Sinterklaas

There are lots of Dutch children at Kieran's school and on Friday Sinterklaas came to visit them and all the other children. We parents were invited to meet him too.





He arrived with his sidekick, Zwarte Piet, and a couple of beautiful grey horses (which belong to Mariane, the owner of the school).

Zwarte Piet gave out Pepernoot and Kruidnoten biscuits and Sinterklass checked that all the children were in his book.  The children then sang to him in Dutch and were given presents.

It was a great morning and was lovely to see the traditions of another country embraced by all the children, I'm sure the biscuits and presents helped!

Margaux and Kieran posing in front of Sinterklaas

It's cheese Grommit, but not as we know it

There are some things from home that we just can't do without and Cheddar cheese is one of them.  We're living in a country famed for its cheese making but they don't produce anything that even approximates to the texture and taste of cheddar or acts in the same way when cooked.

When we first moved here I tried making macaroni cheese with a variety of French hard cheeses and the reaction from the children was the same every time - it doesn't taste right.  Finally I discovered that I could buy delicious Wyke Farm Cheddar from the cheese counter at the Carrefour and harmony was restored.

However, this week I decided to do my shopping at the Marché U down the road instead of doing the three-sides-of-a-rectangle drive to Carrefour.  In my perusing of the cheese counter I came across this:

It claims to be Cheddar and it claims to have been made in Grande Bretagne and I know that you can get Cheddar this colour, but I've never seen it with an Edam style rind.  I suppose I should have bought some to see what it tasted like but I didn't want to waste my money!  

Unfortunately Cheddar is deemed to be a generic name for the type of cheese (not that I think that this would even fall into that category), which means that it does not have protected geographical status, so whilst the French would understandably be up in arms if sparkling wine were sold as Champagne or any old blue veined cheese as Roquefort, they are perfectly at liberty to sell this stuff as Cheddar.

If you want to be sure of buying real Cheddar be sure to look for "West Country farmhouse Cheddar cheese" on the label, although this could still have been made in Dorset, Devon or Cornwall in addition to Somerset.  

Oh, in case Wallace and Grommit fans were wondering, Wensleydale isn't protected either, but as yet I haven't found anything over here which even claims to be Wensleydale.

Christmas Puddings

                 

Our Christmas pudding was made in November,All they put in it, I quite well remember:
Currants and raisins, and sugar and spice, 

Orange peel, lemon peel - everything nice

Mixed up together, and put in a pan.

"When you've stirred it," said Mother, "as much as you can,

We'll cover it over, that nothing may spoil it,

And then, in the copper, tomorrow we'll boil it."

Making the Christmas pudding has always been a special time for me, some of my best memories are of arriving at my Gran's house on a Sunday morning in late November to find a large bowl on the kitchen table filled with dried fruit and alcohol ready for us to stir and make a wish.  It was also my Gran who, as my primary school elocution teacher, taught me the poem above - Pudding Charms by Charlotte Druitt Cole, which I still think of as Stir Up Sunday draws near.

I am now the holder of the large bowl, so it falls to me to continue the tradition of making the pudding.  This year I was quite worried that I wouldn't be able to find all the necessary ingredients but nearly everything I needed was available in the Carrefour and, thanks to the very good "foreign food" section of our local Marché U, I was even able to source suet.  This year I have used Delia's recipe, replacing the barley wine with extra stout.

My trusty helper and I set out all our ingredients, my scales with the imperial weights and the all important bowl.

Kieran mixed the eggs, stout and rum while I tackled the dry ingredients.

We're not sure about baguette crumbs but hopefully they'll be fine once they're mixed in

Everybody gives it a good stir

We left the mixture in the bowl overnight, covered with a cloth and now they're sitting on the kitchen table ready to be steamed tomorrow morning.

