I was confused by the reaction, but the final vote is..

On the road at last, it does seem to take ages to get out of the port. Driving through customs was the worst, everything was so tightly packed into the boot of the car it was like a jigsaw puzzle, and I quivered at the thought of being stopped and asked to take everything out! Not that we had anything to declare, well not anything they would be interested in anyway, but that it would take us the rest of the holiday to get it all back in again! Fortunately we were not stopped, and off we went. "Daddy, you're driving on the wrong side of the road!" no. 2 son said, "no, no, that's how it is in England, that's why they have their steering wheel on the other side of the car". I have to admit, after 10 years it was a bit daunting driving on the left, bit of a bummer when you want to over-take, but there was no chance of that today, the rain poured down and the fog got thicker the more in land we went. By lunchtime it had eased off and we were able to see the rolling English countryside, in fact we had lots of time to look at it as we were stuck for about 2 hours in traffic. The only time you get stuck in traffic in the Vendee is when there's a tractor on the road, so the kids were unfamiliar with this and couldn't understand why we weren't moving. They started to get bored very quickly, which usually leads to them poking one another, and very soon turns into world war 3. I swear if I ever hear the words "are we there yet?" one more time I'll crack!

We got all sorts of inquisitive questions from them as we (finally) got moving again. "Why do the houses look so different, they're all stuck together?", and, "why are phone boxes red?", and even, " why are there so many CCTV cameras on the streets?". Houses in France are mainly detached, mainly villas, and somewhat Mediterranean looking. You don't see many phone boxes in France, either you go to the Post Office, or you have a mobile. CCTV in the street is something I have never seen in France, although I'm sure big cities must have some. I was quite shocked to see them on almost every street corner in England, even in small villages!

Another strange thing they found was that everyone spoke English! Yes, that may sound odd, but when you've lived in France for so long and are used to hearing people speak in French, that's something you do notice. I had to get the "Yellow Card" out a few times, though, when remarks were made about passers by and I had to keep reminding them that in England everyone can understand what they're saying!

After a hectic week, (I say hectic as we had loads of family to visit), we were back at the port, jigsaw puzzle and all, in the rain again, sat in traffic again and once again hoping the customs officer would not want to dismantle the boot. "So, what did you like about England the best?" Unanimously - 1. Family (understandably)

2. The fun fair we visited ( a bit confused)

3. Sweets (very confused)

What about the scenery, the people, the culture, the history?? "Too much traffic, strange houses, rain & fog, freezing cold and too many people understand us".

"So what's the vote then? France or England?"........"FRANCE!!!!"

From France to England, via hotel & car ferry

So the kids have got so used to the French way of life even their expressions are French, you know, tone of voice, eating habits etc.. Mind you, the eating bit is good. I hear stories about the English school canteen service, and what they serve, chips mainly, and the French way does appear to be a lot healthier. Ok, so it's quite expensive, but worth it. They get a 4 course meal; starter, main course, cheese or dairy product and dessert or fruit, and they are very varied and typically french meals. I could never imagine English schools serving up black pudding, offal, beef tongue, mussels and things like that, (although apart from the mussels I wouldn't eat it either, shhh, don't tell the kids!). But it is good that they try these things, and they actually enjoy it, trouble is I keep getting bamboozled into cooking exotic dishes you'd normally only eat at a restaurant!

Last October we decided it was time to take the plunge and visit the family in the UK. Not that we hadn't wanted to before but we had a food store before moving to the Vendee and it was open 7/7 and 364/365, (excluding Christmas Day), so we never really got the chance. And since living here we have been so busy working and renovating the gite & house, that time just slipped past. Anyway, we finally went back there, ooh the kids were so excited, they were going back to their roots!

We drove to Calais and stayed in a Hotel the night to get the ferry the next morning. That in itself was an adventure for the kids, the first time, (that they can remember), ever being on a ferry boat. As you can imagine, we didn't get much sleep that night due to giggling children who didn't want to go to sleep, so we arrived at the port 2 hours early, bleary eyed, and got an earlier boat. I'm not sure what they were expecting to see on the other side of the Channel, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't what they were expecting. In fact, it was pretty hard to see anything due to the rain & fog, "This is England, kids, what do you think so far?". To which I got no comment..............

PS. Thanks to Aji for dropping in and leaving a lovely comment.

A kids life in France, from a parents point of view

I've often wondered what our children would have been like if we had decided to stay in the UK. Would they know more or less? Would they have been happier there? Given the choice would they have wanted to come to France? Well, they had no choice in the matter, they were too young, but even if they had been old enough I'm not sure that they would have had the choice anyway. Our eldest found it very hard in the beginning, as he had already been to school in the UK and also his English was pretty well established, so when we dumped him into a french school it was a pretty scary thing for him. We had considered a bilingual school, but felt that it would be more beneficial to be thrown in at the deep end in place where he had no choice. He had to communicate with the french kids & teachers, or not talk at all. It sounds very cruel, but believe me it was the best choice. The twins found it much easier. Apart from their own "between twins only" alien language, (which only they understood), they spoke neither English or french as they were only about 18 months old at the time. They all slotted in rather well, and their second language quite quickly became an even first with English. We did, however, make it a strict rule that unless we were doing homework, we spoke only English at home; I didn't want them to lose their English. The only problem now, of course, is that they keep on correcting us, which can be very embarassing!

