Joyeux Hallowe'en!

It's fabulously sunny and warm here today, but we've still managed to get into the spirit of things with some pumpkin carving:

and dressing up the kids in silly outfits:

Hallowe'en isn't so much of a big deal in France, with only one small supermarket shelf dedicated to spooky stuff.  I thought we could buck the trend a bit and it's now the third day in a row the boys have worn their costumes, getting us lots of strange looks from the locals.

They do however have a national holiday for All Saints day tomorrow, meaning a day off work for Stu. Happy Hallowe'en!

Au revoir la belle-famille

This morning we had to wave goodbye to Sandra and Alan after a lovely week which went far too fast!

Max was thrilled to have his grandparents for another week, and Luke enjoyed having lots of extra attention. 

Max and his new wellies (which haven't left his feet all week)

We had some sunny days out to le Bourget du Lac, Aix les Bains, Annecy and Chambéry. And having two extra pairs of hands to help with the little monkeys meant that I could finally have a proper French lunch at a restaurant. Or two.

Lac du Bourget

Lac d'Annecy

Moules frites nom

Unfortunately Stu had to spend the first half of the week in Limerick with work, so wasn't around for a lot of the time (possibly a good thing the way him and Alan wind each other up).  He was due back on Wednesday evening and I knew there was trouble when I returned to my phone after bathing Luke to two missed calls and a message to "answer your phone".

The car battery had died in the airport carpark, and it was going to cost 130Euros to have it started again.  Fortunately for him he was able to eventually flag a passer by down who had jumpleads at their house nearby, and who went to fetch them to help him out.  If it had happened to me, I would have been totally screwed due to my rubbishy French.  He doesn't seem to have much luck in airport carparks does our Stu... 

On Thursday Catherine and Eric came over for a Sunday dinner that Sandra and Alan kindly cooked for everyone.  They seemed to enjoy the Yorkshire pudding which I guess is just an alternative way of cooking crêpes. Dinner conversation was an interesting mix of English and French, but everyone seemed to get along just fine. Except Max and Luke who both decided to play up.

We also had a nice leisurely lunch yesterday with Stu's brother's wife's dad! Or Aunty Jen's dad as Max likes to call him. He has a holiday home about an hour from here, so Sandra and Alan arranged for him to come over to catch up.

So all in all it's been a busy, but enjoyable week. Good company, good food, good wine and a bit of a break for me. Poor Max is going to be bored next week without his grandad here to "pay cars". Please come again soon!

La tranquillité

Things I have managed to do this week whilst Max has been away:

Lots of long walks
Pedicure
Pluck eyebrows
Manicure
Clean the whole house
Spend an afternoon in town
Read a chapter of a book (in French)
Watch a movie all the way through (Anchorman)
Clean oven
Catch up with TOWIE online (shamefully obsessed)
Have an afternoon nap
Spend lots of uninterrupted time playing with Lukey

Which is all well and good, but I have really started to miss him now (and Stu of course) and I am counting down the hours (three) until he returns.

And what's even more exciting is that they're travelling back with Sandra and Alan who are staying for the week.

The champers is chilling, lasagne is prepped, tarte au citron is made*,  'bienvenue' sign is hanging from the balcony, I'm now going to savour the last few moments of relative peace before the whirlwind returns.

*not really, I bought it from the boulangerie this morning...

La grande aventure

So as adventures go it wasn't that grande. But we managed it. A full night in the tent at the bottom of the garden!  Stu and Lily put the tent up on Saturday afternoon, whilst I sat watching and laughing at my own jokes about erections.  They did a sterling job considering Max kept trying to sabotage the effort by rolling around on top of the tent.

Before

After

Me, Lily and Luke had absolutely no intention of actually sleeping in the tent, but Stu managed to sweet talk us (literally) with half a bottle of rosé wine and a pack of Carambars.

Lily's idea of camping

And the verdict? Well it wasn't actually that bad. Max and Luke behaved (except for Lukey having one of his usual impeccably timed poop incidents), we drank beer, ate sweeties and played a poor man's version of Pictionary. It was bloody freezing though, so we've agreed to pack the tent away now until spring time.

