9th Month

Hello Friends,
A short post in pictures of my last month of pregnancy.
Just two or three weeks to go. Everything is going well. Doctors say she is a bit small for her time but nothing unexpected as her mommy and memie were both very small babies too. And she doesn't feel too small at all to me! She still is very active and Daddy and I are very excited and ready for her!

Coucou les amis,
Juste quelques photos du neuvieme mois. On approche de la fin. Mon bout de chou est un peu petite pour son age mais on ne s'inquiete pas pcq sa mama et sa memie etaient aussi nees toutes petites. M'enfin, elle ne me semble pas toute petite du tout pour moi, elle est grosse et lourde et remue tout le temps et son daddy et moi, on l'attende de pied ferme!

Today, okay I might not look huge to you all, but I started very tiny and so it looks big to those who remember my small waist...

Bon, j'ai peut etre pas l'air grosse a vos yeux, mais j'ai commence ma grossesse avec une taille de guepe, donc je suis immense aux yeux de ceux qui me connaissent et a mes yeux!

The bedroom is ready. The little buddies are just here for show, nothing but the baby in the cot when she's there. And her little dresser and her story books all lined up nicely in the back.

Son petit lit, cadeau de sa Mamie Ese avec ses petits copains, qui habitent normalement dans un panier et sa collection de livres et de petites histoires, que son daddy et moi lui lisons deja quotidiennement.

I did her first laundry load and loved every bit of it. It was so cute. I wonder for how long I will enjoy doing this.
La premiere lessive! C'etait chou, un vrai bonheur de laver, etendre et plier tout ce petit linge. Mais je me demande pendant combien de temps encore cette tache va m'entousiasmer... :P

The maternity bag is ready to go. A beautiful gift from my grand aunt. Here it is not quite full yet, now it is overloaded, but nothing is missing except my CD of Sigur Ros which I would have like to bring along but seem to have misplaced.
Le sac de maternite, deja rempli a ras bord (pas sur la photo), un beau cadeau de ma grand tante du cote maternelle. Tout est pret a partir pour la maternite.

The cot, dolly, doudou ('doodoo') and dreampod (sleeping bag) are all waiting more patiently than Mommy and Daddy for their little friend.

Le lit, avec le doudou, la poupee et la gigotteuse attendent leur petite copine avec beaucoup plus de patience que daddy et mama.

The Buddies. Les Copains.

Update on the Bump

I already said it and will repeat it, but I must be the luckiest Mama in the world. The little darling is very active and responds to caresses and stories and she knows when her Daddy or Mama is talking to her, other time, she simply lets me feel her every move, whether hiccuping, stretching, kicking or changing sleeping position, although very soon she should be stuck head down. In the meantime, I managed to capture for your enjoyment some of her activities, this was while reading her a story Ernest et Celestine et le Sapin de Noel (The Christmas Tree of Ernest and Celestine)

Pour les copines francaise, je me vante de combien de chance j'ai d'avoir un p'tit bout aussi actif pour ne dire une grande agitee! Et je me fais peut etre des illusions, mais j'ai l'impression qu'elle repond aux caresses et qu'elle sait quand on lui lit une histoire... Cette video, je l'ai capture pendant que je lui lisais Ernest et Celestine et le Sapin de Noel, de Gabrielle Vincent, pour toutes les mamans qui lisent ce post, fort recommende.

Shopping for Baby

Yesterday, Kitem, Mr. Garden and I want out for another big day of shopping for baby. Over the last few weeks my only concern had been the cot and the dresser and last weekend, I've put this behind me finally making my mind up on a gorgeous set from The White Company.

Yesterday, was shopping for the stroller and the car seat, presents from the proud Pepie and Memie. We had spotted the perfect set many months ago, a sports' model with suspensions which will be ideal for long strolls and mountain hiking, compatible with the latest model of safety for the car seat and its secure base which happens to be compatible with my car. So all is perfect and perfectly easy to use, with all sorts of comfort options for baby.
Pepie & Memie by the Thames river in Staines, where the large Mamas & Papas store (my favourite!) is.
After finding the stroller, we browsed the rest of the shop for Newborn-sized pyjamas. Above, a cute little mouse climbing to the stars, and a very cute Elephant - called Peanut from the Once Upon a Time collection.
Here with Memie, aka Kitem, on the way to lunch, after the long two-hour shopping in Mamas & Papas, we were famished. We are blessed with a fantastic weather this week, I love Autumns like this.
Quite important things we were looking for included the dreampods (sleeping bag) for winter, because I find them safer and more convenient than bedsheets, plus it gives baby that snugg feeling while giving it lots of space to kick its little legs (how cute!!!!!). Oh yeah, and with Halloween around the corner, we found this cute little story book Pumpkin Soup.
Other items from the Once Upon A Time set we bought include the Newborn pyjama, the changing mat, the dreampod and of course Memie bought that perfect little Doudou (Doux in French means soft so doudou could translate to 'Softy')