The school day over here is very long for them. The eldest leaves at 7.20 am and is not back until 5.30 pm, although he doesn't have school on Wednesdays. The twins leave at 8.00 am and return at 5.45 pm, and they do have school on a Wednesday morning. In the winter, they never see the shutters on the windows open . It's dark when they leave, and dark when they come home! However, in the lovely summers we have, they often play in the garden, (we have a large one, 7200m2), until 11 pm, providing there's no school the next day! I was slightly worried about them learning to read and write in English, but needn't have. As soon as they acquired that in french they taught themselves it in English. Really, it shocked me too! One day they had the TV remote to see what was on, and they just started to read the synopsis!! Great, I thought, I don't need to worry about that now! They've just started to learn English in school and guess what...They get full marks each time, handy that! And how do they feel about their life in France? And what about their friends? And what did they think when we visited the UK for the first time in 10 years? That's another story for tomorrow!

I'm getting old & things aren't what they used to be

It's becoming increasingly difficult to up-date blogs, or even do anything on the computer in our house at the moment. We have a laptop, a computer in the office, a computer in our no. 2 son's room and a computer in our daughter's room, but that is evidently STILL not enough, especially at the moment as it's the school holidays. By the time I'm up and running in the morning, my daughter is on hers, my husband is on the laptop and no.2 son is running between his and the office computer complaining that he can't do certain things on each so he needs 2! Mind you, watching my daughter, who is 11, on the computer makes me feel very old. She can very skilfully chat on messenger to 10 people simultaneously, surf the internet, play games and sell her old toys on a free advertising site all at the same time! Talk about multi-tasking, it's all I can do to listen to 2 of my kids talk at the same time! In consequence, she's a whizz at computer studies at school, go girl. But she really made me feel past it when she asked about the computer I had as a girl........."Er, we didn't have things like that then. In fact, dvd's, cd's, flat screen tv's, mobile phones, ipods and all that sort of stuff, didn't even exist. We didn't even have a video player, although they DID exist then". To which she replied, "Did cars exist when you were little, mummy?"........HELP!!!!!!!

A thought for today

Hi I'm back. My daughter found this short poem this morning, and I thought I'd share it with you as it's kind of nice;

Yesterday is history,
Tomorrow is a mystery,
Today is a gift,
That's why we call it "the present".
Things will look up again.

Hope you liked it too!

Ghostly happenings or just stange but true?

I have a kind of odd situation, and would be grateful of any logical comments. A couple of days ago I was on the laptop downstairs, surfing the Internet. I decided to come upstairs to the main computer to check my mails, but I couldn't get an Internet connection. Strange, I thought, as I had just been on line and as we have broadband it shouldn't be a problem. I checked the phone, that was working, but still no connection. When I checked the computer socket connections, the plug had come out. How could that be, there was nobody in the house but me, and the socket is not within knockable reach. Anyway, I plugged it back in, it worked, and I thought nothing more of it......Until the same evening it happened again, the children were home but none had been in the office! It has since happened on 4 occasions, not just with me but with my husband too, the last occasion being last night! What is the secret of the self-disconnecting plug?? I can't think of any reason why this keeps happening. Do we have Casper living with us? Or is there a simple logical explanation?? I would love to hear your comments, this is really bugging me!!

Jade Goody getting married

THE WAY SHE WAS

I was so pleased to hear that Jade Goody is to marry soon. I think it will be good for her sons, (not sure if he is their father), to have a dad after she has gone. mind you, I was talking to someone yesterday who knew somebody with the same type of cancer, she was given just months to live as well and now, 5 years later, she is still living as normal a life as she can. They put her on the cancer "super drug", (don't know what it's called, if anybody does would be grateful for a hint), and it has kept her going much longer than anticipated, unless they got it wrong in the first place. And thinking about it, I do remember watching Patrick Swaze, (is that how you spell it?), on GMTV as he also has terminal cancer, and they gave him months to live a couple of years ago, but he's still making films now. Let's just hope that things turn out the same, or similar for Jade. On a lighter note, the sun is shining here in the Vendee, France, and they've announced pretty much the same for the rest of the week. This is good news, as it's about time I started to do some gardening, (yuk), as the Gite will be ready for opening in a couple of months. Oh and by the way, I forgot to say on Saturday, I didn't get a truck load of Valentines cards as I expected...not! But I did get one card, from my other half.......Ahhh, so the subtle hints worked for a change!