Yeah, right

Stu and Max arrived safely back in the UK last night so I've spent the day in relative peace. I had a bit of a drama trying to locate the PMI centre for Luke's first jabs which resulted in me driving down a cycle path and upsetting a few locals.  I always seem to make these terrible driving mistakes when I'm in the UK car too. I bet I've been called a stoopid English pig more than a few times so far!

After driving for half an hour to locate the centre two miles away, I drove back home and asked for Catherine's help.  She extremely kindly came in the car with me and stayed throughout my appointment.  I really need to learn more ways of expressing my gratitude in French. Merci beaucoup just doesn't go far enough, considering how they've helped me!

Luke hated his jabs, but weighed in at an impressive 14lb13 and 63.5cm tall.  The health visitor wasn't impressed by his lack of socks however. I couldn't help but laugh - it was 21degrees outside, practically tropical compared to what we get back home.

I've definitely noticed that these French folk are a bit soft when it comes to the cold.  The kids are always wrapped up in their winter woollies at the park when me and Max are out in our shorts and t-shirts. 

Off to the shops tomorrow as it's Lil's half day.  I'm dreading driving into Chambéry centre, something is bound to go wrong...

La vie continue...

I've been spending quite a bit of time lurking in parks with the boys over the last few week in a bid to have a conversation with someone who can string more than six words together (six being Max's current record - "Mammy sit down on the road").  It appears that the trend in France is for new mams to go back to work fairly soon after having their baby, so I only seem to encounter grandparents and childminders who look after about three or four kids each and don't really have much time for chat.  Although I don't know why I'm complaining as my French conversation doesn't usually span more than six words either.  Today I somehow led one granddad to believe I was an English au pair and couldn't find the words to explain that the boys in fact belonged to me, but managed to agree that yes it was great that Max was being given the opportunity to be bilingual. 

Speaking of which, he is actually showing a bit of a talent for French. He can count to three ("undertwaaaa"), speak a handful of words and seems to understand a lot of what is said to him. Tres cute! 

Capitaine Tete de Champignon

Stu's colleague Patrick has been over from Ireland for work this week which has been nice as I think we're getting a bit sick of only having each others' company in the house.  They went out for drinks in Aix les Bains, and whilst Stu had good intentions of returning at a reasonable hour it appears to be impossible to get a taxi in these parts so he ended up getting a lift home from his new friend Antoine who works in the hotel where Patrick was staying.  At 3:45am. And quite merry. 

We're going to be getting one step closer to camping tomorrow and pitching the tent in the garden.  We have sensibly agreed that it would be a better idea to give it a go somewhere that it's easy to get home from in case it is a complete disaster.

Stu and Max are heading back to England on Monday for a few days, and I feel terrible saying it but I can't wait!  I have literally spent every waking hour with Max for seven weeks now and need a break!  I'll be using the time wisely though, trying to get Luke into some kind of daytime routine as he's been a bit upset the past few days and I'm sure it's mainly due to his big brother prodding him every time he falls asleep.

Not a happy boy

I'll also be using the opportunity of being toddler-free to spend Wednesday afternoon with Lily in Chambéry. She's been getting shopping withdrawal symptoms and deserves a treat for doing so well during her first term at school.

Hopefully something exciting will also happen in the next week as I fear this blog has become quite boring already!

La neige

So we never made it camping. The rain arrived on Friday afternoon and even on the south coast there were strong winds forecast. We didn't want to risk being blown away in a tent so decided to have a quiet weekend at home.

Lil and Max made their own tent for watching movies in

When cabin fever started to set in, we went for a drive to check out the local ski resorts of La Féclaz and Le Revard, situated about 45 minutes from our house.

The temperature was dropping the higher up the mountain we got, but I still couldn't believe it when the rain changed into snow! Only two days ago I was topping up my tan on the balcony! It's a good job Luke was dressed appropriately for the bad weather:

Unimpressed with the ears

Seriously?!

Hopefully the early snow is a good sign for decent local skiing this winter, as it would be a perfect way for Lily to spend her Wednesday afternoons.

Speaking of Lily, she's been working hard at school and at home, trying hard to learn as much French as she can. She seems to remember new vocabulary really well, and just needs to get more confident in sticking it all together to construct sentences. I'm sure that will come soon though.

