This morning we planned to get up early and get out to make it to montilivet, so I could go for some oysters. It’s somewhere I’ve wanted to go since being pregnant with penny. We visited shortly after I found out I was expecting her and as I wasn’t in a position to eat oysters or drink wine. I thought today was going to be the day! Unfortunately due to some excessive port consumption, cheese eating and putting the world to rights, I was slightly slower than anticipated…. As was my cheese eating Partner in crime Ella!

I did a quick load of washing as we were running out of pants again. And we were ready for the off. As we approached the market it started getting really busy and touristy. The market was certainly big, possibly 10 times larger than the last time we visited. We went through and went to the beach…. At this point I don’t know why we carried on walking, but we did, and the kids played on the beach,then we messed about buying chips for the children and non oyster eaters and by e time we got back to they oyster stall… It was blinking shut! I thought I did really well not to have a paddy!

We left the market and headed back to the campsite, on a scenic route. And headed back towards the camp. We passed the invisible circus…. Which all the posters told us was in st Laurent the day before but try as we may to find it we were unable to track it down.

Stew and I popped to the supermarket and left the kids for a short time with the palmers so we were all stocked up for a couple of days. They headed over to pool and stew joined them whilst I had a glass of wine and sorted the washing. The palmers then had to head off and we popped out for a bite to eat. An early is bed time tonight, following a bit of story, and daddy rejigging the trailer to ensure maximum space for wine on our return.

We’re not quite sure what tomorrow will bring… Poor Archie is still broken and we were hoping to catch up with the Hargreaves… We shall see where we end up! We have sat this evening wondering if we continue to push on south as we are having such fun in the sun here… But I think we will!

I’m really tired out this evening so I think I might be in my bed shortly! Night all!

Evening readers!

Another bright, cloudless day in this beautiful wine region for our happy team of campers. Late start for the scamps, 9 o clock before waking up, very happy mummy and daddy! We got the children up when we went to bed last night to see the stars, they are amazing here. Penny got up and looked up and said “wow, they are beautiful” this morning she said, “why did you not get us up to see the stars? You PROMISED!” Obviously she forgot as we sat outside with them for 20 mins with a G&T!! Lucky us, saw the second shooting star of the trip together.

Penny got a new tooth brush after her visit to the doctor yesterday and it has a sucker on the end, she used it to stick it to Freckle’s roof and clean her teeth no handed! This was well needed as she had stolen the marshmallows yesterday. Fraser joined in to the telling off of P only for us to find out he had received the stolen goods, but was adamant he wasn’t part of the theft!

A lovely swim in the pool was followed by a game of hide and seek with walkie talkies whilst the adults chilled with a coffee and sneaky croissant – after Stew had been out for a ride to the local town to finally track down an open shop, it was a bank holiday here today and everywhere was closed.

I was on edge all day today, my brother sent a text to say my sister in law was in labour! After what seemed like an age and reacting like a cat on a hot tin roof to all text messages, John phoned! I am the proud auntie to baby James William! Well done Sam and John, we were all really thrilled by the arrival of baby Townend.

The afternoon was wine tasting afternoon. We got all sorted and cycled out to the green countryside to find a cool Chateau to let us taste their produce. He wrong could we be……despite the many Chateaus, none were open, due to the bank holiday! We settled for a long bike ride though the beautiful countryside, to a town on the Gironde coast, possibly the most ugly town in France! It was hot hot hot, so we stopped for a drink in a funny little place. Stew’s granny Wallace served us with drinks!!!!

On return from our 17.5 mile cycle we all dipped in the pool for the second swim of the day.

Story time and an illegal bbq followed before finding our hilarious talents over some cheese and port.

Well hello there blog readers. Today’s report contains pizza, doctors, bikes and pharmacies…. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin….. With how we began, a bowl of porridge… I the sunshine.

We couldn’t really get ourselves going at any kind of speed this morning, particularly as it involved penny needing to have her hair brushed so she looked “cute”…. I’m sure it’s nothing at all to do with a certain new friend Tom who she has taken rather a shine to.

The kids had hot chocolate with marshmallows after breakfast whilst we enjoyed a coffee and a relax in the sun for a few mins.

