The Start of Summer

Lets skip ahead a few weeks and its Summer holidays wooo!

It felt so strange when the kids were finishing school for the school year and it was only June, they were bringing home pieces of art, books and work from throughout the year and talking about helping the teacher cleaning up the classroom as well as having holidays for two months, all I could think of was times like this at home around Christmas time.



Some of the 'backyard'



So the day they finished school we packed our bags and headed off to the country house. In the family van, a Peugeot something… people mover none the less. Instinctively I went to hop into the car from the front left door and giggled to myself when I opened the door and saw a steering wheel, I quickly then ran round to the other side and hopped in the passenger seat. It was a three hour drive and quite a lovely one at that, as we passed many sunflower fields and saw a beautiful sunset. Sybile’s driving was something else for me to watch specially as she told me about halfway into the drive that she hadn’t driven a car in nearly TWO YEARS… and it was a bit evident as we were constantly swerving into other lanes and she wasn’t realising changes in the traffic until the last minute, but nonetheless we made it safely.

This house is HUGE! It was midnight when we arrived so I only got to see the very large kitchen and a couple of the bedrooms. When I woke in the morning I couldn’t believe what I was seeing this place is pretty much a mansion even a little bigger. But to them “just the country house”. I found 7 bedrooms all with basins/ mini ensuits in them 2 kitchens 2 dinning rooms spreads over 3 levels. Then in the backyard there is a swimming pool big enough to swim laps in and a trampoline then a space big enough to be a paddock with a sandpit, playground and cubby house. WOAH!

Anyone hungry?

We spent a couple of days there just relaxing enjoying the start of summer and holidays by the pool. We also visited a local market and saw some interesting 'food' being sold, there were cow udders, intestines, tripe sausages, baby cow heads and tongues... Just to name a few.

On Sunday the grandparents arrived and I met BonPapa (Grand Dad) for the first time, where I also found out that he was the Mayor of the town! It made me sit up a bit when I realised that I was looking after the Mayors Grandchildren! So we all had lunch together and in the garden and it was a nice typical French lunch with a bottle of red, baguette, cheese included in the four courses. After a little nap to digest all the food the Mayor took Victoria (the eldest child) and I to Futuroscope, which is a neighbouring theme park. The main attractions are big cinemas with 4D movies. The park was quite empty so we got to see most of the things – the stuff that Victoria wanted to see anyway. It was quite a good afternoon but I had a headache afterwards from all the moving movies.

The following Tuesday morning I headed back to Paris on the train and the children headed down south with their Grandparents. I then spent two days in Paris where I said the last goodbyes to my friends. On the Wednesday night we had a Picnic in the very pretty Jardin du Luxembourg, with a couple of bottles of wine, cheese, bread, chocolate and strange chips that were cheeseburger flavour and tasted like a mc Donald’s cheese burger! But at 9pm the Gendarmerie came around and told us it was closing time so we packed up our stuff and headed off to the champ de mars we were sat with everyone else finishing our picnic and watching the sunset and Eiffel tower. Not a bad night… except for the goodbye’s part!

I left Paris again the next day and headed to Corsica… to do some work.

Form a couple of months ago

Whoops it's been a while between posts - sorry. I've been away doing various things, which I will tell you about in coming blogs. But here is one that I wrote sometime ago, towards the end of June.

I've done a few things since the last time (obviously) I'll give it my best shot at remembering it all.

I have finished school, I had to do two exams one written and the other oral, and typically I ran out of time to complete the written exam properly but managed to mumble my way through the oral exam. My written result wasn't high enough to pass for the Diploma however I received a good enough oral mark which pulled my written exam up and I ended up receiving the diploma - only just though. The mark on my diploma says "Passable" which is funny but a pass is a pass and I was very happy and showed my diploma to everyone!



At the restaurant

One day last week, or maybe it was the week before that? Anyways we had plans to go to a French fondue restaurant for lunch however when we got there it was closed. Not sure if it was closed because they don't do lunch or because it was a public holiday so instead we went to another restaurant along the same street. It was a very cute street - sort of like an alley way lined with restaurants and it didn't even seem that touristy! I had beef bourgonyon for main and chocolate mousse for dessert, it was DELICIOUS!! Would love to go back there soon especially as it wasn’t even that expensive. Afterward we had a wander around the neighbouring streets which led us to the pantheon so we decided to get our tourist on and have a look inside. It's a pretty big thing and I want to go back there soon and take one of the tours up to the top of the building to see yet another panoramic view of Paris. Afterwards we walked through the lovely Jardine du Luxembourg to head home and on our way home we found 5 Euros that someone had dropped so we picked that up and treated ourselves to an ice cream. And bought the found euro collection to 20 Euros.

Just having some fun

Then a couple of weekends ago a quite night in turned out to quite a large night out, accidentally. A few glasses of wine led to some beer then shots then a possible trip to the hospital. However I wasn’t charged a fee for being in the hospital so it was more or less just a place for people to sober up inside a hospital. The rest of that weekend was quite quiet as I nursed a bit of a hangover and a couple of bumps on my head. I learnt a bit of a lesson that weekend! And am totally fine now.

Then two days later was excellent chance to have a great night out however I still felt a bit queasy at the thought of alcohol so I decided to have a sober one unfortunately. It was the fete de la musique, the summer solstice which marked the start of summer and at the same time celebrated music. The streets of Paris were filled with musicians of all types and people out and about enjoying all the free live music and the fact that summer was here. I’d never seen anything like it people of all generations were out and having a good time, this is something that Melbourne defiantly needs. I stayed out until about 12:30 probably would’ve stayed longer if I was drinking and if the next day wasn’t a Wednesday – 12hour day with the children.

Oscar Wilde

I’ve also visited a little bit of the Pere Lachaise cemetery. The only really famous tomb that I saw was the one of Oscar Wilde, which was covered in kisses and love notes. The cemetery was huge and again I will defiantly go back there when I have some time!

The advantage of being in Paris for a year is that I have the time to come back and look at stuff again. I just have to hurry up and start doing it!