Holiday 2019 D3

Really today started at 1am with large boy in tears cos he couldn’t find a teddy. Then a similar story at 3am from small boy. Having gone bed much later than usual we were rather put out to be woken up at 7.45. Himself drove a long way yesterday so I got up and refereed a jigsaw puzzle and provided milk before venturing to buy breakfast. Large boy came along and asked for the pain au chocolats, pain au raisins and baguette all by himself. Including the “je voudrais” and “s’il vous plait”.

Before 8.30am we had requests for:

• No going out
• Swimming pool
• Lazy river
• Board games
• Stomp rocket
• Kite

They’re going to have to come to supermarket but otherwise we’ll try to accommodate them.

This year’s holiday imaginings appear to be engineering based. Last year it was zoology – at some point I’ll write a long history of the snapperwack. So far we have a detailed design for a new car that the boys want to build. I can’t tell you about it or they’ll have to kill me for divulging secrets.

After managing to buy only what we need and a few little treats in the supermarket, himself decided Talulah the truck needed a wash. It was covered in pollen mainly after all the rain in the UK last week and then road dirt from the long drive. So it was left to me to figure out the jet wash. Just because I speak almost fluent French conversationally it’s assumed that I can also understand at a glance every detail of every procedure. The boys thought it was hilarious sitting in the truck getting sprayed with soap and then high pressure rinse.

It seems that letting boys choose food leads to better meal times. Large boy wolfed down pate and small had lots of crispy French bread.

After lunch, large boy drew and wrote about some of the animals they’d invented in the car back from the supermarket. This year he’s drawing them with ratings like top trumps.

Then we let the boys go to the park (50 yards) away on their own for the first time. It seems they’re still on elastic bands as they went and come back twice in about 10mins. Then large boy thrashed me at boules (as usual). By 3pm there were fed up so we went to the pool. Large boy took his dive ring with him and figured out picking it up, then swimming under water in the lazy river. He amazes me so often! This is the boy who wouldn’t go in without arm bands and a ring last summer and who’s only been learning to swim since March.

After a couple of hours it started to cloud over and cool down so we called it a day. After showers, some chill out time and the boys played boules together and himself cooked up a BBQ. Meanwhile I made a healthy dose of my patent gin, rosé and lemonade cocktail ready for dinner time.

Just before tea large boy tapped small boy on the head with the rounders bat, on purpose. So to earn back time on his Switch he promised to try new foods. Apparently couscous is acceptable and may be eaten again in the future.

We’re going to have a little walk after dinner and then hope for a smoother bed time than last night. So I think that’s it for today. Night night.

To see what else we got up to on our 2019 summer holiday, see Holiday 2019 Round Up.