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livI've ended up spending almost half of May away from home, which is great for having a wonderful time with people I love in interesting places, but not so great for updating DW.
cjwatson had a work thing in Lyon, so we arranged that ghoti_mhic_uait would converge with us there. So C and I travelled to Lyon by train, which proved an excellent way to spend time together while watching the sun set over pretty French countryside. And I got to spend a whole week playing house with ghoti_mhic_uait and the children.
We ended up in a not great apartment, some commercial holiday letting company pretending to be an AirBnB with a very optimistic description of what the space was actually like. The main downside was it was basically all sleeping space, a long, thin studio apartment with a dividing wall to make one actual bedroom, but the kitchenette and living-dining room containing a sofa bed for the children. So there was no privacy (and the children ended up hiding in the wardrobe or under the bed if they wanted any sort of alone time) and there was no way for some of the household to do anything when others were asleep, and basically nowhere to sit other than on the beds. Anyway, we made do, and played a lot of fannish pretend games and some video games and caught up on the opportunity to talk and cuddle.
We didn't do a lot of tourism because this long road trip is meant to be normal life but in different countries, not a holiday. We enjoyed the big park with a free zoo including some magnificent crocodiles, and educational information about trees. And we had an afternoon at the very good quality Roman museum, complete with the remains of most of an amphitheatre that you can climb all over. Also we watched Detective Pikachu; there was almost nobody else in the cinema for the subtitled English language showing. I should talk more about the film, but in brief, it is very good at what it does except for the major flaw of being massively ableist.
But anyway, it was a lovely lovely week, and I'm much reassured that being apart for months hasn't dented my relationship withghoti_mhic_uait.
Then, unexpectedly, I got called for a job interview I'd long given up on, since they didn't get back to me for more than two months. I won't talk about the job stuff in a public post, but it was the day before the bank holiday weekend sojack came with me and we had a little break in western Ireland fitted around the interview.
We mostly stayed in Galway, which is mostly known for being in the middle of magnificent countryside and not the most exciting place for a city break. But we ate good food, and there just happened to be an early music festival while we were there (thanks a million toartsyhonker for pointing it out). But that got us an excellent choral concert, accompanied by harpsichord and hurdy-gurdy, various musicians and musical instrument makers wandering about in garb, and some historical fighters who were as much into exploring martial technique as re-enactment. And looked at the gorgeous landscapes across the bay when the mist lifted, and the ocean when we couldn't see land. Plus we found a reasonably good local museum and lots of bookshops and a generally nice place to potter around. We also had a few hours in Limerick, which has an amazing riverfront and a castle.
cjwatson had a work thing in Lyon, so we arranged that ghoti_mhic_uait would converge with us there. So C and I travelled to Lyon by train, which proved an excellent way to spend time together while watching the sun set over pretty French countryside. And I got to spend a whole week playing house with ghoti_mhic_uait and the children. We ended up in a not great apartment, some commercial holiday letting company pretending to be an AirBnB with a very optimistic description of what the space was actually like. The main downside was it was basically all sleeping space, a long, thin studio apartment with a dividing wall to make one actual bedroom, but the kitchenette and living-dining room containing a sofa bed for the children. So there was no privacy (and the children ended up hiding in the wardrobe or under the bed if they wanted any sort of alone time) and there was no way for some of the household to do anything when others were asleep, and basically nowhere to sit other than on the beds. Anyway, we made do, and played a lot of fannish pretend games and some video games and caught up on the opportunity to talk and cuddle.
We didn't do a lot of tourism because this long road trip is meant to be normal life but in different countries, not a holiday. We enjoyed the big park with a free zoo including some magnificent crocodiles, and educational information about trees. And we had an afternoon at the very good quality Roman museum, complete with the remains of most of an amphitheatre that you can climb all over. Also we watched Detective Pikachu; there was almost nobody else in the cinema for the subtitled English language showing. I should talk more about the film, but in brief, it is very good at what it does except for the major flaw of being massively ableist.
But anyway, it was a lovely lovely week, and I'm much reassured that being apart for months hasn't dented my relationship with
ghoti_mhic_uait.Then, unexpectedly, I got called for a job interview I'd long given up on, since they didn't get back to me for more than two months. I won't talk about the job stuff in a public post, but it was the day before the bank holiday weekend so
jack came with me and we had a little break in western Ireland fitted around the interview.We mostly stayed in Galway, which is mostly known for being in the middle of magnificent countryside and not the most exciting place for a city break. But we ate good food, and there just happened to be an early music festival while we were there (thanks a million to
artsyhonker for pointing it out). But that got us an excellent choral concert, accompanied by harpsichord and hurdy-gurdy, various musicians and musical instrument makers wandering about in garb, and some historical fighters who were as much into exploring martial technique as re-enactment. And looked at the gorgeous landscapes across the bay when the mist lifted, and the ocean when we couldn't see land. Plus we found a reasonably good local museum and lots of bookshops and a generally nice place to potter around. We also had a few hours in Limerick, which has an amazing riverfront and a castle.