May - The Month of Holidays

France is said to be the holiday capital of the world, because public servants have more holidays than in any other country. The month of May illustrates this perfectly.
There is a holiday (labour day) on the 1st of May. The celebration for V-E Day (the end of WWII) is on the 8th of May. Pentecost (or Whitsunday) falls in May this year.
The children seem to be hardly at school this month. Apart from the public holidays they have their regular Wednesdays off school, and the teachers are having a strike (school closed) on the 15th.

1 May Labour Day
8 May V-E Day
9-12 May Pentecost
15 May Teachers' strike

We may well profit from the prolonged break this week-end and take a trip somewhere...

---

Some pictures of the Prairies de la Mer park

Fun for the Kids

After a day of touring the kids were happy to be back to their temporary home. As a treat for being so well behaved I took them to the fun part of the holiday park while Roger cooked dinner. Our kids wouldn't get to see this type of thing more than once in a year back home, but it was the second time in two weeks that they got a ride. What lucky children!

Hugh on a pink motor scooter on the carousel

The kids, with their friend Luca, on the bouncy castle

Bonnie - the closest she has come to riding a pony in France...

Mobil-Home

Our mobil-home, with kids...

Dinner time...

After a few days at home - to rest, catch up with the washing, answer emails and do some business over the internet - we hit the road again. On Wednesday morning we set off for Port Grimaud, where one of Stef's friends owns some mobile homes in a holiday park - see www.azurbeach.com.
We travelled for about seven hours, including comfort stops and a picnic, before we arrived at the park in the evening.

The holiday park was huge, and we were glad of the map we were given on arrival. Our mobile home was brand new, with the packing still inside the refrigerator and the microwave oven.

Brand new, with packing still inside

It is amazing how much you can fit into a small space when you only need the essentials. Like two beds in each of the smaller bedrooms, although I wasn't able to reach the kids to kiss them goodnight!

The bedroom where Sophie and Odette slept

We were very comfortably accommodated, and didn't need to use the air-conditioning or the heater, apart from early one morning. Not that we were awake in the early morning very often - we got into the holiday routine of late nights and late mornings. It will be fun to see if we can get the girls up early enough to go to school in the morning!!

A Walk in the Countryside

Walking in the countryside...

Running in the countryside...

A sheep...

The first morning in Dampierre-sur-Linotte was fine and we all went for a walk around the village and down a rural lane. Here we saw a sheep, just in case we were homesick. As you can see in the photo it bears little resemblance to one of our merino sheep on the farm back home in Australia.

We also saw big piles of firewood along the edges of the lane. The local community has a lot of forest, which is managed and harvested to allow all the residents of the village to have an annual supply of firewood. Stephan said that he is going to take out their expensive oil-fired central heating and replace with a wood-burning unit before next winter.

Penfriends

Sophie has several penfriends around the world, and one of them is Noëllie, who lives in Dampierre-sur-Linotte. Sophie and Noëllie have been writing to each other for a few years, and chatting on the computer with MSN/ Windows Live Messenger for several months, so they were very excited to finally meet each other in person.
We travelled to Dampierre-sur-Linotte on Monday and were welcomed very warmly by the Viennet family. Stephan and Annick have three daughters and Noëllie and her little sister Marthe are about the same age as our girls. At first the children were a little shy, but by the end of the evening they were playing together to such an extent that they performed a circus spectacle for the adults.

The Viennet's house in Dampierre-sur-Linotte

Happy Easter

I was going to take a photo of the gorgeous Easter eggs and bunnies that the children got for Easter. But I was too slow!!
Here is a photo of the kids enjoying the chocolate anyway.
Stef's Mum gave them each a gold-wrapped Lindt rabbit, so not only do we have an exchange house, but exchange grandparents too.
Easter Sunday was as it is at home, but the fact that there was no holiday on Good Friday (and the kids had to go to school) and that there were no Hot Cross Buns made Easter different from at home.