I now have most of the items off my list, my boss promised me some vouchers if I could strike a deal on USB Drives with anyone of my clients by year-end, I am so close but I have not received any order, I'll give myself one more month to close the deal and then I can use the vouchers to buy the outstanding bathing and feeding equipment, in spite of planning to breastfeed, I still want everything for feeding, so that Daddy can feed the little one and bond with his baby right from the start. I have it all sorted really, hours of research on the internet and studying catalogues do that - never been so well prepared for my studies before :P. The bedroom will be delivered middle of next month, so I will post pictures when I receive them and I requested to collect the stroller and changing table end of November, no point having it too early.

Ma Petite Cherie, My Little Darling, The Love of My Life (with Daddy)

It's a girl!

Well we're 99% certain of it, it seems that on one occasion, the midwife told us that what looked like it was a girl turned out to be a healthy baby boy, but there is no wrong choice, either one is wonderful. I just wanted to know whether to talk to my baby as a She or a He, Her or Him. So it is She, my lovely, ma petite cherie...

This is my little darling at 21-weeks! (that was a month ago) She is such a little cheeky monkey so soon. There is another scan picture which shows her playing with her ombilical cord, pulling on it. She's perfect in every way, mind you, call me naive or arrogant, but I was surprised when the nurse said that, of course she is perfect in every way! I would not have expected any less.

This picture was taken on the 22nd of August at just 21-weeks, (the day after the scan) I could still fit in most of my clothes at that point (except for my skirts and trousers, so I had a pair of maternity trousers for work). Just a month later (picture taken by the Daddy on 22nd of September), I had to put away all my shirts, tops, bras, nothing fits anymore. I went on a shopping spree to quickly find something to wear the weekend before.

I wish I had a picture of this week because I swear that I am widening at sight! The little sweetheart had another growth spurt this week, I can tell because I'm bigger but also because I was utterly exhausted in spite of daily naps and solid 9-hour sleep. But the last two weeks I 've had insomnias, I am up every couple of hours or so because the little sweetheart figured that it was a whole playground mama's tummy, jumping and bouncing and twirling or whatever it is that she does. But that's a darn cute thing to wake up to.

I'm delighted, I'm the luckiest mama in the world, I'm sure of it. My main obsession nowadays is the nursery. I had found the perfect set from a shop in France but when I called, it would take months for the set to be available, and I can't see myself renting a van, driving accross to France being 8 months pregnant! Sounds a bit mad. Unfortunately, I can't find a similar perfect set here, so I am obsessing trying to find something that will do just fine... But now Kitem is here and so it will be hardcore shopping around for the white nursery. Although, after studying every page of every catalogue, I have a good idea of what I'm going to get. But I have not spent any money on the baby yet, (unlike Kitem and my grandma!), so I am looking forward to the shopping...

no news...

Little generic update, we had Alex parents over for a month in August, the weather was dreadful, work was dreadful, nightmares were causing sleep deprivation, and my hormones were raging furious. I suppose they say pregnant woman weep all the time, which I was lucky I don't have at all, however, I suffer from anger, I was constantly angry at everything, the economy, my taxes (they increased my taxes), politics, work (especially work!) and anything that could remotely cause harm or injustice to my baby's future. And by the time, everything got back to normal (weather and hormones) our internet was gone for a month (which did not help with the anger). So now, everything is truly back to normal, I haven't been as angry as I used to be over the last two weeks and the doctor says it's normal now that I am entering the third phase of pregnancy... Just give me a couple of days to catch up with you all and give you the real big news about my little darling!

Wedding Season

Summer, not only is the season for music festivals but also for weddings. I am quite blessed this summer because I have had two weddings! Since Julien & Anna and after old friends Joe & Olivia and Thuan Aun & Yanna and Benjamin & Emma, I never seemed to be in the right place at the right time and missed all my other friends' weddings, all of which Alex had to attend on his own. It's a shame really, everyone loves a wedding.

