Nix123

Wednesday 21 July Our five nights at Club Med Phuket have passed in a blur. As we arrived late on Saturday evening, and left at 11.30 this morning (Thursday), we in fact only had four days to enjoy our first Club Med experience. It was indeed a great way to end off our holiday, with a little kid-free time. All three boys spent some of the time in their age-appropriate clubs, which gave Russel and I a chance to lie at the pool, have a swim or two at the beach across the road and take part in a couple of the organised activities. We also each had an hour-long beach massage. And we ate. After four weeks of planning our eating around the children’s wants and needs, and subsequently not over-eating ourselves, we now found ... read more

Sunday 11 July We have arrived at our final destination, Club Med in Phuket, for five days of much needed rest and relaxation. But before I go into that, I need to finish off our Paris stay. On our final morning in Paris, we had just two hours between packing and leaving to catch the train to London, so we decided to do something very local and visit Hotel des Invalides, which was a fifteen minute walk from the apartment. This magnificent building, which was the first sight that greeted us when we stepped out of the metro station on our arrival in Paris, was built in 1670 by Louis XIV to house and care for veterans of his wars. Today it houses the musee de l’Armee (Army museum). The Dome, which is gilded with 12kg ... read more

Wednesday 7 July Two busy days in Paris have flown by! It’s now 9.30 pm and it is still light outside. So much for the after-dark activities we had planned - seeing the Eiffel Tower lit up by its 336 floodlights, Sacre Cour at sunset, the fountains lit up at the Jardines du Trocadero... Instead we have spent a lot of time waiting in lines and in getting from place to place... Yesterday morning we got going a little later than we had hoped, and instead of arriving at the Eiffel Tower before its 9 am opening, we got there at about 9.10 am. There were of course already queues at the ticket offices! We joined the line at the North pylon and for thirty minutes we slowly wended our way to the booth. There was ... read more

Wednesday 30 June Yesterday morning we awoke to the first rain of our trip thus far. However it didn’t last for too long and by the time Stacey and Rhys arrived at Earl’s Court to meet us, the skies were almost clear and our plans for a visit to the Adventure Playground at Holland Park were not disrupted. After the hugs and kisses and introductions to and amongst the boys, we walked up Earl’s Court Road to the park. We worked out that we had last seen Stacey ten years ago when she was in Australia for the year she spent studying in Melbourne. That was in 2000, the year we arrived in Sydney and Greg was born, so no wonder my recollections of seeing Stacey that year are a bit vague. As we walked we ... read more

Wednesday 23 June Another summer’s day in Tel Aviv, and finally some bearable weather - only 29 degrees, a full 10 degrees cooler than the weekend, and not nearly as windy as yesterday. Still pretty hot out in the sun, but that oppressive, debilitating desert heat had lifted. We were booked in at the Palmach Museum presentation in two separate sessions, as Dean was too young to attend. Greg and I went to the 9.30 am session, which I found very interesting and informative. The material is presented in a very unusual manner compared with your normal museum. There are no information panels or exhibits behind glass. Instead, visitors move through a series of rooms which form the backdrop of various scenes in the history of the Palmach, or “Striking Force”. The story is presented on ... read more