Vendredi Soir

Now that the weather has fined up Friday evenings are taken up with socialising. Families meet behind the mairie where there are tennis courts, a soccer field, children's playground and a pitch for petanque (boules) for "le sport en famille". Last night was the first time we had been, as we were away last week. The men and boys seemed to be playing quite an energetic game of football (soccer) judging from the amount of sweat on t-shirts. Roger said he might have a game next time, so that will be interesting...
Each family takes their dinner - a pique-nique - and it is a very social time. We met some new people, and the second half of some couples.
Next time I will have to take my camera!!

French Lessons

Roger had his first French lesson with Marielle on Monday. Marielle is a friend of the Marcouxs who is a French teacher, and she has agreed to give us private lessons - 2hrs per week for Roger and 1hr per week for the girls.
He had already mastered a few French words like "bonjour", "merci", "s'il vous plaît", "oui" and "non". The girls would tease him by asking him "Où habites-tu?" (where do you live?) and he would answer "oui". Then they would crack up laughing and say "Daddy lives in wee!!"

After his first lesson he came away with several sentences to practise. Like "Hello my name is Roger" and "I am Australian". The pronunciation is much more difficult for him than it is for the children. They laugh a lot when he tries to say something in French and it doesn't come out quite right. He is learning to count up to twenty (!) and he seems to have a memory like a sieve. His brain is not tuned in to language development at his age. So if anyone has a young child who has the opportunity to learn a new language, please make the most of it. Because in 40 years time it will be ten times as hard for them to learn a new language.

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Les Gorges du Verdon

A bridge across les Gorges du Verdon

Billed as France's little Grand Canyon (how do they get away with that?) the Gorges du Verdon is apparently only second to THE Grand Canyon in USA. Second in what way I'm not sure - size, popularity, beauty? I thought the gorges in Karijini National Park in WA were pretty stunning, and now I would just like to line them up side by side and compare them.

We took the long road home from the coast so that we could take a peek at this spot. Sophie just wanted to get home as quickly as possible, and wasn't keen on the detour.
SOPHIE: I want to get home but all Dad cares about is scenery.
ODETTE: What is scenery?

Sophie at the gorge

Hello Australia!

A message from Sophie...

On the Beach

Sophie and Bonnie on the beach, with St Tropez in the distance

Odette, Sophie and Bonnie on the beach at Port Grimaud

Beach girls - Odette and Bonnie with St Tropez in the distance

Odette - doing the posing thing

Hugh as a beach dude...

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...

Ramatuelle

Caro and Bonnie, failing to look like rich and famous residents of the Riviera.

Port Grimaud is on the Gulf of Saint Tropez, on the French Riviera, which is renowned as a holiday spot for the rich and famous. We thought we might have spotted some celebrities while we were there, but they obviously weren't staying at the same holiday park as us.
St Tropez is the most famous holiday spot; so the first day we were there we did the tourist thing and headed to Saint Tropez; and we drove straight through and headed out again because we couldn't stand the amount of traffic and people. We really are country bumpkins and don't feel comfortable in crowds ...
The pretty medieval village of Ramatuelle (see the French tourist website or the English tourist website) was where we ended up. It was marked on our map as "one of the most beautiful villages in France" and it did indeed have some very picturesque scenes. And lots of tourists...
It wasn't possible to photograph anything successfully at the time of day when we were there, but you can see some pictures on the website links above.

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!!

Views of Besancon

A couple of photos of Besançon, with and without Odette.