In the shadows of giants. Tuesday 30th April - Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives

The Abbey at Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives has been looking out over the town for quite some time, and while the world reels at the loss of much of the structure of Notre Dame Paris in last week’s fire, it does serve as a reminder as it peers into our bathroom window, that there are an awful lot of historical monuments left in this country.

This one was founded by William the Conqueror’s great-aunt in the early 11th century, the Countess Lesceline. One wonders if he called her “Auntie Les”.  Some time before he was an actual conqueror, probably thinking it would be good for his political career she invited young Bill over from the next village to lay the foundation stone.   History records that he did indeed go on to do a few more things, the least of which involved a bit of a barney with his cousin Harold. 

If there is a reason that we find ourselves stuck in our own little vortex of endless travel, part of it can be found in our fascination with almost continual and quite coincidental discoveries such as this, of mundane connections to lives which in our youths, spent in a place so disconnected from our history, were simply names in dusty books. 

Unsettling in. Monday 29th April - Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives

Perhaps nothing says “we’re back” more than a walk through a market in the crisp spring air, taking time to fondle the endives and pat the rabbits (specially the ones with the “for consumption” sign on their hutches), returning laden with seafood and vegetables that were personally selected for us with the same passion no doubt with which they were grown.

Nothing that is, than lunch prepared by good friends with a similar love for that same produce (without the rabbits) followed by a bit of a snooze.

As we happened to be in Caen in the afternoon, we thought we’d avail ourselves of the opportunity to visit the (Battle of Normandy) Memorial Museum.   Impressive though the museum was, it did not take long for our jetlagged brains to become lost in the melee as wave after wave of intolerable history once again washed itself over us.  

Nothing says “we’re back” more than being just a little too close to an uncomfortable past. 

That old familiar fog. Sunday 28th April - Paris to Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives

Yesterday evening, barely forty-six hours since we were last lying in a bed, the bits of us which had arrived collapsed into our airport hotel not at all concerned that it felt as though vital parts of our brains were still somewhere in transit nor that the bits that weren’t were wandering around aimlessly in opposite directions.

This morning that familiar feeling returned, it’s a bit as though we needed tuning in the manner of an old valve radio with a dial which wasn’t  quite on station.  Breakfast helped, and a few large coffees had the voices in our heads slurring a little less, but it’s always a bit disconcerting to drive that hire car out of the lot for the first time.

For those unfamiliar with the CDG-T1 carpark. It’s a bit like negotiating a computer game where the highest degree of difficulty starts at the beginning, and each level becomes progressively easier.  It’s probably designed to make entering Paris’ Sunday traffic in one piece seem like a reward, and in a way it is.  The balance of our drive to Normandy seemed unremarkable except that if there was anywhere to find lunch along the way its presence escaped us entirely.    

None the less we arrived safely at journey’s end, into the outstretched arms of Jacques and Maggie, hungry, somewhat tired and very happy.

From where we left off. Saturday 27th April - Brisbane to Paris

Admittedly things had been a little hectic, and our flight didn’t depart didn’t depart until almost one in the morning but it was still a surprise to see how quickly one of us was able to slip back into her old travel routine.

One can understand a little drowsiness in the dimly lit, cosy confines of the Brisbane International Airport, but three hours of unconsciousness is perhaps a bit beyond the pale.   Managing to achieve six hours of slumber on an eight hour flight is not something to be ashamed of either, but really, grabbing another few hours in Hongkong on top of all that is tantamount to showing off.

The other of us, deeply jealous and by this time having been without sleep to speak of for more than twenty-four hours was starting to become testy in his solitude, and filled with vengeful thoughts.   That is how the first photograph of this year’s travels came to include a computer screen containing the last photograph of last year's tale. 

Tired but happy. Thursday 8th November - Vancouver to Brisbane

The flight in a westerly direction crosses the international date line, which can be a little disconcerting for some as in the process a day just quietly dissolves.  In our case our departure on Wednesday the 7th will end on Friday the 9th after a mere fifteen hours of flight.

Our day admittedly had already been jam packed with colour and travel and that sinking feeling that good times must end, (for a short while at least), when Al dropped us at the airport with half a dozen hours to kill.  One of us expected that we may well spend it quietly ruminating over the memories of our week, or our month or perhaps our six months of adventuring, on which the curtain was now slowly lowering.

The curtain lowered much more quickly for the other apparently, as for her, barely minutes into that conversation the past six months had already become little more than a dream.

The Carnival is Over. Wednesday 7th November - Whistler to Vancouver

What a glorious day Canada provided for our grand farewell.   It was that cold, crisp, clear kind of cold that says “it’ll be snowing just after you leave, once the gondolas start working”, but we didn’t care, because snow would have sent us into O.D.C. (over dose of Canada.)

Sunny and Al had saved one final disappointment for us, taking us on a short albeit “quite scenic” detour to a place where hundreds of bald eagles nest. To be fair to all, Eagle nesting season does not officially start until next week, but we held collective but ultimately false hopes that perhaps one or two may not have taken the change to daylight saving into account and turned up early. 

Without an eagle to be seen, and not wishing to appear ungrateful to our hosts, we ‘oohed’ and ‘aahed’ at the scene before us for a bit, watched the seals catching the early run of salmon for a bit longer, wiped the odd tear from our eye (must have been the chill, surely not because we were on our way home?) and increasingly more quietly and with markedly less enthusiasm entered the monster truck for that final ride to the airport.

Slow down (life), you’re going too fast. Tuesday 6th November - Whistler

Picture yourself in the company of friends who are so special that they’ve arranged an apartment in one of the world’s great snow resorts at the very foot of the gondolas, specifically so that they can accompany you to the tiny patches of snow at the top of the mountain in the hope of watching one of you go nuts as she stands for the very first time in falling snow.   Now ask yourself, what can possibly go wrong?

When we arrived at the apartment it was stunning. As advertised.  Everything was right there before our very eyes, or would have been if the cloud would lift just for a bit.  That cloud.  It was the wet rainy kind, the sort that delays the forecast for the first snow of the season until the day after you leave for Australia.     

That wasn’t a problem really, it would have been close to a miracle to see falling snow given our timing, but at least we could ride the gondolas to the peaks to scratch around in what was already there, or we could have if they hadn’t all been closed just for this week for pre-season maintenance.

We could have gone to the Olympic Ski Jump site for the same reason, but it’s only open on Mondays.   We could have had a long hot spa bath in the apartment if the water hadn’t been cut off for the day at five in the morning without warning.

Thanks to having nothing else to see except bears and waterfalls and boring stuff like that, we stumbled upon the Olympic Sliding Venue where braver souls than we were qualifying for the weekend’s big event.  We stood transfixed for hours, possibly due in part to our feet being frozen in place, while Skeletons and Bob Sleighs shot past at speeds that were approaching that of the past week rushing by, providing a spectacle that will remain in our minds long after those first stupid snow flakes would have melted anyway.