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

Scotland part 2

The second half of the week continued in much the same vein. We had one rainy afternoon which was actually quite nice to be holed up in the house with the rain lashing the windows. It probably wasn't quite so nice for the two visitors that came on their bikes but they're tough cookies - and its only water- but I did feel sorry for them having to cycle six miles back down the track in the wind and rain, but given Scotland, it wasn't as bad as it could be. The big quest for the 2nd half of the week was to find some deer antiers! The chap that owned the house dropped in to visit - he was a very friendly fella and was chatting about how this was the time of year when all the Stags lost their antlers (he collected them and sold them) so after that we were on the serious lookout. It's always been Fred's mission to find some dropped antlers.... The Monro baggers continued with the mission to bag the remaining three Monros... there is discussion as whet...

Vigo

We left the ship to explore Vigo. Its a much larger place then we expected... although tbh I hadn't given ut a lot of thought. Its a real mish mash of old and new and having got a map from tourist info we decided to follow the walking trail to the Monte Castro... the highest point of the town. Most of the town was pretty much as everywhere else... lots of traffic... lots of people... one or two interesting buildings and a lot of shopping. We headed to the art gallery - this has been a year of gallery visits so we we seen o reason to change now. The Museo de Marco is housed in the towns ex prison building and its very grand. In fact, I think that on this occaision the building might have been more interesting than the art.... Although the visiting exhibition by Susanne S D Themlitz was strangely compelling. It was a huge varied collection of eclectic items... found, salavaged, manipulated and arranged in lots of ways - weirdly inspiring - and mostly enjoyable to look at...

Funchal

So after three days at sea we finally hit Funchal in Madeira. An escape from the ship, and I have to say it was very pleasant indeed. First of all the weather is really splendid. Especially when you know that everybody else in the UK is suffering grim storms and vile winds.. Over here it is between 22 and 25 degrees is really quite warm. Funchal is a pretty city. It's built on a hill it with lots of lovely white houses with stunning red roofs. In order to get the best of it we walked along the sea front until we got to the cable car and we took it up the hill. It was a really good ride much longer than we imagined and it's quite weird because it goes right through the town - completely over everybody's house... So not only do you get a lovely vista of the bay but you can view the beautiful rooftops and get to look in everybody's gardens and to look at their picnic sets.. clean washing nice plants... scratty b...

Planet Ruby Starrs

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