sorry - 3rd tester

...but this time with a picture.......

the lovely view over the valley looking south east.....

Booking a bloody flight!

I apologise I've been drinking gin.  I have been driven to it by tonight's flight booking shenanigans.

We're going out in October, as it stands Jim and Maisie are going earlier than me and Ned. Our flights home have already been booked, along with their outward flights.  I needed to work out how much holiday I have before booking anything.

Went to book flights.

Lots of decisions required. Not least how Ned and I are going to actually get to London, as we don't want to have both the car and van there, and since I'm absolutely paranoid about someone pinching my bag on the train, I've ruled it out.

So brainwave today - fly with Flybe from Exeter (nearest airport) to Gatwick. gatwick to Trondheim, depending on flight arrival time, Jim might collect us, or we stay in a hotel.

Flybe don't go to Gatwick from Exeter, they go to London City. Transferring with bags and a small boy not ideal. So require plan B.

Plan B. Fly from Newquay to Gatwick. Requires taxi service courtesy of my mum, arrive late in Trondheim, hotel stay with Ned. Works out to be quite expensive. Plan C now required.

Plan C. Coach to Gatwick.  Not bloody likely - it takes 7 1/2 hrs. I would be stir crazy. Plan D now needed.

Plan D. Train (sob) to Gatwick, fly to Trondheim, arrive early evening (yay), Jim collects and drives us home. Not really sold on this one.

Plan E. Train to Gatwick. Flight to Oslo. Train to Røros. Ned would be happy, but we would spend a total of 9 hours on trains. I would go mad.

Plan F. Fly from a different airport.  Genius.

So plan F it is. Ned and I are flying from Heathrow with SAS to Trondheim, via Oslo. Train to Heathrow. Simple yes?

No!

I have to get the train to Paddington, then the Heathrow express to terminal 5, then get another train to terminal 2. Of course whilst I was trying to book the flights, Jim was trying to book the train tickets and only discovered this out mid way through booking, so we stopped booking to work out how easy it is to get from terminal 5 to 2, and if I wanted to do it, or should I just go back to the lovely Norwegian Airlines.

So the upshot is I'm now a bit drunk and no longer care. Oh and I've missed Great British Bake Off too.

Night night x

lets see if this works........

well its about time i tried get Facebook and our 2 year old (blimey!) blog working together......

Air of despondency

Today is our last full day on holiday. Tomorrow we pack up our little camp and head to Roscoff for the ferry.

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.

When mummy is sleeping!

I've not slept well the last few nights, last night as the worst. I woke up at 5.30, and after an hour finally decided to the loo and stay up.

It was a trifle chilly at that time with the sun not up, so I wrapped myself in blankets and waited. A nap evaded me, but along with the hedgehog and toad we saw last night, I met a cat. Or rather it walked in thought the back of the awning and looked at me. I don't know who was more scared - I wasn't wearing glasses or contacts so couldn't make out what it was initially! 

Then the dawn chorus came and with it I listened to a pair of wood pigeons gently cooing to each other, before everyone woke up.

After a cup of tea I was persuaded back to bed and slept for over an hour, and upon waking again Jim told me that he was taking the kids to the beach,  so after a shower I wandered down.

This is what happnes when mummy is sleeping!

It's a very large fire breathing dragon - in case you were wondering!

Things I have learnt. # 107

Ned will eat his sandwiches if he can put crisps in them.

This is an important discovery. 

Reality Bites

Even though we're on holiday (having now moved north to Brittany for week 2) we're making mental lists of what needs doing at the house in Ålen.

Now I realise we haven't actually said very much about it.  It is up a private road which is already pitted, so goodness only knows what it'll be like in the winter, it has no running water or drainage / sewerage, there is no bathroom, or electricity or roofing insulation. Only the downstairs windows have secondary glazing, the steps up the veranda are rickety as is the main staircase, and I'm terrified that one of the children will fall down down them! And it only has 3 bedrooms, so I'm not sure where visitors will stay!

However, it has character - bag fills of the stuff, it has an amazing view along the valley in both directions; the rooms are huge with log burners in every one. The kitchen such as it is, is lovely and a good size.

And once it is finished it will be beautiful and make a great family home in the long term, and short term a great holiday home.

We've also just booked flights to go out in October to do the paperwork things and register the house. Well sort of. As it stands Jim and Maisie are flying out together, as I don't have enough holiday to take the whole week off (and someone else has some time booked the same week) but all 4 of us are flying home together.

The plan is that Ned and I fly out later in the week. To pitfalls of living in the south west and needing to be near a large airport are becoming increasingly obvious. No matter how I look at things it's not going to be an easy journey. Late night drives and early starts, or early starts and late night train journeys. You probably all think I'm a wuss, and in a sense you're probably right. But the last few times we've flown from Gatwick, the journey has been hideous and I'd need to leave as early as possible to make sure I got there on time and oh I won't go on, but I'm stressed thinking about it and it's making me grumpy.

Jim has gone out for a run with promises of hot chocolate and cake goodies we bought from an artisan baker earlier, much to Maisie's upset as they didn't get anything! Well Ned can't as all the lovely cakes and pastries are made with butter, and we tell Maisie that everything else is made with caramel as she doesn't like it! She was a proper grumkins - wish I'd had a photo!

Night night.