Maddie and Mama

Nothing spectacularly exciting has been going on here the last few weeks. While Matt is basking in the warmth of Africa.. Maddie and I have just been going through the normal routine.. but enjoying spending time with each other. Last week was a normal school/work week.. and today is the first day of a week of school and work holidays! I decided some 'sleep ins' were in order, but due to the daylight savings changeover, Maddie has been waking up before 6am! AWFUL! Not even the kids cartoons have started by then!!!!

So apart from some early mornings... we don't have any particular plans.. but will just do a few day trips here and there and have some fun. Maddie has decided that she needs to keep me company in my bed... which is quite a lovely thought... until her little claws dig into my side in the middle of the night!

Sleeping Beauty

The weather has been getting particularly cold this week.. and we have forecasts for the night times down to minus two! Freezing!!! Despite not being supposed to wear the winter uniform until November (stupid rule given how changeable London weather is!), I started putting Maddie into her winter uniform for school last week.

A very 'school photo' pose

Doing Dede a drawing for her birthday...

Friday after school Ruby came to play again... as is now the usual routine! We went to the park when the sun came out and met up with Ruby's Australian Nanny, her brother and his friends and they all had a fantastic time playing in the autumn leaves. The city and the parks are just beautiful at the moment... a sea of red, gold, yellow and orange...

On Saturday, although cold, it was a quite nice day. We walked down to the River (Thames) and went for a big long walk... with the idea of feeding the ducks and swans along the way, however mostly ended up feeding the mangy pigeons and seagulls! Later we met Laura, Sam and Kylie for lunch at a nearby cafe.

"Its attacking me!!!"

Sunday we had a fairly quiet day after going to the meeting. I've attached some photos below of Maddie as she thought she looked pretty gorgeous, and insisted that I took some photos of her!

Off to the meeting

The Sunday before - Maddie does 'Sunday School' with Jared

Well that's about it from me today... Just a few funny things that I can remember Maddie saying lately...

Bye!

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Before Matt left for Africa:

Maddie : "Dadda.. your head looks like the Moon! "

Us: laughing...

Maddie: (moving her fingers on his head) "Look! there's people on the moon!"

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Today we were talking about how her blue jumper is really warm:

Me: "yes, that's because its polar fleece."

Maddie: "What is polar fleece made of?"

Me: "Its polar fleece.. that's what the fabric is called...."

Maddie: "But Mama I know that... but WHATS it made of?"

Me: "um... I really don't know"

Maddie: "You MUST know, grownups know everything!!"

Sweet Paris

Well I officially think that this is my favourite city!   Yesterday Michelle and I spent a fabulous day roaming the streets, perusing the shops, consuming the cuisine... it was great!!

The day started VERY early, with a 5.15am get up time, and a 7.30am departure from Kings Cross Station on the Eurostar. 

The two and a bit hour trip in went quickly, and we were amazingly chatty and awake considering how early we were up.  I guess we were excited!  :)

As the train pulled into Gare du Nord, we realised we were both on the same wavelength.. and both agreed that the first thing we had to do was to find the especially yummy crepe place and grab ourselves an authentic french crepe!  Can't go exploring on an empty stomach!  But you can with a full bladder apparently, but that's another story!  :) (not many public toilets in Paris it would seem!)

Moving right along! ...... so... we explored around a few shops in Saint Germain, and then hopped on the 'Metro' (underground trains) to find our Michelin star restaurant, where we would be dining for Lunch.  'Senderens' was great, the decor was a little odd, kind of funky/seventies/retro, mixed in with classy impeccably dressed waiters, fancy curtains, and intricate wooden lights.. but all these things were forgotten when we started our meal.. which was superb.  The price tags on each course were right up there, but we expected that, and the food was amazing.  Anyone ever heard of Crawfish?  We both got the giggles when we read the english translation of the french menu, and assumed that they had meant crayfish.. but apparently not, how ignorant are we!!?    Whatever the heck it was, crawfish, crayfish.. we both ordered it and it tasted divine! 

Mmmm Lamb!    Michelle... Is that beetroot I spy? :P

I regret to say that for mains Michelle had a bit of ordering envy, because I got the tender lamb, and she got a few measly portions of duck with a whole heap of beetroot.  Have a look at the photo above.. which meal looks best?  :)

Oh yes, it was great.. and for 45 euros it better be!!!!!

 

Our friendly french waiter took a photo for us:

 

Anyway, enough of food talk.. next stop shopping!  No photos to show here, as we were way too preoccupied... but needless to say it was fun, and busy!... Every Parisian and his dog were in the Galaries Lafayette apparently, due to a fifty year anniversary sale, but despite the crowds we both managed to find ourselves new short winter coats. 

We escaped from the crowds and had a nicer time wandering through the streets and found a few different shoe shops, where again, we both managed to score ourselves a pair of winter boots. Woo hoo!

 

Roaming the streets... do you like my artistic shot of myself.. It just says so much about Paris I think, that Zebra crossing, brilliant... (please note the sarcasm!)

I hate to say it, but it was eating time again (it was actually 6.30pm by now I should add), and we had a lovely light dinner and cakes at the beautiful Laderee cafe/cake/pastry shop. 

It was time to head home, so we caught the train back to the main station, where we were hurried onto an earlier train, as ours had apparently been cancelled.  I was SO so tired, but somehow managed to stay awake the whole way back. Shelle and I managed to find random and silly things to do in a desperate attempt to make the time pass quickly :)   It worked, and we made it back safe and sound.  What a lovely day!  What a treat to be able to go and do something like that on the weekend! 

Piglets eating pancakes!

Most unfortunately for my figure, my friends in London share the same love of eating and food in general as I do!  And so... it was decided that it was imperative that we have a night purely dedicated to pancakes (or technically crepes I think), both sweet and savoury!  What fun!  Maddie also obviously thought it was a fantastic idea, as you can see from the pic's attached below.

Hmmm.. she isn't actually looking so impressed with the situation here!  It must be the mushrooms! 

Laura cooking up a storm!

   Maddie practicing her 'posing' smile.. I think it needs some work!  :)

Nutella and Banana!  Perfect!

Riding in Richmond Park

Slack slack slack.  Sorry, its been a while, and I haven't been all that inspired to post any blogs cause my photos are as usual really really terrible.. but anyway .. here goes. 

A few Saturdays ago, the weather was beautiful so we decided to make the most of it and headed to Richmond Park. 

At the bus stop

There is a huge shed where you can hire bikes, but obviously Maddie can't ride by herself yet, so we usually get her to sit in a child seat on the back of Matt's bike.  (Tried doing it once on the back of MY bike, and very quickly decided never to do that again... after I crashed with her on the back after riding for less than a minute!!!)  But this time we decided to try out a new type of kids bike called a tag-along, where she is sitting on her own half-bike, attached to the back of Matt's bike.  I was really nervous that Maddie would suddenly forget to hold on, or that Matt would crash and send Maddie flying.. but as soon as she got on there she couldn't stop smiling, and kept telling me 'Mama I love it!', and 'Watch me peddle, see me peddling!?'

The tag-along

A picnic in the sun