It's been a busy month

What have I been up to?

Well, I've been brave and had a haircut. (Those of you who know me will maybe begin to appreciate how traumatic I find haircuts. Adding in the complexity of a foreign language actually makes it easier, because it's expected that I won't know the relevant vocab. Not knowing the vocab in your native language does tend to make you look like a bit of an idiot...)

I've started remaking my jewellery website, and been learning more about responsive web design, as part of my new web design venture. (Did I ever tell you about that? It's here.)

I've continued dealing with the unemployment centre - a post on how the whole unemployment system works here is bubbling away in my brain, since it's (I gather) quite different to the UK one, and I couldn't find any information on the process when I started dealing with them.

I've made a thing: a green variscite and copper pendant

I've seen lots of sunrises.

I've been to the Monaco Yacht Show, and watched the Red Arrows flying over the port. (As an aside, unless you own a yacht I think you would not believe the peripheral industries that spring up around yachts. I was certainly surprised - I guess defining a niche market is good, but I'm not sure I'd ever have imaged that the number of customers looking for a handmade mattress to go in their yacht is big enough to support a whole business. How wrong I would have been... I also liked the handmade furniture - the inlays on the dining room tables, with sterling silver finishes, were particularly stunning.)

Prior to the yacht show, Monaco also hosts a series of events with classic boats, like this one:

I watched a couple of those sailing around, and realised I love them. Maybe I was a sailor in a past life, or something. I certainly couldn't be one in this life, climbing rigging is probably not for me!

I watched the moon over the sea for a while one night. The photos didn't come out well, but this is a nice picture of the moon.

I've watched several firework shows. Last night's was nice - over at Fontvieille, rather than the big port, but still lovely. (You can see quite a lot of the skyline from our flat.)

Read more...

More fireworks! (Also: the moon, and the promise of a long-delayed book review)

Yesterday saw another fabulous (and totally unexpected) display of fireworks over the port in Monaco. These fireworks were full of brightly-coloured explosions, and those shimmery golden rain type fireworks, which I adore!

I'm afraid I don't have any photos - not only does my camera not take great firework photos, but it has no battery at the moment. But you can rest assured that they were lovely. I'm glad I live somewhere that has so many random fireworks displays outside my living room window!

Also, the moon. It's been a gorgeous red colour when rising for the last few nights - has it been like that everywhere, or is it something weird about the sea that makes it red? (I'm a big fan - it's stunning, seeing a dark red moon over the sea. Does anyone know anything about moons, and whether this will happen again/for a while?)

And, lastly, I have a huge apology to make. Weeks and weeks ago (months, now, I fear), just before we decided it was time for me to move down here permanently, Chris Alden got in touch with me to ask whether I'd review his book, 101 reasons to live abroad. Of course I said yes (note to any other authors reading this: I love reading, and I love free books, so if you'd like me to review your book, do get in touch!) and then promptly fell off a cliff with insane amounts of day-job work, on top of planning the move down south.

So I've not yet managed to write this review, though I did read the book and enjoyed it - I'm going to re-read it this week/next week, and will review it in proper depth after that. In the meantime, if you'd like to check out Chris' book and let me know what you think in the comments, you can find it on Amazon and you can find Chris' other books here.

Read more...

The moon

The moon is an odd colour tonight.

Read more...

Moon in the Morning

I've got a blog post about Grasse to write - we went there on Saturday - and some pics of jewellery I've been working on (ETA: these have appeared in the post below this one; blogger has a funny sense of order...), but those take effort. And I'm ill. So I'll write them later...

This morning though, the sun is rising and the moon hasn't set yet; the view from our living room window is lovely:

Read more...