The Garricks come to stay!

On Saturday 13th August, Scott had to head back to England (can you believe his work actually expect him to do some?!), and in the evening our friends from church, the Garrick family, came to stay with us for a few days. They had spent the first part of their holiday a few hours away in Bayeux. 

We had tea, then got everyone's beds sorted out (their eldest, Ryan, on the living room floor, their next 2 sons, and Jack and Tom in a tent in the back garden, and Lucy, Harry, and Cara their youngest, in the bunk room!)

The next day, we headed to Josselin, and had a good wander round, made even more interesting by doing another task set by Dan, which was made up of lots of questions on the town.

The kids (Harry in particular) were fascinated by the man who was doing tree trunk carving.

Some of the kids, and the gorgeous flowers on the bridge.

Clare and Paul

I love this picture of the boys in the little back streets of Josselin.

We then met up with Mum and Dad, and headed down river on the boat. What a motley crew.

On the way back, Clare and I decided it was our turn on the front of the boat (the kids were also getting a bit rowdy, shouting 'Bonjour Madame' and waving like loonies at everyone on the banks...)
I don't think Clare had imagined that she would turn into part of a tourist attraction herself, but going through the last lock (l'ecluse) near Josselin, we drew quite a crowd!

In the evening, we went for a walk in Yvon's wood.

On Monday 15th August, we had a bit of a sceptic tank disaster - it seemed to be backing up into Mum and Dad's wet room! Dad, Paul and Ryan started digging in the back garden down to the tank bit to see what was going on. After a while though we headed to Sarzeau, so Dad could concentrate on the problem.

We took the inflatable dingy out on the sea, and messed around burying people. Clare nearly died laughing at one point, while 'dressing up' her buried Scott!

We also practised being French (ie. trying to keep our voices down at the beach). Beautiful weather.

After the beach, we went for a quick wander round the outside of Suscinio Chateau.

When we got back, we found that Dad had managed to sort out the sceptic tank problem (no pleasant job!!!) He had to unblock one part of it, but was glad in some ways, because we can avoid that in future, and actually the rest of the system proved to be working brilliantly.

Clare and Paul were also, of course, introduced to Dad's toy arsenal....

On Tuesday 16th August, we went to 'the bouncy castle place' (still am not entirely sure what it's called in real life.) We had a good time on the wonky bikes, in the woodland adventure bits (were I nearly got jiggled to death by Ryan, while I was stuck in a black tube...)

 and of course we had a grand time on the inflatables!

Back at Bel-Air, we toasted marshmallows and made smores.

Paul and Clare treated us all to a super BBQ, followed by a beautiful French apple tart.

We had a wonderful time together, and stayed up late talking every night. Mum and Dad got on really well with Paul and Clare too, and Clare in particular was really upset to be ending their holiday, when we saw them off on Wednesday morning. (She said she cried all the way to Le Havre!)