The much anticipated trip to France for the Gardners began with a relatively low stress morning of cleaning and checking the car and then loading it up with enough stuff to equip Napoleon’s armies for an entire tour of Russia.

In the meantime, Kas was doing last minute shopping with Ami and finishing some emergency work, Izzy was having a last morning at nursery.

For the first time in ages, we set off at roughly the time we planned and seem to have remembered to bring everything. A quick stop at the Burlaces to drop off some keys and off we go. Doh ! No we don’t, we’re missing one child. OK, round to Acorns to fetch Izzy, and then off on the road around 12:30. It should be plenty of time to make a 17:50 train through the Channel Tunnel ( www.eurotunnel.com ), but you never know on Fridays. Our previous experiences have shown that any trip near London on a Friday afternoon is a nightmare with nobs on.

  

We emerged fairly early from our cosy little cocoon to begin a long day of driving. First of all we had to struggle through a crowd of guys in Hazmat suits who seemed to be clustered around the bin in the car park. Wonder what that was all about !

Anyway, first order of business, breakfast. We stopped at the Bosgouet motorway services south of Rouen ( www.rouen.fr ), just before you head down the new A28 towards Le Mans. It proved to be a bit busy. I guess everyone from England, Belgium and the Netherlands who's going on holiday in France ends up near Rouen at around 9 am on Saturday morning and decides to stop for breakfast at the same place. Walking through the car park with two small and active children was a bit hair-raising.

And we then got scared even more by something which ended up being a running theme for this holiday.

Isn’t France expensive ?

Buying nothing in particular seemed to cost €30. I'm sure we only bought a couple of coffees, a couple of pastries, and a couple of orange juices. There's no way it can cost that much. You wouldn't mind so much, but you start thinking about the cost of the food you didn't eat.

And another thing that is distinctly different from England. The size of the coffees. When you're used to a large coffee being something that requires a forklift to transport to your car you feel distinctly dischuffed at paying €2.50 for something that barely wets your mouth.

  

Once again it proved to be a night of musical beds. Izzy kept falling out of hers, so she ended up sharing with Grandad. We're not sure if Granny was there as well, but I assume she was. Ami had a moan a couple of times as well, and no one really got to sleep before about 1am.

The morning proved to be bright and sunny, and everyone got up around 8-8:30. The adults had some breakfast but neither child was interested, again.

And then for our first outing to the swimming pool. Oooh ! Cold, cold, cold, but then surprisingly not so bad once you get used to it. At least the sun was doing its best to warm everything up for us.

After a good 45 mins or so it was time to wash away the chlorine and other accumulated grime. This takes a long time with four adults and two kids, but we eventually got there and all were cleaned and brushed ready for a bit more playing. It was around this time that it started to become obvious how tired Ami was. She was really grumpy and didn't want to do anything at all, really.

  

Now, the last time we came here it was hot. Not just "a bit warm" or "nice", but downright hot, all week. So it was a bit of a surprise to wake up to a cloudy sky. Where did thast come from ? And more to the point, when's it going to go away ?

Grandad woke up first, as usual, and did a fine job of keeping both girls entertained until a sensible time. Izzy had breakfast but Ami decided on a bit of a grump, again. It didn't last too long though - one jam covered face later and we were back to relative normality. We spent much of the morning mooching about whilst deciding what to do. We eventually plumped for making a picnic out of all the food we had left, and going back to La Rochelle ( www.ville-larochelle.fr ) to visit the towers in the harbour.

We chose to try to park at the Aquarium, but also vowed to try to find some better street maps so that we avoided any repetition of last night's parking shenanigans.

  

T his morning I fell out of bed. Grandad came to help me before Mummy got there. Grandads are very useful.

We had croissants and pains au chocolate for breakfast. Izzy had Cheerios and toast with jam, again.

Then Mummy and Granny made some sandwiches for lunch while Daddy put suncream all over Izzy. I put suncream on myself.

Mummy took some photos of me and Izzy outside wearing our masks - look. Izzy was still wearing her jim-jams as well.

Daddy said we were all going for a ride in the car to see a big lighthouse and a big bridge, but we also had our swimming things because there might be a beach as well.

  

And when we say "chilling", we mean freezing. Not because the weather was cold, but because we spent all day in and out of the swimming pool with our new found water-baby Ami. As a special treat after swimming unaided for the first time yesterday, we promised Ami she could go in and out of the pool as many times as she liked. This proved to be five times. Two in the morning, two in the afternoon and one in the evening. It would have been more, but we had to allow time for eating and the occasional mini-strop.

