afternoon as well, which was fun but did mean that I didn't get to Oxford and so purchased precisely none of the things I need for France. Worth it though, I came home with my face covered in Emma's pictures, vaguely resembling a demented pirate. I very nearly went out again still wearing said pirate face but fortunately saw the mirror on my way out the door and thought to wash my face before the cinema! Went to see the Bourne Ultimatum. Awesome. Just Awesome. I want to be Jason Bourne! There are two more books in the series that I've found, the Bourne Legacy and the Bourne Betrayal. I don't know if they'll make it to the silver screen but if the series continues with the same success the first three have had then I expect there are some more quality films to look forward to there!

Free Falling

Jumped out of a plane yesterday. Twas amazing! Giving some serious consideration to learning to do it properly, apparently costs about a third of the price to do so in Oz. Dad was/is an abseiling instructor, which I always aspired to, having jumped out of a plane I'm thinking that a sky dive instructor cold be one better!

Blogging

Am not feeling inspired to blog at the moment. I think I enjoy new things or playing with old things to jazz them up and with the new website on stall I've kind of lost interest in maintaining the Posse House, hence the lack of posts over the last couple of months. Also it seems lately that I don't have time for anything, really strange and annoying as I have had more "free time" in the last two weeks than the last six months! And I have no idea where its all disappeared to. I think it was C.S. Lewis who said "I do neither the things that I ought to do, nor the things that I want to do." I'm also a little annoyed that I am far more functional, process things faster, and am funnier at 3 in the morning than I am at almost any other point of the day. It's great when it happens but slightly inconvenient timing. It does bode well for next week though, I'm at Soul Survivor and we're observing the 4am curfew [that is you're not allowed to sleep before 4am for the week]. Post Soul Survivor I'm at Rivercamp for the weekend and then have a week to get a few dozen things in order before I spend a month cycling around France!
So, blogging shall be sparse, no change there, and likely as not will resume at a different venue upon my return to Oz. That is if I ever manage to work out exactly how I want this website to work and how I match the ruddy colours with the background!
Peace Out for the Present

Calvin and Hobbes

Calvin and Hobbes is pure genius! I tried this, sadly it didn't work...

Summer!

England is in the middle of it's "summer", that phenomenon lasting approximately three days where the temperature creeps into the mid twenties and the rain stops for a brief intermission before we go back to floods [there's supposedly a drought on, I think that more accurately translates as "the english have not realised that you have to actually store the water in order to use it"]. I am enjoying the sun while it lasts and am having a BBQ to celebrate [whoo!] providing that the weather holds til Sunday.
Last couple of weeks have been rather full. Lighthouse and Fiesta made for 14hr days and then the pub was utilised each nite to unwind and chill leaving a grand total of perhaps 5hrs for sleep if you take out washing, showers, eating, shopping and general preparation for the next day [tired doesn't even begin to cover it]. Check the archives from last July to see some of my best work at Fiesta [didn't have a minute to blog this year so the stories are lost to my poor memory and lack of sleep killing the few brain cells that were still functioning].
That'll do for now, some cool pics to post when I get a chance. Big shout to my partners in crime Heth and Andy who both worker harder than I that week and played host to me all week!