just another morning here

The internet is here one minute and not the next. Well, it’s here at 7am and once everyone has woken up on the campsite, there’s no chance of much of the net actually reaching my computer! Thankfully I like early mornings

Had a nice day yesterday, which started with breakfast from the snack cabin (mmmm fresh croissants) and after that Steve & Josiah went off to play crazy golf. Thought that as Steve had promised to play with him we might as well get it out of the way otherwise Joe would have been going on about it all day!

After that we all got a picnic ready and went out to do a little bit of ‘La Loire a velo’, only just enough of a cycle ride to satisfy Roger’s cycling needs but plenty for the rest of us! A 6km ride down the Loire from the campsite, then we stopped and had lunch; the kids paddled, etc. A bit windy but no rain Photos may or may not appear on flickr depending on my patience levels, it really is not a high speed connection even at 7am.

Back at the campsite we relaxed a bit more – the rest of the children (and Joe again) had a round of crazy golf with Roger, Steve and I went to the supermarket, we read, they swam, they showered, we cooked a delicious turkey & lentil curry, then we pretty much all had an early night. The kids were all tired and we’re off to Puy du Fou today so we wanted them to sleep well!

Sitting, with a nice cold beer, at the little cafe on our campsite, the kids have been swimming (I took a book and sat by the pool reading) and they’re now all on the bouncy castle just near the cafe. Enjoying themselves greatly

Campsite is nice, bit busy, but perfectly pleasant. We got here around 6pm last night after driving all day from 3.30am, so a bit of a mammoth journey (although there is a lost hour in time differences there somewhere), but it was all fine, and we got the caravan and awning put up without so much as a cross word exchanged (did help that R&R took all the kids swimming!).

Today we have done nothing but lie around, find a supermarket, and laze around some more. It feels great Must get the camera out though, haven’t taken any photos yet.

Very glad to have internet too as it just helps us keep in touch with home without running up huge phone bills. Can’t log on to anything social networking-like though- facebook won’t load, it comes under ‘Forbidden Category, personals and dating’!! and, lol, Steve can’t log on to his Subaru forum as it comes under ‘Forbidden Category, games’!!!!!

Well, they got home safely on the dot of 9pm, as Steve had predicted. It was absolutely hacking down with rain, so the drive back can’t have been easy, but it was lovely to see them again – bearing gifts of an alcoholic nature (Steve) and BN biscuits (Anna)!

Here are a few photos from their trip – there weren’t many to choose from but this gives a bit of a picture …

This was taken from the Cheese Store at the bottom of Bob & Muriel’s garden, looking up towards their house. When they moved to Troyes 4 years ago the cheese store was exactly that, and they have renovated it into a guest annexe. Steve and the rest of the ‘boys’ stayed there, while Anna and the other girl on the trip stayed in the main house.

I think these photos were taken at L’Oasis, the church in Troyes, on the Sunday morning – this is Anna with her friend Mollie, and Mollie’s big sister (whose name escapes us …)

Four of our friends – Sarah, Ben, another Ben (at the top!), and Rich.

Mollie again – isn’t she just gorgeous?! We’ve been praying for this family for a while, they’re part of the church there and recently their mum died very suddenly and unexpectedly, during a routine operation she suffered a fatal blood clot – leaving her husband and 4 children … so it was nice that Anna met them, it will mean more to pray for them now.

And this was last night at the Music Festival – beforehand, I assume, because they don’t exactly look like they’re playing anything! Anna did take some photos of them in action, but they were taken from her level looking up at the stage and none of them have heads!!

I think they had a great time, although they’re both quite tired. Steve says that Anna really enjoyed the music festival and saw lots of different styles of music there, she especially liked the reggae band, apparently! And of course she enjoyed eating out at a Creperie that night too – he reports that she was generally really good with all the food that was served up so I was chuffed about that. She was counting up her leftover euros before going to bed, and has brought home little presents for the other two, so that was sweet.

Anyway, must get to bed because I’m knackered too and we have a busy few days ahead of us before camp.

Don’t know if you could get a more diverse pair of things to blog about!

Steve phoned this evening to say they’d arrived in Troyes safely. Apparently Anna had been really good with the meal – one of the things we’ve been trying to impress on her over the past couple of weeks is to eat things she’s given without any rude noises – and there were a number of things Steve thought she’d normally moan about and struggle to eat, but she cleared her plate with no fussing. Good to know they can manage it when they have to, eh? Just wish she’d do the same at home!!! Anyway. And Bob (one of the friends they’re staying with) had taken her out to the Boulangerie on her own, so she’d enjoyed that.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, Abbie and Joe decided this evening that it would be fun to put the hamster inside Steve’s didgeridoo. He has a proper, 4ft long one, which, to be fair, does look like a rather nice hamster tunnel. Of course they failed to think that if Charlie decided to stop in the middle, that we wouldn’t be able to get him out! So we spent a fair bit of time trying to coax him out of it before bedtime tonight – eventually we gave up and read stories with ‘traps’ set at either end, and he came out of his own accord, thankfully. Well, the piece of fruit at each end probably helped, too. Ho hum!

As well as all that, Josiah fell asleep while we were reading stories earlier in the afternoon, so Abbie and I did some workbook stuff together – English pages about capital letters, full stops and commas (for some reason they didn’t include the use of – and … on their pages, I wonder why?!!), and some Maths pages working on adding and taking away ten. It was really nice to spend the time with Abigail on her own – as well as concentrate on a couple of academic things! She enjoyed doing the English book as she just had to ring letters and put in commas and full stops. When it came to the Maths she asked me to be her scribe, as usual. She seems particularly bothered by the fact that she can’t write 5s! She’s fine on all the other digits, but for some reason, 5 presents her with a particular problem. Anyway, I don’t mind doing that – it’s the mathematics I’m interested in, not her writing abilities. We had fun together

I’ve been out for a meal with friends this evening, then back home for a natter with my friend and babysitter. It’s never the same going to bed on your own though, I’m rubbish at it, I’ll have to try not to stay up *too* late!

Oh, and NEWSFLASH! My brother actually wrote something on his blog, *and* it’s relatively amusing!!!