Our French adventure

A complete break from college stuff as my daughter and her two children and myself headed off to France for an adventure. For the girls it was the first time on an plane and it was pretty amazing, little legs was totally entranced by the whole experience, she soon got over the disappointment that nana wasn't driving and spent the whole time sat on my knee spotting her house - nanas house ( I wish ....we were over Jersey at this point) - there were actual boats but I wondered whether the 'whales ' she spotted were real...

Then a serious rip off taxi ride to the camping Chateaux de Galinee in north Brittany, the same price for 20 mins 10 mile as an adult plane fare!! And the next bit of adventure - a caravan - which little legs thinks is called an airport!! and best of all a huge HEATED swimming area with wave machines Jacuzzi jets, and water slides - heaven for our water babies!!!! I totally renegaded on my promise to go on the water slides but no one seemed to care - the girls just loved them...

unpacked and ready for sunshine

The camping was a really nice space spacious leafy pretty - but sadly we were given a lot of misinformation about the site so there was no kids club, no wifi, no shop, nowhere to buy ice creams or coffee but this didn't matter as the water park made up for it all .... not that mum and I wouldn't have said no to the odd coffee or beer pool side! It was quite busy so its a lost opportunity for the site. Difficult for us as we had no transport and had to rely on the very weird selection of food we had stuffed in the suitcase until a friend who lives locally came and rescued us and took us to the supermarket for supplies!!

long legs using them effectively

There were very good play ground facilities for when the pool was closed and we made good use of them most evenings trying our best to wear out the very excited and seemingly endlessly energetic children!!

We spent some evenings sat outside wrapped in blankets determined to be on holiday - even when the rain got very heavy we persevered until we just had admit defeat and retire indoors.. it only rained torrential one night and was forecast to do the same all day but someone was smiling on us cos the weather broke the sun came out and we all got sunburnt!!!! We managed an average of 6 hours a day in the various pools - well the mermaids did I did a lot of reading and some sewing... it was still very tiring and we all slept like logs having to set the alarm as bread had to be picked up by the very unsocial time of 10.00 am!!!

little legs ready for all eventualities!

We had a great holiday I think every one really enjoyed themselves - It was lovely to see the girls confidence in the water grow, Long legs diving in, somersaults in the water and little legs jumping in totally fearlessly wasn't long before she gave up on all swimming aids... both girls loved the slides even though you had to be 10 to go on them - our naughty little sister just took off and there was no stopping her - didn't take her long to realise fastest way to avoid anyone trying to stop her would be down the slides!! No tantrums from Nana or anyone - lots of swimming, clean air and exercise - countered in the grown ups case by plenty of nice food and wine.... I look forward to doing it all again sometime in the not too distant future.

Amazing girls

Alesund

Our final destination stop was Alesund. This is a very pretty town in southern Norway built on a peninsula. All the houses are painted pretty colours and a lot of the architecture is all very Art Nouveau based. This is because the town itself was completely burnt to the ground In 1904 by a fire for which they never found the original cause. The whole town had to be rebuilt and this became a huge National Effort and a lot of prominent and up and coming architects flocked to the town to stick there 20 pence in. Consequently the town is very heavily Art Nouveau which was very fashionable at the time. There is this wonderful Museum just off the harbour which is a very beautiful Art Nouveau house. It has amazing panelling, doors, wallpaper, and it's all furnished with beautiful art Nouveau Furniture. It also house a collection of of enameled Art Nouveau Trinkets,boxes, spoons, jewellery, very very beautiful. There is an interesting collection of old books and paintings a...

Isle of Bute

Another Landmark Trust tick - this time Ascog House on the Isle of Bute - stunning as always... a very comfortable warm accommodation for the usual 8 suspects. This time we had a wee tower house for Dr Fred and myself - a lovely bedroom up the stairs with a big window and a bathroom al to ourselves - having said that all the other bedrooms in the big house were large and serviced by two bathrooms so there was no hardship for any visitors! The grounds of the house were very extensive with ponds and secret passages - hidden paths and we even spotted a deer late afternoon - there were lots of old features - ornate staircases and a lovely hidden door which I did a quick sketch of. Bute provided quite a lot of entertainment as well - the weather was kind and we did a a muddy wander down the south of the Island taking in St Blanes Monastery and Kilcannon Bay. The views were spectacular and it was fabulous to be out in the fresh (and it was fresh on the tops) air and we...

The Blue Dot

Excellent evening spent at the first Blue Dot festival held at Jodrell Bank. Clever use of the radio telescope as back drop for the main stage... there were some major teething issues which hopefully will addressed if this event happens again - mainly access and parking.. it was a nightmare approach to the festival and fortunately as we were only doing one night we decided to ditch the car and chose to walk the last mile and half into the site... what a relief as if we had queued we would most certainly missed Public Service Broadcasting which was one of the reasons we were going.. anyway we caught them and then enjoyed fantastic set by Underworld - danced much of the night away in the rain - my trusty solfest poncho almost kept me dry.. it was a splendid evening and the telescope looked brilliant when lit up when it got dark. There was a rather fab "installation" called a luminarium, lack of site information - another hiccup meant we were really lucky to catch it just ...

Planet Ruby Starrs

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