Pastries to start the day again, sat in the sunshine. We ended up having one or two wines last night with our neighbours, so a strong coffee was needed too. We decided to head to the beach to see what it was all about here. Once again the locals scuttled off to the beach at the same time, so we had learned to follow them and copy what they did! We only had a plastic rake and a sandcastle bucket but we followed their technique, and were soon rewarded with a bucket full of clams and cockles. There were literally hundreds of people raking up the flat black muddy sand the tide left behind. In the distance we could see more of the mussel poles, but I don’t think the tide would go out far enough to walk out. The kids played in the rock pools and were confidently picking up crabs. Fraser caught a shrimp and both were fascinated by the marine life beneath their feet. After a snack we headed into town to buy some rakes for tomorrow and to pick up oysters and bread for the evening, we contemplated the purchase of some chairs and got the smalls an ice cream before heading back. We had a rest and continued reading gangsta granny, the holiday book that keeps both entertained with its talk of cabbage trumps. Fraser soon tired of sitting still, desperate to get to the beach and get his wetsuit on!

The beach is literally 30 seconds away and it’s utterly pointless putting shoes on as it takes longer to do them up than you are walking. The tide was in and it was flat calm. The kids were happy running in and out and then daddy buried the children in the sand. I hadn’t taken a camera but will do it again today!

Moules for tea, after I had to do an Emergancy dash into town as the ones we bought in the supermarket had gone off! So when I got to the fishmongers I also picked up some oysters, prawns and crab claws. By this point we had a task of getting some over tired children settled for sleep!

We have new neighbours, again they are english. yesterdays neighbours knew a friend of ours, these ones parents live in botley and winchester! They also have a T2, and its exactly the same as my brothers van Dave! We ended up staying up late eating cheese and chutney!!

Right wine o clock!

We slept well in the layby on the side of the motorway! I heard some people come I the middle of the night and all I know is they were talking about fishing in a really loud voice for about 30 mins then they left!

I hosed the children down in the sink much to frasers delight! He wanted to go in the sink as a bath! He was so dirty from rolling around on the floor of the garage yesterday that urgent action was required. I can’t say it was t strange stripping naked and washing myself in the camper in a carpark but it did the job and Eventually we were all clean, followed by cereal for breakfast (there was no on-site patisserie!!). I enjoyed my stove top coffee and we even did all the washing up and cleaned the floors before we left. All in all, it did the trick! We were slept, clean and tidy and all for free!

We headed down the road to Nantes , passing the municipal campsite we thought we might have used the day before. It looked lovely, but pricey.

We managed to get the sat nav working on my phone to get us into the Center of Nantes where the ile de machine is. We snaked our way through Nantes city Center which is full of really old buildings and narrow streets, but looking a bit rundown in parts. We were worried about getting parked with the trailer but managed to find he perfect spot on a side street less than half a mile from the exhibition. We wondered over the bridge and could see he queue for the elephant rides, but no elephant. It wasn’t long before we realised that we weren’t going to get a ride this morning and the next ride was late afternoon. Just at that point the elephant turned the corner and we realised that actually it didn’t matter that much as seeing the elephant walking along the road, spraying passers by with water and blinking its eyes. Penny decided she must be a girl as she is so beautiful, meanwhile Fraser was properly terrified and wouldn’t have his photo taken with his back to the elephant for fear of what might happen behind his back.

We followed the elephant for a bit, it really was amazing, then we headed over to the merry go round. It was impressive and when we reached he ticket booth we paid our €28 euro for a ticket. What we didn’t quite understand was the carousel was on 3 levels and you only got to ride on one level. The things you road on we’re each a machine, and I can’t think how to describe it without pictures. I’ll add the pics tomorrow properly once I’ve got them off my proper camera!

We finished and had 2 really tired children who urgently needed food! Back at the van we palmed them off with some crisps and headed to the super market to stick up before our next stop. We had lunch at the flunch in the supermarket, where they take a simple concept of a cafe and make it really complicated! Penny was ravenous and go bled up all her dinner and the. Proudly went to the ice cream counter and ordered in French. Clever girl! Them we stocked up on cheese ham and pâté, obviously with a drop of wine! Penny thought she’s rather like a pogo stick, as it would be really useful to get bread on!