So first there was Dan & Vicky, Dan is a good friend and a wonderful person to work with, he's always happy and he can read my thoughts, I give him a vague indication of what I want or need and he comes up with something absolutely extraordinary which could not be more spot on, plus, I seem to be whinging to him all the time but he always happily humours me and cheers me up - well I must admit that when customers start demanding designs for yesterday, I start to stress out, so everytime I come to Dan, I am stressed but he has the right words to help me relax. Vicky, his lovely wife, also a designer, I've only met her on two occasions to go out drinking, and like two drunks usually do, we got on marvellously.

This wedding was shortly followed by good friend, whom you all know from the 'conference' photos, Beth! The thriller-seeker blond beauty has become Mrs. Warman this Friday when tying the knot with school sweetheart Ben. Well, not really, Ben was the older brother of her best friend since forever, so now the two best friends get to also be sisters in law.

Beth was spot on with everything, this wedding was absolutely perfect, her dress, her hair, the bridesmaid dresses and bestmen' attires, the venue, the music with a live band and a DJ, the cake, even the wedding invitations and thank you cards that she made all on her own and the BBQ dinner!

Alex with Alison and her partner Nick, both awesome fun. Sarah (who caught the bouquet), Emma (who's boyfriend said 'Thank God' when she didn't) me, Tracy (who still isn't married to her partner and father of her child after 20-odd years), Danny (who is planning a wedding for next year) and Sarah (who's already happily married like me).

Music Season

Summer, or the poor pretence at summer that England offers, is the season for Music festivals and great music concerts. Although this post refers to concerts back in June, but let's face it, I'm not exactly good at keeping up my blog. Anyway, back in June, Alex and I did our usual concert rounds and that's one thing that I plan to keep up even when little baby is around - at least music festivals - which are day time. I've already decided that baby enjoys music, but that's because we aren't (at least I'm not) giving him or her a chance not to. In the car (about 1h30 a day in total) I sing along radio and even tell the baby all about what it can hear me sing - all that I know about the song or the singer or the band and whether Mama and Daddy actually like the song or if it is Daddy's favorite band - Radiohead - I make sure to point it out. If nothing else, our kid should be born knowing a thing or two about music or maybe even musically gifted (not from me, I could not find my talent even if it was served on a silver tray!) but Daddy is multi talented and I intend to take advantage of that to the max.

I can't find my pictures of the Radiohead gig, well it's mostly videos, it was a good gig, we went with a couple of friends, who were meeting their own friends there, so it was a bunch of us. In the celebrity spotting, Alex and Grit saw Stella McCartney (not the bitchy ex-wife, the daughter of the ex-Beatles) and Alex also spotted one band that I really like The Magic Numbers, that he rightfully described as "What's that hairy band you like called?", very nice bunch. I'm not one to go and disturb famous people, but they were a lot less intimidating than the lead singer of Stereophonics Alex spotted at the airport to Venice, who I could not bring myself to bother for a photograph. Radiohead was very good and very exciting, I enjoy listening to them more live than in the car for example (except The Bends, that sounds good anywhere).

Anyway, a couple of weeks later we were back at the Hyde Park Festival where my very favorite band in the world (since September last year!) The National was playing, and guess what, I did not get to see them once but twice!!! As we walked through the gates, I told Alex, Oh my God, this is Brainy, we're missing out on the National, they started playing already. In a panick we rushed to the small stage where a gathering of 50 were watching the band play, I was devastated because I'd missed them, I was also very surprised the crowd was so small, I was quite sure they were much more famous than that. They played 3 more songs (including Fake Empire, Yay!!!) and before walking off the stage, the lead singer announced that they were playing again at 7 on one of the side stages - Thank God for that! So I got to see them twice that day, three times since last year. I absolutely luuuuuuuv them.

Then on the main stage for the main show was Morrissey, the one and only, he put up a good show, but except for two songs, he only played his latest albums and nothing of the earlier stuff! He opened with The Last of the Famous International Playboy (with a backdrop of the Rat Pack) and I can't remember the title of the other one "If it's not love, then it's the Bomb, the bomb, the bomb that will bring us together". Other than that, he was entertaining in-between songs a lot livelier than for example Beck (I'll get back to him), but I did not enjoy the new songs as much as the old ones, so it felt a bit disappointing.

