Happy Halloween!!

Rissole aux epinards, jambon et cheddar

Step 1

Sat brunch, u know where!

We wish u could smell these

Carrot creations-didn't last long!

Enjoying Birdman, St Francisville

Fab pisco sours - even personalised!

Cookie making

Finished articles

A little mouse has been nibbling!

Easter sat 'posto platter-mmhhh yummy

A sunny sunday in Jackson sq

Great music ;-)

Steamers fresh gulf shrimp n crawlers, good stuff!

Flying over downtown

Sunday night in the snug

Crepe making excellence

Our new equipment works extremely well, a very well practiced hand at work, we even ran out of Nutella, delicious ;-)

A sunday morning special

We started making our own cereal! And its totally delicious, heres the receipe if you want to try it
50% rolled oats, ours are untoasted, spose u could turn it granola-ish if u toasted them...
Now add the goodies
Chopped dried figs and dates and cranberries and banana and coconut flakes
Little pieces of walnut, hazelnut, almonds, dont forget the pecan pieces which are particularly fine, u could also add raisins too for the adventurous
Top it off with some pumkin seeds too

Then you have to shake it all about to get it all mixed up thoroughly
Sometimes we also add fresh blueberries to round it off - you'll need a big bowl ;-)

Guildford looking christmassy & the 3 pigeons a yr on!

Afternoon T@Mariage Freres

Making and eating! Christmas cookies-yum yum

saturday lunch at il posto, delicious

Elevator for your shopping trolley

Have you ever seen one of these before-wonderful!

Statue of Liberty

NYC

Chrissy lights up!

S's coverage...

D's coverage...

Yucatan adventure : Wednesday

After another brill breaky - which was so good that some wasps were trying to steal some of it - we headed across to see the anthropology museum, located in a nouvelle epoque building just a couple of blocks walk from the hotel - since we got in too late yesterday. it was well worth the visit, some fabulous examples of all the Mayan time periods with jade pieces as well as pottery and huge carvings, its was great to learn about the Mayan counting system and calendar, the later being rather complicated and I must admit I didn't get it fully! The exhibit was very informative and we saw some very interesting pieces

Then we headed to Uxmal to see our first maya temple. Today we have a much better map so we got to the right highway directly. We had our first (and hopefully last) encounter with the police. After a bit of conversation with the policeman it was quite clear that he just wanted a bribe, even though he was threatening to put us in jail because we didn't have our passport and we could be illegal Immigrant. Even though this place is very nice we would not become illegal immigrants in mexico thank you very much! We gave him a bottle of water and he let us go.

We found Uxmal without any problems and once parked we headed for our first mayan complex. It was located in a luscious jungle- very Lara Croft according to D.

We started by looking at the pyramid of the Magician. It's a beautiful pyramid with an elliptical shape which makes it very elegant. Unfortunately we can't climb it anymore. We then headed to the Nunnery Quadrangle. It is a huge courtyard bounded on each side by long buildings. We observed our first details of the Mayan architecture and how they decorated their buildings. Unfortunately, limestone is a bit like gruyere and the stones didn't resist the time.

On the way to the Governor's palace, we pass by the ball court. This one is actually fairly small. The biggest one is in chichen itza. The ball court is surrounded by two walls on which people stand to watch the game. They had to put a rubber ball through the small hoop located way above the ground. It's like the quiddich game of Harry Potter but without the broomsticks!

The Governor's palace is quite an important structure. It's built on a platform and has a temple at the top where you have an impressive view of the pyramid of the Magician. It is guarded by a double jaguar throne. The person that discovered it didn't take it because it was to heavy to transport but he didn't look below it where there was a cache full of jade and ceramics! On the platform we saw the temple of the turtles. It is quite small with an open courtyard but was nicely decorated with little turtles.

next stop was the Great pyramid that looks like a typical Mayan pyramid. It's about 30m high and it's one pyramid that we can still climb. It took a bit of effort to get to the top but the view from the top was totally worth it. We were almost the only one there and we could really enjoy the view as long as we wanted.

Our final stop at Uxmal was the Dovecote. It derives its name from the patchwork of niches in the roof comb of the high wall. It was very well made and a bit of a shame that we could not get any closer. We went back to the entrance via the Quadrangle of the birds, located just behind the pyramid of the magician to observe the pyramid once more before heading out. The first site was absolutely incredible.

We made it to Merida fairly quickly and decided to go for a quick caffeine fix at Cafe Chocolate which was about a block from our hotel. D had a treat: cappuccino con nutella. It was super good. After such a hard day, walking around, we went for a quick dip in the swimming pool -quite cold at first- but it felt really good.

Diner was on the main plaza with a local band playing the guitar, very good music - besa me besame much lalalalala!

Yucatan adventure : Tuesday

What a breaky, we chose our table to the side of the pool and supped fresh orange juice, and cafe con leche and enjoyed yogurt and granola with a super croissant and toast, fueling ourselves nicely for the Cenotes day!

Navigating our way out of Merida was quite a challenge, especially with the maps we had, something that became a recurring theme for todays adventure. But after seeing the baseball stadium and finding a useful Pemex gas station we were on the right track, a few more villages and topes major, and now anti-topes, some being anti-topes major which might in another life be confused with cenotes, and we turned down the right road.

We boarded our tiny horse drawn carriage with our swimmers on and masks in the rucksack and set off down the railway track at a leisurely clip. After a few minutes, we got to the first cenote. We went down a flight of wooden stairs and found an amazing pool of clear water. It was absolutely magical. You can understand why the mayas thought they were magical places and they were dedicated them to the god of water. The water depths was 3meters for the shallow part and about 10 meters at the 'deep end'! There was a few people in the water but we had a really nice time swimming in the blue water and looking at the small fishes. After 30 min in the water it was time to get back on our little carriage and go to the next cenote.

The access to this cenote was much steeper than the previous one and getting into the water was quite tricky as you had to go down a very slippery ladder type thing with tilted wrungs, some of which were missing. D went first and helped me out. We took our masks this time so we could see the bottom of the cenote which was much smaller than the previous one but still had quite a bit of light coming through some small holes in its roof. There were also some tree roots hanging down through the ceiling of the cenote. Since it was so difficult to get into the cenote S decided it would be fun to jump into. It was a lot of fun but my swim suit decided to go visit a different part of the cenote ;-)

Now time to move on to our third cenote. This one was very different as it was only accessible via a small hole (literally) and we went down through it descending a vertical ladder. Definitely worth it. The cenote was only lite via a few collapses of its roof, so t was actually quite dark until our eyes got used to it. The access to the water was even more difficult than the previous one so D and i jumped in and it was a lot easier. We saw a few bats flying around in the dark above us. After a few minutes of swimming and snorkeling around the clear water we decided it was time for us to head back, really a fabulous experience. Our little horse brought us back safely to the start of the "rail road". Before hitting the road again we stopped for some lunch, a buretta and a poc cho (yucatan speciality like pork tacos), after which we headed back to Merida. This time we found our way a little bit more easily than on the way in!

Back in town, we dropped all our stuff and went for a bit of a tour of the town and bought some xmas decoration - a little angle and a little santa claus. We also found a shop making chocolate from yucatan, so we bought a few bars to sample and a few to take with for the family at xmas.

After all that swimming and walking, it was time for some dinner. We went to a place recommended in all the guide books called alfredo continental. We had some enchiladas and pollo pibil. Very filling and yummy. Time to go to bed for a good nights sleep to be full of energy for Uxmal tomorrow!