France II

The house is lovely and warm, which took a while and a lot of logs on the fire. The weather has been typically English and we have rarely seen the sun, just clouds and rain. We have actually been having a great time, chilling by the fire and generally playing home. We have well and truly exhausted Nan and Grandad's DVD collection as well as their firelighters (we won't mention the logs, sorry nan and grandad).

We have still been getting around and seeing as much of the local area as possible. Our neighbours Kirsten and Dave and their twin children Dillon and Ella very kindly took us to the big supermarket nearby. We went with Dave in the morning after he had written his shopping list in the order he walks (or in daves case, sprints) around the supermarket. Once we were in the supermarket we turned around and dave had disappeared into the distance and his shopping trolley was already half full. We shopped as quickly as possible and managed to get everything we needed as well as learning the art of man shopping. 

Apart from the shopping trip we stuck to old fashioned transportation and cycled a lot. The nearest shop apart from the local Boulangerie (bad spelling) selling croissants is in Aigre, 5km away. The first time Jack cycled there alone in desperate need of biscuits, not realising it was a Sunday and the town was shut. The next few trips were much more successful and many biscuits were bought as well as the ingredients for a pancake cake. We also cycled through Luxe towards Mansle, stopping of at a pizza restaurant that Jack remembered on a lake in Eschoisy, which looked like it had been shut down for the best part of a century. We got to Mansle which is actually pronounced 'mal', the french seem to have a lot of useless letters in their words. It was still a fairly small town but we cycled through the town, down to the river and very much enjoyed the cakes at the local bakery. Jack brought a cake shaped like a penis whilst giggling like a child, although the rather miserable looking baker obviously didn't see the resemblance or get the joke.

It has been a quiet but very enjoyable and relaxing week, tomorrow Jacks' lovely parents and the dogs arrive. Marianne has been talking constantly about how much she misses the dogs. They arrive at 6am, I will be suprised if Marianne gets any sleep.