We got ready to go for a bike ride into saint Laurent, through the vin yards and onto the tiny but immaculate town. We needed to go into town so that stew could buy some swimming trunks ( budgie smugglers are required over here) so he didn’t need to wear my swimming costume again! (His wedding tackle fell out yesterday when he jumped in)… We also needed to get penny seen by someone as she had what appeared to be an abscess on her gum. The pharmacist couldn’t help us which meant we needed to find the doctor. Whist we assessed our options over doctors we stopped into the square for a pizza and a glass of wine…it was proper French lunch time with the children pottering around the church, and us enjoying the sunshine and some great food.

After lunch we headed to the medical centre and were whisked straight through to see a really nice dr, who prescribed some antibiotics and ibuprofen. The strange things is its all done on weight so we have a syringe marked with weight so we correctly dose her for the both drugs. Another minor disaster dealt with quickly and efficiently.

We headed back, with penny clutching her new toothbrush as a prize for her bravery, in time for a cuppa and a slice of cake before the children headed off to the pool for much fun on the slides.

All in all a relaxing day…. Hopefully we might get to visit a vin yard tomorrow, but as its a bank holiday here.

So we planned this morning to be up and out this morning and get the 10:30 ferry to Blaye. It didn’t quite go to plan as stew started the day with a tactical chunder following a dodgy sausage last night. Things started a little slower than planned!

The children started with a swim in the pool, once again to themselves whilst i read another 3 pages of my book. The final packing done off we drove…. With the roof up. The first tree we hit we remembered, the roof was up. Oops.

We left and hit the supermarkets to stock up before racing to make the half 1 ferry…. Nearly leaving stew behind as he was at the bank.

The ferry was a funny affair, all passengers had to get out and walk into the ferry. It took about 30 mins to cross the murky river, and then we were in the land of wine. I can’t describe to you the view as I was driving. Clearly the area is very affluent, with newly laid roads and immensely manicured vine yards and the most beautiful buildings and chateaus dotted around. It was breath taking… And pictures really couldn’t have done this justice.

We arrived at our new campsite and met up with some of stews friends. It was hot! We set up the vans and hit the pool, which had slides! Great news… Now we are chilling, frasers soundo and penny is watching a file with her new friend!

Today started in wonderful unbroken sunshine beaming through the trees above our pitch. Silly us didn’t order bread yesterday, so Stew was sent to the local village on his bike to get bread. The instructions were a right turn out of the site and right at the end of the road. Half an hour later in rolled a sweaty husband having taken a wrong turning and an impromptu tour of the French countryside! Meanwhile I enjoyed my coffee, then stews!

After breakfast of bread (of course) croissant and pain au chocolat, Stew took the small ones to the pool. They stayed there all morning and loved it! I was a domestic goddess and did the washing before joining team Adamson at the pool.

After the daily bread and cheese lunch we made a little cinema in the back of the van and streamed a Harry Potter film – Goblet of Fire. It was really dark in there and we put the iPad through the speakers so loud too. Stew joined the smalls, I cleared up and then downloaded a new book…. A book, an actual book! I even read 4 pages!

Next stop of the day was the supermarket for some butter……for the bread and some local wine! Stew had seen a sign saying a supermarket was in the opposite direction to the closest town, five mins away. Well, it wasn’t five mins on a bike I can tell you! It was about 4km away and the whole way was uphill! It is a pity that the children’s jaw energy can’t be turned into pedal power as the pair of them chatted their way up the hill on the tag alongs whilst Stew and I arrived in a sweaty mess! It was quite a hill and in the distance we could see Bordeaux.

Off to les lacs for a bit of bouncy castle fun and a play in the park. The girls won the race home! Daddy then cooked tea on the communal bbq whilst I went to get some frites from the camp kitchen. A couple of chapters of “Gangsta Granny” and P and F went straight off to sleep leaving Mummy and Daddy time to drink some local red and pack the bikes away for tomorrow’s adventure of moving across the Gironde to the Medoc wine region…..mmmmmmm!

Oh and a message from stew to our Aussie followers…. Retaining the ashes was not good enough! LOSERS!

Woke up this morning with a beautiful view, meadows and clear blue sky on one side……..oh and a motorway service road the other! My faux pas was still fresh in Team Adamson’s memory, but lucky Mr Batard was bought with a crate of Kronnie and Barclays covered the real costs, leaving us to have a nimble down the road towards Nantes, but too late to get into any Aires for the night, hence the services!

Anyway, up with breakfast next to the meadow and a sink wash for the small Adamson’s as they were filthy from rolling on Mr Batard’s workshop floor. We were soon ready to go and Freckle purred ready for the next journey………Nantes.

