SlantyNet Welcome Guest | Login or Register

I bike in the dark, in the rain, in the cold, all of that good stuff.
I also have a lot of lights. For the back, I have one on m helmet, one on my bag, and one on my seatpost.
I have 2 for the front.
Admittedly, I am a little paranoid that people might not see me, so I might have gone a little overboard with the lights.
What I don't understand is people who bike in the dark without lights, or anything reflective. Sometimes they have helmets, often none.
It's great that they're biking, but the sheer stupidity astounds me. Do they realize how hard it is to see them? Is there a death wish thing going on? Personally, I think it's very inconsiderate of others who might run them over accidentally.
There. I've ranted.
Oh, and don't get me started on fixie riders who go helmetless. Wear your goddamn helmet.

When we booked our tickets to Nîmes we didn’t really know what was there… it was a rush (airlines usually have short term sales, 24 hours or less is common) and it was for travel about 5 months away. So we decided on Nîmes. It is in the South of France, it was a nice sounding name and it was £30 each return. The only problem was ’cause I didn’t have an EU passport, I had to pay an additional £8 to “check in”… ie see a human! But it was still cheap. About 4 days before we departed, we made a trip to the library to borrow some travel guides and have a look into what to see and do in the area. However, without any real plan, we got on the plane and headed to the South of France.

I had booked a car for 7 of the 9 days we were away, figuring that we could drive around for the first 7 days then settle in Nîmes for the last two. Once we arrived, we made a bee-line for Collioure which is on the coast near the border between France and Spain. This was a very pretty village, favoured by the Fauvists (eg Henri Matisse and André Derain). Not surprisingly it was picture perfect. We started to enjoy the life of the tourist quite quickly finding the local market, beach (yes we swam in the Mediterranean sea!) and Cafe’s (where good coffee is sold and consumes at a leisurely pace).

Next we checked into a B and B in Ille-sur-Tet. A lovely place with mosaic and marble floors, huge back yard and scrumptious breakfast! We made this village our base for heading into the wine growing region of that area of the Languedoc-Roussillon. We travelled between tiny villages and caves (open to the public wine cellars) to find some lovely wines as well as lovely sights (see the still used 2000 year old Roman Aqueduct). My highlight was a visit to the Château de Caladroy. Here we managed to use what French we had to sample their wines and have a look around a very stunning backdrop to a vineyard!

We continued on our travels to Narbonne where we had a great time looking around the old city, including the half finished Cathedral (they ran out of money…) the 19th century covered market, and the Roman cellars. The cellars were particularly interesting, it was a museum where they had excavated the cellars, so you could wander around in them. They were very poorly lit, so it gave you a good feeling of the era! At the end of the cellars, you climb steps and push on a door which releases you into the street. I had no idea WHERE it had released me, but thanks to the towering hulk of the Cathedral, I found my way back to civilisation! The ceiling in the Cathedral is this 3rd highest in France, and high it was!

Next stop Montpellier! Montpellier is an amazing University city, with many old and interesting buildings. The shopping in this city was also excellent… I even found a Tin Tin shop!

To end our trip we headed up towards Nîmes. About 20 miles North is the Pont du Gard - another of those 2000 year old Roman aqueducts (they seem to be everywhere!). This was truely amazing, three stories high with a drop of only 40 cm per km!

We also day-tripped to the abbey of St Roman (a cave abbey carved out in the 5th century) and a vineyard that still made wine the traditional roman way (yes this includes crushing the grapes barefooted!).

Our last two days were spent in Nîmes - a lovely Roman town with an Arena, a couple of Temples and some lovely cafe’s!

Many more photos appear here (including the compulsory ones of us!)

After this trip, Kate has decreed that for such short trips we take the train in future… the train trip would have been about 6 hrs 30 mins, the flight was 8 hrs door to door…  I tend to agree, as opposed to airline travel, there is no limit on the amount of wine you can bring back on the train!!

