France 2014 - Part the first

We were prepared for the weather to be cooler than last year (and lets face it, 32 degrees is much nicer in theory than in practice), but this wasn't the best start:

Fortunately, once we arrived in Fenstanton it was sunny and warm and we were ready for a holiday. So much so that even I was jolly when we left the house at 6 the next morning. And we were all still jolly when we got to the ferry.

The ferry experience was greatly better than last year - no wind and so no swell - although Nathaniel did insist on taking one of the homeopathic seasickness tablets that I had brought for such an occasion. I think last year's SeaCat might have made rather an impression on him. We lunched on bread and cheeses and then the children discovered the soft play area - a tiny space filled with all of 6 crash-mat style cubes - which occupied them for the rest of the journey.

We always knew that the other side was going to be a bit tedious, but we had learned our lesson from last year, and the campsite was only a couple of hours drive, and very close to the autoroute. It turned out to be a gem of a place - in a wood next to a lake just outside Sille de Guillaume, and we were almost sorry that it was intended just to be an overnight stop. Up went the tent and off we went to play in the park and explore the lakeside.

Sille de Guillaume is a rather pretty little place, and the other side of the lake has a beach reachable along a cycle track, so I have a feeling that we'll be back here. The kids were certainly happy scampering about amongst the trees.

But we had the south in mind, so off we went the next morning (everlastingly thankful that the kids find sleeping in the tent preferable to inside, and not at all a novelty, and so sleep like me), to enjoy winding our way through little french villages joined by long, straight, plane tree-lined roads, broken only by ancient-looking churches that have to be circumnavigated.

And then miles and miles of autoroute, albeit interspersed with stops at aires with playgrounds and funky adult gym equipment, until we eventually arrived at..........