Faire la bise

Bit low of news so far this week, so instead I thought I'd share a few interesting facts about the whole French kissing thing (faire la bise).

So far the only people I've had to faire la bise with are the Bogeys, but I thought I'd read up on it in case I go in for a kiss at the wrong time or the wrong way and end up banging heads or teeth with someone.

So the facts are:

• You normally only faire la bise with someone you know fairly well.  Women and women do it, men and women do it, men and men usually don't and shake hands instead.
• If you don't faire la bise, you shake hands.
• If you're not sure whether you should faire la bise, just go in for a handshake and let le Francais lead the way.
• You only faire la bise for the first time you see someone that day.  It's not necessary to faire la bise when you say goodbye, unless you want to.
• The number of kisses you give depends on the region you're in. Mostly it's two (as it is here in Savoie), but for example in Provence it's three, Nantes it's four and Brest they don't bother at all.
• Left cheek first!
• You don't actually kiss the cheek - just touch cheeks and kiss the air.
• Don't make a big 'mmmmwah' noise, as I did the first few times before I realised that nobody else was. Just a little 'mwa' noise, or no noise will do.

There doesn't seem to be any hard and fast rules, but I think that's the general gist of it.


Bisous xxx

Bonjour les Bogeys

On Wednesday we moved into our new place in La Motte Servolex. 

It's starting to feel like home already!  The Bogey family who own the house have really gone out of their way to help us get settled and feel welcome, including looking after Max whilst we packed up the last place and looking after Luke whilst I went to the supermarché.

The Bogeys live next door - Catherine is a nurse, Eric a furniture maker and they have three children aged 23, 21 and 18, who have all recently flown the nest. They have lived in this region of France all of their lives and speak hardly any English.  This is great for us as it means we're getting to speak French every day. I actually can't believe how quick I'm improving - I'm even doing little shoulder shrugs and saying huh all the time!

Max seems to be a bit confused by the new language though, as every time Catherine speaks to him he puts his hands over his ears! I'm pretty sure it's because he's frustrated that he can't understand her.  She's determined that he'll be speaking French soon though, and  has got him saying merci, jouet and toute à l'heure.

So here's some piccies of the house.  It's a bit smaller than what we're used to, but it's absolutely immaculate and will do us just fine - nice  and cosy.  Most of the furniture you will see has been made by Eric!

On the ground floor:

lovely big porch/dumping ground

On the first floor:

La cuisine

  

La salle à manger/le salon

le salon/le bureau

As you can see the kitchen, dining room, living room and office are actually all one room!

 

 la chambre de Stu, Rach et Luke

la bouanderie

Couldn't get a decent pic of the first floor bathroom.

On the second floor:

la chambre de Lily

La chambre de Max

Max scored for the biggest and best room, as it's doubling up as a playroom whilst Stu works downstairs during the day.  Luke will also be moving up there if he ever sleeps through the night.

la salle douche

Et la pièce de résistance

le balcon

Check out the awesome mountain view!

We've got a busy weekend ahead - bed linen shopping, swimming in lakes, dinner chez les Americaines.  It's a good job that Catherine made me put my feet up all this afternoon in a sun lounger whilst Luke slept in his pushchair under a tree and Max played in the garden...I think I'm going to like it here!

Au revoir les Gaches

Tonight is our last night in the holiday gite before we move into our new home in La Motte Servolex. 

Farmer Gache and his family who own the gite have been so generous during our time here.

Grandma Gache has presented us with endless bowls of freshly picked raspberries, homemade pomme purée and fluffy Savoie cakes.

Madame Gache gave us a bucket of haricots and even offered to mind Luke while we went to Chamonix.

And Farmer Gache let Max take custody of all the toy tractors on the farm, as well as taking him and Stu on the ill-fated real life tractor ride.

I feel bad that I have nothing to offer them in return, although Farmer Gache did have the pleasure of a full body flash in one of those drop the towel or drop the baby moments...

Genuinely lovely people.

Les vaches de Farmer Gache

Salut de Lily xx

Salut! Ça va ? Je m'appelle Lily. J'ai 12 ans. Je suis Anglaise. J'adore ma famille. J'aime faire la danse et jouer le netball. J'ai deux plus petit frères qui s'appellent Max et Luke. J'aime manger le curry et la chinoise. C'est officiel, les Français ont changé mon prénom á Lily Rose.

Ok I give up writing in French now.

RESULT - I have French friends. School is ok I guess, but it is still school. I am trilingual now because I can speak English, French and German. I went to Laser Game yesterday for a party - it is so cool.

Love Lily xx

Les pommes de terre

Potatoes on special at Carrefour this morning. 25kg for €3.50 and selling like hot cakes. Some people even buying two sacks!

What on earth are they gonna do with 25kg of potatoes?!

Une table pour cinq

For most people going to a restaurant is a great way to relax. Now we're a party of five (two being under two) the very thought of it sends my blood pressure rising. The worries are endless; baby screaming the place down, Max doing monster burps, poop incidents, tantrums, food throwing etc.

