The Shifting Sands

Fixin, by French standards it was a little hard to locate the routes and route finding on some was interesting I had two weeks work in Paris with my last meeting in Nuremburg on a Friday.  Kate and Ada were in Melbourne and Lucy was on the Gold Coast so I had two weekends free in Europe.  Needless to say, my thoughts turned to climbing. My first option was a return to Beaune, where the family and I had conducted an unsuccessful and very cold reconnaissance of the rock climbing during Easter the previous year. The problem with Europe is finding a climbing partner if Kate is not with me; however, I had recently discovered that one of the team working with me, Jeremy, was a keen climber.  So I suggested a weekend climbing trip to Bourgogne and made the necessary bookings a few weeks in advance. French countryside.  The view from a restaurant in Fixin while we were enjoying a post climb drink. As w...

I was in Paris for work and Kate and the girls joined me for the Easter break.  We planned some French language and history tutoring and Kate was happy to hang out and hit the galleries and Ada was happy to go along. Beautifully presented fresh radishes at Beaune markets “Time in reconnaissance is seldom wasted” so said my instructors at Royal Military College and I have said it often enough in the last 28 years that Kate has taken to using the phrase. It was the Easter long weekend or Paques as it is known in France which gave us the opportunity to head out of the City and explore the countryside.   The market square in Beaune, everthing you could imagine including fresh gluten free bread A climbing partner of mine, Brian (Henry), was very partial to long sports climbing trips to France.  I often recalled him recounting stories of climbing life in Beaune, the main wine town in the Burgoyne or Burgundy as it i...