France 2014 - Part the Fourth

And onto our favourite campsite.

Nathaniel spent some time in the car considering how he could help Pappy and Jacy improve the "campsite-ness" of their campsite. His conclusion was that he was going to make pitch markers so that visitors could chose an appropriate pitch (he believes that all visitors bring their tent), and that he should take Pappy to a golf cart shop so that he could buy a golf cart so that he could carry people around the site, drag wheelie bins and get to emergencies quickly.

Clearly, after the novelty of the company had worn off, there was going to be a clear winner in the kids' stakes for things to do here.

Much, much time was spent in the pool.

When it was chilly, they went in with the roof on.

They collected one or two inflatables to aid their enjoyment!

Nathaniel did a lot of spraying with the water guns. Thea did a lot of swimming up and down in a noodle and floating up and down on any one of her favourite inflatables.

We coaxed them out for a bike ride and had a good explore of the village - we took our postcards to the post office and Nathaniel showed me the baker (he'd accompanied Pappy's morning croissant run) - and then embarked on a traditional "just around the next bend" expedition where I tried to remember from a quick glance at the map whether we could cycle a circular route out of the village and back round.

Of course we could have, but what I couldn't remember was exactly how far it was. We were right to turn back, it would have been too far. The next day I sped off to try it myself. Actually I was intent on a sprint up "the twin peaks" - a steep double hill climb behind the next village. But I was thwarted by an inaccurate mental image of the map - the road that I thought was the way up turned into a field so I had to give up and instead complete the circuit, admire the pretty village of St Lezer, and investigate options for playing in shady streams.

We ate loads of tasty food - Pappy manfully stoked the barbecue and we gorged ourselves on Jacy cake (which we feed to all our friends after our discovery of it last year) and cheeses. Again, the cats were subjected to much attention from the children. Thea was able to be patient and gentle when she was well rested and alone, but on the whole the poor cats were hounded constantly, and by the end were so weary of the loud monsters that they wouldn't even lick their yoghurt pots!

There was much drawing, lego creation, playing of Uno and general relaxing.

Pappy's birthday was celebrated with English ale and a card drawn by Nathaniel. The back showed the swimming pool, complete with steps.

Table tennis was lots of fun! Ian and Pappy played for a while with increasing sounds of frustration as they got increasingly competitive. The kids found it harder to play than they had imagined, but still had fun. I hope that their hand-eye coordination improves, as there were tables in every camp site that we visited and it would be fun to play.

Nathaniel keeps score.

And suddenly, that was that - time to move on.