jameshurrell.co.uk

Juliet and I have just returned from a fantastic weekend away on the Llyn Peninsula with our friends Emmanuel & Marine, Mathieu & Monica and Monica’s brother Paco.

After a bite to eat and some Gratien et Meyer at my parent’s (who put on a wonderful spread!) we drove up in convoy to Llanbedrog. I managed to produce a (slightly burnt) beef stew and apple crumble for dinner and we spent the evening chatting and reminiscing in various languages.

On Saturday we took a walk up on to the headland (Mynydd Tir y Cwmyd) and took in the stunning views from the top, and then took a wander into Abersoch to soak up the last of the day’s brilliant weather:

On Saturday evening, Emmanuel produced a fantastic jar of foie gras and we ate that along with a bottle of Coteaux du Layon wine. From the pinnacle of French food and wine, we then decided to go to the pub up the road to get some good old British “pub grub”!

Sunday saw Juliet and I produce a “heart attack on a plate” Welsh cooked breakfast, and then it was time to return home…

A wonderful weekend spent with great friends… I need more of this!

P.S I also took a couple of panoramic photos with the digital camera (these are quite big images so they might take a while to load):

• Mynydd Tir y Cwmyd
• Abersoch harbour

P.P.S There are also some images of the weekend in the image gallery.

Juliet and I have just returned from a great trip to Paris to see friends and also for me to take part in a 20km (12.4miles!) run called Les 20km de Paris. I flew out on Sunday 11th October and did four days work, then Juliet joined me on Thursday evening. Thursday night saw us at Nik and Bruno’s for a wonderful meal and then we spent a leisurely Friday wandering around Paris!

On Friday evening our friends James and Rosie flew out and Juliet and I went to stay with Emmanuel and Marine. Saturday involved a 6km run, a massive brunch that lasted for hours, a trip on a Bateau Mouche and an evening meal in a brasserie in Châtelet.

Sunday was the day of the race - a race James, Emmanuel and I had somewhat foolishly agreed to take part in during my (drunken) Stag Weekend - so after a breakfast of porridge (slow release energy!) we all went down to the start at Pont d’Iena, near the Eiffel Tower. The start was scheduled for 10am, but because of the numbers of people it took us 10 minutes to cross the start line. The first 10km were good and the course took us through the Bois de Boulogne and back to the Seine. Then another 10km along the quais, past the Eiffel Tower, up to the Louvre and then back down the opposite bank to finish at the Eiffel Tower. All three of us finished in under two hours (within our target!), but I found the last three km quite tough. At km 19 (in true James style) James managed to sprint off and get a 24 second lead on Emmanuel and I!

You can see my results here.

Before and after!

There are also some pictures in the image gallery.

And finally a little film taken by Juliet to catch the atmosphere:

Saturday 22nd arrived and it was time to move out of our house and into some temporary (but very nice) accomodation and time for Kate and James to move into our old house!

Perhaps rather foolishly given the state of my back and arms on Sunday, we decided to do the move ourselves rather than get removal people in, so we hired a van and rounded up some very nice friends to lend a hand. It all went really smoothly, but we could not have done it without Rich, Ben and his wife Rowena and Ben’s younger brother David (who was a last minute surprise (but very welcome) addition to the helpers!). We now owe them all an awful lot, and I don’t think any amount of beer will compensate for how they must have felt at the end of Saturday. Thank you so much guys!

By 5pm the house was empty (yes that was the colour of our bedroom!) and we had moved all the stuff into the temporary accomodation:

Now we’re living out of boxes and the great thing is we don’t have to pack any thing else up, but equally we can’t unpack that much either!

The big move is now on and we have a completion date of the 22nd September..! Yikes! By my calculations that gives us precisely 13 days to pack all our rubbish things into boxes and get out of here. We’ve made a good start: our once nice, comfortable living room has been transformed into a storage area and I have discovered that between us we must have hundreds of books. How on earth we ever thought we would be able to read so many is beyond me. I even found what I thought was the original copy of the bible hidden behind a cupboard.

And so it continues. I’ve collected all the pictures and paintings off the walls and disovered what a grimy pair we are - there are now little outline marks where the pictures once hung. Anyway, it’s going OK so far, but this is the first step. We’ve now got to get it all out of the house and into a van.

God help us.

On my internet travels I recently stumbled across a webcam from Svalbard right up in the far Arctic north, between mainland Norway and the North Pole (it is Norwegian territory). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard for more information.

I was immediately struck by the stark beauty of the place and by the perpetual daylight. Not sure how I’d cope though with perpetual night time! I contacted the owner of the webcam, Svein Nordahl, and asked if it would be OK to link directly to his webcam images. He very kindly assured me this would be no problem.

So here we are, two images live from Svein’s house looking north towards the North Pole. I’ve linked the images directly, so each time you open this blog post, they should update (Svalbard is GMT+1).

You can get the full size images here, which really show the landscape at its best! Svein’s main homepage can be found at: http://www.svein-nordahl.com/ - take a look. Thanks for sharing your webcam Svein!