Don't Say It's Over

Well, we're back after our adventure. We eventually arrived about 10.30 pm last night after a quick Costa Coffee break at Watford Gap. It's now pouring down of course and we have a wet tent still in the back of the car which will need drying at some point.

Reading through this lot, we obviously packed a lot in. Here's to our next adventure.




This holiday has been brought to you by:

Acer, Apple, Microsoft, Guess what... I don't guess, Lutti Surfizz, Heroes, La Romaine Patissier - Airvault, Estelle, The Hold Steady, Top Gear, Scouting for Girls - She's So Lovely, Fuji Finepix, Huttopia Rambouillet, Camping de Courte Vallee, Fleet Foxes, Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone, Room on a Broom, Dan Brown, the Dutchies, Kronenbourg Pur Malt, Torsade au Chocolat, Au Bon Accueil - St Generoux, Georges Herrison, backward serves, Armor-lux, il est froid! (Little France), Orangina, goats cheese and figs, Pizza ATM, Twister, Isles Flotantes.

Le Retour

We arrived back at Rambouillet and got the tent up in combat config
(sideways, no porch, no guys, few pegs) fairly quickly. We even got a
quick swim in their unusual freshwater pool before pizza and salad. A
little ping pong and then it was on to feeding the ducks on the lake
and a bike ride for Arthur and Merri.

Later on, with A&M watching Mr Bean again, Grace went on two bat-
hunting forays. We saw lots of different types, plus another one of
those luminous bugs.

Once tucked up in bed, the rains started and didn't stop all night
making putting the tent down a pretty miserable affair this morning.
The tent will need a thorough airing at some point.

Of course it brightened up as soon as we hit the road. We got to
Calais in good time and headed for our favourite restaurant where we
tucked into moules frites, salade nicoise and a steak for Grace.

Arriving at the port we found it queueing round les maisons to get
through immigration which they were taking very seriously today. In
the end we were too late for the 15:15 and got bumped to the 16:45 :-(

Anyway, we're on the boat now waiting for O2 to kick in so I can
upload this (the wifi at Huttopia was down) and so Grace can contact
Agent Gash who is back from his missionary work.

It'll be a long drive from Dover.

Scorched Earth

Little France

The Happy Valley senior ambience of our first week at Camping de Courte Vallee segued neatly into something more resonant of Borstal Chic as week two wore on and more and more families arrived each with a more laissez-faire approach to parental control than the last.

Consequently, the atmosphere poolside has dipped (ahem) as an ejaculate of multilingual teens try to out-bully each other in several languages whilst their parents get smashed on antifreeze-a-la-source in their Eldiss Odyssey Supervans. One particularly challenged group swerve effortlessly between Estuary English and perfect French as they hurl jibe after jibe at each other and anyone else in earshot. This group of Frockneys have had something to do the the fact that Joan has now added a roll of razor-wire to the layer of smashed-glass-en-concrete topping the swimming-pool wall and bolted a sign to the gate banning admission after 9pm.

Away from the pool, a junior gang of Frockney wannabes in their early teens have spent their time trying to catch rabies from the feral cats which roam the site. Ingeniously though, one of them came up with the wizard wheeze of calling at every tent and caravan asking for 50c to put a suggestion into a hat to name one of the mangy kitties.



Allegedly, the donations were to establish a fund to cover vets bills, etc. However, in the light of last night's scandalous apres-BBQ draw, when D'oyle Carte Godfrey was asked to select the winning entry and which resulted in the cat being named 'Miaowiecat', the suggestion of the Emma, the ringleader of the marauding band of sponsor-hungry tweenies, the money could have gone anywhere. Perhaps unsurprisingly, my suggestion of Fuck Buttons stayed resolutely en chapeau.

Anyway, we missed all the fun of course by bodyswerving the BBQ and heading off to Airvault's Salle des Fetes for a civilised game of cricket. As you can see, we were lucky to get a parking spot:

Merri with nettles:

Merri with dock leaf:

After this, we headed, as planned, for St Loup sur Thouet, a few short kilometres away. This picturesque little town houses a funky little pizza restaurant, plying a neat trade in takeaways on Friday night. We ate in. A great goats cheese salad for me and pizzas for everyone else. Not having had a pizza since Paris, Grace had cold turkey. Not my choice, but better than the tuna and banana.

Sudoku kills apres-pizza chit chat:

After that it was back to base, driving straight through the ensuing cat-naming fracas and onto divvyingup three chapters of Harry Potter for Arthur, three episodes of Heroes for Grace, three flagons of chocolat-chaud for Merri and three valium for Lisa.

Today we woke up to rain. We hung around the tent for the morning...


... before heading to our favourite restaurant the Au Bon Accueil in St Generoux for the last time. Sadly without Grace, who had a mal-de-tete and remained at base guarding our stash of fizzy sweets and gateaux, we settled down for a long, luxurious lunch of seafood platter, fish a la creme, cote de porc from the woodfire grill, tarte aux prunes, chocolat mousse and ram pie.

Seafood platter before:

and after:

Back on site I checked our booking for Monday's ferry and realised that we'd been too ambitious in our plan to get from West of Paris to Calais by 11:15. I shunted it to the 15:15, in the hope that we might just squeeze in a quick omelette and chips in our favourite Calais lunch-spot.

