Despatches from a mother who started late (and is running to catch up)

July 2009

Keycamp holiday

The free Keycamp holiday we were given via this blog worked well for us, though when I first heard about it I could not believe our luck. It seemed too good to be true. But wasn't. We really did get a free holiday. And it was good. We had a happy time at the La Yole site (pictures below) in France's Vendée region. I'll have many happy memories to treasure from our time there. Here are some of the highlights:

1. Time to bond as a family of four. That might sound naff, but the holiday helped us mesh together.

2. Getting a sun tan. Not much opportunity for that at home.

3. The weather being so warm that Va-vay and elder daughter Beanie and I ate our evening meals out on the decking outside our mobile home after younger daughter Button went to bed.

4. Taking Beanie to the pool, wearing her Scottish Swimmer badges, and watching her make friends with other little girls at the site.

5. Splashing about in the sea, on a near-deserted beach.

6. The smell of pine resin from the many conifers dotted about the site and countryside.

7. Cycling along the region's network of dedicated cycle paths, one of us towing the Hoppelopnikon (pictured).

8. Taking Button to the swimming pool for her first swim.

9. Feeling the habitual tension in my shoulders recede.

10. Being outdoors so much.

11. The opportunity to show my daughters France - scene of all my best holidays, where I met my husband and where he later proposed to me.

12. Eating take-away chips from the on-site cafe.

13. Being away from the internet.

14. Realising family holidays can be good fun, even if we don't get to walk up mountains anymore.

15. Playing table tennis again - for the first time in many years.

16. Having a good play park on site with lots of space. Beanie loved it there. There were free Tumbletots activities too but we didn't manage to sample them.

17. A Tumbletots party one evening in the bar that got all the younger kids - and me - dancing. I felt like a kid myself again. Button loved it too. It was a happy, happy evening. Superb!

18. Getting fit from the cycling, swimming and walking. Effect somewhat mitigated by the many ice creams consumed.

19. Little-known advantage of living in a mobile home: less space to clean and tidy than at home.

20. Meeting other families with kids the same age as ours.

21. Seeing the Atlantic coast of France - a first for me.

22. Remembering what it's like to have fun again!

23. Messing about in our mobile home with Beanie, singing and dancing.

The downsides of going abroad at the moment are well-known. I was horrified at the cost of food after the pound's collapse against the euro - France is no longer cheap if you earn in pounds - and we couldn't afford to eat out much because of that.

If you decide on a holiday of this kind, it is also certainly worth choosing your site carefully. It might be worth going for one of the smaller sites, like La Yole, which has slightly fewer facilities than some other places, but more than made up for that by the relaxed and friendly atmosphere and the professionalism of the owners. It felt well-run and thoughtfully put together.

I loved our Keycamp holiday and will be dreaming of the next one over the long winter months in Edinburgh.

Posted 15 July 2009 23:18 | Number of comments: 8 | Comments

Fun Holidays

Tournesol

We have returned from our idyllic holiday in France. The train journey home took us through field upon field of golden sunflowers. All holding their yellow-fringed heads up to the sun. As if in homage. Then a couple of days after we got back I was shopping in Tesco. Where I spotted some more sunflowers. Except these particular flowers looked downcast. Their faces turned downwards. Wilting from the absence of the sun.

Posted 14 July 2009 16:22 | Number of comments: 4 | Comments

Holidays

Travel bag

We came on our French holiday with Keycamp without a car - unusual for this sort of holiday - after catching the Edinburgh-Poitiers flight. That has not stopped us getting about - we are just using other modes of transport. Tonight we surveyed our collection of buggies, cycles and assorted travelling paraphernalia parked outside our mobile home. Here is an inventory:

1. One brand-new Maclaren buggy (black and grey), brought from home. Excellent for city streets. Disastrous in sandy conditions.

2. Two all-terrain buggies, standard Keycamp issue (small hire fee). Fixed front wheel. Can be dragged across sand dunes, rather like Scott hauling his sledge acoss Antarctica. Except weather here rather better.

3. One infant car seat. From home; for taxis.

4. One booster seat. Doubles as toy. Also from home.

5. One bicycle. Hired from Keycamp. For visiting beach, pine forests, supermarket, restaurants and countryside.

6. One bicycle with Hoppelopnikon* attached. Also hired from Keycamp.

*A Hoppelopnikon is a trailer where small children can be stowed and towed. In fact, it should probably be named a 'Stow N Tow' - except that Button sees the whole contraption as an affront to her peace and happiness. So, for her, it should probably be named 'Instrument of Cruel and Unusual Torture'. That said, by the end of today, Button was warming to being towed along: Beanie likes it very much; she said it was 'like being in a wee house.'

7. One red wheelbarrow-type contraption for hauling small children, bags and shopping. Would do Santa Claus proud.

Posted 09 July 2009 12:44 | Number of comments: 7 | Comments

Activities Fun Holidays Out and about

French holiday

We are on holiday in the northern Vendee in France, on a twelve-day break given to us - for free - by Keycamp. Va-vay has bought Beanie a sunhat from the local Hyper U and, although I shouldn't brag, I can't help thinking how pretty she is, with her blonde curls waving from under the brim of her new hat, as she runs up the track to our mobile home, carrying a stick of bread in her arms.

'Here you go, Mummy,' she tells me, clambering up the steps of our decking. The bread is almost as tall as Beanie, but she wrestles it up onto the table. She clambers up for a cuddle on my knee then turns and looks at her father questioningly. I can see from their faces they have been planning a surprise for me.

'Are you going to tell Mummy what you asked for in the shop, Beanie?' he asks her. She puts on her serious look; pauses to deliberate a moment, then forms her mouth into an 'Oh' shape. Her father and I wait politely for a word to emerge. Beanie's younger sister Button looks up from where she is sat banging a pine cone rhythmically on the decking, then goes back to her game. 'Oon baguette,' says Beanie slowly and with great precision:

My heart swells with pride. Yesterday Beanie said 'Bonjour' to a little girl the same age as her whom she met at the swimming pool complex here at the La Yole parc. She has managed a few other French words since we arrived at Poitiers Airport last Wednesday and walked off the plane into the sweltering heat of French summertime. So far her vocabulary is mostly food-based. It runs to 'Au revoir', 'Merci', 'jus de pommes' and 'brioche' - the latter a speciality of the Vendee.

We got up late this morning - 9.30am, which is late for us - after a late dinner out here on the decking; listening to Coldplay's sweetly plangent music on the CD player. Beanie was in such ecstasy at being allowed to stay up late she agreed - for once - to eat all her cheesy pasta that I cooked up in the mobile home kitchen.

Of course, even though we are on holiday, some things never change. Later that morning Beanie is talking to Mr Bear. 'It's alright, but be careful and don't fall off,' she says to him, in a stern yet loving manner. He is perched precariously on the door handle of our mobile home - where Beanie herself has placed him. When it comes to Mr Bear, Beanie speaks only in English.

Posted 06 July 2009 15:40 | Number of comments: 7 | Comments

Activities Fun Holidays