Me & My Tangine

Yes, it's true. I am the proud owner of my very own tangine, and it set me back a total of £1! There is much joy and much joy to be had with my little tangine. This is us having a quiet moment and enjoying the view.










Morocco was awesome. We arrived at our little fishing village called Taghazout and were shown our very simple but amazingly located villa - right on the sea. Our host assurred us that she was there to help us with anything we needed, from toilet paper to hashish...hmmm...and then left us on our way. Most of our days were spent surfing (Paul), swimming and baking (Lyndal), eating (Paul & Lyndal) tagines, cous cous and drinking Moroccan mint tea until our hearts were content and exploring the massive stretch of untouched desert coast we had before us. We quickly returned to our happy coloured selves again, our London glow becoming a distant memory.

We decided to do a couple of days road trip inland while the swell took some time to pick up into Essaouira and then Marrakech, dodging the donkeys, camels, goats and Moroccans along the way. It took us a good 2 hours to find our Riad (traditional Moroccan house) in Marrakech which laid somewhere in the heart of the main souq which was an absolutely chaotic marketplace. Snake charmers, water vendors, potion sellers littered Place Jemma El Fna - the entry to the maze of alleyways and lanes of people selling anything and everything. We eventually paid a Moroccan man some shrapnel and half a packet of chewing gum to help us. As he led us down a dodgy alleyway we hesitantly looked at each other, but we were led to the door of a beautiful courtyard and our Moroccan Riad - a little oasis within the chaos.















We had some interesting pickles to get out of at times, the challenge of being in a country where English isn't a first or second language, but all part of the adventure!
So onward we went after a week, across 3 continents in less than 24 hours, to the awaiting French Alps...

Spring..

Hi folks! Well Spring seems to be well and truly here. We have a forest of daffodils in our garden -we are convinced there is a dead body or something buried underneath the soil...everything that grows there seems to be on steroids (see tomoto posts). There is definately a different feeling in the air at this time of the year...people are actually happy (unless of course their team just bailed out in the football) and not complaining about the weather!

We had a great weekend away with our bible study last weekend, in Northampton. Was so good to get to know people at church better and sit under some solid teaching from Genesis. We feel really blessed to have found a good church so easily and so close to home (2 min walk!).

We are off to Morocco on Friday which will be a week of surfing, food glorious food, and haggling in the bazaars. Our mission is to come back with a tagine and a tan (our London moon tans need some serious work). Then we pretty much head staight to the French Alps for another week with Lin and Greg, Loz from home, and the snow! Hooray!

So that is a bit of an update. No doubt we will have some tales to tell on our return :)

P&L