I’ve managed to iron wrinkles into my pants. Its been a while since I’ve needed to get up and be organized this early. Hopefully I’ll remember which candidate I’m voting for in the federal election and I’ll remember where my office is.

More updates as they come in if I get a chance to blog, I expect to be entire snowed under by email.

Update: 10AM – I can see the bottom of my inbox!  And I’ve got problems to look at already!

We had our yearly ISA contribution (UK equivalent of an RRSP) in this Icelandic Bank! I look forward to the reams of red tape I’m sure we’ll have to cut through to get our money back.

View them here before Kate edits them.

one thing i ally love about the south of france is the wine. we’ve been driving about and have tasted managed to sample many and varied wines. i would have to say the difference between the cheap and the expensive is noticable, but the cheap is still very enjoyable.
on our travels we found a lovely cave (celler selling to the public) that we purchased some lovely wine from. we’ve since found you can buy wine very cheaply from wineries by the litre! as little as 80 euro cents a litre. don’t get me wrong. it’s worth trying the 10 euro bottles, but table wine is cheap!
to complete my rant on wine, we went to an amazing celler that has rebuilt a traditional roman wine press, and twice a year they make wine the traditional way - yes the grapes are also crushed by the feet of toga clad people. we did buy wine from this place, now we just have to find the right roman dishes to accompany it!
as i’m still doing pda updates, photos will have to wait until we return… more to come!

as i’m always full of excuses, i’ll use a couple here… the recent lack of posting has been due to a couple of reasons. firstly, brad and wolf’s vist was ‘busy’. second reason is that we’re on holidays! at the moment we’re in the south of france near nimes. finally we’ve managed to get kate’s pda commected to wifi in the place we’re staying in. so i’m tapping away to post this. there have been several highlights, but one wor h mentioning is today’s trip to a tintin shop where i picked up little figurines of tintin and snowy!! oh the 25,000 year old human made tools i saw ina museum in narbonne were also fascinating… hopefully i’ll figure out howto post photos before we go home. feel free to send me an e-mail, cause, while on the road , i don’t have the ability to compose e-mails, only reply to those i get. more soon!

As its now a few days into October, I think its safe to say that the (first) summer of the kid and one of the longest (recent) times that I’ve not worked is over.  Its been a grand old time and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

Some recent amusements and thoughts, some kid-related, some not.

• The kid likes throwing stuff animals out of his crib.  I think he’s ready to be king of the ring or winner in a battle royale or something.  He gets a kick out of it.
• The Money Meltdown is a one page site (with a ton of links) explaining, well, what the hell is happening right now and why a $850 billion dollar bailout is required.  Wonder why they stopped referring to it as “the subprime crisis” and now speak of “the credit crunch”?  The first few PDFs (an interview transcript) explains how it all started.  There’s a ridiculous amount of information there for, short form and long form.  I’m only part way through myself, the more academic papers are readable but a little tougher given my current attention span.
• Slanty and friends have started another game of online Diplomacy.  Unfortunately, its a little harder to follow along because even the players don’t know where all the pieces are.  We’re playing the Youngstown variant with ten players and a bigger map.  We’ll have to see how it goes.  Looking forward to expanding the group of players.
• The kid is actually pretty brave going up climbing gyms and sliding down slides (and knows to approach with caution).  Too bad that we’re into October now, playground walks will be a little limited.
• Just started reading the blog of No Impact Man.  Followed a link from a local transportation blog, and now I’m fascinated.  His own description of himself: “A guilty liberal finally snaps, swears off plastic, goes organic, becomes a bicycle nut, turns off his power, composts his poop, … generally turns into a tree hugging lunatic who tries to save polar bears and the rest of the planet from environmental catastrophe while dragging his baby daughter and prada-wearing, four seasons loving wife along for the ride”
• Kid loves cherry tomatoes.  Will crawl across the backyard for them.  Vegetables, yay!