28 July 2022
Sue and Geoff arrived by car with Carrie and Sadie in the back around 5 pm and of course we had food ready for them. Originally Alex and Greg had beed due to arrive directly from Ibiza in the morning, but they switched their itinerary so that they flew to Barcelona and changed for a flight to Nice in the afternoon. a delay to their flights meant that they didn’t arrive in La Colle until 11 pm, much to the disappointment of the kids.
Sue declared that she had her set jobs when she holidayed. She would be cooking a vegetarian dish and her porridge. Other than that she wanted to do very little and everyone else could do their own thing. There was one significant problem with this approach. If six of us wanted to do anything we need to have the use of Geoff’s car. Geoff wasn’t prepared for Greg to drive it.
Sue refused to go in the sun, which meant that we all couldn’t go to the beach together. Through the course of seven days Sue’s contribution to the joint efforts in the house consisted of the cooking of 2 ratatouille.
Geoff, on the other hand, consistently helped out by shopping, being in charge of the barbecue and much more. He was extremely generous making significant financial help to the total family expenditure.
30 July 2022
At lunchtime Lou and Eva came over with their 3 children.
They ate their pizza and spent the time playing in the pool. In fact they made so much noise while jumping in and out of the water that the police came over to tell us to quiteen down. We presumed that one of our neighbours had complained.
Lou & Eve bought wine, a lot of cake and wine as their contribution to the meal which was a lot of fun.
31 July 2022
The heat since we have been in France has been extraordinary. There hasn’t been a day when the temperature has stayed below 34º C all day. This has made us all very lethargic and getting people to move around and do anything has been difficult.
We did, however, make the effort on Monday afternoon to have a short trip to Cormes. Cormes is a little village within the Le Loup valley. In order to reach this hamlet you need to travel up along a single track road that winds round the mountainside. It’s not a good move for those with vertigo. When you arrive there isn’t a lot to see and it was too hot to want to walk anywhere.
We mad a quick circle of the village and then stopped at the local bar/restaurant. As we entered we received sullen looks from the proprietor and his missus, as if to say, I my goodness I suppose I have to make an effort to serve you. Anyway after a few smiles and Greg playing with their dog the frosty atmosphere eased. When we left the owner gave the girls bubble gum.
2 August 2022
Canyoning in the Loup
On our way to Cormes on the Sunday I stopped at a Canyoning place to check out how you book and what was involved. In the morning Greg called the office and booked it for the afternoon. We arrived at 1:30 pm and spent a long time trying to get into our wet suits. Sadie then made a real fuss about the wet suits and cried from the site to the river.
Descending from the road to the river was difficult. A steep slope and shingle underfoot made it very precarious but we made it. Our first entry to the river shocked me. However the wet suit allowed me to recover from the sudden cold.
A couple of minutes in the river and Sadie lost all her complaints. Carrie took everything in her stride.
The slides and jumps into the river were good fun but there was a fair amount of walking along the side of the river which both Maggi and I found difficult to keep up with the others. It made me feel old to watch Alex etc skip along the rocks at the side of the river while Maggi and I struggled to keep up. However despite that I’m glad we did it. The experience was exhilarating.
We arrived back at 4 pm which made the whole experience quite tiring. We then found that they didn’t accept credit cards so we had to drive to Chateauneuf to an ATM to pick up cash. It seems strange that they don’t accept cards and they didn’t mention it beforehand. I also thought it strange that they didn’t mind us driving off without a deposit of any sort.
3 August 2022
I drove Alex and family to Aquaspalsh in order to arrive before 10 am. I believe they were one of the first into the park. I returned to La Colle and we had a quiet morning. Geoff had demanded that we go to the €11 meal in La Colle since I first mentioned it to him. We had a very pleasant meal in the St Eloi which Geoff very generously paid for.
Kids came home and eat something and then we walked down to the village again where they wanted to have a crepe. The normal shop had closed for some reason. We enjoyed/suffered a rock band in the middle of the village that specialised in AC/DC.
4 August 2022
Everyone left. Geoff & Sue departed at 11 am and I took Alex and family to the airport at 1 pm. Both Maggi and I were sad to see them go and happy to have our own space back.