We popped into the centre of Nantes and wondered where everyone was, hardly any cars on the road and we were able to park in a business looking district, free on the side of the road! A five minute walk across the Loire river and we were faced with La Machine! This is a great feat of engineering, a 20 metre elephant which moves through the park squirting water at everyone! We tried to queue to get tickets to ride it, but we would have been there all day, so settled for following it round and a go on a similarly engineered carousel with lots of strange “projects” like submarines and ugly sea creatures you can bring to life. P and F certainly loved the submarine, where they could speak to each other on an old fashioned telephone, it was like they used loads if junk to create these things.

A quick trip to the supermarket and we were off to Noirmoutier. P and F challenged Daddy with their behaviour which ended up in me chucking P out of the van and driving off…….only 10m up the road………worked through, even though perhaps on the line of too far for a 6 year old?????

Crossed the bridge to Noirmoutier and saw the Island looking at us in the sun. Weird lay by sellers here, they sell salt, not fruit! We got some last year nearby and must remember some for Granny, otherwise she might put a spell on me! Just time for F to watch the same bit of Harry Potter on the iPad for the fiftieth time…….did you know that Harry Potter can speak parcel tongue??!!!!

The weirdest sounding Sat Nav voice (thanks Apple) guided us to the campsite…….Jesus could they get more pitches on this piece of land – no is the answer. All settled in with an adventure on the beach and at the park and back for F to do the worlds biggest poo, which Daddy had to take to the toilet and wrestle out the camping toilet!!!

With a 30 second walk to the beach, just sitting with a glass of rouge whilst Sarah annoys the English neighbours……they are glad they are leaving tomorrow after Sarah has had them pinned in interrogating them for the last half hour, at least my ears are having a welcome break!!!!!

All done for my guest appearance, maybe another might be in order as I still have nearly three weeks away!!!!!

So much to tell you about so will talk fast today!

Cereal for breakkie once we had established that we were ok to stay for 1 more night and it didn’t involve moving pitches, hurrah and double hurrah. Still full from tomorrow so there is at drama to contend with but I will come onto that!

Penny had run out of clean knickers, so it was decided we would do our domestic chores whilst it was a sunny day as the next couple of days were uncertain. A full load and a load of hand washing hanging on the line we were ready to head off to explore. We needed to find the beach and get a fix of sea! Where we are staying is the municipal camp site, basically provided by the council, the municipality… So the place we a staying is a trendy village called st Martin, and it’s basically like Nottingham castle on Robin Hood! You have to enter the city rough the walls which are still largely in tact the moat is now filled with grass but the cycle paths are awesome weaving around the old city. Penny was under her own steam and loving the independence of riding a little on the road. We found the beach and carried on into the town where we found e most beautiful back streets to wonder and a truly amazing market that any foodie would die for. The children were fascinated by the spices, fish and patisserie stalls. We saw an enormous swordfish, and bought some bread.

We returned and Fraser slept for what seemed like ages, whilst penny made friends with some French girls with water pistols and they were sharing their languages. We enjoyed a bottle of wine with our bread and cheeses and hams…. I think we reached 7 cheeses on offer today with 5 different meats and chutneys! Whilst penny was happily playing we begun the search for the next 2 nights camping pitch. A quick call to mum meant that she was also on the case, and eventually we realised that there are in fact no free pitches in the entire of France! We thought we found one and it let us book then so we were relieved but this was short lived when they sent us an email saying they were wrong!

We left the camp and headed to the beach again this time so the children could have a swim. There were a few more waves than they have been used to so far but they remained confident in the sea, with our hawk eyes watching from the beach. Whilst at the beach we continued to search for a campsite and mum came up trumps with one a bit further than we were after but available, with a pool. He only stumbling block was they speak absolutely no English, so my French was tried out and I triumphed with a reservation (I think!)

A quick dinner for the children of tomato soup and bread (the hunger window was open without time to fire up the bbq!) before we headed into town again for a walk and an ice cream. On our way we found a tiny doorway, I don’t know what got our interest but it said you could visit for €1.60 with children free so we went in. Immediately we had to go up a tiny stone spiral staircase, the steps were labelled silence please. We scuttled up them not knowing what we’d find. There was a tiny counter with a man who we paid, and a clock. It was seemingly the bell tower for the church. We continued up the rickety stairs and onto the roof with a breath taking view. We had gone past the working bells. We realised they were due to chime shortly so we hung around as the kids were fascinated by the inner workings of the clock. When it did chime I was busy telling the children to put their fingers in their ears to take a photo…. It friended me half to date and I nearly fell down the rickety stairs! My ear is still buzzing now, but stew says his is only buzzing due to my exclamation!

