just another morning here

Planned a trip to Paris on Friday so of course it hacked down with rain all day. Luckily we decided against ‘hoping it would stop’ and opted for La Centre Commercial des Quatre Temps at La Defense. Just a huge shopping centre and cinema complex, so nothing special, but we managed to spend all day there. Watched a film just after lunch (having worked out that v.f. meant ‘version francais’ so v.o.s.t must mean ‘version originale avec sous titres’. I haven’t ever been to the cinema in France before I don’t think!), and even managed not to spend too much money on other stuff really.

I was hoping that we’d be able to get outside and see some of the rest of La Defense but we had to go for the drive by option. La Grande Arche probably not quite as impressive that way but there we go. It didn’t stop raining until we got back to the campsite at dinnertime so we felt fairly justified!

We spent the evening in the bar, finally getting to know the parents of the children that our kids have been playing with all week, and that was lovely. The campsite had laid on a ‘cinema’ showing Shrek 2 in French with English subtitles; all our children went to watch it but only Josiah stayed – the other four decided to go back and watch something in English in the other family’s cabin!

This morning was the other family’s last morning so the children wanted to play with them again – we are going to miss them next week! They’ve spent literally hours playing in the woods and around the pool, which has been great for us. We ended up having coffee with the other couple again this morning before they left. Quite strange – first time I have ever met people on holiday and had more than a passing conversation with them, iyswim. Wouldn’t be totally surprised if we saw them again sometime.

After lunch we went into Rambouillet and ambled around the town centre, had an ice cream in the chateau grounds, and then went back to Carrefour for some more supplies. I have wondered, this holiday, how much time we have spent in the hypermarche contemplating what to eat. Probably more than the time we’ve spent eating! We seem to have visited the food shops rather a lot, anyway – partly because we can’t keep much in the fridge, I suppose, but partly because we’re so disorganised!

The children went off for a swim and a shower when we got back, and then the evening was spent with the kids off on a hunt for new friends (even though it won’t be the same without Oscar and Lily, apparently) and us trying to plan activities for what looks to be another rainy day tomorrow.

So today I am bored. We decided to stick around the campsite for Steve to rest his back after he hurt it yesterday, but I’m not great at doing completely nothing for too long (we already spent yesterday doing very little!). Caught up on washing and hung that out, swept, tidied and cleaned the inside of the van, then spent most of the rest of the day reading a book. Read the whole thing and it ended up being a predictable ending, so that wasn’t even exciting! Don’t really want to start another one today as I only have 4 left, and twice as many days to go … I may have to read the kids’ books at this rate, not necessarily a bad thing in Anna’s case at least …

The kids have hung out with their friends pretty much all day – they did the kids’ activities onsite, and played in the forest, and around the pool – so they’ve been happy, and Steve has been trying not to whinge. Towards the end of the afternoon the kids sat down to watch a film with the family they’ve hooked up with (8yo girl and 11yo boy), and I managed to drag Steve out for a short bike ride. Now he’s reading back in the tent and I’m sitting watching the children watch their film, and looking out of the window at the first daytime rain we’ve had this holiday. Still, it has been a cheap day, yet again, and this is good. Suspect we will more than make up for it tomorrow as we are planning to go into Paris, and that can only be expensive!

Grimper is a particularly nice french verb isn’t it? Well I like it, anyway, surely one of my favourites.

We have had a very laid back day today; after sleeping in for ages we finally got up and had breakfast, then eventually the children got dressed. 2/3 of them went up to do the ‘children’s activities’ at the bar, which was nothing much, just making windmills, but it kept them amused. The other one lay in bed for ages … while Steve and I alternated between reading and internet, while sitting in the lounge area of the bar.

Back to the caravan for lunch, then afterwards came the highlight of the day, a tree-climbing session that Abbie and Joe had signed up for. They had great fun climbing up ropes into trees, and then doing the monkey bridge (see fairly rubbish video). I stuck around and watched for the whole time; the instructor only spoke a bit of English – one of the campsite staff was there as a translator but I did a better job so when she saw that I was staying she left!

Meanwhile Steve and Anna were cycling round the campsite doing daft tricks, Steve did a particularly stupid one and fell off his bike and hurt his back so we will probably have another quiet day tomorrow rather than going into Paris as planned! Luckily it wasn’t anything too terrible, he’s just bruised his back – and he knows it was all his own fault for being daft so he’s not moaning too much! Drugs and alcohol are helping …

Well, apart from a trip to a big Carrefour supermarket, which never seems to be cheap! Indulged Anna with new bag and some paper, pens etc. for high school – I always used to buy ‘back to school’ stationery in France on my summer holidays when I was a kid too, it somehow seems better, and I always liked having different stuff to everyone else …

Before Carrefour we went and found Rambouillet Castle, which is relatively interesting as it is still in use as a summer residence for the French President and also hosts heads of state on official visits etc. We didn’t go inside, just walked around the gardens and admired it from the outside.

Back at the campsite now, the children have swum again and we’re generally lazing around together
Here are a couple of pics of the site: our pitch, and our typical evening activity so far!