Wish You Were Here... Weeks 3 & 4

A cold, grey day in early January is probably the only time you could hope to get a photograph of the front of the Château de Versailles with no one else around except your own friends. The relatively small number of visitors inside, made for a great tour and certainly made me appreciate being a local.



Gallettes des Rois are our favourite French tradition. This year we had four - one of them baked by India. Florence was almost able to carry out her role, designated by her status as the youngest in the family, to call out who should get each slice. However, having crowned herself Queen before the cake was even cut into, she lost interest and it was left to Savannah to do the honours.


Don't forget to check out all the other virtual postcards in the Wish You Were Here... project. Each week they get better and better!

A New Arrival

This week there was a new arrival chez Berries. Juliet the cat. India has been asking for a cat for some time and she finally persuaded us with a convincing power point presentation and a promise to take full charge of the litter box! She used her Christmas money to pay the adoption fees, so Juliet really is India's cat but we have all fallen for this sweet, dainty, affectionate cat.

You may have noticed that it's been more that a week since my last Wish You Were Here... post but there's a good reason for that. My little personal project has exploded into a full grown collaboration with an amazing and talented group of photographers from all around the world!

At the end of last year I took two inspirational photography workshops taught by Deb Schwedhelm, Breaking the Mold and Continuing the Journey. They helped me focus on what I do and what I want to be as a photographer and she encouraged me to identify a personal project that would help me develop my photography. I came up with Wish You Were Here... and in an attempt to keep me motivated for the year, invited alumni from the Continuing the Journey workshop to join me. I expected one or two people to be interested. We are now a group of 23 with a waiting list!

We now have our own website, www.wishyouwerehereinayear.com, which I am curating and each week we will share virtual postcards from our lives. Please visit us and see how the year unfolds from Alaska all the way down to Australia.

A New Start

Bonne Année! I hope you all had a good Holiday Season. Ours was fun and action packed. That on top of the fact that the day after I wrote my last post here, our house was burgled again and my camera and computer were stolen, explains my long absence. My camera gear has now been replaced and improved so I am back in action and looking forward to photographing what will be a year of change for us, although exactly what form that change will take is still unknown!

I don't know how much time I will have for writing blog posts but I do want to keep a record of our life, so I have decided to start a weekly photographic project so that I will be sure to share something at least once a week. I'm calling it Wish You Were Here... and the photographs and message will be a weekly postcard from our life whatever it looks like!




We started the first week of the New Year skiing and eating cheese in the Alps with good friends from California.
We ended it at the Christmas Fun Fair in the magnificent Grand Palais with our first Paris friends, back for a visit to the City of Light from their new home in the Netherlands.
Such a treat to spend time with both families who we wish were here with us all the time!

A walk in the park

We spent this Autumn's half term on a much overdue trip to England. We started off in London to celebrate fortieths with our college friends and to take the girls to museums and a show. We made it to the Science Museum and Madame Tussauds but despite promising ourselves that we would make our first ever visit to the Tower of London, we never did get there! Although Keith spent five years in London working in an office right next door to that most famous of London landmarks none of us have ever visited. When you live in a city you mostly don't see it with tourist's eyes and even though it's over a decade since we lived in London, we feel like locals as soon as we return. This also explains why I hardly picked up my camera while we were there. That and the incessant rain!

After a fun few days in London we headed up to the North East to visit Keith's family and celebrate a special birthday for his Mum. The girls were thrilled to spend time at Grandma's and meet her new dog Jake for the first time. After a wet time in London we were pleasantly surprised with some beautiful fall days and made the most of the chance to get outside and enjoy them. These photographs are from a walk from Grandma's house to the park where Daddy used to play. The play structure has been upgraded but the sledging hill is just the same, although at this time of year it was covered with leaves not snow!

Happy memories from our visit to one of the many places we call home!

My Wild Berries. Ten

Weekly portraits of my children inspired by You Are My Wild


Florence
She was helping me tidy up after the birthday party wearing her sister's ballet leotard.
I spotted the pretty light shining through the trees and asked if I could take her picture.
Unexpectedly, she said yes.
Five minutes later this is what we got!

My Wild Berries. Nine

Weekly portraits of my children inspired by You Are My Wild


Oldest and Youngest
India has been away for ten days on an Outward Bound school trip in the Lake District. We really missed her. When she got home tonight Florence flew into her arms, overjoyed! This photo was taken last week before she left. India isn't always thrilled to have a baby sister around but she loves her really!

My Wild Berries. Eight

Weekly portraits of my children inspired by You Are My Wild


10 plus 10
Last week, Georgia and Savannah celebrated their tenth birthdays. They asked for a lemon seed poppy cake because "a birthday's not a birthday without a lemon seed poppy cake"! Over the past ten years they have learnt to take turns blowing out the candles. This year it was Georgia's turn to go first.

