This could well be our last holiday in France for some time and it makes me sad. Both Jim and I were very fortunate that our parents, and grandparents in my case, bought us on holiday to France as kids.
My first holiday to France, I think I was 7, my sister Row was 15 months old, we caught the midnight ferry from Dover to Boulogne append slept somewhere in France in the car, then drove to the outskirts of Paris to see some family friends. Then we drove the Champagne region, near a little town called Bar sur Aube. We also had the most comforting knowledge that the in the next village to us was a prison. This was where a lot of the most dangerous criminals in France where held, and also where the local phone box was!
When we arrived that first year, the weather was amazing, but we were told by the gîtes owner that it had rained for months before we arrived, so they were very pleased that we'd bought the sunshine!
We stayed there a week, before moving to another little hamlet, this one closer to the nuclear power station, and the flood water was still high and on one of our cycling routes we had to go across boardwalks. Sometimes we were the only ones, other times the local lorries would be there too.
We worked out a system, if they were coming through, we would wait. If however we were coming across and they arrived, they would go dead slow so not to swamp us.
We were a novelty act on the those first few trips, as we had a tandem for me and my dad; my sister and I were both really blonde, and there weren't many visitors to the Champagne region, or the Loire.
We had elderly men thanking my grandfather for fighting in the Second World War, and giving me and Row chocolate in thanks! We rode our bikes everywhere; made friends with the locals, were given permission to help ourselves to people's orchards - with usually me ended up at the very top of the tree tying to find the last of the cherries/apricots/plums that my grandmother could see.
I have 11 years of memories, most good, and I hope that we've given Maisie a few years of good memories. Ned, well, Ned is Ned and although he is too little to remember much about the holiday, for me and Jim this will be our lasting memory.
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