The Women of Père Lachaise

The grave of Mlle Lenormand

The Cemetery of Père Lachaise is the most famous and largest cemetery in Paris, covering over 118 acres, and boasts such residents as Molière, Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison and Bizet.  It is somewhere I've wanted to go ever since we moved here, so when I found out that one of the guided walks, organised through the children's school, was "The women of Père Lachaise" I jumped at the opportunity to visit.

We arrived at the entrance to the cemetery in light drizzle and proceeded to the first grave, that of Mlle Lenormand, a celebrated fortune teller who was a favourite of Joséphine Bonaparte.  She became the most celebrated fortune teller of her time and the Lenormand tarot cards are named after her. Her grave is still highly decorated with flowers and keepsakes from many different religions and cultures.

The next grave was that of the d'Ornano family. This is where Maria Walewska, Napoleon's "Polish Wife" was originally buried, although her body was later returned to Poland.  Maria met Napoleon when he visited Poland in 1806, on his way to meet the Tzar of Russia.  He was taken with her beauty and she was encouraged by her, much older, husband to get to know Napoleon for the good of her country.  

According to the guide, Kelly Spearman, Napoleon made his intentions known to Maria, who promptly fainted and Napoleon, overcome with desire, raped her whilst she was unconscious.  She refused to see him for 10 days, during which he postponed his visit to the Tzar, and she finally agreed to follow him to Russia as his official mistress and then returned to France with him.  Two years into their relationship she had his child, who was officially recognised as the son of her husband even though they had not seen each other for years.  

In 1816, after the fall of Napoleon, she married the Count d'Ornano and died the following year after the birth of her third son.  She was buried in the Ornano family tomb at Père Lachaise but later her body was exhumed and taken back to Poland to her family tomb.

We moved on to the grave of the author Colette, who led a long and interesting life, which included a flirtation with lesbianism and an affair with her ex-husband's son.  She was one of the first women to be given a state funeral in France, although she was refused a Catholic funeral because of her "racy" background.

We moved on, in increasingly heavy rain, to the graves of three actresses: Mlle George, Marguerite-Joséphine Weimer, actress at the Comédie Française and lover of both Napoleon and Tsar Alexander 1st; Mlle Mars, Anne Françoise Hyppolyte Boutet Salvetat, celebrated ingenue at the Comédie Française for over 30 years and Mlle Rachel famous throughout Europe for her more naturalistic acting style and lover of Alexandre, the son of Maria Walweska and Napoleon.  She was the inspiration for the character of Vashti in Charlotte Brontë's novel Villette.

Our next stop was the monument to Heloise and Abelard, whose remains were moved to Père Lachaise as part of Napoleon's push to encourage people to buy plots in his "celebrity cemetery"



The final grave we visited, as the rain threatened to turn to sleet, was that of Rosa Bonheur who was unusual in the 19th Century for her large scale paintings of landscapes and farming scenes, Ploughing in Nivernais - which hangs in the Musée d'Orsay being one of the most famous.  She was famed for wearing men's clothing to paint, for which she had to gain permission from the local police! and is buried in the family tomb of Nathalie Micas, her companion for 50 years.

Despite the awful weather this was a very enjoyable and informative tour and gave and insight into the lives of some of the women who are (or were) buried at this very famous cemetery.

Remember, remember the 5th of November

OK, so it was actually the 6th of November but, in typically British fashion, we braved the wind and rain to attend a bonfire night party at the Standard Athletic Club in Meudon which is a little piece of England to the south of Paris.


Meudon is one of those places which looks relatively close on the map but is hard to find and takes about twice as long as it should to get to (like Petersfield from Basingstoke!) and we were becoming increasingly worried that we would miss the fireworks, which we had been told would start "promptly at 6pm", luckily this was actually the time the bonfire was lit and the fireworks didn't start until about 15 minutes after we arrived at 6.30, which gave us time to wave around a few sparklers and find a place to watch the fireworks.

