There is something strange and highly suspicious going on. Its quarter to 9 and no child has yet appeared. No, wait, there’s one now. Still, holiday lie in record has been set.
Having arrived at a new campsite yesterday we needed to replenish supplies, so off to Le Clerc we went. More money thrown at the cashier in return for large quantities of yogurts and fizzy drinks and BBQ meat. Back to the campsite for lunch and the car told us it was 33°C. Some cloud had blown over though, so at least the sun wasn’t as strong. Lots of sun cream nevertheless because the clouds weren’t that solid.
Himself is getting into his usual holiday war with anything with wings. He’s convinced that your average blue bottle will bite and feels the compulsion to kill all flying insects.
Large boy is totally obsessed with his birthday. It’s not til December. So far he wants a fitbit, a game for his switch and a trip to the all you can eat Asian food place at our local shopping centre.
Somehow in 33°C heat the boys have got enough energy to play football. Why they’ve got the goal in goalie mode when their ball hardly fits in the main hole is beyond me. I’m left refereeing the fall outs about turn taking and fetching the ball.
That didn’t last long and I seem to have recovered from my helicopter parenting reluctance to let the boys out of sight, so they got sent down to the beach of the lake to see how busy it was. They got distracted by sand, so I fetched them back to put on swimming stuff and we found a spot on the grass to chill out. By then it had clouded over properly, so we weren’t too worried about about the sun with factor 50 on. Large boy built a sandcastle with walls and a moat while I took small boy to swim in the little lake. After a while we swapped and himself braved taking his flared-up eczema in the water.
The problem with holidays is that the kids are out of routine and familiarity which means they need to engage their brains when dealing, with what are to us, normal situations. But they’re tired and not used to having to think, because routine and familiarity gives them muscle memory. Therefore they don’t react “normally” and we adults find that enormously frustrating and shout more than usual. This has been today’s story, so far the boys have been threatened with the loss of screen time multiple times and eventually we followed through. They mucked around in the super market, spinning around and bashing into people, asking a million times for something we’d said no to. Small barely ate lunch, large sulked cos we wouldn’t buy him a teddy. So now they’re cross cos they’ll get no switch/tablet later and we’re frustrated with them. Oh the joys of holiday! 10 minutes of peace while they play in the sand is as good as it gets today.
Small boy got impatient with the beach first, so he and I came back to the caravan. We had a nice sit together and a game of first words, then it was time for a water fight when large boy and himself joined us. Cue, of course, more arguments and rule setting: no shooting faces, car, mum & dad, the deck, shoes, BBQ, ad infinitum.
After a research mission to fetch leaflets about things to do, we’ve all showered and now I’m writing this waiting for himself to get off large boy’s switch and make food! After tea we’re going to the nearest village for their night food market. Not risking trying to eat there in case there’s nothing for the picky boys – not to mention they’re hungry already and it doesn’t start for an hour.
The evening market looked really good. I don’t know if it’s generally French or dordogne local, but it seems to be summer regular event to have a village or town square taken over each week or fortnight by trestle tables and food vans. Everyone sits elbow to elbow, locals bring their own plates and table cloths, and eat whatever takes their fancy. The choices tonight would have included: Asian, burgers, oysters, duck, roast chicken, galettes and more. Next Friday will be our last night, so I think we’ll eat at the market then.
A quick few bike circuits and some football when we got back has the boys ready for bed – small is getting tearful over little things so bedtime is nearing. Night night.
To see what else we got up to on our 2019 summer holiday, see Holiday 2019 Round Up.
Smelly Socks and Garden Peas 
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