Merciful - for the moment at least

I have decided to spare you the bulk of our holiday photos, which are of course mostly much the same as anyone else's except for the people in them. But ...

VallyP and Koos chillin' in Paris. I really like this pic - just the loveliest people ever. Doesn't Vally look serene?

At dusk on the way back to Gare du Nord. We look happy because we were.

As for the rest, well I haven't even sorted through them yet, but I hope there are some to remind me of the following random highlights:

1. Travelling overnight from Venice to Vienna by Trenitalia in a 6-berth couchette with family and luggage. I defy anyone to do this and resist thinking of the famous stateroom scene in the Marx Brothers' "A Night at the Opera". Just as well we liked each other.

2. James getting his hands on a piano in Vienna, and after playing "straight" for a while to a rapturous audience of a bunch of Austrian schoolgirls and one scholarly-looking elderly gentleman who kept creeping closer to watch him, producing a "smooth lounge version" (wink included) of Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water". I have a video grab Sophie took, but it has been classified private. Your loss I'm afraid. We laughed so much we were in pain.

3. Many, many wonderful meals with wines both great and gruesome, clip-clopping though the cobbled streets of Paris with a broken boot heel, Colin and James' continued quest for the ultimate European ale, (it was at "1516" in Vienna, where they brew their own), and New Year's Eve in Rome asking pre-pubescent pyromaniacs for matches to light our fireworks in the square.

And of course a thousand other marvellous things, proving that travel does indeed broaden the mind and delight the senses. However, the most valuable thing I have leaned is this: the absolute and essential rule of winter travel is that you need to give any woman of late-middle to advanced age in a fur coat a wide berth. They are universally appallingly rude and will elbow anyone out of the way as though their lives depended on it. Forget this at your peril.

We're back!

Emma reclaiming Australia in Vienna. Tasmania seemed to have shrunk a bit while we weren't looking.

Well, after four weeks of bliss in Europe, including a magical day in Paris with delicious duo Vallypee and Koos, we are back in the middle of a fabulous Melbourne Summer. How strange to wear a t-shirt again after all those layers of thermals and jumpers! I now look like a pale little alien amongst all the beach-bred locals.

Will blog properly on Thursday (madness rules today and I'm working a long day tomorrow)and include some more news about The Visit. I'm still pinching myself to belive that it actually happened. What a wonderful, mad, warm and brilliant thing it was of Vally and Koos to make the trip across to see us. It was SO much fun.

A toast to good friends in Paris. Vally, Koos, me behind Sophie, then James, Mads and Emma. (Colin took the photo).

Thank you everyone who left messages while I was away - I'll be visiting you on Thursday too. Alas, virtual visits only this time.

PS: Gypsy - Mini skirt??? What sort of sad old trollop do you think I am? (That was a rhetorical question). No, it must have been the angle of the camera. Demure is my middle name. Just ask Vally.