After the fireworks, and National Anthem!, a very wet group of people made their way up to the bar for hot dogs and curry, where we found that the sensible people had been watching the display from inside!  We didn't manage to meet up with the rest of the Message families who were there, which is the problem of only communicating with people online rather than face-to-face, but there was another family from Maisons Laffitte and Kieran's school there so we ate our meal with them.

It was a very enjoyable evening and worth the long drive.

The Wanderers Return

Alex and I spent Saturday carving pumpkins and making cookies for Halloween in the hope that some trick-or-treaters would make it out to us in the evening.

At 6pm Paul, Kieran, Emily and her friends arrived home and the boys and I prepared to go out to the houses of Message members in Maisons Laffitte who were participating in the trick-or-treating.

Unfortunately all the other houses were in the Parc, which is the other end of town from us and extremely confusing to drive round.  I swear that even in the daytime the roads move, Hogwarts like, into different positions and at night we had the added problem that French houses, especially in the Parc, tend to be set back from the road with high walls and gates so at some houses there was no external sign that we would be welcome.

However, the boys had a good time and collected a decent number of sweets

and our pumpkins weren't in vain as we had a visit from one intrepid trick-or-treater

Single Motherdom Days 2 & 3

Friday was a quiet day, with a lazy start as Alex turned to me at 9.00 and said "I can't get up, my eyes don't work" before promptly falling back asleep so I stayed in bed with him and read my book.  When we finally got up he toyed with the idea of going to the boulangerie to get pain au chocolat for breakfast but as that would have involved getting dressed he decided to have Weetos instead.

After lunch we met Jess and Zoë at Parc Corbière and Alex climbed and slid and generally ran around for a couple of hours. Because of this I don't feel quite so guilty at the amount of time he  spent on the Wii after we got back.  In my defence I was attempting to re-build his lego castle, I thought all the pieces were in one box but it seems that some of them have managed to emigrate to one or other of the three boxes full of lego, or simply disappeared.

Saturday was our "go into Paris and be tourists" day.  Learning from MrsBridgewater's experience I decided not to take my whole purse up the Eiffel Tower and just took 20€ and my bank card in a zip pocket of my bag.  We took the RER and metro to Trocadero and walked down past the fountains towards the river.

Alex the tour guide

We arrived at the Eiffel Tower at our appointed time and were crammed into the lift to the second floor.  Alex wanted to go straight to the top so we joined a Disney style queue to the summit and enjoyed the views of Paris while we were waiting.

Waiting in the queue for the summit

Looking towards Maisons Laffitte (to the left of La Defence) and London (straight  ahead)

at the top

Getting Tired

After the Eiffel Tower we braved the hell which is the Disney store on the Champs Elysées, how they can operate in such a small space amazes me and it is not the place to be on a Saturday afternoon.  However Alex was very pleased with his new green puffle.

We stopped for a late lunch at Pizza Pino, opposite the Disney Store where the food was good and not expensive and the Café Gourmand was delicious.

Vanilla Ice Cream, Tiramissu and Crème Caramel

As we made our way back to the Métro at Place d'Etoile we managed to get caught up in a group of tourists all wearing bright yellow caps and a protest outside the Guerlain shop before I dragged Alex into Sephora which he declared smelt "like Em's bedrooom".

Single Motherdom Day 1

I had forgotten how hard it is being your child's only source of human entertainment!  To be fair Alex is very good at entertaining himself, with the help of the Wii, the PC and the television (wall to wall Horrid Henry anyone?) but he is definitely missing Kieran and has already started drawing pictures for him.

Due to the silly English language film times we headed into Paris at 6pm this evening to see Arthur and the Invisibles 3 (don't bother it really isn't worth it).  The UCG website said that it started at 7.15pm, it also failed to make it clear that their cinema on the Champs Elysees is spread over 3 buildings and of course we found the other two first.  Luckily the time on the website was wrong and it didn't start until 7.45 so we were actually there in plenty of time, especially as the adverts and trailers didn't end until 8.10.  This is the second time a film we've been to has started later than the time advertised on the website, I can only assume that this is a typically French thing as they never expect you to arrive on time for anything.

