Driving holiday

I have never been a good traveller, until I discovered my "Magic Travel Bands"!! These are wrist bands that have a knobbly bit that sticks into your wrist at special pressure points. I tried them for the first time last October. I was skeptical enough to purchase some tablets at the same time. I didn't need them at all, and I only really appreciated their benefit when I lost them just before the journey back and I was feeling ill despite/because of the travel sickness tablets!

So, J persuaded me that we should drive down to the south of France: 2 hours to Calais, 8 hours to Limogues (overnight stop) and 6 hours to the Vic Bilh region. Our destination was a little village almost directly between Tarbes and Pau. This time I took 3 pairs with me in case I lost or forgot any of them! I did my share of driving, and not once did I feel ill!

The journey down was interesting because we avoided the autoroutes, and still beat the time Tom Tom said we would take along autoroutes! We drove through lots of interesting little villages and saw parts of France you would not normally see if you flew directly to your destination.

Would I do it again? Probably, but I wouldn't rush to be first in the queue. I am normally a very active person and I found two days sitting in a car a very hard thing to do!

The holiday itself was superbly relaxing and pleasant, despite the weather which was unseasonably wet. I made several friends/acquaintances at some of the local bars, and we met up with some ex-pats (friends of friends who are now friends) and had meals with them!

I cooked more this time - the novelty of eating out every night soon wares off! But, as always, we sampled some typically fantastic french cuisine at the local restaurants and some further afield!

I got to speak lots of French to lots of French people and I really, really want to bottle down on learning it properly again!

I'm pretty relaxed from the holiday, and easing slowly into work... Ahhhhh

Planning my 30th

I am stuck as to what to do for my 30th birthday. I don't want anything BIG like others have done for important dates, like hiring out a hall and people getting drunk (including me). But what else can you do that involves everyone?

So I think I'll do several smaller things with each group of people: My family, work mates, other friends, J, J's family, etc.

Starting off small, I've decided to plan a meal at a restaurant with J and some close friends. I want it to be something special. My friend Linda pointed me to a restaurant called Petrus with Marcus Wareing as Chef. They do a vegetarian taster menu, which I appreciate! So, I thought I'd list all the TV chefs I could find and narrow restaurants down from there. Guess what?! I listed 95 names! :-

Tom Aikens, Rachel Allen, Richard Allen, Ed Baines, Sat Baines, Mary Berry, Katie Bishop, Galton Blackiston, Raymond Blanc, Paul Bloxham, Heston Blumenthal, Martin Blunos, Frank Bordoni, Mark Broadbent, John Burton Race, Ross Burden, Michael Caines, Jean Christophe Novelli, Richard Corringan, Gion D’Acampo, Garrey Dawson, Clarissa Dickson Wright, Jill Dupleix, Anton Edelmann, Maria Elia, High Fearnley-Whittingstall, Keith Floyd, Richard Fox, Silvana Franco, Stuart Gillies, Peter Gordon, Bill Granger, Rose Gray (& Ruth Rogers), Dan Green, Sophie Grigson, Ainsley Harriott, Angela Hartnett, Mark Hix, Ken Hom, Ching-He Huang, Madhur Jaffrey, Charita Jonas (Momma Cherri), Annabel Karmel, Graham Kerr, Atul Kochhar, Kylie Kwong, Nancy Lam, Jeremy Lee, Rusty Lee, Prue Leith, Tom Lewis, Alastair Little, Giorgio Locatelli, Alex Mackay, Clodagh McKenna, Noel McMeel, Manju Malhi, Eadie Manson, James Martin, Paul Merrett, Michael Morre, Nick Nairn, Andrew Nutter, Ben O’Donoghue, Jamie Oliver, Merrilees Parker, Jennifer Patterson, Richard Phillips, Jo Pratt, Gordon Ramsay, Paul Rankin, Gary rhodes, Simon Rimmer, Mike Robinson, Ruth Rogers (& Rose Gray), Ollie Rowe, Silvena Rowe, Nigel Slater, Delia Smith, Rick Stein, Jun Tanaka, James Tanner, Matthew Tebbut, Tony Tobin, Cyrus Todiwala, Mitch Tonks, John Torode, Brian Turner, Phil Vickery, Marcus Wareing, Lesley Waters, Bryn Williams, Kevin Woodford, Anthony Worral Thompson, Aldo Zilli

I didn't realise how many TV chefs there are! I guess I have some time to filter through them! My favourites are Lesley Waters, Paul Rankin and Nick Nairn. But I have some doubt I'd be able to afford or book at one of their restaurants!

Where to go, oh where to go? I'll narrow my choices down and blog about them later!