We also saw a band I had never heard of before called 'The Lightspeed Champion' who was well funny and played quite catchy tunes, but Alex and I loved it particularly when he played his very last song, introducing it as 'it is so long, you'll be booing me off the stage...' which was a rock version of all the Star Wars music, it was awesome for fans like us, very cool.

Beck also played, I am not a huge fan, as in I haven't got his albums but I had a few singles in the 90's. I can't complain because Beck played all the hits that I knew and liked in the first 15 minutes (after that I was running off to the The National stage), but Beck did not say a word (besides singing of course!), he came on stage and played his songs, no 'Hi Hyde Park, no How you' doing etc', shame really, I always imagined him to be a very cool dude and very friendly, but then again I'm a bad judge of characters, so just because his songs are cool, does not make him cool.

Also performing was Guillemots, I like them, I have all their albums, but Alex brought me once to their gig in London and it was sooooo bad, they are soooo bad live that I had to leave the place within minutes, this time, they were still bad - they just can't play live??? - but at least the guy seemed nice, chatting with the crowd in-between songs and played (badly) all the songs I normally like.

Siouxsie (previously from Siouxsie and the Banshees - a band I used to worship in the 90's) was also performing her new stuff, but after the third song, I could no longer make Alex stand this excrutiating noise, it was dreadful, we came here hoping to hear one or two old hits, but maybe she couldn't maybe The Banshees hold rights for the old songs. Shame really.

We were due to watch REM next weekend, but now, Alex is travelling to New York, so we had to sell off our tickets, anyway, I love REM but I would not go without Alex.

Labastide de Virac

Labastide de Virac is one of those places on earth where you can find peace, quiet (when the crickets shut up that is) and an unkempt beauty. I love it there and always find myself well rested when I come back home, no matter how short the trip was.

The Laurels have bloomed beautifully, I remember when my grandmother planted them, they struggled to have more than 5 flowers at a time for many years.

Breakfast served from 9 to 10.30, after a good night's sleep and woken up by the coffee machine filtering the last drop of coffee in a loud rrrrrhhhhhh but also with that nice smell of fresh coffee which you know waits for you and fresh croissants and baguettes fetched by dad fresh from the bakery.
Coming back from the market in Barjac, a 16th century medieval village, it was the lavender show... somehow, I was too busy, browsing at the quaint stall merchandise to take too many pictures. Here Kitem plucked a few branches of lavender for the house.
Labastide de Virac seen from the St Roman hill, our house is the nearest to us, you can see two roofs standing outside of the village, the one to the right is my grandaunt's and the one to the left is our beautiful home.
Alex had requested a bit of sightseeing, especially to see how the famous Provence compares to the lovely Labastide, although there was nothing to disappoint, we were all proud to notice that villages in Provence are not any better than our local villages near the Ardeche river. Here Alex and I are standing in the lavender fields of the Abbey de Senanque, below.
This was dreamy, located at the bottom of hills, surrounded by nothing but fields of wheat and lavender. In fact it is not wheat but I have no idea what it is in English, one of those cereals. We also visited a village typical of Provence, which claims to be one of the prettiest village of France but I did not think it was worth a picture. Now, this village, just a few minutes away from Labastide was worth a hundred pictures but it takes too long to upload them, we were in love with Alex, here mom and dad were walking along the ramparts on top of the village.
A trip to Labastide would not be complete without a descent to the Ardeche, although strong storms made the water too cold to swim, we still went down to enjoy the walk and this living river. See if you can spot my 6 foot tall dad to appreciate the hugeness of the place (and that's only half of it up and probably only a speck wide).
Finally, dad took us on a tour along the river, it is a long journey and we don't start it at the source! There were many stops along the river to take in all that millions of years old river from which we can see the marks left from the ice age and where there is a few 'grottes' no idea how to translate that - where we found wall drawings made tens of thousand years ago.
Here at the end of our journey, le Pont d'Arc (the Arch Bridge),a natural arch shaped by the water through the milleniums the Ardeche river is flowing.

We - I - but Kitem as well - and daddy too and even pepie (dad) are just looking forward with anticipation to bringing the little fella here next summer. I grew up here, I mean every summer of my childhood was spent there, I can't wait to let my kid take in all the sounds and smells and beauty of this place. It's almost magical.

