OUR KIDS LIFE IN FRANCE, AND OURS, are we there yet?

Just as we got back on the road our son said, "are we there yet?", we were only 15 minutes out of the village and not even on the motorway! I felt a headache coming on.

It was a long journey and as it was the beginning of the afternoon we decided to stop over night in a hotel, but we wanted to get past the half way mark first. We hoped the removal guys wouldn't get there before us as they would need our help to unload, but doubted they would considering the route they took.

About an hour into the trip we stopped at a service station for a "loo stop", again. "Make sure you all go because we don't want to have to stop again!", I warned them. They all went in but I'm still not sure is they actually did the business. We set off again. "Are we there yet?", our daughter said, "not even a quarter of the way, read a book or something." I said. I had forgotten that we had Elephant the hamster in the car with us, and about a half an hour after that I kept hearing strange noises. "There's something wrong with the car.", I said to my husband in a panic. He agreed he'd heard the same noises, so we pulled over yet again. We left the engine running and checked under the bonnet, under the car, at the front, at the back but could not find anything wrong. It wasn't until we checked inside that we found Elephant doing somersaults off the top of her cage and running round in circles chasing a tail that didn't exist! "Had you asked me I would have told you it was just the hamster!", our eldest said.

Each time we stopped at a toll gate somebody asked, "are we there yet?", and each time I replied the same, "I'll let you know when we're nearly there, now go to sleep or something!", but they kept on asking. What a relief when we finally arrived at the hotel, at about 7pm. All tired with sore bottoms, and hot, it was very hot. We called mum to let her know where we were, and then went to the bar for a well deserved glass of, well, anything alcoholic, really, and then a good meal. I'm sure we'd all feel better after a good nights sleep.....