Le printemps

The best thing about Savoie in my opinion is that the seasons are all as they should be; summer is super hot, autumn is fresh and beautiful, the less said about winter the better and now we have entered spring.

Spring is definitely my favourite. The temperature is perfect, the birds are singing, there's a sweet smell in the air and every night the flowers in the garden seem to grow about two inches. If you stand under the tree outside the house, all you can hear is the buzzing of the bees collecting the pollen from the blossom. I truly am full of the joys of spring!

I am really going to miss having a garden when we leave this place. Catherine and Eric really live the good life. They have a huge vegetable patch, which keeps them in fruit and vegetables, a walnut tree which provides them with nuts and walnut oil, an outdoor bread oven for baking bread and a number of beehives for producing honey. They also make loads of home brewed liqueurs, which have a tendency to blow your socks off.

One day...

Catherine's beehives

Stu has been making the most of the good weather and exploring the mountain bike trails behind our house.

At the top of the Col de l'Epine

A bee hotel!

Lukey is on the mend at last, although is surviving on a diet of fromage frais and biscuits. His chunky little thighs have definitely slimmed down a bit :-( 

Tomorrow Sandra arrives for the week, bringing Esme and Ruby with her. Should be fun!

Bricothé

For the past few months I have been attending weekly bricothé with my French mammy friends.

bricothé is a made up word (I think)...brico from bricolage the French word for DIY and thé the French word for tea. It also rhymes with tricoter, the French word for knit.

Basically we get together every week at someone's house to drink rooibos tea, eat homemade cake and do crafty things, while the children all play nicely together.

Now I am not sure if this is what all French mammies are like, but these ladies are seriously talented. I'll stumble in with the two boys hanging off me and they'll be effortlessly knocking up cushion covers on the sewing machine, making jewellery, knitting and stitching things that look like mini Bayeux tapestries.

I have yet to actually make anything at one of these sessions due to being highly uncrafty but I am really inspired and might get involved a bit more when Luke doesn't require constant help out of places he is stuck in.

However there's been no bricothé this week or last for us as Luke has been unwell, first with a nasty cold and now with a nasty stomach bug which has produced some of the most foul nappies I have ever seen (and after three babies, I have seen a hell of a lot). He has hardly eaten for a week and is sleeping worse than ever before. The doc prescribed him a whole load of stuff yesterday though, so hopefully he will be on the mend soon.

Speaking of nappies, Max is officially out of them during the day, hooray!

On est de retour

We arrived safely back in France yesterday after our holiday to Tenerife, where we had such a chilled, relaxing time. I am officially an All Inclusive convert, although it has left me nearly half a stone heavier than before we went.

The hotel was fantastic; five pools, amazing food, spotlessly clean and the friendliest staff I've ever encoutered. Max possibly had the best time of all of us, spending most of the days in the pool and all of the evenings at the mini disco. 

Here's some of my fave pics:

So it's  back down to earth with a bump. No one to cook and clean for me anymore!

Fortunately it's super-chaud here in Savoie, so the transition back to reality should be a bit less of a shock.

Best go and empty the washing machine :-\



Rien à dire

Sorry for lack updates this week, but there's nothing much to report from Savoie.

La vie is ticking along nicely and we are all looking forward to our trip to Tenerife via Whitley Bay at the end of this week.

Lily has been busy with exams, Stu has been out and about with work and me and the boys have been hanging around a number of parks and toddler groups in an effort to wear them out.

Luke has developed loads over the past couple of weeks and is now pulling himself up on everything, and inevitably falling down quite a bit too. He has learnt how to clap his hands and wave, which is pretty impressive as we haven't actually taught him how to do these things at all! I think back to all the hours we spent trying to get Max to crawl, to stand up, to clap and little Luke has just done it all by himself!

Nothing really more to say unfortunately. Here's a token picture of the babies for the grandmas:

La bonne note

Lily has had her ups and downs at school in France.  At home she was more often than not top of the class in most subjects. Here, she receives 80% of her classes in French so has more often than not been bottom of the class.

This didn't suit her to start with at all.  The reality of actually having to work hard to get good marks was alien to her. But I am proud to report that she has knuckled down and got on with it, and as I have mentioned previously her French is at a level I never could have imagined after a rocky first couple of weeks!

She's taking a pride in her work that I've never seen before and it is definitely paying off as she recently scored highest in her class on a written French comprehension test about the story of David and Goliath. And by highest I mean higher than even the French kids! Needless to say we're all impressed, including her.

I just hope that she doesn't slip back into her old complacent ways when we're back home. Lily if you're reading, please take note of that. And try not to succumb to all the social distractions too. Or boys!!

Trente et un

Most definitely the best thing about birthdays in France is the cake.

Stu and Lil returned from the boulangerie on Sunday morning with this little creation:

My idea of heaven! A giant macaron with rasberry and mango cream filling. Lush.

I also got a giant pain au raisin for brekkie:

And ate a large part of a lemon drizzle cake I'd made the day before:

There were also a few other highlights to my birthday weekend that weren't cake-centred. A nice dinner with friends, a bike ride to the lake, a picnic in the park, an hour long bath in peace and an iPad version of the Sunday Times with a cup of tea in bed. Rock and roll!

Thank you to everyone who sent cards and pressies xxxx



La carnaval

Tuesday was Mardi Gras, which is kind of a big deal in France so we thought we would muster up some community spirit and go along to see what the town's annual carnival was all about.


We arrived in the town square just after 6 to see the marching band, clowns, jugglers and the carnival float (a tractor pulling a papier mâché walrus and a cage with people dressed up as lions, tigers and bears).

All of the children were in their disguises and were going crazy throwing confetti at each other.

I bet you can't guess who this is?!

The adults were handed long torches that were lit and we marched through the town to the local sports ground.

Stu just LOVES this kind of thing

We were then treated to a spectacle of fire jugglers and fire breathers in the run up to the grand finale where the poor papier mâché walrus was burnt at the stake.

RIP walrus

A little biz bizarre but there was free mulled wine so I won't complain. And of course the French like to have a special sweet treat to mark the occasion, this time it's the turn of la bugne,  which is a bit like a doughnut but not as fluffy.


I couldn't help thinking about how such an event would go down in Whitley Bay. I'm just not sure free wine and flaming torches would mix well there for some reason!