A breath of French air

Zut alors, nous avons arrivee home.  Excuse the shocking french, I have just spent ten days using shocking french to communicate in lovely Brittany with the locals who then speak back to me in perfectly fluent english.  I am ashamed.  But not too ashamed to have enjoyed the slow and simple pace of life in the rural backwaters of Finistere.  I shall let the pics tell the story of our hols....

LOVE that overnight ferry crossing.  Cool, quiet, dark cabins, clean, crisp sheets, the gentle sway of the boat as it bobs across the channel....

We were lucky to have a pool at our gite, but this is Oliver attempting to get in - in a wetsuit, so it was a tad chilly....

The view across the front garden to the Chapel of St Margaret.  Embarrassed to say I didn't even cross the road to go and take a closer look at this. 

Here are the boys playing boules in the front garden.  Or petanque, whatever it's called.

The old walled city of Concarneau.  This is where I decided to be tres french, and order a crepe with 'Andouille' for lunch.  I thought Andouille was a local sausage-y thing, but when it came it looked not unlike compressed innards and smelt like pig.  Yukarooney.  I urge even thinking about it.  I will try and find a picture to share my discomfort with you.

Mark and Oliver looking relieved that they didn't order the Andouille.

A spell of unseasonal good weather saw us at Pentrez Plage.  It is such a fantastic feeling splashing around in the surf with the sun on your back.  It so takes me back to holidays as a kid in north Cornwall. 



Don't think you are supposed to feed the Giraffes grass from underneath the fence, but they seemed to like it.  As did the Wallabys, who seemed to have a hankering for acorns....

As did the Otters.

If you happen to read about the sudden unexplained demise of animals in a french zoo, then do let me know.  An autopsy may reveal an excess of visitor-fed foliage and I want to be ready if a google search should lead the investigation my way......

Look at that for a castle.  Trevarez - it is really quite breathtaking.  And it boasted this very E. Nesbit water feature in the garden:

On the last day we visited Oceanopolis in Brest, which cost a fortune and felt very not worth the money.  Nice fish though.

To be fair, they did have sharks, penguins and seals.  Not all in the same tank, I hasten to add, but I still think it was a big cost for not much.  We then headed over to Roscoff to kill a few hours before the overnight sailing home.  I expected Roscoff to be a big bustling scummy port, not unlike Plymouth, but I was massively pleasantly surprised.  We parked (free of course - in Brittany there is no avaricious need to rip people off for stopping on a few feet of land for a couple of hours) near 'centre-ville' and then trundled round the corner to an olde worlde network of streets and shoppes in buildings which had clearly been standing for hundreds of years. 

We went down one little side street and found it to back out onto the sea where we spent a jolly half hour skimming stones.

Yep, I was on this holiday too - that's me that is.  Hitherto unseen in holiday pics. That walkway jutting out behind us was good - you could walk quite a ways out over the swirling waters below and look back to the town.  Very nice little stroll after our last supper en vacances. 

So with the moon rising over the prettiness and quaintness of Roscoff, we boarded the ferry home to Plymouth, where, as we drove through at 6.30am there were people falling out of still open pubs and clubs carrying drinks and looking like the dregs of the earth.  I was deeply ashamed of the image this would portray of this part of the country, and truly feared for any foot passengers who were brave enough to walk off the ferry and into deepest darkest Plymouth.  The comparison with Roscoff was not a favourable one.


On this cheerful note, I will leave you for now.  Lots more to say, but fed up with typing now. 

Laters.

WiPs and Summer so far

No apologies offered for the month long lapse in blogging - those moaning at me for NOT blogging (ahem) see me on a regular basis and I have already bored the tits off you with tales of my life.  Serves you right for logging on for another dose then ha ha.

At the end of the last school term, Oliver was unexpectedly awarded 'Cub Champion' (at Cubs, obviously) which meant he got a medal

and a prize (belt torch - not pictured) and gets to wear this gigantic woggle for the whole of next term.

That should slow him up a bit til he gets used to the extra weight tee hee.  I wasn't there when he was awarded it, but apparently it is awarded at the end of every term to the Cub who has excelled in behaviour, etiquette, kindness and helpfulness.  I am ridiculously proud of him, and for any 'normal' parent - this equates to a fantastic school report.  It is another indication that we have chosen the right path for him thus far, and that we are doing OK with him - unhappy kids do not excel at kindness and helpfulness. 

Oliver went off to the beach with his friend (and mother and her friend who I don't know - 6 kids in all) on Monday.  This meant I had a day to myself, which should be a good thing, but I am finding that the time I am apart from Oliver I spend in a state of tense anxiety imagining all sorts of horrible things happening to him.  I now seem to have reached the stage where I have some warped belief that my irrational and barely controlled panic will somehow keep him safe.  What a twat.  You'd think that all this worry would cause me to be thin, but no.  I actually joined the gym on Monday to tackle some of the ever growing layers of blubber.  I had an induction with a little boy called Chris, who seemed to be labouring under the mistaken belief that an hour of 'cardio' followed by a weights session was a suitable workout for a 43 year old has-been.  In my head I was already replacing said '60 minutes' with '5 minutes' followed by a quick sprint round the weights..... I am optimistic that I will be more muscle-y at the end of my 6 week stint.  Thinking of participating in some of the classes too, although I am a bit scared I might throw up, I am that unfit now.

The three of us went off to Bicton a couple of weeks ago to see 'The Bohemians', a Queen tribute band.  It was all very civilised, and the music was pretty darned good. Here followeth some pics;

See this flower bed -

See that squashed section?  That was Oliver that was.....