Alex and I made up over 1/6 of the total audience for the film, which is either a result of, or explains, the timing of the showing.  On the way out Alex needed the loo and we experienced a very rare phenomenon - a queue for the gents!  Alex had realised that the cubicle was just inside the door and was waiting patiently but kept getting barged past by men who thought he was just in the way.  He got the last laugh though as they were all inside when the cubicle door opened and Alex was able to slip in as the previous occupant came out.

Travelling into Paris at night with a 7 year old who thinks he's Buzz Lightyear is interesting to say the least and I do wish he'd just happily hold my hand.  On the plus side we had a wonderful view of the floodlit Arc de Triomphe as we came out of the cinema and were lucky that the first train through Charles de Gaulle Etoile was one which stopped at Maisons Laffitte.

Alex did flag briefly whilst waiting for the train but it is now after 11pm and he is waiting in my bed like a big spider, wanting to read to me, in some ways having only one child is great but I can see that the lack of "me" space would very quickly get to me, let's hope it doesn't before Sunday evening!

Les Vacances de Toussaint

In France they don't have "October half-term" they have "All Saints Holidays", All Saints Day being a public holiday over here.  We're in the slightly odd position of having two children with two weeks off and one with only a week and a day, and of course it is the one who is the most difficult to get to school who has to go back earliest!  Such is the proliferation of public holidays that no sooner have the others returned to school on 8th November than they have two days off on the 11th for Armistice day and the 12th to "faire le pont", in other words bridge the gap between the holiday on the Thursday and the weekend, which is common practise if a holiday falls on a Thursday.

A while ago Emily suggested going back to England this week so that she could go to Thorpe Park for Fright Night, she then mooted the idea of taking some friends with her and for some reason we agreed.  Paul isn't quite sure how he ended up being the driver for this trip but this morning he set off in the Galaxy with four girls and Kieran, leaving me at home with just Alex.  I have to say I'll be glad not to have Alex and Kieran in the same house for a few days as they argue too often and too loudly, but it will be very strange being here on my own with Alex.

Of course we have had to plan things to do, so tonight we are going to the cinema to see Arthur and the Invisibles 3 (deep joy), unfortunately French cinemas don't show children's films in English during the day so the earliest showing is at 7.15 on the Champs Elysees but as he doesn't sleep anyway this shouldn't be a problem.  Tomorrow we are meeting a friend and her daughter at Parc Corbière and on Saturday we are going up the Eiffel Tower "to the very top" as Alex has requested.

We're hoping that Kieran will be home early enough on Sunday to go Trick or Treating around Maisons Laffitte and I need to make sure that we have goodies to give out to any trick or treaters who manage to find their way down our rather dark alley.

Strikes

We always knew that the French have a tendency to strike at the drop of a hat, and when we first moved here I thought it was funny that they announced on the radio who was striking that day, but it has gone far enough!

We are now in the situation of having been unable to buy diesel since the weekend and there are students rioting in Nanterre, which is about 15 minutes away from here by train.  They're now talking about the electricity running out, so I have gone out and bought candles just in case!

I'm sure that we'll be fine here but I'm rather regretting that Alex and I are not returning to the UK with Paul, Emily and Kieran next week.  However, should the electricity go off I may be rethinking my plans, and at least I'll have the petrol car should I need to make a dash for the coast!

I found out this afternoon that our local filling station has diesel, however they are only letting 2 or 3 cars in at a time and there is nowhere to wait so Paul is going to try again later. Fingers crossed we'll be able to fill up the Galaxy so that Paul and the others, including 3 of Emily's friends, can get over to England on Thursday for their Thorpe Park Fright Night trip.

Château de Malmaison

On Monday I went on a walking tour with 15 other Mums from L'Ermitage (Emily and Alex's school) round the Château de Malmaison which was Josephine Bonaparte's country retreat.  