The City of Romance

Venice was a wonderful surprise that Alex prepared to celebrate our 4th wedding anniversary. Let's be honest, Venice would have been a normal holiday destination instead of an occasion if we had not been expecting our greatest achievement yet. We now realise that we'd better hurry to complete our list of places to see before the little one is here. Remaining in the list is now only Florence and the Tuscany region (Italy) and long destinations such as Egypt, Japan, California and Mexico. Mind you, Pépi and Mémie (Kitem) would be too happy to get the kids while we travel to these destinations, but I also know from my own childhood that I will want to take the kids with us when they're older, still some way to go. And the last couple of years gave us our fair share of travels and adventures.

The Rialto Bridge

I enjoyed Venice, the 33 degrees when coming from a 17 degree London was a bit too warm for comfort but we ate lots of ice cream to keep the baby cool of course! :P

In the Piazza di San Marco with the Palacio Ducale to the right

Much to our disappointment we could not book the tour of mysteries of the palace, we were here for 4 days and we were told we could join the tour next week. nice. that's what I call planning, surely if a tour outsells then you should have more tours available. But we still enjoyed walking about the place.

As you probably already know, Venice is made up of hundreds of islands all joined up with bridges and where the canals are used as streets for private boats and public service (police, fire, refuse collection and laundry collection from hotels!)

I loved how most houses are not accessible from any roads or streets, people park their boats outside their homes, but I suppose these properties must be accessible from neighbouring buildings. On a few occasions, we saw bridges leading exclusively to a front door and on many occasions, we turned in a street only to find it leading to a canal!

It was a wonderful break. It was my second time in Venice, the first was with Kitem and Mr Garden and Julien, and somehow this time, it was completely different, although I kept good memories, it still felt like a new experience.

The Last Wonder of the World

I know... it's been two months I did not update my blog. Been extremely stressed and busy at work and too tired to do anything at all in the evenings, besides following the new Heroes season, watching the Euro 2008 and Wimbledon, could not even find the strength to cook dinner or clean up, but Alex was a great help.

Alex got us away on our wedding anniversary to Venice, stories to follow... The thing is, Tweetey's very last comment on my very last post knew more than I did... Indeed just over a month ago, something did not happen... I waited, not too long but impatiently and anxiously, and it persisted at not happening, until I was forced to check out what's the hold up, and we are having a BABY!!!!

Finally, after all these months of practice, the much awaited little darling is here, growing at the speed of light, comfortably tucked away in his mother's womb. So it was almost two months before I realised I was pregnant, and you'd think it's a curse because just days after finding out, I was stricken like any good mother with morning sickness, nausea and quasi-total exhaustion. But this is now gone...

Since the day I found out a lot happened: work and problems kept on piling up my desk faster than I could cope, which left me so frustrated because that's no way to treat my little baby, I had to change doctors as my doctor was a real charlatan who could not care less about me (or my foot) and felt aggravated with guilt at the thought of all the alcohol I had consumed in my first month (in Iceland and entertaining customers) not knowing I was pregnant.

But this was made up with my grand mother's 80th Birthday back home surrounded with future Pepi and Memie, my cousins and the little cutie Antoine. It was a wonderful family reunion and perfect opportunity to announce my wonderful news to my loved ones. And this was followed shortly with Alex taking me to celebrate our 4th wedding anniversary in gorgeous Venice.

Last weekend, we had the greatest pleasure of seeing our little love during my third-month scan; we were awestruck, we still are. Although thanks to Internet information, I followed closely the evolution of the little one, I still did not expect to see what we saw, in fact I was even surprised when the midwife confirmed that 'yup, that's a baby alright'. We were very moved to see our baby moving his little body and touching his/her face and twisting around, much to our delight. And although we knew it would be complete, we were still impressed with the little feet, toes, face, hands, everything, it is a complete minature human being, and it is mine!

Next time up is end of August and we'll find out the sex of our baby!!! yay!!! will keep you posted.

Iceland

What a trip that was. Where do I start? Firstly it was awesome seeing the South African bunch that I so rarely get to catch up with. Alison looked cute as ever and in spite of missing Dani very much, the new girl, Kate, is equally as lovely. Manny, the SA Manager, also invited his dear friend, now a partner of ours, Lindi to the trip. I had met Lindi two years ago, she's the kind of extra-ordinary fun-loving-ultra smart woman, and I loved her.

