Portelet Common

As you may have gathered by now Jersey is a BEAUTIFUL island! We have so many opportunities for gorgeous walks on beaches, commons, cliff paths and the many bays that make up the coastline.

One Sunday we went to Portelet Common for a walk.  It was a beautiful, sunny day, too beautiful to stay indoors. Mike charged up "the dog" and off we went!  Below are some photographs of the coastline.

The small building here is Janvrin's tomb which was named after Captain Janvrin who was buried there after he died of plague aboard his ship.

The small tower here is Noirmont point.  A few months ago we went and watched a meteor shower there, sheltered inside a WW2 German bunker!

Who could this be..........?

Mike and "the dog".

Petrified Forest

A few weeks ago we read on the news that a section of petrified forest has been uncovered at St Ouen's. 650 years ago, a man called John Willis owned a large house - the Manor of La Brecquette, at L'Etacq.  It was surrounded on two sides by a forest of oak trees. One year, waves moved up St. Ouen's beach and began to flood the land.  The sea rose until it covered the manor, and eventually it covered the oak forest as well.

When the tide is very low at St. Ouen's, you can still see black tree stumps - the petrified forest, all that remains of the oak trees that once surrounded the manor.  The stumps can be seen at the northern end of the bay.  This strip that had been uncovered after a high tide and windy weather was more like a mass of petrified wood.  It was spongy to walk on and we could still see the roots underneath the main petrified mass.

As it was raining quite heavily Rebekah took these photographs with her 12 year old phone so they are poor quality for enlarging!  We did not stay longer than 10 minutes as it really was a grey miserable day!  We are glad to have finally been able to capture this piece of history as there have been other times that we have been down to see if the forest has been uncovered after a high, stormy tide.

Macaron Shopping in Paris

Mike whisked Rebekah off to Paris for their first anniversary!  Well, thats not quite true.  We spotted a deal on Blue Island for a weekend break so we jumped at the chance.  Often times it can be expensive to get off our volcanic rock so you have to take advantage of deals when they come along! So, we hopped on a little ATR42 off to Gay Paris to enjoy our anniversary.  After an uneventful flight and train ride into the city we located our hotel, which was situated near the Tour Eiffel, unloaded our bags and made our way back into the city.  We could just about see the top of the Tour Eiffel from our hotel room.  Mike had asked for a top floor room!  The following photographs have been taken on a Nokia phone as neither of us brought our SLRs!

Anyone who knows Rebekah will know that she has a distinct partiality towards macarons, or in Mikes words a seasoned connoisseur! This itinerary of this trip was built around the location and opening times of three macaron establishments.

The first macaron purveyor we visited was Carette.  Rebekah is looking a little apprehensive here as she knows she is about to go up the Tour Eiffel!  These macarons were delicious but they ranked third in the ratings. More on that to come.

For anyone who knows Rebekah they will know that she is TERRIFIED of heights! That really is an understatement! She was somewhat apprehensive before going up the Tour Eiffel, especially having seen that the lifts had windows in.  After we had eaten a lovely meal at a small restaurant on Avenue Kleber, we walked back down towards the Tour Eiffel.  Here she is before the ascent!  There was no getting out of it as we had pre-booked our tickets online. BEST decision as we only had to wait 15 minutes to get through security and into a lift whereas those who went on the day to buy tickets had to wait nearly two hours!

Here is Rebekah at the TOP just about to go outside! She did a lap (albeit clinging in a limpet like fashion to the inside). Mike was VERY proud of her!  The trick is is to go straight to the top, just get in one lift after the other and DO NOT look out!

Here are the happy couple at the top, inside!

After our successful ascent of the Tour Eiffel we went for a ten mile walk up Avenue Kleber to the Arc de Triomphe, down the Champs Elysees ALL the way to The Louvre, at a celebratory macaron, then headed back to our hotel.  Suffice it to say that the next day we took the metro everywhere!

The next morning we had a late breakfast and headed up to the Sacre Coeur.  The metro goes most of the way to the top but not all the way.  We laughed at people waiting to get into the lift as we took the stairs but it was they who would have been laughing if they had seen us walking up 150 steps! We then had a further three sets of steep stairs to ascend before we got to the base of the Sacre Coeur and there was one more set of steps to climb! From thereon it was ALL downhill!



Next stop-Laduree!!! These came in second and were ethereal delictatious delights!

We stopped off to have a quick look at the opera house and Mike just about managed to get the opera house in the frame without too many vans! It was tricky as you can see!

This Tiffany's horse and carriage was riding the streets of Paris, probably to drum up Christmas business!

The final macaron stop was at Pierre Herme's.  These ranked number one in the macaron tasting stakes.  They were AMAZING!!!!! Some of them had foie gras in and, though Rebekah thought this was an unusual ingredient for sweet macarons, it enhanced the flavour of the macaron. We will definitely be going back there on future visits.

On the Saturday evening we went out to the Christmas market on the Champs Elysees for dinner as we wanted to sample a variety of the edible goods for sale!  Mike was thrilled to find a gyro stand and Rebekah had a nutella crepe with chantilly cream.  Thus just about finished her off as it was VERY sweet and she has been dieting!  We bought a cone of churros to finish off our dinner and headed back to the hotel.

On the Sunday, our actual anniversary, we left the hotel around 11am and caught the metro to Notre Dam.  There was a MASSIVE queue to enter and we could not take our bags so we just looked at it and headed off for a walk around the island.

We walked around the west side of the island and it was very picturesque!

These locks are where people lock their love for eternity.  If only we had known about this, we would have brought a lock with us!  Good job this is already taken care of for us.

 We then headed back to the airport after having a lovely anniversary weekend together!

La Fais'sie d'cidre

Jersey's rich heritage of growing apples and making cider is celebrated each October with a weekend festival at Hamptonne country life museum dedicated entirely to cider.

In the 17th century, cider was made by farmers to give to their staff, making up part of their wages and because it was safer to drink than water which was not purified. Each year, Jersey Heritage celebrates this tradition by organising La Fais’sie d’Cidre.

The highlight of the weekend is always the chance to watch cider being made in the traditional way – with a horse crushing the apples, then the juice extracted on the twin-screw press – and then of course to taste it-not for us though!!! :)

The cider apples are crushed by a horse powered stone wheel to enable the juice to be more easily extracted.  The crushed apples are then transferred to a hessian lined box and once this is full the hessian is wrapped to secure the apples and the box surround is moved up to begin another layer.  The juice flowed out at a steady rate until the last layer was completed.  This is what is known as "the cheese".  A wooden frame is secured at the top of the cheese and each side of the cheese is screwed down in turn by two or three people at each side at the same rate.  The juice flowed out like a river and it was all hands on deck to transfer the pressed juice into the barrels to ferment into cider. Here are a few photographs of our day out (taken with Mike's phone)!

Esther's Baptism

In October Rebekah made a trip to Huntingdon for Esther's baptism.  Most of the family were able to attend. Anna's friend made the cake! It was delish! No style over substance there!  It was a wonderful weekend and we are all so proud of Esther Rose for making this important choice in her life. We love you Esther!

Before Rebekah left on the Monday she took some photographs of Cecily. She is a cutie if ever there was one! Such a happy little girl. We love you Cecily!