First Week in France (August 2012)

Saturday 11th August 2012. A nice warm day. I felt a bit ill, with strange stomach pains, and Scott cut the grass. We did a big Super-U shop in the afternoon. It was lovely having the place to ourselves.

A Hay Baler came and baled up the field next to us, which Harry loved watching. Fun waiting for them to 'plop' out!

Sunday 12th August 2012. We went to church in the morning for Sacrament Meeting. I slept in the afternoon and stayed in bed reading a lot (I'd had a bad night with stomach pains again.) The kids played around the place happily, and Scott took them for a walk in the woods.

We also had a lot of fun hanging out at the front of the house watching the animals from next door...

...and playing on the hay bales.

We named most of the animals. Here is Scott with Voldemort the goose, who dislikes all of us, but most especially Scott!

Tom with his 'goat-luring' hat on...

Goat luring in process...

Successful goat luring!!

I love this photo of Lucy looking like she's talking to Dodo, the white hen. (She was actually talking to Jack who was standing next to her, but I cropped him out!)

Painting in the brekkie room. Scott also started a jigsaw puzzle of the Louvre.

Jack playing lawn darts accompanied by George the tail-less peacock.

Here are the names we gave the animals:
Large goose = Voldemort (These 3 geese deserve 'baddie' names from harry Potter, becaus they are psychotic.)
Smaller goose = Snape
White duck = Malfoy
White hen = Dodo (She looks a bit pre-historic)
Black hen = Frodo
Red hen = Weasley (Red hair)
Rooster = Elvis
Peacock = George (As in George of the Jungle, because he gets in trees.)
Black hen with ginger = Mr.T
Goat (no name came to us)
Donkey = Donkey (as in Donkey from Shrek)
I love how everyone remembered all the names, and used them, as we saw a lot of the animals.

Monday 13th August 2012. It rained a lot! We stayed home, and the kids made a den in the pouring rain. I spent a lot of time doing the Louvre jigsaw puzzle. I don't even like doing puzzles that much, but it seemed to suck me in! (That blinkin' sky was almost impossible!)

Tuesday 14th August 2012. The weather wasn't looking that great, so we went to Decathlon to get Tom some trainers (his only other pair had got completely soaked in yesterday's rain), plus new cags for Tom and Lucy, and some proper badminton and tennis rackets.
We then decided to try out a new section of the surfing beach which Scott had found on the internet, and we ended up having a nice little time at the beach - the sun came out and it was warm and pleasant. The kids paddled in their clothes and got soaked of course.

We had a fun in the garden at home with the new rackets, and being invaded by next door's birds.

Lucy could hardly serve for laughing so much at Dodo joining in!

The geese make us kill ourselves laughing!! - kept peering in the French doors, with Harry winding them up so they were tapping the glass...

Casually playing Catan, while stalker Voldemort peers in...

Wednesday 15th August 2012. Quiet day at Bel-Air. Went for a walk later on through the woods, and round in the big loop. I adored all the blue hydrangeas, and we laughed at Lucy having problems with her new flip-flops in a muddy puddle. Think we all felt a bit fed up at some point later on.

(I was trying to teach myself writing on pictures in Photoshop, at a later date.)

Thursday 16th August 2012. Weather a bit better so we went to the bouncy castle place. We stayed for ages and had a really good time! We enjoy seeing what they've done new each year - feel like old regulars!

The kids liked the new water bit!

Friday 17th August 2012. Finally a scorcher of a day! Off to the surfing beach. There were huge traffic jams on the way, and I wasn't in a particularly good mood.
We got there though, and had a good time. I did a bit of body boarding, though the waves weren't that good. Harry's getting better at body boarding, and Scott and Tom are getting better at skim boarding too.
We left when the tide came in rapidly right up to our stuff! Everyone was crowded onto a tiny bit of beach! The car park was totally manic, with tonnes of French arriving, and nowhere for them to park or turn around. They all seem to flock to the beach at 3-4pm. I had some French conversation with people who were trying to get in, and managed to negotiate getting us out OK (after the car wouldn't start, and we had to 'wiggle the wire'!)

On the way home we went round Hyper-U, very sandy and wet and sunburnt. We made a fire in Mum and Dad's and toasted marshmallows. More nutty geese visitors to our French doors later, and we had a nice evening with everyone happy.

Saturday 18th August 2012. More French window visitors! Lucy and Scott had to be at Dinard Airport by 5pm. In the morning I got Lucy's washing done for her to take to EFY (Especially For Youth - a brilliant week for tonnes of teenagers from church). Scott was going to drop her off at that in Nottingham, then go to work for the week.

Lucy and I went for a walk to Yvon's wood.

I made a hot lunch, then we packed up baguettes for the evening, and stopped off at Dinan for a walk around, on the way to the airport.

It was a beautiful hot day, and I got to see my favourite lovely avenues of trees, by the river.

We then dropped Scott and Lucy off, and I geared up to be in charge, and do the driving etc! The boys were very good and we drove back to Josselin Super-U, and got more stuff for dinners. The boys found some cheapish Olympics Playmobil which they were very happy with!
I felt a bit nervous being totally on my own with just the boys, for the first night.