I've never been sure about guided tours of stately homes but this was definitely worth it, the guide was very knowledgeable and filled in the background  of Josephine and Napoleon and brought them to life with stories,such as the fact that Napoleon would want to spend no more than 20 minutes eating a meal so when they had guests the servants would bring all the courses together and he would eat starter, main course and pudding on one plate, not noticing that Josephine and the guests were hardly eating.  Once Napoleon had left the table Josephine would have all the food sent back to the kitchen and served leisurely over 2 or 3 hours.

Malmaison was in a good situation as it was possible to get there and back from Paris in one day which meant that Josephine could spend her leisure time there and Napoleon would join her, still able to work and receive messages from Paris.  Josephine, frustrated that he spent all his time working, insisted that Napoleon would take a break every 2 hours and laid on different entertainments in the house or grounds to keep his attention from wandering back to work.

The guide described how the house had been opened up after it's purchase by Josephine, telling us about all the walls which had been demolished to create larger rooms,it must have been very poky beforehand, and pointing out the butresses which had been added to the exterior to reinforce the walls and support the roof.

The only disappointing aspect of the visit was the attitude of the staff at the château.  Apart from our party there were about 6 other visitors to the château that morning and yet from 10 past 12 one of the staff members was following us around, reminding the guide that the château closed at 12.30 and pointedly looking at his watch, finally chasing us down the stairs and out of the door, with the guide berating him for being so jobsworth about closing for lunch on time.

I shall definitely be going on further walking tours  with this group and am looking forward to finding out all sorts of interesting information about other places in and around Paris.

Getting to know you

Now the children are back at school, I've been getting out and about more.  In the last few weeks I've been to coffee mornings at both schools, to a girls' night out in Maisons Laffitte, to a get-together for parents interested in home birth in Paris and on a walking tour of the Château de Malmaison (more of which later).

All of these were great, although the choice of a Salsa Night for the girls' night wasn't wonderful as the music was too loud and the food took nearly and hour and a half to arrive, but it was good to meet more local English speaking people.

My mission for after the Toussaint holiday is to find some French speakers and get them to talk to me in French!  I'm going to start with the French Conversation sessions at the tennis club and see how that goes.

One small village of indomitable Gauls

A couple of weeks ago we went to Parc Asterix which is a theme park to the North of Paris.  In feel it is more like the UK theme parks than Disney and is certainly nowhere near as slick, but it was a great day out and Emily and Kieran enjoyed the rides more than those at Disneyland, it is also a much quicker drive.

We were lucky to get a beautifully sunny day after a week of rain and the park wasn't very crowded so we didn't have to queue very long for any ride.  Merchandising wasn't as prevalent as at Disneyland either but we still managed to come away with a Dogmatix (or Idéefix as he is known in France), a big blue bone, an Obelix T-shirt for Emily and 4 Asterix books, three in English for Kieran and one in French for Paul.

We'll definitely be going back and will probably get annual passes next year rather than renewing the Disneyland ones.

Here are a few pictures of our day:

A post from Kieran

Hi, I'm not quite sure what to say, but I thought you might like to see my class blog  but don't follow it because that's just for the parents.


Kieran

Back to Running (and dieting)

Now the children are back at school and with such beautiful surroundings as the Parc of Maisons Laffitte and the Forest of St Germain to run in, I have no excuse not to run any more so I recommenced Couch to 5K this week.  Having not run since the end of July, when I stubbed 3 toes on my left foot so badly that I couldn't wear shoes for 2 weeks, I knew I wouldn't be able to re-start where I left off (week 6) so decided to go back to week 4, this was a bit ambitious so on Tuesday I tried week 3 which I have now done 3 times this week and it is getting easier.  I'm cross with myself for letting the running slip and going back to where I was in June but at least now I know I can do it, and I will carry on doing it!

