Winter has definitly hit with the temperatures dropping below 0 at night and not even climbing above 0 for the past 2 days. And it looks like getting worse over the next couple of days. We had a covering of snow on Sunday night in the city, but much more out in the country-side and that's continued through the week.

I'm not sure what this means for the winter ahead, but it's not looking like good news for a rugby season part way in. I have joined the British Rugby Football Club of Paris, an ex-pats team made of people from all over the world but mostly Britain and France. It's a great club to play for, having a history that goes back to 1923. So far we have managed to win 4 from 5 games with another couple of wins in "friendly" matches, although we have yet to play to our potential I reckon. It's hard with many new faces including an almost entirely new backline. Doesn't make for a lot of cohesion at times!

We train once per week, on Tuesday. Unfortunately due to ground availablity we are training on the outskirts of Paris, meaning about a 45min trip by metro, then 10min car ride. As we start around 8:30pm I don't get back home til after 11pm, pretty late compared to NZ standards. The facilities are pretty good, although now that the weather is rough the ground is not holding up well and in fact all trainings and the game this week have been cancelled.

Apart from the games the club is great to be part of. A really friendly bunch of guys who are all passionate about rugby, whether that be northern or southern hemisphere. All the guys know so much about the Super14 and NPC it's a little embarressing as in NZ we don't follow so much what happens elsewhere. Was lots of fun over the last month with the NZ-SA-Aust contingent up here, lots of tests to watch and jokes to be passed around. I'm glad the AB's managed a clean-sweep!

Here's a couple of photos of game against Antony we played 2 weeks ago, won 22-10 by us. Also some photos of the Jardin du Luxemborg.