I love how the two photos reflect the differences in their personalities. Georgia captured contemplating her wish for the year ahead and Savannah caught up in the excitement of the day that, despite reaching double figures, she had been counting down toward for weeks before!

My Wild Berries. Seven

Weekly portraits of my children inspired by You Are My Wild


La Rentrée
This has been our life for the last two weeks. Back to school, reuniting with friends we haven't seen all summer, homework and early bedtimes again. Florence started her first day of 'real' school. French school! So far she loves it. First day of school portraits have become an accidental tradition in our house and I love to look back on the photos from past years now. This year's made me smile. A sweet Daddy Daughter portrait for Florence's first day of Petite Section and a silly portrait (the only kind I got) of Georgia & Savannah's start to fourth grade and India's start to seventh grade.

The America's Cup

We are back from our trip 'home' to California and school starts tomorrow. There are lots of lovely summer memories for us to look back on and absorb but today I want to tell you about our day out in San Francisco to watch the America's Cup.


We actually got to see one of the final races in the Louis Vuitton Cup, the challenger series, that determines which boat races the defender (USA) in the America’s Cup Finals. After a month of races the last two in the race were the boats from New Zealand and Italy.


The America's Cup has been contested since 1851 making it the oldest trophy in international sport. Having grown up as the daughter of a passionate yacht racer, I've known of it's existence for as long as I could remember. We knew the 2013 race would be coming to San Francisco before we even left to live in France but it was a lucky coincidence that we happened to be back there at just the right time. Rather like cycling, yacht racing is a better participation sport than spectator sport, but this year for the first time the organizers have tried to make it more spectator friendly with a grandstand overlooking the picturesque race course.


We paid for the seats, but we could just have easily watched for free from the shore as all these people in front of us were doing. However, the thrill of being in attendance at a major sporting event and access to the beer tent just about made the seats worthwhile. I got better photos too!


Racing yachts have come a long way since 1851. The boats in this year's race are more like space ships than sailing boats and literally fly when they really get going. This is not the racing I grew up doing!


The trouble with sailing is not only is it difficult to watch, but it is also incredibly weather dependent and these super hi-tech boats are prone to breaking. A lot. Team New Zealand was way out in the lead when their dagger board became jammed and they had to abandon the race...


...leaving the Italian boat to sail home uncontested. A bit of an anti-climax for what was already a short race but that's sailing!


The New Zealand boat was soon fixed and graciously sailed in close to the grandstand so that the crowd could see better which made for much better pictures than if they had actually been racing! The crowd clicked away while the race committee decided whether the wind conditions would permit the second race of the day to go ahead.


While they deliberated, we checked out the America's Cup Village where you can see an AC45 catamaran up close. That's the angle the boats are at when they are going at high speed!


There were some fun games for little kids which kept Florence entertained.


She took a while to master the catamaran trampoline, but was so pleased with herself once she finally figured how to climb to the top. It might be a while before she's ready to take to the high seas though.


Eventually it was decided that the wind was too strong for the second race to start. However, the conditions were fine for a junior regatta of much more stable boats. Although the super yachts are amazing to watch, it was in some ways more fascinating to watch these simple races close to shore and the girls got quite into what was going on.

It is ten years this week since my Dad's premature death from cancer. He taught me to sail and he taught Keith to sail. I wish he could have taught his granddaughters to sail too. He would have absolutely loved the chance to watch the America's Cup live so I am so glad we took the opportunity to go and see it.

My Wild Berries. Five

Weekly portraits of my children inspired by You Are My Wild

It's been a busy week. Our last week in California visiting our home and friends before we return to Paris and start school. Not much time for writing blogposts or working on photos. While you wait for more reports from our trip to Crete, here's a fun portrait of all four girls on a windy visit to Heraklion, Crete's capital city. The more I look at this photo,the more I love it. It's the way they are!

My Wild Berries. Four

Weekly portraits of my children inspired by You Are My Wild

Georgia and I went for a walk in a village in Crete
and found the perfect door and the perfect light to pose for a pretty portrait.

Crete: The Water Post

Finally, a mere month after we returned from Crete, some photos of our holiday there. We went to find some sun and relax. It didn't feel like I was taking that many photos, but once they were downloaded it turned out I did! This is the first of four posts I have planned for you.

We arrived at our villa on the night of the supermoon and woke up to blue skies and a view of the sea. We spent our mornings by the pool reading and swimming and the afternoons at the beach. After trying a few different ones, we settled on a favourite and went back every day. Most evenings we ate at the villa but on a few nights we watched the sun set over the sea while we enjoyed the local seafood.

Somedays we did summon up the energy to do some sightseeing. Next up: The City.