Madness At The Malting

After a pretty quiet week at Bel-Air for our first week, our next week had loads crammed into it!
The Walters family arrived to stay with us, on Saturday afternoon, a couple of hours ahead of Lucy and Scott.
I met Dan Walters about 15 years ago when I spent a couple of months in America one summer. In the past year our kids who are similar ages have been writing to each other, so it has been so fun for us all to spend some time with each other! I hadn't met Claudia, Dan's wife before - she too is totally lovely and we got on well. We are all members of the church, and our families seem to have a lot in common. Claudia is Swiss, and she had spent some of the summer along with her kids, at her parent's home, before driving through France to us.
Scott had worked for the past week, and Lucy had been with him for a couple of days, then spent a couple of days on church camp. She had a wail of a time, and made a load of new friends from other wards in our stake. Lucy and Scott went to see the musical Wicked, in London one night too. I think Lucy had had about 3 hours sleep in the last week!! (Maybe a slight exaggeration...)
Breakfast on our first morning:

We decided to miss church (I know, very naughty!) and go and visit Vannes, about 40 mins away. All the guys (except Brin) together: Lucy, Jack, Chelsey, Tyler, Tom, Emily and Harry.

Dan's camera ran out of battery, so we shared mine for the day - some of these pictures are his and some mine.

The kids all seemed to get on pretty well!

We then drove to Suscinio beach to have lunch.

Brin was just happy playing with her bucket...

We then headed to Suscinio Chateau. It's a fantastic place, right near the beach.

I had got the co-ordinates for all my favourite beaches etc. from Google Earth, and put then into my satnav before we came, because I knew I wouldn't be able to get road names/post codes for lots of places. I was happy that it worked out so well! (Not that Scott needed them, but I knew I would!)

Some of the kids in the dressing-up room of the chateau.

The banqueting hall.

We then headed to Auray, one of my favourite places. (Auray is the place in the picture that is my blog header.) It was totally packed out, because of the boat jousting tournament being held. Here we all are enjoying some very fine icecreams!

Boat Jousting!! (Smurfs v. Vikings in this shot!)

Me with the kids up a tower, at the top of Auray.

Walking back to our cars after a fully packed day.

On Monday, we all went for a wander around Josselin. While in the church, a group started singing in the most hypnotic way - all of us including the kids just sat quietly and listened till they had finished. We then went up the church bell tower.

View over Josselin from the bell tower.

We were also up the bell tower when the bell rang for midday. Rather loudly...

Jack introducing Tyler to his favourite shop!

After seeing the town, we met up with Dad on the river, and went for a ride on the boat. Had one dodgey moment when the reverse gear failed on the boat, and we crashed into some big old wooden lock doors. Poor Tyler got his knee bashed up, but Dad sorted out the boat and we were able to continue.

Scott and Harry in a lock, with us on the boat.

The kids getting Scott.

We stopped off at our favourite little picnic place along the river, and had fun messing around in the water.

Scott.

Playing a game with Brin.

On Tuesday, we headed off to the bouncy castle place which seems to fast be becoming a tradition to visit!

Playing in the trees.

The Dads making tidal waves for the kids on the big orange thing...

And the Mum's having fun too...

And of course - SO much fun on the go-karts!!

A sleepy looking Brin, and Scott.

On the Wednesday, we all decided to have more chilled out day pottering round at home. I think we were all feeling a bit tired! (Staying up too late at night chatting too!)

Dad and Dan on the mini motor bikes.

It was lovely hanging out all together - games of Catan, Monopoly, colouring & painting, and I started Chelsey off on a mini hexigan quilt of her own.

We had meant to put up a tent for the 3 older girls, but never got round to it - they slept in the living room the whole time, while the 4 boys stayed in the bunk room, with Dan & Claudia & Brin in Ken's spare room. Organised chaos!

We then headed off down the lanes to pick blackberries, which we ate for tea, on crepes which Claudia made. After tea we also had (a rather late) Family Home Evening.

Love this picture of Chelsey wearing the wreath I made her.

Jack, Harry and Emily with the hoard...

And of course, the kids played on the hay bales!!

On our last full day together, it was clear skies and so we headed to 'the surfing beach'. The kids played happily, and the adults and older kids all took it in turns to go surfing & body boarding - with our wondrous collection of wet suits, life jackets and boards!

The Cryers & Walters - somewhat wet, tired and sandy!

The Walters packed up their car on Thursday evening, and set off at about 5am the next morning, back for Geneva.

On Saturday, Scott too headed off - he drove his own car back home, taking the Euro tunnel. He picked up a hitch hiker in France, and took him all the way to Cambridge.

Well the thing I was most worried about - driving to France, went off without a hitch, and I am in love with my satnav, and feel like the world is my oyster!
The 3 boys and I set off on Sunday 25th July, and I drove Scott's car.
We were delayed at the Euro tunnel for ages - some signal problem, but it didn't seem too arduous - here are the boys having a picnic in the car park. We did a total of 9 hours driving, and took almost exactly 12 hours door to door.
I especially loved driving on the French motorways - sometimes there was not another car in sight. I soon had the boys saying things like 'Hmmm, how dare there be another car on our motorway?'

Here are the boys on our one stop-off of the entire 6 hour drive from Calais to Brittany. They did amazingly well, and behaved superbly.

We drove the last 20 minutes of the way to the house, by a route we've never taken before, and it was magical... the sun was just setting and putting a warm red glow on everything. We saw no other cars and no people anywhere - just drove along tree lined lanes and through exquisitely gorgeous old stone villages, with bright geraniums everywhere. Even the boys were affected by it - drinking it all in and just being happy.

When we arrived, Dad was just showing our new French neighbours around our house, and I was immediately thrust into speaking lots of French! It was great - they are a really nice young couple, who speak a little bit of English, but not enough that you feel daft for giving your French a go!

On our first full day in France, Dad called the boys to say that the field at the end of the lane was being cut by a combine. While they watched it, Dad showed them how to rub the wheat, to separate the chaff from the wheat seeds, then blow off the chaff.

The same combine then came down the lane, and did the field next to Bel-Air.

It made me happy to see Jack sitting there, whittling a stick with his pen knife - it seems such a wholesome, good old-fashioned activity!

It was also good to watch Tom and Harry racing the combine down the lane!

The next day, Jack and Tom cleaned the roof of the existing shed ready for a new adjoining roof.

Harry on the shed roof showing me his colouring of a combine harvester,

The first week we were there, Dad worked on building John's and my joint shed. I like how he fits in old pieces of stone, which he leaves sticking out when the shed is later rendered.

The week before we arrived, Dad built a dormer window, complete with wonderful window seats, into the kids bunk room. It totally changes the room - it's great!