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I'm now ensconced in the life of the expat wife in Villeneuve Loubet on the Cote d'Azur. Tennis, hiking, French lessons, shopping, coffee, internet.

The topics from my previous posting are still relevant, here in France. I can still watch the eucalypts waving in the wind outside our balcony windows, looking towards the Mediterranean Sea. Also, I have been sick 3 times since I arrived in September, 2003. I arrived with an ear infection (Dr B thinks I may have hearing loss in the left side) and have subsequently had two colds, one whilw our Aussie friends were living here with their two boys, and one after skiing in Morzine.

Today I have had to do a load of washing in our landlady's washing machine. She lives next door. I managed to wake her son, Benoit (20). Even though I waited until after 12 he wandered out in his underpants rubbing hie eyes! He did help me and brought the clean wet load back up. While I was waiting I had lunch and vacuumed this hard-to-clean off-white tiled floor.

Pat left for a GSS team building exercise in the Cotswalds on Monday afternoon. He will be back late tonight and hopefully tomorrow we can go away for a long weekend to see more of northern Provence or maybe even further away.

So what has happened in the 20 months since I wrote that first entry. Simpler to list some point form:
* got engaged in August, bought opal ring
* fell over a small cliff into Lane Cover River and bruised hip and badly grazed arm. Old mobile ruined!
* job found at Sydney Uni with Centre for the Mind, supervised by Allan Snyder and Terry Bossomaier. Friendly colleagues including Elaine M, Natasja W, Angela Y, Maria and Martin B. My office turns out to be opposite Max's labs so again a neighbour to William L and Duncan B.
* got married at Banjo Paterson's Cottage, Gladesville on 29th March, 2003 (almost our anniversary now)
* month long honeymoon in Bhutan, with a group of friendly Aussies and Americans
* gave notice in June that I was going to France
* we packed up townhouse in North Ryde into a storage space in Hornsby
* Pat left for the south of France
* after a week's skiing in Perisher, handed over my job to a rather volatile man (who lasted 2 weeks before Allan sacked him)
* left Australia for Nice
* hotel in Sophia for a two weeks before finding this townhouse through Norman Dong (he and Sharon had lived here before)
* some outings with Claire Moore to get to know the area. Started driving.
* we got our visas through visits to the Mairie, madical examination and chest x-rays with a French helper, Catherine Bo
* couple of games of squash with David M before they leave for Australia in December
* 10 day trip to UK while Pat is back for a sea-trial in Australia
* watching the world cup rugby
* started hiking and tennis with the IWCR women during Christmas activities
* my cousin Adam survives a terrible car accident as a pedestrian in Gosford and spends many weeks in hospital
* Chug and Ang arrive for a few days from Indiana and have Christmas meals - yum
* Jenny and Bob arrive from Canberra but miss the good weather. They go on through Italy to ski in San Cassiano while we drive up to Morzine to ski with Mum and Dad for a week
* they come back early after Bob's father dies in New Zealand. They make it back for the funeral.
* Mum and Dad come back from skiing in Austria and Italy to see the south of France. Mum's ski acident rebounds in effects of delayed concussion and they are forced to stay almost two weeks longer than they planned. We did quite a bit of sightseeing as a result (instead of more skiing).