We planned to start doing some light packing-up today, but have rescheduled the commencement of pain to tomorrow morning, on the basis that we can, as a treat, condense the shouting at the kids to a mere 48 hours rather than the pre-arranged 72.

Now it MUST be time for a bun!

More Songs about Buildings and Food

Arthur and Merri show off their glazed pots which arrived back on site today. Arthur had crafted a conker and an almost life-like McCain's Pepperoni pizza, whilst Merrie contented herself with a piggy-bank. Their friends Madeleine and Julian made cars and pigs. Madeleine also painted a small pot sheep which I have tried to pinch as I'll make a mint at next year's Artweek if I can get it in next to those crappy knitted sheep-heads in frames. Pur-lease.

Today's cake order. We get special service from the Patisserie now. These were airlifted in at dawn, after which we headed off to Thouars market again, for the last time :-(

Here's looking at you, squid.

A quick cafe-break at the bookies. Yet again we are unable to teach the bemused French how to construct a proper cup of tea from its component parts.

The very essential 'wooden frog/magnetic bracelet' stall.

I model some Jinglers from C&A's 1974 range... a hot hit in Thouars this year. And every year.

Meanwhile, Lisa tries one one of Armor-Lux's more alluring pantie-girdle combos...grr. Either that or David Tennant travels a lot lighter these days.

We picked up frogs-legs in garlic, prawns and peppers, cantonese rice and noodles at the market, for lunch back at base.

Tonight it's the blooming "BBQ" again. We're hoping to avoid it. After people have eaten, and Godfrey, our local ex-pat reverend, has had his second pastis, he gets his guitar out and the hazing recommences. If you sit in the wrong spot, you end up stuck there all night listening to his 'hilarious' D'oyle Carte crapola. You have to laugh. No, I mean you have to laugh. Any hint of discontent is met with a stern frown from Joan and you're off cleaning the septic tank with your toothbrush again, sunshine!

We're hoping, instead, to nick out early for a crepe in St Loup sur Thouet down la rue.

Merri and Tobias have been swapping notes

Disturbance at the Oiron House

This afternoon, on the recommendation of some fellow campers, we visited the Chateau d'Oiron. This 16th Century chateau now houses an extensive collection of contemporary art, which we spent a lazy couple of post-lunch hours investigating.

Another camper had warned us that some of the content might be a bit ripe for the little ones, but we found no sign at all of the Fallen Madonna with the Big Boobies. Instead, there was an eclectic selection of modern art housed in rooms of all shapes and sizes throughout the labyrinthine building.

As the heat and humidity rose, we exited in a wonderfully warm downpour.

Au Bon Accueil Again!

I took Grace's bike into Airvault this morning to pick up milk, pain, tortade aux chocolat, pain au raisin and brioche for the children's breakfast. I also picked up the Telegraph which is the only paper you can get which isn't yesterday's copy. What this means is, we now have a somewhat warped perspective of what is happening at home. Seems global warming is an anti-capitalist myth and the government is in melt-down thanks to the Milliband kid.

Anyway, we couldn't resist a lunch at our holiday favourite, the Au Bon Accueil in St Generoux. Today we feasted on courgette flan, pate, chicken, and the inevitable Isles Flotantes, Chocalate Mousse and Amandiers.

Hiro

We're generally ready to settle down and relax at about 11.30pm... it takes that long for the little ones to settle.

At this point Lisa, Grace and I crack open a bottle of Orangina, open up a packet of Lutti Surffizz and put Heroes on.

We are on disc 4 of 7, so we should be through series one by the time we get home.

Fever 103 Degrees

Feeling a bit downcast with only a few days to go. Still the back page of the Telegraph cheered us up as the thermometer hit 34.

You ain't seen me, right?

Under Joan's direction I have been working hard in the Health & Efficiency division. No cakes there, in fact it's mostly baps. I have been holding talks on diet and leading Tai Chi sessions with some of the more limber inmates.

Keep it quiet as I've been taking advantage of my new Jerry Garcia style beard to disguise myself, should I need to lie low for a while. I've been going under the name Tigan Rubish.

Slaughtered, Gutted and Heartbroken...

...we were paraded back through camp.

Grace and Merrie were sent immediately to the cooler, whilst Lisa was dispatched on a bizarre mission to find a twin town for Thurstonland.

Arthur & I were sent to the local stores depot for more fizzy sweets... didn't stop us sneaking in a quick grand cafe, Orangina and Religeux gateau for the boy.

Captured...

Foolishly we made a quick phone call from the Leaky Cauldron, only to be intercepted by the crafty Joan using the new portable aerial on top of her trailer tent. She can pick up Bid Up TV too!

Out of the Forest...

... we discovered The Leaky Cauldron where we enjoyed a great lunch of salad, Moules Frites, Isles Flotantes and Creme Viennes.

Escape to Victory

We knew that the children's night manoevres would come in handy.

Today we put our plan into action. The alternate slats from our bunks, combined with the odd guy-rope from one or two tents and the occasional garter courtesy of Mme Summers at Armor-Lux in Thouars Market gave us enough to put a rudimentary getaway through the trees into affect.

Made in the Dark