The morning also provided entertainment in the form of a spot of DIY. Not first choice for a holiday, but then we discovered that Kev's (failed) efforts the previous night to get one of the washing machines working had resulted in no washing machine and now no dishwasher either. Something to do with the fact that the dishwasher water supply was fed from a tap in the bathroom of the other apartment, and the washing machine in that other apartment had neither a water feed nor a power feed, which nicely compensated for the fact that the drain hose was just lying on the floor instead of being stuffed down the waste pipe. Good job there's another washing machine in the other bathroom. The reason why the dishwasher wasn't working, by the way, was that in the process of trying to move the washing machine so that the drain hose wasn't pressing on the feed hose it got knocked and the feed hose started leaking at the tap, so the tap got turned off. Eventually fixed it, but it's rather a strange thing to be doing whilst on holiday.

  

Today began fairly early with the by now normal destruction of several pains au chocolat, croissants and Cheerios. A good hearty breakfast was definitely in order because today the plan was to go and see the famous La Rochelle Aquarium.

This is a good location on any day but suits both young and old on days when the weather falls into one of two categories : too hot, and too cold. Today actually neither. It was sunny, but breezy and quite pleasant. Let's go there anyway.

Anyway, you're probably not reading this for the French weather forecast, so back to the plot.

We arrived nice and early at the car park and found we got into a space right by the aquarium - no walking required. We had also, by now, managed to find the direct way into the centre of La Rochelle from the N11. However, I wouldn't want to take away anyone else's fun, so i'm not going to tell you what that route is. Go figure it out for yourself...

Back to the car park. After a short discussion with Ami to persuade her not to go into the squirty fountains (yet) we rolled up to the aquarium entrance and discovered a total absence of queue. Not sure you can discover a total absence of something, but you know what I mean.

  

On Friday, we decided to get up nice and early and go down to the Château de La Roche-Courbon ( http://www.t3a.com/LaRocheCourbon/ ). This is described in the brochure as the "Sleeping Beauty" castle. You can see why. I think Walt Disney designed his theme parks on this kind of design. Lots of tiled cylindrical spires and things. This one was obviously desgined by a guy who knew he was doing it for show. OK it has big walls, but it also has formal gardens, a pond instead of a moat, and practically no defensive capability. It looks nice on photos though.

The day started with a frenzy of pastries, sandwich making, covering each other in sun cream, getting dressed, and other busy, busy activities. The net result was that we got out of the house only 20 minutes later than we planned. Can't be bad. Both girls seemed refreshed after a pretty much undisturbed night's sleep.

  

Blimey, it's the middle Saturday. A week tonight we'll be back in Blighty. So we'd better make the most of the remaining week.

Saturday started fairly quietly with nobody but Grandad out of bed before 8am. By the time most of us surfaced all of our neighbours of the last week had pretty much gone, so Luke, Ros & Maeve, big family in the big house and family from up North who lived round the corner, we hope you had a good holiday and a safe trip home.

Ami will miss many of you, although probably only until tonight when some new people arrive.

Meanwhile, back at the plot, we've got another week of fun packed adventure in prospect.

  

Today we resolved to do nothing in particular during the day, and hope to get the girls to go to sleep nice and early so we could go out for dinner in La Rochelle in the evening. Granded got up first and in traditional style kept Izzy and then Ami busy until everyone else could be bothered.

Any dreams of a quiet day was quickly gone with the discovery of lots of new friends who arrived last night. In the "big house" we say hello to Katy and Thomas from Cambridgeshire and their parents Matt and Suzi. With them are Beatrice, Jemima and Constance, also from Cambridgeshire, with their parents Alun and Jessica. Round the corner in the duplex we say hello to Edward and Lucy from Yorkshire with their parents Simon and Rachel. And by evening time we also were joined by William and Alex from Northampton with their parents John and Kelly (I think). Anyway, that probably makes a full compliment of 12 adults and 11 kids, the oldest of which is 11 and only three of whom are over 6. It could be a bit loud this week and there's probably going to be loads of playground incidents.

  

After last night's excesses we decided on a relatively relaxed day, intending to take the girls for a plodge in the sea in the afternoon.

On our previous trip to La Rochelle we didn't make any proper trips to beaches, but now there's two kids now instead of one and beaches provide good entertainment.

We had a fairly relaxed morning with a few bits and bobs going on but nothing much. Grandad did a fine job of looking after the daughters again until everyone else surfaced.

We went swimming in the morning too, or at least Ami and Kev did. All was quiet around the gite. Everyone else must have gone out already.

