Norway and October

Look at these two sexy man-hunks. Hugs were pre Australia v England Rugby match hugs. They're no longer speaking to each other unless it's about the Ashes, when Drew does the talking.

On a second visit to the lovely Nigel and Sue, Peg's only request was that we pay a visit to "Pemberley", actually known as Lyme Park, which was Mr Darcy's house in Pride & Prejudice. Smouldering!!!

Remember the wet t-shirt scene in episode 4? Peg tried to encourage Drew to re-enact this scene, but this is as close as he came.

Onto Norway...

Everything in Norway is from Ikea. Engineers need only carry an allen key. These seats in the airport were entirely too comfy.

Not Pemberley, but the Royal Palace in Oslo. We looked out to see if Mary was visiting Mette-Marit, but she wasn't.

We thought we'd indulge in some authentic Norwegian prawns. We bought a litre (yes, a litre!) from a guy whose shopfront was his boat. Can't get much fresher than that!

So many bars to choose from... We chose this one for the lambswool and blankets on the seats. It was also where we paid AU$30 for 2 shcooners. Ouch!

A park called "Vigenland", containing many statues. Amazing likeness to human forms, including this one, the most famous of them all, "Angry Boy".

The fountain in Vigeland Park

The "Monolith of life", which is amazingly carved out of a single block of stone and starts with adults at the bottom, rising to infants at the top. Apparently there are 121 figures carved into it.

The ski jump at Holmenkollen. This thing dominates Oslo from its perch. We had no idea how steep the landing is; about 30 degrees. We did a ski simulator and that mentally hurt Peg's knee. It just made Drew feel a bit sick. Thankfully there was no snow, otherwise we would have well been ski-jumping.

The ever lovely Christine, our Norwegian host, treating us to our first Norwegian delicacy, Apple Cake. Christine was an exchange student who stayed with Peg's family 17 years ago.

Grape juice is Drew's namesake in Norway. He wishes it was more like wine though.

The marina at Oslo.

Where we bought our prawns from.

We used a commuter ferry for our own sight-seeing purposes.

Our hosts: Oystein, Christine, Simen and Erik.

A very inquisitive Simen and Erik. And then a much needed lens clean afterwards. The boys couldn't speak any English (except for "G'day Mate") and we couldn't speak any Norwegian. Yet we managed to each sing our own version of "Intsy Wincy Spider" to each other.

Looking out to the bay in Oslo.

It was beautiful being in Oslo as the trees were turning. Cold, but beautiful.

Oystein making "rak fisk". This translates to be "rotten fish" and is made by dunking a whole fish in a bucket of really salty water for a few weeks. Stank to high heaven, but tasted great!!! However, if salted incorrectly, it can kill you. Fortunately, we had 2 doctors in the house, so we were fine.

Peg and Christine on the quilt that Peg's Mum made for Christine and sent over.

Camping en France!

Peg's Doc said we could start doing stuff again from 6 weeks after the surgery, so we decided to head South to France. Rather than trying to find our Endless Summer, we would have been happy with just "Summer".

First stop - CHAMPAGNE, of course! Chalons en Champagne was our destination, not far from Epernay.

Next stop - more CHAMPAGNE! The Moet & Chandon variety.

We decided we'd better do the tour of the 28kms of undergound cellars before quenching our thirst.

We were rewarded at the end with an icy cold and tightly packed glass of the good stuff.

Here's some more good stuff!

We knew we were in the right area when they have roundabouts like this. These guys are all about their wine.

Where it all begins...

The last step in the process. We think the best step. We took 2 of these steps to be sure. It was a good step. We haven't looked back.

On Ile de Re, off the coast of La Rochelle, western France. Our first taste of the beach all "summer".

We spent a lot of time on the beach.

Lapin a la BBQ!!! Aka, bunny. It was great!

Mont St Michel in northern France. Vaguely similar to St Michael's Mount across the creek in southern England. We don't know which one was there first.

Our final stop, not too far from Dunkerque near Amiens next to a lovely little lake.

It just so happened that it was somebody's birthday!!!! Necessity being the mother of invention, a match was called into play to be our candle for the occasion.

An English "Summer"

These are just some pics of us doing our thing over what the Pommes call "Summer".

When taking a short cut through a church yard in our home suburb of Brentwood one Saturday, we stumbled across the cutest thing: Teddy Bear Parachuting! This is wear kids bring in their favourite (or not so favourite) teddy, the clergy attach a pre-prepared chute, and then Ted is thrown off the highest steeple into the wild blue yonder with only a chute to save him (just like in Point Break). Apparently, no teddies were harmed.

This is a "Strawberry Fair". Apparently. Which caused much excitement in our household in its lead up. Unfortunately, this excitement was a bit optimistic. Out of around 50 stalls, the one you see in the photo is the only one that had even a semblance of a strawberry associated with it, leading us to believe it was just a "Fair". Even though there was just this one strawberry stall, the stall did a roaring trade with Peg.

...as did the Pimms stall next door with Drew.

More optimism abounds as we proceeded to purchase a tent, commonly associated with dry weather. Many rainy weekends after date of purchase, we decided to risk it and take it for a test run in The New Forest. Luckily, the rain held off mostly and we had 2 beautiful overcast days. This is a very house-proud Drew standing in front of his newly built tent. Fortunately for us, who were a bit green on the whole tent-setting-up-process, there was an identical tent to the back right of us which we used as a template.Peg, taking up her position of choice.

Hoping to get a bigger slice of the Tour de France action in London, Drew volunteered to be a steward. He got this by lying on his application and saying that he'd done heaps of stewarding before (thinking it was food & bev), then got there on the day and didn't really know what to do. So he just stood there looking stunning in his sexy vest and watched the bikes all day.

During the Caravan (bunch of promotional cars driving the route before the riders), one of them saw Peg as the ultimate target and she copped a soaking. This would have been just fine in a normal summer, however, we were in London and she already had a runny nose.

Drew fulfilling his stewarding duties. Wasn't in the handbook, but we were fairly confident that eating ice cream was part of the job description. So Drew did some overtime.

Patriotic Peg and Sexy Steward Drew.

One barrel-of-laughs "summer" activity is having knee surgery - yay! Lucky Peg got to enjoy this task in July following her barrel-of-laughs winter activity, tearing her anterior cruciate ligament skiing in Andorra in February. This is Peg showing off her pre-surgery scar-free knee in the final hours before The Cutting.

Just in case he got confused during The Cutting, the surgeon came in and drew all over Peg's leg so he did the right, sorry, left one.

Omigod - there is a wine list! What kind of hospital has a wine list? Unfortunately, Peg's tipple of choice was morphine, so it was just Drew drinking alone tonight.

Post-surgery. 'nuf said.

A little bit happier on the couch, where she sat for 2 whole weeks. Somehow Peg convinced Drew to make her jelly as post-surgery recovery food. When she had her wisdom teeth out, she had jelly, so this was variation on a theme.

We thought we'd give this camping/raining thing some more practice. In all seriousness, we were camping for The Only Two Days Of "Summer". Seriously. Peg went and deliberately got sunburnt to remind us during the next week that it really happened.

Having a pint for Frances at her pub, The Old Neptune in Whitstable.

We stumbled across some Pick-Your-Own strawberry fields one day. Of course we had to stop and have a go.

After eating her own weight in strawberries, Peg managed to fill more than half a punnett which we then paid for and left.

It was hard to get a photo of a strawberry before it got snatched and ingested.

The remainder of our haul for the day.