(Kate, Me, Alison, Lindi)

We wasted no time in celebrating our reunion at Heathrow airport with a free flow of Gin and Tonics for the girls and beers for the boys, it was 11 am... The trip was non-stop amazing sights and activities so I'll let the pictures speak for themselves... except the last one maybe, which will require a bit of explaining.

We started with the Blue Lagoon

The hot spring was so warm that when I went out in the cold and wind to take the pictures I did not feel the cold at all. These images were followed with a drinking session in the designated area of the Lagoon, specifically Blue Lagoon Cocktails which were lovely. It's a wonder no one drowned.

The evening was followed with something equally unique... A drink in Surely the Coolest Bar in Town (Me, Alison, Nikolaj, Lindi and Peter)

You guessed it! It's an Ice bar. Woo-hoo. Although, with my over-acting imagination, I thought it was going to be like in that James Bond film with Pierce Brosman, a giant igloo with ice scuplture and ice furniture, this was mostly a fridge freezer with ice on the walls but still Minus 20 degrees celsius.
(Here with Alison and Clive)

After a hard day of work, we went to a typical Icelandic dinner. It was a regal, I stuffed my face silly I enjoyed so much, sachimi, rainbow trout, cod fish and lots of delicious things I wasn't sure what they were.

Here with Torsten thanking him for the great organisation (he's the man who planned it all). He promised me at that point that I had seen nothing yet. Followed by after dinner drinks:

A little too much drinking

(Kenneth and Martin)

A little bounding

(Kate and Peter)

A little singing

(Torsten and Ron)

After a hard day's work and a hard night partying; we went on a tour of the island (in fact just a small portion, the island is gigantic and it would take 8 hours to drive to the next town just a eighth of the island away) This is where the Tectonic Plates meet, on the right, the American Plate and on the left, the Continental plate; in the middle Peter, Rudiger and Manny.

We then went to the Gullfoss Waterfalls, absolutely amazing, I loved it, you walk along a long and narrow, snow covered cliff to reach the waterfall and it is breathtaking, there is three levels of falls, this is the third one and most impressive - I kept wondering what the debit of water was ?

but got even more mesmerised when I saw the first level of the fall, because you cannot see where the water is coming from? Then my brain went into a buzz of whether the power of the water could actually defeat gravity!!! (you also notice the geek in me)

So I walked back up above the waterfall and there I saw it, for miles the water is gently coming from the mountain in the distance.

This is a 20 meter geyser, I managed to catch it just as it was emerging. Martin who had been freezing his hands trying to video it ran out of memory on film just before it erupted.

Okay, at first, this looks weird, but it's not, it's my foot. Well, okay, it is a weird looking foot and that's why I am showing it and what looks like shadow under the bump is in fact a bruise. I have no pictures to explain why I am injured, so you need to use your imagination

On the last trip of the day, we were going to visit a glacier, we were in these huge four wheels drive and I thought, like everyone else that we were going to drive there - none of us knew what to expect. but in the middle of the snow covered mountain, were snow mobiles waiting for us. I was scared so I jumped on one behind Nikolaj who is a big strong man, he'll take of me. It was frightening enough because of the speed we were travelling at, my helmet was shaking and I was scared it would fly off and injure Martin who was right behind us. But we made it safely to the Glacier and it was impressive, I did not take any pictures because I was all wrapped up and could not reach my camera, we had a snow ball fight which was good fun and started our journey back. Half way back, we had to climb a steep slanted slope, Nikolaj and I were very good and as told by the instructor leaning as much as possible towards the slope so that the snow mobile would not roll back, but now that you've seen my foot you all guessed it, we did tumble - I never saw it coming, one minute I was leaning to the left and the next I was lying in the snow with the 280kilos snow mobile crushing my right foot while head in the snow I was whailing 'my foot is stuck, my foot is stuck and thinking it's lucky I'm wearing this helmet or I'd be freezing my face right now.' Martin jumped off his snow mobil and Nikolaj got back on his feet and the two of them heaved the machine back up and away from me. That is the story, so since I have been in pain. nothing's broken and my doctor was incapable of giving me something for the pain, so I am treating myself with herbal and natural remedies like foot bath in Dead Sea Salt recommended by my dad and lots of Arnica and Bach flower recommended by my mom. It seems to help, today my foot is less swollen and less painful but rest and foot up it is for me...

Anyhow, this remains the best trip we've had as a group and altough Iceland was never one of my top 20 destinations I would now strongly recommend it and it's only a matter of time till I go back there with Alex.