Life in the fast lane with Giselle

Santa gave us a present this year which may very well have been the best present ever. Her name is Giselle. She saw us through from East Harling to London & back via Heathrow and then on to Dover, Dunkerque, the Loire valley, Paris & then home again, with only a few miscalculations in between. You may have gathered by now that Giselle is a Sat Nav or GPS. I always poo-pooed them thinking what was wrong with eyes, map & a sense of adventure. How wrong can you be. when you've taken a wrong turn in Paris and have no idea whether you're even on the right side of the road, her calm "Recalculating" is a balm to the soul.
It's been freezing here and even colder in France where we've done a whirlwind tour to show Roxi and Matt where Matt's ancestors would have lived (Matt is French Canadian).
This is the house we stayed at with our hostess with the absolute mostest Liz. Thank God for Liz who not only greeted us with a warm house (no small feat, as it had taken her days to heat it), a three course meal but had put 2 hot water bottles in each bed.
This is a photo of it in August when we were there last.
We did a bit of chateau spotting too... this one is at Angers. So incredibly beautiful under snow and we had it all to ourselves, (well besides the man with one glass eye who smelled of Gauloises who gave a sensational tour of the tapestries of the apocalypse the largest medieval tapestry known to exist).
Strange to see koalas there at this time of year.
We also went to Chenonceau.
I've never seen so many fur coats in all my life.
A small aside just in case you're feeling left out and yearning for some French style in your life, let me console you with some French bad taste...yes it's universal especially at this time of year. This was a floral arrangement at the Chenonceau Chateau and yes they are tartan teddy bears.
We saw these deflated & sad Santas everywhere, hanging by their necks.
Here a photo of us all on our walk around the environs of La Fosse giving our rendition of Volare.
And my solo...
The moat around this tiny Chateau just down the road from us was completey covered in ice.
Here's a cute photo for you of the bats in Liz's cave. as Roxi said 'What ARE they hanging on with?'
After the aforementioned scary ride through Paris, past the Louvre, the Opera and the golden Joan of Arc, we dropped our charges off in gay Paris just down from the Moulin Rouge.
Have fun our treasured sweethearts & lets hope Bangkok is a little warmer.
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