The goat broke loose!

The hotel went to a lot of effort to set up a live animal display in the dining room for CHristmas. The baby cow settled down and was happy. The ducks cackled together and the rabbit hid! The goat, however, acted true to form also. He broke out of his pen, and, followed by the sheep, felled a nearby pot plant. They both chewed happily on it for the evening. No-one seemed to mind! A turkey hid in one of the little houses and refused to come out! Clever bird!
 
 
 
 

Santa CLaus ..

arrived on a horse on Christmas Day at 3.00 with presents of chocolate for the children. He came into the foyer of the hotel. Luckily there were no accidents!
 
 
 

Christmas decorations

 The hotel celebrated Christmas for the benefit of its visitors. This was the first year that we were there for Christams.
 
 

Along the beach for coffee

  We played golf every second day. On the other day we strolled along the beach for a coffee and a walk around Hammamet. It takes about 30 minutes from Hotel Bel Azur.
 

Coffee on the Med

 
 
  Sidi Bhoudid is still our favourite coffee stop!

Golfing in Tunisia

  George negotiates for balls with a local in the bush.
  Blue skies with the mountains in the distance. The course we play (La Foret, Citrus Golf, Hammamet)is a beautiful course high in the hills north of Hammamet. Its a lovely walk on a clear, sunny day. On thie trip we were very lucky and had wall-to-wall sunshine for the two weeks.
 
 

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2009

We´re back from Africa! We had a lovely two weeks of sunshine and golf .... but some catching up to do first. Happy New Year to everyone on the blog scene.

  With Tasmin Little in the Boardwalk Bar after the CSO performance. She was sooooo nice and chatty. Apologies for the bad photo quality!
  With a (slightly) inebriated friend at the CSM String Dept Christmas night out.

To the sun ... Tunisia

The weather forecast for tomorrow is for winds and rain .... so we're off to Tunisia for two weeks. No cooking, no cleaning, no washing, no shopping ..... only eating, golfing and reading in the sun .... my idea of bliss ... here are some pics from last time.
Happy Christmas and Happy New Year!
 
 

 
 
 

 
 
 

We did it again ...

 
 
 
It was a fantastic night in City Hall. Ciara was great and Tasmin was astoundingly brilliant - and such a lovely person too. She came to the pub afterwards and was very chatty with everyone. Her performance of the violin concerto was amazing ... so calm and so in control all the time. Her rubatos were so well done that the orch found it easy to follow her.
The 1812? - what can I say? Picture a fog so thick I couldnt see the music stand in front of me let alone Keith! Search lights and explosions .... multitudinous brass players. The last time Cork City Hall burned down was on Dec 11th 1921 - the burning of Cork took place that night. We got pretty close to it again last night! A night to remember for a long time.
I joined CSO in 1968, so this concert was a fitting closure to 40 years of performance for me!
More photos, courtesy of George, on http://picasaweb.google.com/suzukipat