Jersey Live

Yo !

So we're going to have to skip a little bit...well, a lot actually. sorry,currently I'm only able to access the internet if I use someone elses computer which means I don't have all my photos - however, eventually I'll put up the photos from the rest of the trip with mum and from Battle of the Flowers and various other happenings - you can always check for photos on my facebook - there's definitely BoF photos and other stuff up there :) But for now I can talk about more recent things where the photos are still on my camera/phone - like Jersey Live !

Jersey Live, for those who don't know, is a music festival held every year on a farm here in Jersey over the weekend and every year Durrell gets volunteers to go there and collect cans for their Cans for Corridors scheme - an incredibly awesome project where aluminium cans are recycled and the money goes towards setting up local farming co-ops to help the landless people of Brazil get out of poverty by planting native trees to form corridors of forest between habitat fragments where the Black Lion Tamarins live - that way they can move between fragments increasing genetic mixing and helping the populations become more stable :) So basically I got into a music festival for free, got free food and had a lot of fun -for free. It was pretty much the best thing ever. We ended up getting enough cans in those two days to plant over 300 trees so I think we did pretty dang well and we got to see some amazing bands - including Rizzlekicks, Alex Clare, Noel Gallagher (though he wasn't that great) and Chase and Status.

A whole bunch of students and people from work went, both as volunteers and just as festival-goers and there were several different stages and bars, fairground rides, a food village and stalls and face painting :) Also, apparantly we were on the news when they did a bit about the festival so I'm kind of famous :)





One of the more exciting things to happen was that a spider crawled out of Noel Gallaghers guitar cases and they called upon the resident Durrell "experts" (i.e. my friend Rachel who is a herpetology (frogs and reptiles) and vet microbiology student - haha) to identify it. we used google. we didn't find out what it was - they took it back to Durrell and as it turns out its a 6-eyed spider found throughout Europe - but there was a danger it was from one of the more exotic places Noel Gallagher has toured recently so it was important to check. The story has made it into the Daily Mail, the Sun and even local TV news as well - Matt, the head of |Herps even got a call from LA asking about it and someone wanted to buy the spider!!!

Anyway, here are some photos to try and convey the atmosphere and the fun that was had by all :)

xxKim

 

 

 

St Malo

So after our whirlwind trip to Paris we went back to St. Malo and explored that for a bit, including a trip out to the famous and beautiful Mont St. Michel :) St. Malo, is a fairly large town on the coast with a walled city and really awesome hippodrome so we explored there and then hired a car and drove out to the Mont via the coast which was lovely. The area is basically famous for it's seafood, it's apples ( for Calvados), it's horses and biscuits. I'm pretty sure Katherine should live there.

Promenading along the esplanade

Moules Frites

The Mont St. Michel

View from the Mont

Those tiny specs are people walking and riding horseback along the sands

The beach at St.Servain where we had dinner

inside the walled city

View from the ramparts around the walled city out over the beach.

Where else could I eat other than the Golden Lion??

A traditional cup of cider to while away the summer afternoon while planning our next trip...

Continued...

So from there we went to PARIS ! which was awesome, I was hoping to see a chipmunk in the Jardins Luxembourg, I did not. However, the rest of Paris was amazing ! We only went for a day but we went to see the Tour de France so, um, it was pretty epic !!! I got to see Mark Cavendish win, it was the best thing ever. I was. so. excited. Awesome.

aaaandd...we're back

Alright so I know I suck and it's been ages since I blogged and you're all ready to fly over here with pitchforks and mob chants but whatever, I'm back now and it should be all systems go blog-wise for the rest of the time here. So where were we?

Oh yeah, my completely amazing mum came and visited me over in Jerseyland and we went on a mini-break to France ( I love that I can say that...) so after one short night on Jersey for mum we caught the ferry and a short hour and twenty minutes later were in a completely different country :) Which is where the fun begins...

After a completely planned and not at all stressful car tour of inner St. Malo ( the hippodrome is lovely btw) we drove the nearly 300km to Douarnenez, further down the west coast, for the biannual sailing boat festival, Temps Fete. 

The festival is highly popular and famous throughout the region and is where, every two years, every man and his boat ( literally) sails from Brest to Douarnenez on the thursday, and then makes port in Douarnenez. Throughout the Friday, Saturday and Sunday there are races, exhibitions, games, music, food stalls and local artists set up along the pier and even famous sailing ships which you can either go while they're docked and have a look around or you can go out and sail on at certain times throughout the day, including, the ship from Horatio Hornblower, the Earl of Pembrooke. Since mum and I arrived fairly late on the thursday we went down and had a little look from the top of the hill but didn't go into the festival, then spent the entire day saturday at the festival and exploring the maritime museum.

Outside our Bed and Breakfast

The Passerelle - a draw-foot-bridge

Mum outside the famous Penn Sardin shop - Douarnenez used to be a huge town for Sardine export

Looking towards the Harbour

The view form the hill with all of the boats coming into the harbour.

One of the food stalls set up did baked potatoes - french style.

Accrovoile - where little kids get to climb up the rigging and ring a little bell 

The brass is sooooo shiny!

Adorable little steam boat - the most hightech boat we saw I think :) 

mum enjoying a crepe for lunch :)

At the maritime museum, mum had to get a picture with "Pieter"

Didn't notice this was even a sardine can at first but when I did I decided I had to get a picture as a sardine !

jealous?...

On the drive back to St. Malo we stopped of at a little town called Morlaix for palmiers...

Stay tuned for the next part...