Floors, walls, food and travel

St Vincent

Jon got quite animated when I said I thought I would blog about how well he is doing in the bedroom.

No, Jon. This is about your decorating prowess.

The bedroom carpet, which was here when we bought the house, has obviously been down for years. We didn't do anything while we weren't living here but last summer we removed it. It weighed a ton as it seems to have been laid on scree, most of which came up with the carpet. Jon has been scraping up the rest of it, diligently clearing out the bits stuck between the floor boards and preparing the floor for a sanding. The other floors upstairs are beautiful chestnut, waxed and warm coloured. We want to make them the same right through.

Jon has finally managed to clean the floor and has now removed the remaining scraps of wallpaper and filled all the holes (cursing at the time about how awful the plastering is). This is all in preparation for decorating the room in a nice warm cream with plum coloured alcoves once the floor is finished.

We are hoping to finish this room before we jet off for our holiday in three weeks time but we're not convinced it will happen.

Thinking about our holiday has inspired me to cook more Eastern cuisine. On Saturday we had a very nice Malay seafood menu and today is Vietnamese. The kitchen is full of aromas of lemongrass, ginger and nam pla (fish sauce). Makes a change from garlic and shallots, our usual French flavours. I love pouring over our collection of cookery books, which is quite large, and go through phases of changing cookery styles, this time last year I was particularly concentrating on Italian flavours, French obviously features a lot and we also cook quite a lot of Indian food. I really mustn't overdo the Eastern or by the time we get to Hong Kong we'll be fed up with it and start looking for mostly western flavours and that would be a great shame.

We've had a few more guide books delivered, to add to the collection - it's like a little walk down memory lane seeing which restaurants we have been to before are no longer listed - either they are closed or they just aren't up to the same standards. Likewise to see new museums opened up and - shock, horror - apparently they have moved the famous Star Ferry to another pier. They can't change the views from the ferry though!

Planning the trip

St Raymond

We've had a little rain over the last couple of days. If we hadn't looked out of the window we would know anyway since the cave is once again directing a trickle of rainwater down through the back wall.

Feeling a little under the weather, box of tissues by my side, I have been looking for travel information on tinternet and seriously considering a little side trip during our planned holiday in Hong Kong next month. We are undecided between Beijing and Ho Chi Minh City, both of which have their selling points.

There is some romanticism about standing on the Great Wall of China, easily reached from Beijing, and likewise we would love to visit Vietnam which has long held a fascination for us. Hong Kong is a sort of comfort zone for us. We have visited several times before and after the territory was handed back to the Chinese in 1997, first staying with friends in a quiet residential area on Hong Kong Island, then a hotel in a busy area and the last few visits we have discovered a quiet, if slightly faded, hotel on Lantau Island. From there we can sit and watch the small boats fishing in the bay, the comings and goings of the fast ferry to Hong Kong Central and other islands. We take long walks on the country parks and along the beach and can hop on the ferry whenever we need a blast of city life.

The joy of such a holiday from our little corner of France is that it is all totally different from here. When we lived in the UK we could take a 30 minute rail journey (leaves and snow on the line permitted) to Waterloo Station and get a little fix of city life whenever we wanted. We were just 40 minutes from the English south coast. Here we are 5 hours from Paris, 2 from Toulouse and 4 from the sea, so Hong Kong is the perfect holiday for us.

Getting information and booking a trip isn't proving as easy as I thought it might. I'm waiting for a response from a travel agency in Hong Kong at the moment. Booking through Expedia and other on-line agencies is expensive, so we want to book direct with a Hong Kong agency who will also help us to obtain the necessary visas, which we can't do before we travel as time will be too short. So I sit and wait, which we both find very frustrating.

If there happen to be any Hong Kong travel agents out there reading this today, do drop us a mail and let us know if you can help!!!