We are the Champions.....

And so to crochet.  Crochet, crochet, crochet.  How I love thee.  I have stumbled upon a craft that I can actually do, and is actually useful.  I am working on  a couple of blankets (WiPs - works in progress for you non-crafty types), a granny stripe, inspired by this post on  the Attic24 blog.

So excited by my progress with this, you wouldn't believe.  It actually covers the width of our king size bed quite comfortably, although this is to be the one which hangs around the living room. Or on Oliver's bed in the winter.

And these are my squares so far inspired by this blanket, which is the one I want for our bed.

Bought 4 lovely 'new' bowls on a charity stall yesterday for £1, which sit happily alongside everthing else in my crockery cupboard which doesn't match, just how I like it. 

Aren't they pretty?  And that is not a bowl of pretentiousness - it really is Oliver's breakfast.
Mark and Oliver have joined the Model Boat Club with the idea of  doing something together.  Think Oliver is not as 'into' it as Mark, as Mark is very hands on and good at anything he puts his mind to, but I am hopeful Oliver will be swept up in the enthusiasm of it all.  In any case, it can't be a bad thing for him to trot off with his Dad for a couple of hours and be socialising together and with other people. 

Eduaction-wise - Oliver does not get the summer 'off' as a lot of home-ed kids do (since our timetable and routine is sooooo flexible and varied during 'term' time anyway), but I just want to tick over with some back to basics with reading (library summer reading scheme) and spelling, (phonics stuff) and the odd maths session.  Last night I was told about 'First News', the weekly newspaper for kids, (Thanks Corinna - sorry, don't know how to spell your name!), so dashed off to Sainsburys where I got a copy, and  - lo!  This is Oliver, voluntarily reading the newspaper.

Incroyable.

This is the most intrusive, time-wasting and socially destructive medium I have ever encountered.

That's the reason I gave for deactivating my Facebook account this week.  I don't use it anymore - have just been recently logging in to check on the progress of a friend giving birth who has moved away, but in doing so found my homepage flooded with unwelcome information about previous 'friends', which felt both voyeuristic and made me feel quite ill after a while.  Yuk.  An abhorrent tool which contributes more to social distress and incitement to ill will than to social networking.

Moving on....

We have done quite a lot since my last missive.  Oliver competed in his first athletics competition, he did the 70m hurdles and 75m sprint - coming in last and next to last respectively and not unexpectedly, though thankfully, he did not seem to put out or put off by the placings, he seemed to enjoy it.  I'm very proud of him for giving it a go.  I thought the whole wearing a number on his shirt and lining up in front of a grandstand with a proper starting pistol going off was a really intimidating thing to go through.   He has been moved up a grade in swimming and completed his 200m swimming badge.  Brilliant.  His swimming has improved so much with the weekly lessons, I really wish I'd done it years ago with him. 

Last weekend he competed in the annual area Judo championships, where I also felt very proud of him.  Sitting with him throughout the morning whilst waiting for his group to start, I was struck by his apparent keenness to be there and to compete.  I hated things like that at his age and longed for events to be either cancelled, or fantasised how I might be injured beforehand (not seriously or painfully, obviously) so I wouldn't have to be seen as a coward, or have to go through with it.  Win win for me, that would have been..... 

Anyhow, he got knocked out after his first two fights, by boys of much lower grades.  This was interesting because the kids who beat him, and indeed the kids who did well, largely were from Judo 'families' where an older sibling also does Judo, or indeed, had older siblings.  This is one field where I don't feel Oliver has the advantage being home educated.  He just does not have that 'edge' which comes naturally from having to 'put yourself out there' when at school with lots of other kids, y'know, that playground competitiveness.  I can't bring myself to feel regret over this at all, I just hope Oliver is not too down about it, as I think this could go on for a number of years, Judo-wise.....

We went to the Steward Woodland Community for a picnic with the people who live there, and various home-ed visitors.  It was really interesting, but I can't really post any photos, it would seem rude since I don't have permission.  Check out the link for further info...

We also went to Stover with friends and saw some squirrels:

and some trees, very helpfully labelled. 

Obviously a few problems labelling this one...

It was Oliver's birthday at the weekend, and we took him to Woodlands earlier in the week with a friend of his. (can only show pics of Oliver).

Here is the birthday boy, snuggling down on 'birthday eve' with his new toy:

and here he is on the day......

He got his stunt scooter:

And went to see Kung Fu Panda at the flicks, and went to horrible McDonalds:

On Sunday we went to my Mum & Dad's, where he collected his final birthday haul, spent time playing with his cousins and scoffed cake.  Good times for kids.  He also completed a Judo grading and gained his second orange bar. 

I made cookies - real proper ones, like what I want cookies to be like - squidgy and chocolatey, not biscuity and hard and overcooked.  For many years I have tried cookies, and been very angry at the crappy results, but lo!  I found a recipe on Becky Higgins blog for her 'Mom's cookies'.  I held out a lot of hope here - the Americans seem to have the advantage in cookie-making, that is, they don't seem to be completely shite like their British counterparts.  And, unbelievably, I managed to produce, after much poking about in Google to find equivalent measures and ingredients of 2/3 of a cup of shortening (how do you squeeze that in without a ton of mess??) and proper, real live cookies were born in my kitchen.  Hallelujah. 

And Finally, Project Life is suppposed to be available to buy in the UK this week!!  And I got the latest edition of Mollie Makes!  Oh so crafty, so vintage, so 50's, so sweet.....