Hard at work

Luke is now 12 weeks old and a smiley, gurgly little bundle of cuddles. Most of the time. There's still no sign of him sleeping through the night but he never makes a fuss. I just stick him in next to me for a feed and he drops straight off again. There's nothing better than waking up to his warm milky baby breath ;)

Max is just as lively as ever. I caught him putting salt and pepper on his little baby brother the other day...not entirely sure whether he was planning on eating him but i rescued him just in time. He's made himself right at home here and can frequently be found wandering in and out of Catherine and Eric's house.

Just before Max decided to swing Luke into the door frame...

They invited us round for stone baked pizzas again the other night. I really want an outdoor bread oven, as the pizzas are amazing!  We're planning on inviting them over for some proper English food in return. Maybe a nice shepherd's pie or some roast beef and Yorkshire puds.

Another day of rain tomorrow, but a sunny week forecast ahead - hooray!

Quel temps fait-il?

It's been another uneventful week here in Savoie. Turns out life in France isn't too dissimilar to life back at home, except here I don't understand what people are saying and the weather is miles better.

Speaking of weather, it looks like autumn is finally going to catch up with us this weekend. We've had almost consistently sunny weather since we arrived, usually in the mid to high 20s. But we're forecast rain for Saturday and the temperature looks to drop to low 20s next week. Still considerably warmer than Whitley Bay though!

It's a strange climate here. Mornings are actually pretty cold and there's usually a thick mist surrounding the mountains. By 10am this normally burns off to reveal cloudless blue skies and bright sunshine. I think we've had about five rainy days in the six weeks we've been here.

According to the neighbours it really cools down in November and winter starts to set in. The sun is still noticeably more powerful than at home though and clear wintry days will still feel quite warm.

Anyway to escape this weekend's rain, we're off on an adventure! Camping! In a tent! With two babies! What could possibly go wrong?!

Vous n'avez pas la priorité

Although I've taken to the French way of driving surprisingly well, I've had a couple of hairy moments this week.


Apparently there is a Priorité à droite rule in town and village centres in France, which means that if you're turning right you have priority .  This rule applies even if you're turning from a side street onto a main road, unless road signs indicate otherwise. I never knew this. There I was tootling down the main road in the centre of town and a car goes to pull out right in front of me. Obviously I didn't think to stop as I was on the main road, so I had to swerve and ended up being given a loud beep and an angry gesture. 


So now when I come towards a junction I have to figure out if anyone is turning right from it. And for some reason, driving on the wrong (right) side of the road here makes me get my left and right muddled up so it takes about five minutes to work the whole thing out. I've found the quickest and less stressful option is to just close my eyes, put my foot down and hope for the best! 


I also found myself driving on the wrong side of the road when I was leaving the supermarché the other day. This would have been easily rectified if there hadn't been someone turning into the junction that I was on the wrong side of the road trying to get out of. Cue more beeping and angry gestures! 


Driving is definitely more aggressive over here; people lack patience and are all in a hurry.  One good thing though is there's none of the middle lane hogging that goes on in the UK. People only pull out to overtake and once they've overtaken they move back over to the right. Or do I mean left (it's late, I can't figure it out)?


Stu has been really busy with work this week, so I've pretty much had only the company of the two boys during the day. Which is probably why my brain is too frazzled to work out my left from my right. However the highlights from France this week include:

• Stonebaked pizzas from Catherine's outdoor bread oven. 
• Getting registered with a doctor. All in French without the help of Stu. And with the two boys in tow, making hearing what he was saying infinitely more difficult. 
• Having to pay 23 euros for the pleasure of getting registered with a doctor. Vive le NHS. 
• Signing up for a Super U loyalty card.
• Discovering Ilrhéa, a rosé/cognac hybrid from the Ile de Ré. Delicious.
• Max's attention span increasing. He can now watch a Pixar movie all the way through. Only if he's tired though.

Stu has been in the bad books after getting drunk in Marseille on Thursday night and turning up home five hours late on Friday.  He'd texted me at 10pm to say what a boring night he was having and how nobody was even drinking. However it all changed at 11pm.  It turns out the French have caught on to our binge drinking culture, so he ended up out drinking until 5am with a load of his colleagues.

Here's some of the latest pics: