OUR KIDS LIFE IN FRANCE, AND OURS - welcome to the vendee

A good nights sleep was not on the menu, as it turned out. I usually get the pleasure of seeing the kids over excited at Christmas and Birthdays, but this was a night with all 5 of us squashed into a room no bigger than a bathroom. Really, you could do everything without moving from the bed, even take a shower if you tried hard enough! OK, so it was cheap & cheerful, and it was one of those motorway hotels, but I would have called that more like a room for 1 not 5. Whatever, (there's that word again!). The children thought it was a hoot, and giggled all night. They found it especially amusing when we had to climb over one another to get to the loo, so much so that they felt the need to go at least 10 times in 30 minutes. Granted it was hot outside, even at that time of night, but the air conditioning was loud and clonky, and it gave you that funny sort of taste in your mouth. So we turned it right down. Then we still couldn't sleep as it was too hot. "Are we there yet?", didn't sound too bad at that point.

We were up and dressed at the crack of dawn, obviously, and in consequence, had to wait 1/2 an hour for the breakfast buffet to open, (I can't do anything without my daily caffeine intake). By 7.30am we were back on the road again.

Having done the longer part of the journey the day before, we figured we only had a couple of hours left on route, but decided to take it easy to make sure mum would be up and running and ready for us. Fortunately for us the kids slept alot of the way, not all but alot, so there is something to be said for motorway hotels after all! A few toll gates, hours and "are we there yets" later we finally rolled, (literally, we were almost out of petrol), through mums gates. She rushed out to greet us all with hugs. There it was again. That feeling of security. The same one I had when dad had rushed out 5 years previously........

From a cowshed to a gite in the Vendee, France

FROM THIS TATTY COW SHED.................

TO THIS LOVELY HOLIDAY HOME

So we arrived in the Vendee region of western France, and decided to, with the help of my husbands parents, create a "Gite" for summer rental. The above pictures are what it looked like to start with.....not really very appealing to holidaymakers! My parents-in-law came over to stay for the creation, as it was my husband and his dad who were undertaking the works alone. And so in the January the hard work began, for them and for me, as I juggled looking after our 3 children and a full time job. As soon as planning permission arrived it was all hands on deck, as we wanted to have it finished for the summer season, and as you can imagine, with just 2 workers, and given the state of the barn, this was going to be a long job. We have loads of photos of the works in process, but I won't bore you with all the details. They worked very long hours, which was particularly difficult for my husband as I also worked from 9am to 4pm then from 6pm to midnight sometimes later, (that's Hotel/restaurant work for you, but that's also another story), so he was left to cook & look after the children in the evening. Anyway, to cut a 5 month story short, the gite was finally ready for occupation the day before it was occupied, and even on the very day we were still hanging pictures etc...We had put out our first advert on the Internet a couple of months before, (with our fingers crossed that it would be ready in time!), and the very next day we had 15 calls for bookings. Unfortunately, most of the people wanted the same week, but we did manage to fill up the whole summer. We are very pleased with the end result and have had so many lovely comments about the quality of work, not that we are in any way blowing our own trumpets!! Anyway if anyone is interested, check out more photos on the Owners Direct site.

London transport at a standstill

"skis"

"THE NEW MODE OF TRANSPORT IN LONDON"

Yes folks, it's official. The only way to get around London today is on a pair of skis! As I predicted yesterday, everything has shut down due to the snow, even, to my dismay, the underground??? How does snow affect the underground?? I can only presume that all the tube drivers couldn't get to work! Sports shops will be doing a bomb all over the capital, that's if they themselves managed to get to work. Why wasn't Britain prepared for this? Afterall, they've only been telling us that "the worst winter in 18 years" is coming for the last week, so why didn't they do something about it? The snow didn't get as far as our part of France, although they have said that there is a 50% chance of a few "flakes" tomorrow, so we'll see.

We used to live in the south of France, it didn't snow there too often, but when it did, boy did it snow. But even then, they were always prepared, the schools never closed, (much to the childrens disgust), the roads always gritted and cleared and transport ran as usual. I mean, how do people manage to survive in the Netherlands, Russia and Alaska? Maybe they all ski around too, or maybe they are just used to it...no, I suspect it's because they prepare themselves. It was nice in the south, but very barron and very hot. It was also such a long drive to visit the UK, so we decided to move up country to the Vendee. The climate here is nice, and the people are very friendly. We live in a quiet village, but it is so close to all you need; 30 mins from the beach, 10 mins from the town, 20 mins from the city. I guess we were quite brave to make the move at the time, especially with 3 small children in tow, (they were 6, and twins of one and a half years). Well, either quite brave or quite stupid, whichever way you look at it! At least the children are all bilingual, and me "biensur", and my husband is still trying, very trying!!