School Holidays

View inland from Ilfracombe

February brought two weeks of school holidays.  Now, the February half-term has always been my least favourite holiday, the weather is generally not good enough to go out and we tend to end up sitting around the house getting on each other's nerves.  Last year we had 3 weeks, off as the English half-term and French holiday didn't overlap, at least there was the excitement of the move to France, but I do remember those first two weeks, before school started, as being particularly difficult as we knew nobody and had nowhere to go.

So, this year, I came up with a plan to spend a week in England, most of it at my cousin's cottage in Devon.  Paul's French colleagues thought we were mad to be holidaying in England when we lived in France but at least we would be somewhere different and Paul would get a week off work.

After a night in Winchester with my parents we headed off to Devon, lunching at the Crown and Victoria in Tintinhull and arriving in Berrynarbour mid-afternoon in the pouring rain.

Unfortunately the weather didn't really improve so we wandered round Ilfracombe, Barnstaple and Lynton in the rain with not much to do as all the tourist attractions were closed.  Luckily the cottage was nice and warm and we had games to play and books to read and the cinema was a godsend, we saw Tangled (good) and Gnomeo and Juliet (not good) in Barnstaple where Emily also discovered a New Look and Top Shop, so she was happy! 

On the way back from Barnstaple on Thursday we stopped for supper at The Mudiford Inn.  When we tried the doors they were all locked and the pub looked closed but just as we were turning to go they were opened and we were ushered in, it was a bit odd being the only people in the restaurant area but we felt we couldn't really leave and the food was very nice, with something for everyone, which is always good to find.

On the Friday we returned to Basingstoke and spent a couple of days staying at Paul's parents' house, enabling us all to catch up with friends, Kieran managed to fit in two sleepovers before we returned to France on the Monday.

Once back in France we had two lazy days and on Thursday and Friday we met up with Mindy, a friend from Basingstoke NCT, and her three children who were staying with friends in Le Vésinet.  On Thursday we went to St Germain en Laye and walked in the château grounds while the children let off steam, when they started complaining of getting to cold we went into the museum, in the château, which houses many artefacts from all over France.

On Friday Mindy and her children went up the Eiffel Tower and we met them afterwards.  We went on the Batobus as far as the Ile de la cité, walk down to the Boulevard St Germain and have lunch at LouLou Friendly Diner where we were welcomed even though they were very busy, the food was great, the children enjoyed their burgers and club sandwiches and Mindy and I had salads and a glass of organic wine.

We headed back to the Batobus to go on to the Jardin des Plantes and the dinosaur exhibition at the Natural History Museum but Mindy's middle child wasn't feeling very well so she decided to head back with her children and the boys and I went on alone.  There was a long queue for the Natural History Museum so we chose the shorter queue at the Ménagerie and spent about an hour wandering around looking at the animals.

The dreaded lurgy

aka Le Gastro....

On Thursday 3rd Feb Paul and I went to see The King's Speech.  Before we left Alex had been complaining that he didn't feel well but as he'd spent an hour jumping on the trampoline and then eaten a good meal I thought he just needed to go to bed. However, when we came out of the cinema, intending to get something to eat, we turned on our phones to find messages from Emily saying that Alex had been sick and please could we come home.

We arrived home to find Emily sitting at the kitchen table doing her homework, having cleaned up sick, changed Alex's sheets and moved Kieran into the spare room, we ended up eating omelettes for supper at 10.30pm.

Alex continued to be sick all night so we put him on a mattress on our floor and spent the night stripping sheets, four sets in total before he finally stopped being sick.

By Monday, Kieran and I had gone down with it and Alex proved not to be well enough to return to school, resulting in a phonecall from the school to ask me to come and collect him. The rest of the week followed along the same lines, with both boys off school on Tuesday, back on Wednesday but feeling sick, Kieran off again on Thursday and I kept him at home on Friday as Alex had an inset day. Luckily we were all better by the time we went to England the following Saturday!

It reminded me of when we first moved here, there wasn't a week from the beginning of March to the Easter Holidays when I didn't have one child or other at home for at least one day, and generally more.  As we face the same time of year again I hope they have developed some immunity to the bugs which struck them down last year and that we can avoid illness this year.