2 Weeks in Spain with a sideorder of Dubai

Arrived home tonight - what a trip, what a treat!





I grabbed these pics from my Instagram account, which I updated daily while I was away - it was fun..
I really do love travelling in the cyber age .. people give you real-time feedback and tips, and you can look things up
as you go if you get stuck ( such as the time I wanted a bowl of olives but the lady had no idea what I was talking about. 
I google-translated automatically on the spot and got the Spanish translation: "de oliva". 

Yeah, I know .. lost in translation .. ha ha! )


 

To view them chronologically, you have to start at the bottom image and work from the bottom right corner,
reading left and moving upwards.  Or, if you view them "the regular way", you can start at our day of between-flights
rest in Dubai .. and work backwards.

The itinerary over 2 weeks:

Melbourne
Barcelona
San Sebastian
Biarritz, France
Bilbao, Spain
Leon, Spain
Lerma, Spain
Madrid, Spain
Dubai
Melbourne


Today is reality - washing, shopping for food, picking up the cats, and back to the packed lunch whining.. ah well ..
all good things must come to an end, and Home is good too. 

Back to work this week too.
If you've sent an email while I was away, i've come back to a tonne, so give me a day or so to get back
to you if you are waiting :)

Thanks for following!

- Leanne

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A Week in the Country: Loire Valley, France

Another random catch-up from our 2012 holiday.

This post is made up solely of images taken on the property we rented.
So beautiful, I could have spent our whole week here and venturing nowhere but our own backyard.

You can find our more about renting Les Averries here ←










The afternoons were so lovely we planned every day to be home by 5pm for a swim.
Our days spent out & about, it was hard to come home to this :)







We stayed in a township by the name of Bougueil, and it was beautiful and perfect.

The Café de la Promenade was just down the road, and there were markets to explore,
Troglodite caves, castles, wineries and beautiful countryside to drive through. 

Heaven.
















While the kids swam, I explored the amazing garden:


























Being inside was just as divine.  I was a bit sad the weather was so awesome and I couldn't
light that amazing fireplace .. maybe i'll have to come back for a winter visit too ...

















I would totally recommend visiting Bourgueil if you are visiting France. 
Our host, Michel has an office on site ( in the converted barn ) but is very
respectful of privacy.  He was actually away in Paris on business for most of our visit,
but was only a phone call away if needed.

Inside, there is a bureau of maps and pamphlets of things to do and a handwritten
note from Michel regarding when the markets are on, and which restaurants are good,
and how to get to the Hyper-U ( a huge shopping centre ) or the pharmacie.

The rental boasts everything you could possibly need ( details here ) and comfortably sleeps 6.
It was simply, gorgeous.
















The most perfect holiday ever.
Now you can probably understand why Amsterdam was a bit underwhelming for me?











It was hard to leave .. in fact, while the boys swam, AB and I sat under the willows and
breathed in the air ( and the wine ) and planned how we could possibly stay forever.







Alas, it was not to be..

Amsterdam

I haven't printed a personal photograph for about 5years .. my albums dried up while I filled those of others,
my hard drives creak with the weight of unsorted images of my own, while my clients likenesses are backed up
offsite in triplicate.

Part of my sabbatical while renovating was to fix all this .. fix my broken website .. clear my archives
 ..do a lot of things.. but I was tired, so very tired.  Burned out.

So I simply took time out.  I watched tv instead of editing all night .. I read some books, went to bed early,
hung out with my family.  It was lovely and i'm hoping to gain more life/work balance this year.

Thus it was, I was thrilled to find myself finally looking at some of my holiday pics from last year last night,
and being inspired to *edit* them .. to cull the flowers from the weeds and find a spark renewed.

And so I give you  .. Amsterdam ..









You know, it's funny, but looking at these images, you might be surprised to find I did not like Amsterdam much,
and wondered why others seem so engaged by this city.








It's true though this was a stopover on our way out - we'd spend a week in Paris, and another in
the French Countryside.  I guess it's quite unfair to judge a new city after that.

Plus, Amsterdam was being renovated:





So we walking past barriers and the ratta-tat-tat of construction drills, and under a skyline of cranes.





And we only had a night here and two days .. so you know, we didn't explore .. we just skimmed the surface.
So I kinda feel bad for not loving Amsterdam.  It reminds me of the time long ago when a trip to New York
( zomg, love! ) was followed by a visit to Chicago .. I felt exactly the same .. both seem such SMALL cities,
seen in a day, compared to the wonders of the magical cities we'd left behind to visit them.





But the canal ride by night was gorgeous.






While we waited for our ride, we amused ourselves by watching rats run in and off the docks and into basement
cellars. The kids thought they were cute.  I felt rather Dickensian and wished for period costume and a thick fog
to descend to complete the picture. 


I think it's easier to enjoy the quaintness of rats when you're on holidays.





You can see other images from our holiday here:
i-phone montage
The Arts et Métiers Train Station
Les Marchés de la France
The Cafe de la Prominade

The Café de la Promenade

Hello Readers!

Thanks for sticking by me while we spend our days in a little one bedroom flat* while renovating.

I'm so glad I took time out this year .. it's very frantic working for yourself, and often not much fun.
As well as trying to keep a family on track, and people fed and clean, I not only photograph, but there is a whole lot
of other things going on.  I have to be the 'fun girl' that turns up and takes the photos, but then I also have to be the
marketing girl, the internet guru girl ( have you seen my website?  Unfinished and awful for 4yrs, I finally took it down
and replaced it with a 'coming soon' placebo.  I've been hoping to find some time to fix it this year while áway from work' ..
fingers crossed. ), and that mean girl from accounts who has to hassle people up for the money.  Hate that. 

So it's the last year before my littlest guy starts big school and we're renovating. 
At first we packed my work materials ( the packing stuff, the lenses, the backdrops, the flash gear, etc )
in smart, easy to get to places - just in case! -  .. but then the builder said we had to clear out the room
that was previously going to remain untouched, and everything was stacked elsewhere in a big jumbled rush.

Hunting around for an 8x12"matt could most certainly result in death by accident.

So i'm glad to be taking time out.  It does mean a loss of income at a time we most need it, and I think it took
my husband a little bit of time to get over that, but I was seriously overwhelmed and very unhappy. 
My work/life balance was non-existant, and my stress levels were out of this world.

The International Society of Professional Wedding Photographers illustrate it pretty perfectly here I think:




Anyhoo, all that aside, there is always a light at the end of the tunnel and when I return i'll be extra fresh
and recharged and be working from a great new space.  Super organised.


- - - - - - -  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - --  --


Anyway, all that dreary has nothing to do with the title of this post.
I came in here as I wanted to share some photographs of a little café we visited in France last year.
In a way i've taken some inspiration of this fabulous space and brought it home to my renovation,
although my renovation is a new fit-out with clean lines and modern materials. 

I retained a tiny bit of grunge, much to the builder's confusion. 
But it really is more like me to be rustic over being perfect. 
I'll share in here when it's all done... at the moment we're at plastering stage.

So, without further ado, the Café de la Prominade, as seen as a book I made for my husband this Christmas past ..
I hope you enjoy it:






































* it's actually a 2bd apartment, but we decided to all bunk in one room for sleeping, and use the other for my computer, the kid's X-box and toys and books ...