Holiday season comedown

Christmas feels like a distant memory. The actual festive week was spent in Suffolk with a group of friends at two converted farm houses on Partridge Farm. The region is famous for its fixation with food, and there was no shortage of really impressive pubs, farmers markets and restaurants. Aldeburgh is worth a visit for (apparently) the best fish and chips in the UK. We ate at The Regatta instead as the chef used to be at The Connaught. Might go back in summer to sample the fish and chips.

Christmas itself was spent gorging ourselves on smoked goods from the nearby Richardson's Smokehouse in Orford, and watching lots of movies. No stress. It rained cats and dogs pretty much non-stop but when you're in front of an open fire in a onesie no-one seems to mind. Actually that's not entirely true - I kept dropping food on myself and remarked that the onesie seems to be repelling food and my pal said 'It repels more than food.'

Just after New Year (spent in London - rare) we took the girls to Paris for four nights and despite a long list of 'must sees' only managed a fraction. I really recommend Paris in January - it's virtually deserted compared to London. We went up the Eiffel Tower and didn't have to queue (€16 for all four of us) - I had the best frites of the trip up on the L1 cafe. We stayed a hotel recommended on Trip Advisor for families - the Residence Foch. Get a Junior Suite aka a family room if you go - it means the kids are in another room with their own TV. We shut the door on ours and watched back to back episodes of Breaking Bad.

An efficient way to see the sights with kids is the Fat Tire Bike Tour - nearly 4 hours of gentle cycling with an English speaking tour guide (with the kids on a tandem, or if they're really small in a baby seat) for €90.

So, back to London and this year probably won't see much in the way of renovation as we're saving up to go back to New Zealand for a (long overdue) trip to see friends and family. One thing we would like to address is our front door though - I've got Anglian coming round to give a quote on Friday night. I've read about their heavy handed sales techniques but am optimistic that the sales fella will want to be anywhere than our house all night on a Friday night. Will report back!