However we thought we'd brave it last night and went out for dinner for the first time since we arrived (McDo excluding).

The main problem is that restaurants here don't open til 7pm at the earliest, by which time Max is well on his way to becoming overtired and whingey.  We were therefore pretty much banging down the doors of the only Indienne in Aix les Bains at 6:59pm.

The menu was very different to what we're used to in the UK. Not as much choice, multigrain poppadoms, tiny portions,deconstructed onion bhajis and €5 for a bottle of Kingfisher. The food was ok, main courses better than starters but nothing to write home about. Whitley Bay wins hands down for curry!

As it happens, les enfants yet again surprised me with their impeccable behaviour in public (it's always a different story behind closed doors) and we had a nice relaxing meal. Helped I'm sure by the super quick service that saw us back in the car heading home by 8:35pm. We might try it again some time!

Havent' quite mastered the art of eating rice while holding a baby

Nom nom

My French is improving loads by just listening to the language every day. I've managed to send a letter to England, order McDo, tell the story about how Stu lost the car (which isn't allowed to be mentioned anymore after I reversed into a wall on Thursday), talk about Luke's sleeping habits and understand a fair amount of Masterchef France. I still manage to get pretty much every blog post title wrong though, and have Stu correct me.

Luke seems to have doubled in size again this week and is officially not a newborn any more :-(

 

Managed to catch his cheeky grin on camera at last

His usual pose as soon as a camera is pointed in his direction

Stu has been getting lots of use out of his mountain bike, mainly cross country (XC) and downhill. And is loving spending so much time with the boys.

Watching Monsters Inc for the 234,352th time

Lily is  getting used to the long hours at school and seems to be fairly enthusiastic about her work, which makes a change! She is picking up quite a bit of French and can understand a lot of what's being said, but doesn't quite have the confidence to speak it very much. I'm sure that will come though.

We're all looking forward to moving this week and getting settled in our new place. Gonna miss the pool though!

Off to the new place now for café and desserts with the owners ahead of us moving in.

Le train train quotidien

As predicted it's been hard work entertaining the boys so far this week whilst Stu has been working.  It always is when he's working from home but usually we can easily nip out around the town to keep out of his way or use Cbeebies as a pacifier.

The thing I love most about Whitley Bay is having everything I possibly need literally on my doorstep; shops, park, beach, pool, water park, restaurants, cafés, soft play etc*.   It's not quite like that here and I have to drive everywhere, which is a bit of a chore with the two bébés in tow.

I've got it down to a fine art now: Get mobile child (Max) in car and away from road and shut door, walk round car with Luke in pushchair, unclip carseat from pushchair, strap car seat in car, dismantle pushchair, put pushchair in boot, walk round car, open door to strap Max in, realise Max isn't there and he's climbed into to the driver's seat, walk back round car to driver's side, extract Max from driving seat, walk back around the car with Max under arm, clamber into the back of the car, strap Max in, find baby's dummy to stop the inevitable crying that has started, clamber out of car, walk back round car to driver's side, get in car, adjust rear view mirror that Max has kocked out of line, switch off hazard lights that Max has turned on, same with radio, turn key in ignition, stall engine as Max has put the car in second gear, put car into neutral, turn key in ignition, reach for seatbelt, realise that it's on the other side, strap myself in and DRIVE. I did this four times this morning before 11:30 and have it down to five minutes. Add in the mid 20 degree heat and it's pretty much a full body workout.

And if I'm lucky only one of the babies will cry for part of the journey.

La voiture francaise

We're coping with it though and so far this week we've been to three different parks, the aquarium, the port twice, the post office, the boulangerie twice and McDo for frappés et frites. Not to mention having us all up and ready and in the car for 7:45 each morning to take Lil through La Dent du Chat mountain to school.

We're also making a weekly treat of sitting in at La Panière for breakfast after dropping Lil at school. La Panière is basically the Savoie's answer to Greggs, stocked with sandwiches, cakes, bread and pastries but miles tastier. Unfortunately it doesn't sell cheese pasties but its croissants and hot milk are delicious and can keep Max quiet for around 20 minutes. I'm trying to limit croissants to twice a week or else I'll leave France looking like a house end.

News this week:

Lily has been invited to one of her French friend's birthday party this weekend which hopefully confirms she's settling in well at school.

Max is still a bit out of sorts, waking at night and and making me feel guilty by asking pretty much everyday to go to either Grandma and Grandad's house, Niamh's house, Dianne's house or Andrew's house.  He's easily distracted though, which is good.

Luke is clueless to any unsettlement but growing at an incredible rate and looks to be going quite blond.
 

 Not much else to report. Looking forward to moving into our permanent place next week and getting properly settled.

*Obviously what WB doesn't have is the breathtaking scenery, fantastic climate and proximity to some of the most beautiful places in mainland Europe ;-)