I have a similar frustration with my recent inability to eat sensibly.  I've struggled with my weight all my adult life.  I know that my problem, in common with many overweight people, is that I like to eat and drink and am really not keen on exercise, and of course France is a wonderful place for food and drink, especially if you have a simply sublime boulangerie just across the road.  Since we've been here I have rather been eating and drinking as if I were on holiday and it has to stop!

In January 2007, when my weight had tipped over 13 stone (and not wanting to be fat and 40), I started the Idiot Proof Diet, a high protein, low carb eating plan.  By mid-April I had lost a stone and a half and an amazing number of inches, I even featured in their online forum's before and after wall! I kept the weight off for over 18 months until Kieran broke his leg and I had to spend 10 days in hospital with him which resulted in 10 days of eating sandwiches, chocolate and cakes and basically broke my diet.

I should have turned round and started the diet again when we got home from hospital but having a child on crutches over the summer holidays was hard and eating "normally" seemed much easier.  Slowly the weight crept back on and although I tried dieting over the course of 2009 I didn't manage to stick to anything for more than a few weeks.  So by the time we moved to France I'd put on a stone, add to that the weight I've gained since we've been here and my weight is edging towards what it was at the end of 2006.  Something has to be done!

I know I can do the IPD, just as I know I can improve my running and I'm currently in the right frame of mind to stick to both so here I am on the first step towards, if not a new me, then at least the old me that is lurking inside.  I'll keep you updated on my progress.

What a day!

Yesterday was one of those days where I seemed to be chasing my tail.  It started with having to get to school by 8.10 for a meeting with Alex's teacher about how to help him with his French, I didn't manage 8.10 as the traffic was a lot worse at 8am than it is at 8.15 but I wasn't too late.  I managed to carry out the meeting in French and we have agreed that Alex's teacher will take him for one-to-one sessions at lunchtime four days a week to help him with his comprehension, spoken and written French.

Home for a coffee and an update to Paul and then on to Carrefour for a few things I needed and to look for a present for Emily's friend's birthday.  Of course I'd forgotten that most French schools are off on Wednesday so the shop was packed with parents and children and the queues were maddeningly slow.  My drive back was then mucked up by roadworks and I got lost both in the diversion and trying to drive through the parc to Alex's school and arrived 10 mins late to pick him up.

Then we had to dash home, get lunch and be back in the parc, at the tennis club, for his first tennis lesson here.  We did manage to arrive there on time and Alex was very pleased that one of the boys in his class at school is in the same group for tennis.  It is taught in French but there are quite a few English speaking children in the group and he came out an hour later saying it had been good (although he managed to fall over and graze his elbow).

The rest of the afternoon went well, I got supper into the slow cooker and was able to have homework and supper over and done with by 5.30pm.  A bit of trampoline bouncing in the rain meant that Alex was ready for a bath by 6.00 and stories had been read by 8pm, meaning that I could eat at a reasonable time.  I really need to work out how to do this on Alex's full days when we often don't get home until 5.00.

Mum's Birthday Weekend

On Friday the family started arriving for a weekend of jollity to celebrate Mum's 70th birthday.  Mum, Dad, Ni and Sue drove from Le Harvre, following a not very pleasant overnight ferry journey, to St Germain en Laye and stayed in the Hotel Cazaudehore from which I collected Mum and Dad on Friday afternoon to pick Kieran up from  school.  When we arrived at the school they were having a totem pole ceremony, all the children had painted their faces on wooden discs and these were attached to batons and then to one of the trees in the school grounds while the children banged drums and shook tambourines.

Late on Friday evening Gavin and Chris arrived and we stayed up far too late chatting and catching up.  Saturday morning was full of cleaning and tidying to prepare for the big family barbecue later in the day.  There were 16 of us at the barbecue and the children were pleased to see their second cousins, especially Alex who had been awaiting Zac's arrival eagerly.

