Christmas in the sun!

I fly off to see husband tomorrow.

its going to be my 4th Christmas in a row in the sunny climate.

i've had enough of the cold weather....

Christmas is going to be on the boat this year....

hmmmm,

i barely survived it when i had my birthday on the boat,

husband has promised me this will be much better.

Plus im gonna be in Panama....

yeah baby!!!!!

i is living the high life!

now if only i can survive the 

37hours of travelling,

even more worried as i have a bad back at the moment that has my

hobbling round complaining to everyone who will listen to my tale....

and i get to see HUUUSSSBBBAANNNDDDD,

its gone so fast but felt so long,

Goodbye Mallorca, Goodbye husband...

we're heading back to the uk today,

Husbands cousin is getting married at the weekend

and after that he's taking me to London to settle me in at my new house.

(haha settle me in....i'm living with my sisters,

its not like its going to be all that scary!)

This will be the first time i've lived in the UK for nearly 8 years.

Funny isnt it,

where does the time go?

I've really enjoyed all my travels and really am only heading back for

practicality reasons. I could just keep on going to see you new places.

Husband will still be travelling,

to even more exciting places 

(the caribean, brazil...)

I'm desperately praying and

crossing my fingers that

i will be able to go and meet him

somewhere during the year

but to be honest his schedule changes with the wind

(literally!)

i know it sounds soppy 

but without him i'm only half of who i really am.

Finding fun in every place...

Mallorca is never a place i have wanted to go to.

in my head i have pictures of British tourist packaged holidays

and fresh out of school teenagers at Magaluf.

and yes that part of Mallorca exists, but only if you want it to.

Palma is lovely.

It has loads of fantastic restaurants,

in fact i dont think we've eaten anywhere that wasnt less than great!

We've had a few visitors come to see us and

its so easy to take them around and show them the beautiful city,

its also so easy to take them around and show them the

beautiful country side.

Here are some highlights of my two months here in pictures.

These are near Alaro,

we were recommended by a friend to a place 

infamously called 'The Lamb Restaurant' 

Its right in the middle of a large mountain, 

we hiked up and by the time we got there we were starving!

And let me tell you that

this lamb is exquisite! 

And what a view!

These are from when my grandparents came to visit.

It was great to have them around,

they have such different personalities!

We took them on the touristy train to Soller.

It was an expensive trip

but a nice experience.

and then there is the Cathedral in Palma,

which i guess is the main attraction here

After the grandparents came the in-Laws

we took them to the Caves of Drach.

Husband was complaining about going to the caves,

(he hates going places that are too touristy)

but even he was quite impressed,

even though we have been to see a lot of caves recently!!!

Although Mallorca is a place that would never have been 

put on my travel wish list,

i'm glad that i got to spend some time here

and would definitely recommend a mini holiday here to anyone!

In many ways it reminds me of Slovenia

(which i will admit will always be my home away from home!

Keeping Myself Amused....

When i left the ballet company back in July

i was desperate to get out of the studio.

Yet since leaving all i seem to want to do is get back in.

Dont get me wrong,

i dont regret my decision at all.

it was definitely right.

I've had enough theatre life for a lifetime.

But getting back in the studio to keep myself fit,

and just to feel a little bit at home.

Following my husband around as a 'sailor'

i really am a fish out of water.

I am so out of my depth that i 

feel small and useless.

But in the studio,

well....

thats my domain.

I've been talking to a couple of ballet schools here in Mallorca

and am putting on some workshops here at 

the end of the month teaching Swan lake repertoire.

To be honest its the first time i've done something like this...

so fingers crossed.

who would have thought i would

be excited to hear Swan Lake music again....

Who Am I?

I'm really enjoying Mallorca.

Not a place i ever thought i would want to visit,

in fact neither was Lanzarote...

but here's the thing places are what you make of them,

i think you can find the magic.

Being in an actual apartment is nice too.

Husband and crew go off to work each day

and i get a little bit of alone time

and do some housewifely duties

(i'm a pretty crappy housewife by the by)

Palma also seems to be a 'yachty' hub,

so lots of tim's old friends are creeping

put the cracks, which is nice as we can throw the occasional dinner 

party with people other than ourselves!

I've been slightly bad at blogging lately,

no real reason,

just in a funk i guess.

I saw this on a friends twitter and thought i'd throw it out there,

if anyone out there in the blogosphere is remotely interested

(dont worry if your not!)

