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

Let them eat cake!

Arthur adds a new sport to his repertoire...

...playing badminton with Julian.

I don't say much about this but we have more cake for later on.

We'd hunted high and low for a village called Assais the other day, on the look out for a highly touted restaurant called the Ladybird. We drove round and round. We scoured the paper-foldy-map thing and dredged the SatNav database, but couldn't find it anywhere. At one point Grace even asked where le coccinelle is it?

In the end, we had to endure the disgrace of actually having to ask for directions at "Reception", or Checkpoint Joan as it's more colloquially known.

Anyhow, today we found it and enjoyed a lunch of salade du mer, assiete oriental, creme caramel and tarte abricot. Tres Bon. Not St Generoux, but very nice.

This morning, Arthur and Merri "painted pots" in the activity wing. Arthur created a passable Polish passport in the name of Artus Differsjki, whilst Merri fashioned a simple Heckler and Koch G36 assault rifle from some willow and a length of raffia.

We're All Going to the Zoo Tomorrow We All Went to the Zoo Yesterday

Every day starts in the same way. The sound of Arthur's bedroom being unzipped, the pitter-pat on the ground sheet as he looks around for his Crocs whilst bursting for the loo, followed by the unzipping of the outer door as he darts out t-shirt on backwards, collecting his table tennis bat and ball on the way, shouting "I'm off to practice my backwards serve!".

All family affairs from that point on until bedtime are a matter of the utmost inconvenience to Arthur as he charges through his boundless supply of energy with his friends* as he bounces them from boules to swimming to table tennis and back.

We did manage to get him to sit with us for a staged photograph at Saturday night's BBQ.


Also, he agreed to suspend all scheduled activities and release his friends* from their commitments for "a half-day max!" to come with us to the Zoo yesterday, before the rains came. The inmates breathed a sigh of relief and went back to lighter duties such as latrine digging, removing every other slat from their bed-frames and emptying their trouser pockets of gravel.

The Zoo de Doue today is a very nice zoo too. Nice sized enclosures, lots to see. Clear signs everywhere. They don't try to flog you £5 'Tigger' helium balloons at every corner like at Chester, plus there's plenty of shade. Took about three hours, then we picnicked near the car.

We'd seen plenty.

*generally means anyone on the site observed not actually doing anything at a given moment, regardless of age, sex or nationality. Includes family if food involved.

Inside

Today we are mostly inside.

Like a Hurricane!

Betwixt Oiron and St Generoux we found our very own Tornado. Kick ass!

If you've ever seen the movie Twister, it was just nothing like that.

Check it out!

Crisis du Jour

We set out for a pre-booked lunch at the highly recommended Relais de Chateau at Oiron.

It didn't start well when the Sat Nav dumped us unceremoniously in a field and said in a self congratulatory tone. "Arriving at destination. On left." Gulp! It took all our ingenuity to remember how to read one of those picture-place-direction-foldy paper things they used to have in the '90s to find where we needed to be.

We arrived in time, however, in an extremely picturesque village, with a car park right in front of the restaurant. After about thirty minutes and a 47 point turn I'd managed to negotiate a parking space, originally designed for 15th century Smart Chariots and we were ready to enter the restaurant, calm, collected and sweating like pigs.

No one at Reception.

Eventually an old crone shuffled towards us and I fluently announced our booking. "Oon tarble, Mister Tim, un hoor!"

She ushered us into, what can only be described as, le back room. Through the gloom and a single mullioned porthole we could see table after table of happy French families tucking into du pain, du vin et du bloody Boursin in the sunshine outside. We waited.

Then we waited a bit longer.

Eventually, we were handed menus.

We decided.

We waited again.

We looked at our menus a bit more.

We put them down.

We waited.

Eventually, a very nice lady came to take our order. The menu we had chosen from wasn't available on Sunday.

She went away.

We got up and left.

Sod that, we thought. Life's too short to eat expensive food in the cupboard under someone's stairs and, anyway, the kids had already polished off the bread and aioli. So after about 30 minutes and another 47 point turn, we hurtled straight outta town and no looking back, sweating like the things pigs say sweat a lot.

We set sail for St Generoux and the fantastic Au Bon Accueil, where we had happily lunched during the week.


When we got there, it was pretty full, but they found us a table and warned us that service may not be quick.

Fine. We relaxed at last in the convivial atmosphere. Lisa did a little peripatetic interrogation with some newbies from the encampment and we tucked into a million courses of fish, duck, ham, steak, chocolate, almond sponge and meringue!


Fully sated, we popped into one of the oldest churches in France, just across the road and then headed back to base.


This evening sees a ritual 'hazing' for the new recruits at Happy Valley. They're calling it a B-B-Q to get them through the door, but we're old hands now and part of the apparatus of control. This means we get to poke the Belgians in the buns, pass the Dutchie on the left hand side and squirt ketchup on the French fries.

Woot!

Pre-lunch training session

Beijing's only days away you know...

Nocturnal eMissions

The little ones in bed, we left Grace on sentry duty and eluded security to hop the fence on night moves.

Within the first minute les thugs touring the neighbourhood on their trail bikes all night (nowt on telly, see) had swerved and aimed at Lisa to freak her out. She was on the pavement at the time. I saw what happened and admonished the crazy lead biker with a stern frown. Still, we hid in the bushes and cried like girls when we heard their brakes squeal as they turned back 50 yards up la rue.

After about three hours we were brave enough to come out of hiding and start looking for bats.

None.

Well very few.

Instead though we did spot an incredible luminous glowing bug. Here it is with and without flash. Weird, huh?

Gone missing

It's been noted that one member of our party is conspicuous by her
absence in these missives. Lisa.

I'd like to tell you that her prowess with a crossbow, as noted by the
camp staff, has meant that she's been on a number of top secret
stealth missions across the Poiteu Charente region but the truth is
even more unbelievable.

She's been made the camp's Chief Interrogator, responsible for
debriefing all new arrivals who think they're signing up for lessons
in the local dialect. Here she is teaching "English as a Foreign
Language" to some bemused "etrangers". I think they're from Warrington.

An actual miracle!

Now I know you think we're being all green coming to the third world for our holidays this year, but who'd have thought that Airvault would be at the bleeding edge of commercial innovation?

Here is a picture, a big picture, of the village's very own Pizza ATM. You put in your card, select your topping and out pops your pizza through he slot! C'est fantastique!

However, I do think the evil Joan is behind this. All those Dutch kids have disappeared and I'm certain she's put them to work in the little pizza cucina at the back of this glorious machine.

(I also took some magnificent pictures of Airvault's beautiful Romanesque church. Whatever!)

We ate more cake

Another Day, Another Marche

Saturday morning, dryer and brighter. A lazy get up and trip into our local town, Airvault for the market. A much smaller, more local affair than those we've already visited and, in many ways, the better for it. The traders even set up a little impromptu bar for themselves (and others) to sample local wines and get them through the morning.

Merrie was pleased to witness the enduring popularity of the carrot in the region, whilst Arthur, on a brief sortie to the patisserie, discovered the world's biggest brioche. Embarrassingly, he'd helped himself to a big wedge before I could get the camera out.