We had good food, cooked as always by the wonderful Paul,

educational opportunities (how to fit 10 people through a piece of A4 paper) with the only person I know who could get six children to sit still on a trampoline,

magic tricks from Uncle Nigel,

birthday cake

and fireworks

Alex and Zac managed to wangle a sleepover, although not much sleeping went on.  On Sunday we all met up, with two very tired boys, by the Seine near the Eiffel Tower for lunch on a boat on the river with Capitaine Fricasse.  The food and the company were good and the children behaved themselves!

It was great to have so many of the family together, although we missed Justin, Michela and Pietro, and I don't know when we'll next all be in one place as the Halls are moving to New York at the end of the year.

Back to School

Reality hit with a bump the day after our return from holiday as Emily was back at school, thankfully not until 2.30pm which gave her some time to get herself sorted before going in.  


Victoria had gone into Paris to take her children up the Eiffel Tower and had the appalling bad luck of having her wallet stolen.  She was stuck in Paris with no money, no tube tickets and 5 children so I set off to rescue them.  We managed to get to the police station at Les Invalides and fill in the initial form but we then waited and waited for Victoria to be interviewed, on uncomfortable plastic chairs with five children who hadn't eaten since breakfast and there wasn't even a water cooler to quench their thirst.  Eventually we decided that I would take the four oldest back to Maisons Laffitte and Victoria would carry on waiting with Esmé.  So I trailed four tired and hungry children across Paris to Charles de Gaulle Etoile, only to find that there were no RER trains running and had to get us all out to St Lazare and onto the SNCF train home.  The Fajitas and Chilli we had for supper that night were very welcome to all, as were the McVities chocolate caramel digestives which Emily and Caoimhe provided to the starving hoards on their arrival.


The Dicks left the following day and Alex went back to school, thankfully, he is in a class with his best friend and a few other boys he knows from last year.  The focus in CP is very much on getting the children reading fluently in both French and English and perfecting cursive handwriting.  Alex is struggling with the French as it is hard learning to read in a language you don't speak so we are going to get him some extra help from his teacher at lunchtime so that he can catch up.  


Kieran was the last to go back to school, on Thursday 1st, and came home on the first day saying they hadn't done much, just made the world!  He too is going to be concentrating on cursive handwriting and improving his confidence at reading this year, along with learning French so that he will be able to go to L'Ermitage with the others next year.

Holiday

The last two weeks of August were spent in Volonne in Haute Provence at the Hippocampe campsite.  Volonne itself wasn't much to write home about but the campsite was lovely, smaller than the one in the Ardeche that we've been to three times and with fewer English people but the pool and facilities were great and our chalets were very new and in good condition.

We spent the fortnight with Victoria and her brood so were completely outnumbered, with 8 children aged from 4 to 14 and only 3 adults but there was lots for the children to do on the campsite and not too many altercations.

It was not an uneventful holiday though, Kieran came down the slide awkwardly and made such a fuss that the pompiers were called and a trip to A&E ensued even though we knew that he wasn't badly hurt; Victoria's car had a tyre blow-out driving around the winding roads, luckily she was rescued by a passing tow truck as I'd left my phone in the chalet and Kieran was playing on Paul's and wouldn't answer it when it rang as he didn't recognise the number!  Then to top it all the children picked up nits from the campsite pool so the evenings were spent combing them, only for them to acquire more the next day.

With so many children to look after we spent most of our time on the campsite, chilling out.  In the second week it was too hot to go to the pool before 5pm, or maybe my tolerance of the heat had lessened, but it did mean that we generally got sun loungers when we did get there and still had a good couple of hours in the sun.

We did go out a couple of times, to Sisteron for wonderful views from the citadel

to Digne les Bains,which was disappointing but we did see the burial place of the Bishop who inspired Bishop Myriel in Les Misérables and a very impressive gargoyle

and to Aix en Provence, where the children did their own gargoyle impressions

Paul, Emily and Kieran spent days up in the trees and rafting on the Durance.  It was a great holiday and I would certainly go back to the area, which was stunning, and the campsite.