It was also time for another visit to Marche U to stock up on essentials, so Kev, Izzy, Granny and Granded headed off in the car while Kas and Ami stayed at home to pack the swimming bags and make the picnic.

Marche U was uneventful. It was full of supermarket stuff. And this time around, we remembered to buy some small plastic bags to put food into.

  

Today, we didn't do much. We didn't go out much. Kev didn't even get out of bed until 11am. Kas and Grandad and the girls had done all sorts by that time.

It was a day when we planned to do nothing other than rest and save energy for a final night out with Granny and Grandad, but nevertheless, this day reached a new peak of inactivity. It should probably be a trough of inactivity, I would guess.

To be honest, so little happened on this day that we can't even remember what we didn't do. It probably wasn't anything important.

There was some lunch involved at some point, and it's almost certain that Ami went swimming at some point. Can't remember who with, or who else was there.

To be honest, I think we all decided it would be good to have a day of doing nothing whatsoever. Recharging the batteries, as it were, after a hard nine days of doing not very much.

  

Today promised to be a bit sad, because today Granny and Grandad were going home. They were both out of bed fairly early then, to ensure they managed to get properly packed up and sorted before their trip home. Getting up fairly early is a rare thing for Granny.

The girls got up fairly early too, and so required their parents to be awake too so that they could be kept occupied and kept from being under Granny's feet. Ami, as usual, was easy to keep occupied. It just required the slightest mention of the swimming pool, with the vaguest hint that some of the other kids would be there too. So Kev dived round there. And whadda 'ya know, Kas found Kev's swimming goggles in the beige nappy-change bag. Been wondering where they got to ever since we arrived. There's my answer. The swimming was also made more fun by the presence of a big yellow hot and shiny thing in the sky, which promised to turn the day very rapidly into another scorcher.

  

Today involved no plans whatsoever. And when we did make a plan, we then changed it. So what, we're on holiday.

We had a bit of a rough night with the Izzy-monster again. The heat of the last couple of days was making her skin very itchy and there's not much we could do for the poor little mite. However, after last night's festivities both girls thankfully held out until a reasonable time, Izzy around 7:30 and Ami a bit longer. All very welcome, given that Grandad has gone home.

Kas had as much of a lie in as she could manage while Kev failed to feed either daughter properly and also failed to engage them in mindless TV watching. Just couldn't get that satellite box to send a signal to the TV.

  

This was supposed to be a day of general slumming around the gîte and packing bags while the kids kept themselves entertained. Both got up fairly late again giving Kas & Kev the opportunity to sleep reasonably well. Good stuff.

The weather looked decidely suspicious in the morning. It was grey and a bit windy, much like a typical summer's day back home. Probably the first bad morning of the holiday though, so we can't really complain, I suppose. Well actually, we're British, so we can complain about anything, even if it's something we like.

Anyway, over breakfast we tried to munch our way through as much as possible. There were still far too many pains au chocolat and brioches around the place. So we did as good a job as we could manage.

We also spent a few minutes round at the big house taking photos of each other. After all, it may well be the last time the kids see each other.

  

One thing you should always bear in mind is that you should never put off until tomorrow something that you could do today. Or in our case, don't go out for dinner yesterday and then sit up drinking a few beers with the neighbours instead of packing your stuff in the car. Why not ? Well, Friday night was warm and dry. Fit for sitting outside while eating dinner and drinking beer with the neighbours, in fact. Saturday morning was heaving it down. Not just drizzle or rain, but full-on heaving it down. Coming down like stair rods, as they say. "Il pleut des chats et des chiens" as they say in France. Which meant, of course, that the materials sufficient to provision Napoleon's invasion of Russia had to be loaded into the back of the trusty 807 in the pouring rain. It's not too much of a problem while you're standing underneath the boot lid, but it is a problem when you've got about 15 trips of 50 yards each way to get there.

Kev got a bit soaked, and all those suitcases with wheel had to be carried to avoid dragging them through either soaking long grass or muddy French style buff gravel/stones soaked with a couple of hours downpour. And of course the buggy had to come out of the car and sit in said gooey gravel/dust while the rest of it got loaded up. One good thing though, somehow the decision to not dismount the back row seat from the rails and to shove a suitcase behind it meant that everything fitted in much better than on the way down. Either that, or we're taking home less than we took down. To the best of my knowledge the only things not going back with us are a box of Bran Flakes, a pack of nappies and and box of non-bio washing tablets. That's not enough to make the difference between seeing out of the back window and not seeing out of it.