Holiday highlights – week one
Our first week was spent in the Ardeche, chez Baxter at Les Monedes, St Paul le Jeune. The Baxters are a british couple who moved to France over 15 years ago and have these two lovely apartments to let as well as living in a further apartment themselves. They made us really welcome with all home comforts in the apartments … they’re building a pool there at the moment and we would definitely go back there again if we have the chance, it was fantastic. These are a few of my pictures with commentary … enjoy!
Here are the breathtaking views from our balcony …
… and down the road past the house … very picture postcard, eh?
This was the garden which was across the road from the house (but it was a very quiet road so perfectly safe to let the children go across unaccompanied), on three levels, the top of which was completely shady and had a little swing.
One of the reasons we chose to go to the Ardeche was because of a camp with french and english church friends that we were part of for the week. Steve played drums every evening with the band, and Anna especially enjoyed her Asterix themed children’s group.
My parents were at the camp too, in their caravan, so one day we went river swimming with them which was great fun. We also met up with an old friend from Bible College and that was good.
During this first week it was SO hot – the highest temperature we saw was around 43C. So most afternoons we came back to the apartments for siesta time –
… and when we weren’t sleeping we were keeping cool with our two favourite games this week – firstly the Ice Pack game, where it was a competition to see who could keep the ice pack on their tummy the longest …
… and secondly, water fights! The kids had ten euros each and on the first weekday when we went to the market in St Paul, they spied these Water Blasters for nine euros apiece and decided to blow their pocket money in one go! We thought the water pistols would break within a couple of hours of playing with them because they looked fairly cheap and nasty, but we had to eat our words because they’re still going strong and they were great fun for the whole holiday, so well worth their money!
and as you can see, it wasn’t just the kids who enjoyed them!
One of the things we did during the week was to visit ‘ Les Grottes de Cocaliere‘ – some caves and underground river things which were fascinating (very educational, stalactites and stalagmites and all that stuff!) … the main reason for going was that we thought it would be cool, and it was! We weren’t allowed to take photos there, but here is Joe before we went in – I couldn’t resist the photo, he was just too cute in his shades.
On our last day this week Steve and I drove down to a lovely little town called Cassis on the south coast, with the children, to meet my Uncle Jacques. We had a fantastic time on the beach together, thankfully Steve found some shade to sit in, and we had to drag the children out of the sea before they got sunstroke! They really enjoyed swimming in the sea and I was gutted that I’d managed to forget my things, because it looked beautiful and clear and warm … we surprised the kids by buying them each a rubber ring for today and they really appreciated them. (this was after trying to let them swim safely in a river a couple of days beforehand – I forgot the armbands!!)
Jacques also showed us some incredible photos of the forest fires, taken from his house … and of the helicopters flying past dropping water to put the fires out. It seems he really was very fortunate that his house was just outside the village.
The heat really made us relax this week which was nice – I read nearly all the books I’d taken for two weeks this week! I’m trying to think if there is anything else I should remember from the week … we ate lots of pasta because it was easy, and lovely fresh fruit & veg from the market, not to mention the cheese and sausages! Abbie particularly enjoyed tasting greengages and eating them by the bucketload given half a chance!
Well, that’s it for now, if I think of anything else I’ll have to add it in later!