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!

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’!!!!!

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.

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!!!

I also borrowed some Letts KS1 SATS books from the library – Anna looked at them in disgust but I think I will use them to refer to now and again. Having had a quick look at them I’m fairly happy that our maths and science are well up to standard, and reading/comprehension would be fine, but I know Anna’s writing is behind her schooled contemporaries. I’m not worried about it at all, really, as one of the good things about home educating is that you can approach things when the children are ready, rather than when ‘the system’ says you should, but it might be something to bear in mind.

Anna has packed her bags for going to France with Steve tomorrow – he and a group of friends from church are going to Troyes (Champagne region) to play in the Festival de Musique which is held every year on June 21st, and I think they’ve been for the past 5 or 6 years now – the only year Steve didn’t go was when we were at Bible College. Steve’s not actually playing this year, he’s driving/roadie-ing for them instead – so I decided that it would be a good opportunity for a field trip! We looked at our First 100 Words in French this morning and I’ve written a few other important phrases in the back of the book for her (and Steve!!). They’re leaving early tomorrow and getting back late on Tuesday.

And it’s Friday, so that means there’s an update from Stuart and Liz, and it’s eviction night on BB. Steve’s going to be home soon so I’d better go and get tea ready …

All our travelling was relatively pain free and no major problems. We were so grateful to have air conditioning in the car, it was often the nicest place to be! Eurotunnel was easy … still can’t quite decide if I prefer it to a ferry but Steve does, so I guess it’s Eurotunnel for us from now on.

Other things to remember – Joe developed an interest in clocks and looked out for them all the time, that was fun. Steve spun the children a daft yarn about bears in the woods dressed up as cows (just don’t ask) to keep them amused at the end of a long journey – one of those stories that then lived on every time we saw cows in a field!

All in all a good time was had by everyone, Grandma & Grandpa included, I think! Looking back we all wished we could have stayed two weeks in the first gite but then again that would have cost a lot more – the flies really were unbearable at times. We tried all sorts of ways of getting rid of them from flypapers to citronella candles, Steve got very good at swatting them too, but they were still a formidable presence! Also another time I think I’d cost out flying and hiring a car rather than all the travelling we did – although it was fine, it might have been nicer not to have to do it, if it worked out to be feasible. AND we’ve decided to go out of season from now on – how frustrating it was that so many things were closed in August!

So there we go. I guess I’d better get on with some washing …

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!

My uncle lives right in the middle of the area of France that’s currently badly affected by forest fires. Unlike me, I suddenly got really worried about him when I tried to phone and there was no ringing tone … thankfully I have his mobile number and managed to get through on that (dread to think how much it cost, although that is somewhat irrelevant in the grand scheme of things). He’s okay, but he said my grandma’s house (well, garden) has been really badly burned, so in addition to sorting out the complexities of her will (she died in January) he now has a scorched property to recover before we have a hope of selling it.

Apparently the firefighters only just managed to put out the fire before it got to his house, the village that he lives on the edge of has been really badly damaged. Brings it all home when it affects someone close to you … or even not that close to you. I feel quite wobbly, having heard first hand from him.

It hasn’t changed our plans, I don’t think we’re going close enough to be very concerned about the area we’re heading for, and I’ll be doubly glad to meet up with Jacques and Anne next week. Now, where’s that suitcase?

We are going A BLIMMING LONG WAY! Travelling on the eurotunnel, so the first leg of the journey is home – Folkestone, which takes about 4 hours. Our crossing is at 7am so we’re going to have to leave in the early hours. Any sensible person would stop over in Folkestone, but no – due to the fact that Steve’s taking his drums which can’t really be left in the car overnight, this is out of the question.

Our first week is to be spent in St. Paul le Jeune, which is in the Ardeche. Mappy thinks it will take us 10 hours to get there – I reckon it will take us 10 hours, but that will be with stops! At some point this week I have to find a Mairie to go to, in order to sign some boring bits of paper (thus saving myself the £100 notary fee if I did it in England). On our last day, we’re going right down to the coast, to Cassis, in order to meet up with my uncle who lives near St. Tropez – that’s another 6 hour round trip!

The second week we’re in Millieres, in the Champagne region. Apparently it’s 6 hours travelling to get here, but it’s halfway home (which was the idea!), and we’ll probably take things a lot easier this week. One place we’re planning to visit (on a friends’ recommendation) is Nigloland. Last time we were in France we were near Poitiers so we visited Futuroscope - Anna is desperate to go back because she loved it so much, but it really is too far to go – hopefully Nigloland will be a good enough substitute.

Then home, via eurotunnel again. We’re kind of looking forward to it all – in a funny sort of way, because we didn’t have the garage running when we booked to go away, so it is with some trepidation that Steve is leaving his baby behind for a fortnight. We are celebrating Steve’s mum’s 50th birthday with her in the middle of the holiday which will be fun. We’re going to make the most of it, as it will be the last time for a while that we go away with Steve’s mum and dad because his dad is shortly to become our employee – how strange is that?!

Bunnies in the garden

Meanwhile, the children are playing beautiful ‘made up games’ upstairs (which generally results in the total trashing of Anna’s room, but there we go). Abbie has just appeared in a bunny costume wanting to pull a carrot from the garden that she can eat, so I said it would be fine. She looked too cute to say no to.