The evening ended up sitting on the harbour wall eating ice cream people watching. The bbq is now on, the children are in bed, and we are looking forward to a complete adventure tomorrow! Who knows what it will bring.

Cheers everyone!

Today hasn’t gone especially well! And I’m honest it’s made me quite grumpy at this moment! I know tomorrow will be better and it’s mainly my fault!

Last night we on once again spent the evening chatting to our friends and having a cheese midnight feast! It reay would have benefitted from port though! We got relentlessly bitten by Mosquitos and I now a red blotchy mess!

We packed up swiftly as it was raining. Not proper rain but that annoying spray rain. We had porridge for breakfast first then the routine of packing got a little smoother.

As we left our friendship behind in noirmoutier, we also had2 sad little girls sobbing! Bless! When I tried to console penny her answer was “she was my best friend”!

The Center of the town was buzzing As we drove through, with he market in full swing and a queue of tourists waiting for their turn to be part of the fun. I found myself wondering if that campsite was cool camping? We found the campsite out of the cool camping France book. I came to the conclusion that it certainly was. As washed up my breakfast plates next to a chap cleaning his winkles out in the designated seafood cleaning sink I longed for my camera. How many places do you camp on the beach and gather your own dinner? If its glamping you’re after, it’s a million miles away. With mixed loos and showers I’ve heard bottom noises I’d had nightmares about… Ladies there were no strategic flushes in these toilets! But I don’t go in much for glamping… Small pitches meant fun evenings with new friends so yes I think it deserves the title cool!

So we left passing to stop and buy the famous salt…. Pics to follow as the iPad not charged! The water really is salty here. Made our purchases and moved on.

It really rained hard then! But in true freckle form the sun came out for our arrival and crossing the bridge. It was €16 to cross it!!!

This is when the trouble began! We arrived at the campsite with our booking…. To be told that it wasn’t a confirmation and that whilst I’d emailed with my payment details they’d ignored it. We had 4 nights booked and managed to get a night here with the possibility to extend on a different pitch tomorrow. I was gutted! The journey was much longer than planned and the children were restless. We took the 1 night and went for a ride to find somewhere else, but there was no room at the inn, then stews bike got a flat at the furthest point. Great.

So at the moment I don’t know what our adventure will bring tomorrow, where we will be or what we will be doing! Tomorrow is another day, I’m having a gin and chilling now!

So last nights blog was late because I was too busy having a midnight feast if cheese and chutney with our new neighbours, also vw nuts, um, I mean enthusiasts! We got bitten alive, drank cheap red wine out of a wine box and compared holiday notes. They have a daughter who is now penny’s new best friend, who is 1 month older than her. They have been comparing their homes on wheels and had to have their hair plaited in the same way this morning! I can feel tears coming tomorrow morning when it’s time for us to move on.

This mornings pastries were from the campsite pop up bakery…. And if I’m honest a tad disappointing (I’m becoming somewhat of a connoisseur of the croissant!) but they were set off well by some of our strawberry jam…. The 1kg jar we bought with us is gradually getting eaten!

We got showered and dressed and headed down to the beach to collect some more seafood with our proper rakes, it was much easier with the rake and penny caught 19 crabs…. The tide was out firer this time and there was a route over to the mussels. I was also struck by how differently people were foraging…. Some favoured the mussels, whilst others went for razor clams or ordinary clams that we nestled in little clumps under the black sand. Once you found one you could be sure to find 5 or 6 more.

Lunch of cheese and cured meats before a lovely rest for an hour, stew dozed and the stalls watched a film to get out of the hottest of the sun.

We then got on the bikes and cycled past the salt flats into the town, to have an ice cream and to buy some new chairs….. Hurray! I can’t tell you how excited I am, or how challenging it was to get them home, strapped it to the side of the stews bike.

We got ready and headed straight to the beach for high tide, and it was beautiful. The sea was so clear, the sand so soft and the sky so blue. Penny and stew swam out to the boats that we walked past this morning, then we buried the children in the sand. We also buried stew!

Sausages for tea and an evening sitting in the new chairs ahead. It’s getting a bit chillier now and the wind is picking up, apparently there is rain forecast here for tomorrow, but we head south, so fingers crossed the sun continues to shine on freckle! I’m hopping for another cheesey midnight feast tonight, and that the mosquito bite count is a little lower than last night….. Bon nuit x