Blink and you missed it

Wow, what a summer that was!

At the beginning of July I was seriously worried about how I would fill two months of summer holidays but they seemed to go by in the blink of an eye.  July was full of visitors and trips back to England and August went really quickly with Kitty here for a week and then two weeks in Haute Provence.


Our second trip to England started on 26th July when we went to stay at my Parents' for a week.  The week was full of driving up and down to Basingstoke to get Paul's car MOT'd, see films without subtitles, get Emily's tummy button pierced and catch up with friends, with all three children having sleepovers (although I had to collect Alex at midnight from his as he woke up and didn't know where he was).

On the Sunday we went to Gavin and Chris's new house in Harlow for a barbecue, it is great to see them settled in their own home and we spent a lovely afternoon in their very large, for the size of the house, garden.  Paul went back to France from Harlow and, because of an accident on my bit of the M25, only took 1.5 hours more to get to Maisons Laffitte than it took me to drive back to Winchester.


On our way back we collected Kitty and brought her back for her delayed visit to us.  Kitty was with us for a very busy week.  On the Sunday we had a barbecue to celebrate Alex's 7th birthday with the family of one of his schoolfriends and one of Paul's colleagues whose wife had abandoned him for a hen weekend in England.

Then on the Monday I took Kitty and Kieran into Paris to go up the Eiffel Tower.  The afternoon started bright and clear and we took in a visit to the Disney Store before heading to the tower.

However, as we joined the queue to get into the tower the first drops of rain started falling and by the time we were in the lift it was torrential.

but they still had a good time

and by the time we came down it had cleared up enough to be ice cream weather

Tuesday was Alex's birthday and he was very pleased with the presents he received

Wednesday was another sightseeing day, I braved Paris with Kitty, Kieran and Alex and took them to the Musée d'Orsay.  They were interested to see the Van Goughs, but wanted to know why there was no monster in the window of the church and where the picture of the Tardis exploding was!  They also saw some impressionist paintings that they recognised.  After lunch we managed to meet up with Paul, who spent the fortnight doing a French course in the mornings, and he took Alex home whilst the rest of us went to the Louvre.

where we saw the Venus de Milo,

The Egyptian exhibits (for which Kieran and Alex had prepared Kitty earlier in the week)

and braved the crowd around the Mona Lisa, where we lost Kieran

It was a tiring day

Undaunted, however, the following day we headed off to Versailles to see the Château.  

Even with my 2 day museum pass the queue was pretty long and the rooms were packed, which made it hard for the children to see anything, so we went through the inside as quickly as we could and headed for the gardens where we hired a golf buggy

and made our way round the gardens and down to the Trianon.  I think the buggy and the inevitable ice cream were far more interesting to the children than the surroundings!

The next day Victoria and the rest of her children arrived to collect Kitty and we rounded off her visit with a day at Disneyland Paris

Alex loved having Freddy to stay and going to Disneyland with him.  This photo was taken on my iphone on Thunder Mountain, it's a pity my thumb was partially over the lens but I do think it is a good photo:

We said au revoir to the Dicks, as they would be coming back in a week for our holiday in Haute Provence, and headed home to more guests and another barbecue.  It was great to see the Howlands, who came for the night on the way home from holiday, and Kieran loved catching up with Thomas - I don't think there was much sleeping done that night.

Being a rather bad hostess I left before my guests the next morning, although I did get them breakfast from our wonderful boulangerie, which does the best croissants I've tasted and pain au raisin to die for.  I was headed into Paris to observe and help at a Preparation for Childbirth and Parenthood course run for Message by Deborah Whittaker.  It was a weekend course, with two full days on the Saturday and Sunday and a mums only session on the Monday morning. It was lovely to be around parents-to-be again and reminded me why I am studying.  They were a great group of people and I felt privileged to be part of their journey into parenthood.