Toby's First Day of School

A few weeks after Toby was born I remember thinking that I couldn't imagine a time when there wouldn't be a child pottering round under my feet for the majority of the day."  Well, it seems to have flown round rather fast and it's rather hard to believe that Toby has started full time in reception (kindergarten) and Beth is starting in year two.

Thankfully there was no reluctance to go and both kids happily disappeared into school without any tears, and despite worrying that I might be a bit teary, I couldn't stop smiling! :)

Coming home tonight I couldn't get much information out of either of them detailing what went on but apart from the blisters from new shoes, they both seem happy enough.

I thought I'd add in a few other bits to this post while I'm at it.  Yesterday we spent a perfect last day of the holidays at Clumber Park with the kids and their friends on their bikes.  We parked just inside the park and rode/walked all the way along Limetree Avenue to the cafe and play area.

After a picnic lunch, play and ice cream we headed back a different way, a total of about 4.6 miles.  It was a beautiful day and amazingly we all enjoyed it and the day was pretty much tantrum free (miracle though not totally unexpected since it was the last day of the holidays!).


One last bit of news, on Saturday we went to the wedding of my university friend, Rachel, to Johnny.  It was a fantastic day both because of the wedding and because we got to catch up with Rachel and my other uni friend Holly and her family.  It's been a year since we last saw Holly - see this blog - and over six years since we last saw Rachel!  


Toby jumped straight back into mischief with Rafferty and Beth was thrilled to see Naomi.  They had put on a cool 1940's bus to take us from the church to the reception - Toby sneaked back in to have a go when the driver had his back turned!  Thank goodness the key wasn't left in.  After a great weekend I think we'll have to make more of an effort to catch up sooner next time. 

Camping in France

We have been very lucky this year to be able to take a second holiday. We packed up out tent, sleeping bags and everything else and headed, via the channel tunnel, to the Dordogne.

We thought it would be a bit much to do the whole 700 miles in one go!  The B+B (La Haute Muraille) we stayed at was lovely - lots of garden for us to stretch our legs in and a self-contained 'unit' for us to sleep in.  After a tasty croissant and rhubarb jam breakfast we headed off.

It took all day to reach the campsite which is just outside a little village called St Jory, about 50km south of Limoges.  The site is named after the river running through it, Le Tourolet.  It is pretty small in terms of pitches (only 13) but on quite a lot of land (5.5 hectares) with a small swimming pool, a lake (with dingy), a river perfect for paddling and fishing, swings and slide and a wooden fort and wendy house.

We could quite easily not have ventured off the campsite for the entire 12 days and actually we didn't go to that many places.  Peter, the owner, delivered fresh bread and crossants every morning and we did bits of shopping in the local town every few days.  The kids were pretty happy entertaining themselves but on one of the days, Peter took all the kids out onto the lake in the dinghy.  He followed that with diving for treasure in the pool and a celebratory drink and biscuit.  Not quite kids club as you know it (health and safety went right out the window!), but far more fun I think.



Apart from the local trips we did make an expedition to visit a local 'grotto' on a particularly hot day.  La Grotte de Villars is about 20 minutes drive from the campsite and has spectacular stalactites and stalagmites along with 19,000 year-old paintings of horses.  The tour was perfect for us - just 30 minutes; long enough to feel we'd seen something historic but just about right for the kids not to get bored!

On the same day we also visited the historic town of Brantôme for lunch and a wander.  It's about 17 years since I was last in France and one of the things I had been looking forward to was eating out at a restaurant with a set menu.  Unfortunately I hadn't progressed as far as thinking about how the kids would cope with this!  I'm quite glad their French isn't developed nor the restaurant owners English great since there was quite a bit of "yuck, I'm not eating that!" and "urgh, what is that - get rid of it!".  Having said that, they did eat the 'pomme frite' and loved the grenadine drink.


The highlight for Beth was making friends.  It probably did her confidence wonders since she even adventured up onto the karaoke stage for eight songs (I'm not sure how much she actually sang but I'm just happy she got up there!).  She was fairly distraught to leave her new buddy but thrilled to come home with a penpal!  I wonder how long that will last - hopefully she'll dive into writing with a new vigor that we have found difficult to produce!

Settling back home was a bit of a chore - with two feral kids it took quite a while to acclimatise to indoor living and washing again! ;)  I can't believe that we have been back home for two weeks already and Toby starts school tomorrow!  The six-week holiday has flown by - what on earth am I going to do with all that time . . . :)