The Holiday: Part Three

While staying in Brugge, we caught the train to Brussels for a day-trip. Brussels was the highlight of the trip for me. Historical, vibrant, inviting, and colourful.

This little guy was sitting outside of a restaurant, ready to set out on some travels, if he wasn’t already dead and stuffed. Cute? Disturbing?

Chocolate museum. There were so many gaps in my chocolate knowledge which have now been filled in. Like the making of a delicious praline.

To top off a great day, there was an amazing light show in the Markt, projected on to the actual buildings, which totally blew my mind. I say yes to you Brussels. Well done.

The Holiday: Part Two (In Bruges)

After our adventures in the UK, we travelled through France to Belgium and stayed in Brugge for a few nights. The experience of driving directly onto the train, and then sitting static - but with all the sensations of moving - was both claustrophobic and kind of awesome. I tried not to think about being in a giant tunnel under the ocean at the same time. Yeluk.

I’m sure everyone says this, but Brugge was BEAUTIFUL! Both the older part of town, and the newer houses. It was refreshing to see design and variety even within terraced houses. How does this happen? Does one building go up first, or do they all get built at the same time, but intentionally different? Thank you Belgium for your appreciation of aesthetics and diversity. 

We actually met a women on the bus who was there during the filming of ‘In Bruges’ and met Colin Farrell. Just as she was about to get a snap with him, the battery in her camera died. We climbed the Belfry (they didn’t show the massive queue in the film!), had mulled wine and waffles, and soaked up the beauty of the canals and pretty lights. Basically, Brugge was the bomb.

The Holiday: Part One

After Christmas we made the most of having Julz around and did a few day trips with Murray and Maria before heading ‘under seas’ (that is a really lame joke about travelling through the Channel Tunnel, I apologise).

We travelled through Stratford-upon-Avon for some lunch and to see Shakespeare’s house. It was a perfectly cute little town.

As current Oxford residents we did a ‘night walking tour’ for our fellow travellers, except Murray and Maria knew more about Oxford history than we did… good thing they were there! Below is the door fabled to have inspired C.S. Lewis’ Aslan, and next to it was a street lamp, very similar to the one in Narnia.

Stonehenge. Large stones in a circle. A mystery. Why are they there? We don’t know. It was cool. It was raining. It was also very misty, adding to the pre-historic vibe (although the fact you can see it from the road detracted from this so… yeah - no druids in sight). It would be more fun if they allowed climbing, or even a walk into the circle. We took photos anyway :)

More holiday tales to come..

Three Years

Today marked our three year wedding anniversary. Hooray! Kim - you are better than ever, wonderful even. Thanks for loving me! Looking forward to another year of love, life and learning with you.

We never managed to send our thank you cards, which is still embarrassing three years later…. There was a technical malfunction with the magnetic strip and the laminate which proved too much to cope with after handwriting every card… still, it’s not cool. Hopefully people felt our thanks and love and if you didn’t - here it is xxx

As those of old have sung

Gosh, it seems a bit late to be posting Christmas photos, we have just been up to so much since then, which sounds like bragging and perhaps it is…. more about that later!

Christmas highlights included (but weren’t limited to): seeing the one and only Julz, being with our family away from family, and experiencing outrageous generosity on all fronts.

Helen and Di prepared a traditional Christmas FEAST, right down to the brussels sprouts and we ate and ate and played games. Such a great day. I was really struck afresh by Christmas this year, it may have had something to do with being slightly obsessed with the Sufjan Stevens Christmas album while reflecting on beauty and hope of this story. God is with us. Love it!