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.....

OUR KIDS LIFE IN FRANCE, heading north in time for the summer holidays

We were all up very early on the day of the move. The kids were running riot, impatient to get on the road, but we had to wait for the last van to be packed up, which was a nightmare. A friend of ours had offered to drive our stuff to the Vendee in two vans, with his mate, to earn a quick buck. It was far cheaper than a removal company, so we welcomed the offer and agreed on a price, cash. Problem was that on the evening he came to see what we had to move, he arrived late and a little worse for wears. He'd been round a friends for "apéritifs", honestly I had never seen him like that before! Anyway, I guess he kind of underestimated the amount of space it would take, and in consequence we spent 4 hours trying to put it all in like a jigsaw. It went in and then out again I don't know how many times, turning it this way and that in the hope it would all go in. Our friend was a little embarrassed as he was cock sure it would all fit, and now it had to no matter what as we were leaving in a couple of hours.

The vans finally left about an hour before we did, they said they had decided to go straight up mid country, something I advised them not to do not only because it's longer but also it's very mountainous, and the vans were packed to the hilt! But they didn't want the autoroute toll cost, ultimately their decision.

We said our final goodbyes, handed over the keys and we were off once again. The car was very cramped as we had to put things in that didn't fit in the vans, which meant the kids were closer together, which meant the pushing and shoving started before we had even left the village. Bribing them with sweets they were finally settled, until we got about 10 minutes down the road. One needed the loo and another had lost his water bottle lid on the floor under the seat, GRRR! And that was just the beginning of our journey.........