Click on this link and ask me a question....

any question...

and i'll try and answer it

http://ask.fm/rgiboin

i guess its meant to be questions about who i am...

if you've been one of my few blog readers and

i've left you hanging on any subjects.

but you can ask me difficult math questions

if you like.

i cant guarantee the answer will be right...

in the meantime here are some pictures i've

been collecting on my pinterest which i think

show a little bit of who i am too

a reader

cake eater

a dancer

a starwars lover

Land Ahoy!

We're back on land!!!!

So this was a rather momentous sailing trip for me

in that in the week it took to do it i didnt vomit once.

This is mainly because of the awesome spanish

sea sick pills that i took which pretty much knocked me out and put me to sleep for the whole journey.

Don't judge my addictions....

We've landed in Majorca

and have spent the weekend just wandering the streets getting a feel for

our new city.

being in a city again is kind of different after

basically living in a Marina with one street of restaurants

and two hotels for the last couple of months.

Tonight we had five guest just drop into

the boat to say hello.

Its kind of nice not to just see the same people every day...

all day

Civilisation.

Although to be fair,

with my husband around i could do without it...

civilisation.

Give me a cabin in the woods

or a boat on the ocean...

but give me my husband to go with it and i'll

do just fine. 

Ode to Lanzarote.

 

Lanzarote isn't the most exiting of places in the world.

Its a an island made up of volcanic over-flow.

It is the haven of retried aged Brits for their winter get away.

 

But it does make for some rather scenic hiking.

You feel a bit like your walking on the moon,

black moon dust...

or occasionally Mars,

when you hit the red rocks.

 

Husband and i had a lot of fun

having nice Sunday afternoon hikes. 

 

 

 

 

Oz! A snapshot round up

I never got round to really posting much about our time in Australia.

I thought i'd just put a couple of post with some snapshots.

This post includes pictures of our trip to

Summer Bay 

(all British who watched tv in the 90's will know that one!)

Featherdale Animal Park

Swimming with turtles at Byron Bay

and surfing at the Beach where we stayed.

(cant help but still sneak in the occasional ballet pose)

Cambodia- Food!

One of the fun things we did in Cambodia 

was go to a Cambodian cooking class

with Le Tigre de Papier restaurant in Siem Reap.

There was another couple on their honeymoon in the class

and 4 women college professors 

who had taken the night off from their student tour group 

in the class with us.

Each of us picked whichever Cambodian starter and main course

from the restaurant menu that we wanted and we

cooked up a feast.

It was great to learn new ingredients to cook with,

and before we left i popped into the supermarket

and bought a few spices for my cupboard.

I've had a go at cooking Amok since i've been back

and i'm going to try me some Beef Loc lac this week.

Cambodian food was delicious,

we enjoyed nearly every meal that we had

and it was great to learn how to imitate it

(i wont profess to be an expert!)

One night in Siem Reap we went to 

the Cambodian Grill on Pub Street.

Here they put a little grill on your table and 

you pick a variety of meats and cook them up yourself

(my husband kept asking why we 

were going to restaurants to cook our own dinners!)

We grilled ourselves some

crocodile, 

kanagroo,

snake,

ostrich

 

Cambodia - Phnom Penh

Our last stop on out trip was to the capital city Phnom Penh..

We cut our time there pretty short after deciding to spend longer on the island (it was so worth it)

in fact we only had one morning in the city,

but we did manage to see all the tourist sights that we wanted to in that amount of time.

A tuk-tuk driver scouted us out when we got of the night bus the evening before

and made a pretty reasonable deal to drive us around for the day.

Phnom Phenh itself was a big dirty city,
in fact it reminded me a bit of Cairo,
although to be fair pretty much all we saw of it
was from the back of a tuk-tuk,

Our stops in Phnon Pnem

were the Royal Palace 

S-21 prison area

and 

The Killing Fields

We weren't too impressed by the Royal Palace,
i think we expected more.

But both the prison area and the Killing Fields were

well worth a visit.

The audio tour at the Killing Fields was excellent,

i really felt i learned a lot

about the Cambodians plight during

the Khmer Rouge era
and i think it was done with a poignant sensitivity.

 i think its important for tourists to

go these places to bring a better awareness 

to what exactly went on.

We also managed to squeeze in a trip to
the Seeing hands Massage
before our 2pm flight.

The Seeing Hands Massage
trains blind people to be masseuses.
It was an excellent massage
that i would highly recommend.
There are a few of them in the different cities in Cambodia.