Stolen blog....

So, I had been planning to post a few photos of our fabulous holiday to the Philippines, but, as usual, my DF has beaten me to it.

So, if you are interested, then here are three links to pictures of our fabulous holiday in the Philippines.

http://amissinparis.blogspot.com/2010/03/philippines-nr3.html

http://amissinparis.blogspot.com/2010/03/boring-post-aka-sunset-in-philippines.html

http://amissinparis.blogspot.com/2010/02/philippines.html

Meanwhile, I have been back at work in my new career trying to sell flats (and houses, very occasionally) in Paris. I have now been in this job for 3 months, and I believe that my trial period is finally over, which is good. Less good is the fact that I am still not making any real money, and have no sales happening right now, let alone any leads... (If you know someone selling an apartment in Paris, please please let me know!)

I am also hitting a wall psychologically. I knew it would happen, and now it has. The problem with this job is that there is actually very little time spent selling property. Most of it is spent looking for the next lead, or waiting on a lead, or hoping that a lead that you have comes to fruition. And, to be frank, it gets frustrating.

Heres to hoping for a lead!

Until next time dahlings, that was me....

Too Much Information (TMI) Thursday Nominations...

Dear reader(s), (the "s" is entirely optimistic on my part, but I am leaving it in anyway, so there...)

Out here in the blogosphere I have discovered something that is called TMI Thursdays. For an idea please go to this link:

http://chelseatalkssmack.blogspot.com/2010/02/tmi-thursday-strippers-and-such-sorry.html

It is a very funny (?) piece of writing and I would like nominations from you, my reader (ok, the optimism was only going to last so long, I am after all vaguely realistic) for my blog this Thursday.

I will write, including far "too much information" on whatever subject is nominated by the greatest number of readers.

Please leave your ideas in the comments.

Thank you mum,

Love

Your dahling...

Overspending...!

I would like to start with a quotation by someone much wiser than myself:

Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination

Oscar Wilde

This may be true, or it may be false, but, whichever is the case, it is certainly more fun to live over and above one's means. I am not advocating large sums of credit card debt (particularly during these difficult economic times) but, that is not what the great Oscar Wilde meant.

We have just come back from one of the most amazing holidays, but the problem with holidays is that, at least for me, is that I allow myself to spend money non-stop with the excuse "It is my holidays, so I have the right to have a good time". Our holiday may have been in the Philippines, which is far from the most expensive place in the world, but, if anything this makes it worse. You then have the excuse that this or that is not expensive, so you can buy two, or three, when normally you wouldn't have even bought one.

So, it could be said that I have, over the years, taken Oscar Wilde's quotation a little too seriously (except that I only discovered it yesterday), and now I am paying the price. Or rather I am avoiding paying... We (my wife and I) have decided that we want to try and make it back to the Philippines by the end of the next year, but in order to do so we have to be a lot more careful with our money and pay off our debt (which is far from excessive, but is there all the same). So it is that my irresponsible youth comes to an end...!

Enough melodrama from me, at least until next time, that was me dahlings....

Back to the real world....

For those of you that don't know, F and I have just come back from our second honeymoon... Maybe a bit early, but the holiday was so fabulous we dubbed it so.

So that you can see how fabulous it really was (and so I can make you horribly jealous...) here are a few photos.

The pool at Steph's house (thanx again for

having us)

This photo was taken during the fabulous Intramuros walking tour by Carlos Celdran.

If ever you are lucky enough to get to the Philippines and have some time in Manila be sure to do this fabulous guy's tour. It will change the way you look at the Philippines and its people (for the better!!).

And, to finish, the obligatory sunset from the White Beach on Boracay Island.

Till next time, dahlings, that was me....

One year on...

It is strange to think it has been more than a year since I have posted on this page, and for that I apologise... I would like to say that I had an excuse, but I didn't. Yes, I was busy, yes, we got married, yes I had a hectic work schedule, yes, I changed careers, yes, yes and yes. But, at the end of the day my only excuse is my profound, deeply held belief in laziness!

"New career?", I hear you ask. Yes, that is right, I am now that most-hated of beings, a real estate agent. I am the one who will tell you that your home is not worth as much as you thought it was (it really isn't you know.); who will tell you that you don't have enough money to buy the home you want, or that you don't earn enough, or most probably both. I don't know if the real estate agent's reputation is still up at the top of the most-hated list, we are probably pipped to the post by lawyers, and, of course these days, way out front are the bankers. But we remain a species of little-loved beings, which, quite frankly bothers me about as much as a fly bothers an elephant. I am in it for the money, and if I don't make any, well then I have my back up profession: restaurants.

This I hope will be the start of much more to come from me in this blog, but knowing me I wouldn't hold my breath. If you are interested in our wedding feel free to check out the slide-show on youtube, or my DF's blog.

I hope to find you all again soon, and, until next time, dahlings, that was me...

One big day...

So finally the American people have done something right...

To all my American readers I apologise, but it has to be said, and so I said it... But those of you that know me and have had political discussions with me recently may, or may not remember that I was pro-McCain... This is true. But that was before. I was pro-McCain, before Pitbull Palin scared the liberal European out of me. Before he stated that the economic fundamentals were doing fine... Before I thought through everything... Why was I pro-McCain? I am still scared by someone with the most extreme voting record in the Senate... but less than I am scared by Palin... I am certainly still worried about a Democratic House, Senate and President all at once... Some balance of power is always a good thing...

But now he is in. Obama is the first black American president, and it is for this reason that I changed my mind in the last few days.... The amount of good that in itself will do for the image of America, and therefore for the image of the Western world, and particularly us Brits (let's face it we are always lumped in with the Americans and normally for good reason) means that it has to be a good thing that Barack Obama has been elected... I just hope that it turns out to be that the hope for change is not misplaced...

Now to the really big events of the day... I got my first paycheck from my new job and it is by far better than I could ever have imagined... So some good news, we might be able to pay for a nice honeymoon after all... The restaurant industry is seriously hard work, and in most places I have ever worked, seriously under-paid, so it makes a great change to feel appreciated (my direct boss told me that I deserved the pay and was doing really well; rather unusual in France, positive re-enforcement is not something taught in French management...) and well-paid.

Not only did I get my first paycheck, but I also got my contract, which as most people in France will tell you, means that I cannot really get fired... So finally some stability and some money...

That was the good news... The bad news may never happen, so for the moment I will leave it out, but suffice to say that some uncertainty has popped up in another area, so long live instability!!!

La vie is belle too...

After my first foray into the joys of mobile blogging this afternoon I was inspired and decided to try and take some photos of the joys of Paris on a sunny Sunday afternoon to share with you all...


There was of course, the string section playing Bizet...

This was then followed by the joys of the fountains, foie gras and champagne, not to mention the all important third F, friends, and my F herself... For the first time on this blog, you will see pictures, of me, and DF, not to mention P and C...

We also had a lovely time, listening to buskers of varying types: opera, classical, just strange, or maybe drunk... The strangest though had to be the man tap-dancing, in the street, for money, as it was getting dark... Unfortunately I
was unable to take a video of this most fabulous of events as I was in a hurry to get to work on time, but he was really very good and it made a change from all those boring violins... Just kidding they were great too...

So, as promised, some more photos, if you hadn't guessed that is DF on le pont des arts, the pedestrian footbridge across the Seine where we consumed out little picnic... For more information on this lovely sunny Sunday afternoon feel free to read DF's blog...

Here is P enjoying the champagne... And C enjoying a
cigarette... Yes there are still smokers in Paris, despite the pesky smoking ban...
















And dahlings, despite all my promises, you are going to have to wait for the photo of me, and trust that, that was me...