sw’as

Thursday, 23 December, 2004, 8:12 AM Dad just got a new job at the Royal London Hospital (apparently not as glamorous as it sounds), Mum & Nathan are spending a couple of days in Amsterdam and Laura and I just got back (to London) from Paris.

It’s only one day until Christmas – can’t wait. The rest is explained in the latest installment by Laura.

Merry Christmas Everyone!!!

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This is a good way to check if any of you actually open your emails…

Simon and Laura are engaged!

Think Avenue Champs Elysees on Wednesday night. Think Christmas lights. Simon on bended knee with a beautiful ring. Think dozens of Parisians who had a very interesting story to tell last night.

It’s wonderfully easy to get caught up in the beauty and romance of Paris and everyone there seems to feel the same way. Paris is just gorgeous and Wednesday night was just gorgeous. It was absolutely lovely and made for a magical end to what has been a magical trip to Paris.

This is not the way we would have intended to inform the many loved ones in our lives of our engagement! If we could, we would telephone each and every one of you, but, hey, we have a wedding to pay for! Wish you could all be here to share in our happiness, but will see you in a couple of weeks. Kudos to Laura’s mum and dad who have kept the secret for four weeks and to Browny et al and Aidan (and apparently Aidan’s entire family) for remaining tight-lipped for months.

Apart from getting engaged, we also did the following things in wonderful Paris: visited the Eiffel Tower (you cannot help but be overwhelmed), Musee du Louvre (bigger than you could ever imagine), Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur (stunning views), Montmarte, Moulin Rouge, Arc de Triomphe, Musee D’Orsay (fantastic), Jardin du Tulieres, Galleries Lafayette for awesome shopping, and numerous amazing patisserie right across the city. You cannot go to Paris and eat lettuce. It must be croissants, baguette, chocolate, wine, cheese and some chocolate croissants for breakfast.

Paris also gets our vote as a very close second to Tokyo for the friendliest people. Although many speak English, we were told to make the effort with the French language (which is certainly not as hard to read or say as Japanese), which we did. However, they could immediately tell that we were foreigners and so usually began this weird situation where they were too polite to use French and we were too polite to speak English. So the waiter is using English and we are ordering who-knows-what in very broken French and confusing everyone. The city was fabulous though, and one of the best experiences of the whole trip.

The other highlight (there were many obviously) was that is snowed on Tuesday morning for about an hour. We stepped out of our hotel room into the lobby and saw through the doors this gentle falling of snow. We were simply stunned and couldn’t move for a second. It was magical. Across the road at the markets it was still snowing and no-one else seemed to find this in anyway glorious, but we couldn’t wipe the smiles from our faces. It doesn’t seem like England will deliver, but we feel very satisfied with our little snippet of snow in Paris.

So love to all and Happy Christmas. We miss everyone and wish you a lovely, fun day on Saturday. Everyone must eat half a watermelon and a kilo of prawns on our behalf and think of us.

Merry Christmas!

Simon and Laura.