The mood of the children significantly degraded after the supermarket, tired and couped up I think they’d had enough…. After the journey to noirmoutier en ile, I couldn’t even cheer Fraser up by showing him a helicopter!

As we approached the island I was struck by how flat everywhere was, freckle was thrilled. All the little stalls along the road were selling the sea salt, oysters and moules…. Sounds dreadful eh!

We are at a site that has surely maximised its space to pitch! We are crammed in but actually it’s not too bad. The people behind us have a mutual friend in England! It always happens to us!

Today started well, we packed up and were breakfasted and ready for the off by about 11.

When freckle was loaded, stew started her and noticed that very faintly the battery light was on. We could see that the voltage wasn’t quite what we would have liked on our little meter that plugs in to the cigarette lighter…. A great eBay purchase for about £3.

We waved bye to mum and dad and with our lunch packed up we headed off towards Nantes. Passing the beautiful saint Suzanne and loads of farmers out bailing their hay. We were coming through the village of Craon when we started to hear a pop before we realised it was freckle backfiring. In the later part of the journey I was flicking through the Haines manual and the John muir book how to keep your Vw alive, we were desperately trying to work out what was going on. We thought at this point that we had an issue with some leakage and that there must have been a short circuit. After pulling over and using the dreaded warning triangle of doom, we checked the fuses, stew retraced his steps from yesterday ensuring that there were no dodgy connections and it was all ok. We fou d 1 dodgy but not blown fuse, replaced it and the. Tried to go again. This time it was the starter motor solenoid issue, so we bump started in reverse and got going again. The voltage seemed to drop faster than ever this time, as did the patience of the increasingly bored (understandably so!) children. We called Paul at KFK and chatted through with him the problem , and whilst he desperately wanted to provide us with a solution his fear was that the alternator was gone. Balls. So we had another play and decided to head on and try to find a park to tinker and let the kids run off some steam.

We didn’t get quite that far and stopped again. This time the engine just cut out. We decided enough was enough and called the RAC. The RAC cover we have comes free with our bank account so it’s fair to say my expectations were fairly low. They ascertained he length and dimensions of freckle and that we were now towing a jolly big trailer, for which there was a surcharge of £65 if we needed towing. After input out a plea on Facebook I helpfully got sent details of a uk company based in France renting out t2’s for holidays. I’ll put a link on here to the company when I find them as the chap was so amazingly helpful and offered us any help we needed. He told us of the French version of just Kampers is called serial Kombi if we needed the part. Whilst we were still on the phone to the guy mr batard turned up. Our opinion, as was that of all we spoke to, was they would have no idea what to do and so we at least had a name of somewhere hey could tow us thanks to hire man to do a proper fix. How wrong we were! Mr batard was our knight In shining overalls! He got us going with his battery and we followed him back to his garage, thus avoiding the surcharge. Once we were here I was trying to offer him he part number for an alternAter, but he had other ideas. Within 30 mins he had the alternater on the bench, then Whipped it to his fiends house to recondition it. There he decided that a minor fault they found was not responsible for the problem, and soon discovered the real issue…. Stews tinkering yesterday cleaning the contacts had t quite been finished, leaving a connection dangling down. He fixed it, we gave him some beer and the RAC paid! Result! Thank you mr batard, you blinking rock!

We eventually found a motorway services to sleep in (long story but I’m out of time) and we are settled for the night, hopping that day 14 is an improvement of day 13! It was never that stressful but for a moment I feared our adventure had come to an end! Our adventures continue..

Last day at Sille today. This morning was started with a prebreakfast swim for the children… Then stew hopped in as he was getting splashed anyway! Meanwhile I was reminding myself where I had thrown stuff in the van over the last 3 weeks, and then filling a huge bag of stuff I over packed to send back with mum and dad. I resisted temptation to send my running kit home, and resolved that at least once I will go for a run! Stew also had a tinker after breakfast with freckle. The recurrent issue with the starter motor we think is due to a solenoid, and dirty connections, so aided by Fraser he rolled about under the van for a couple of hours and came out very dirty… When I offered coffee I was informed that it was the crucial moment, but it obviously all worked it for the best as freckle purred back into action after her surgery and dirty stew had a wash.

After lunch the adamsons headed to the lake for the beach. It was really busy with French families enjoying a warm Sunday afternoon, with loads of games of boules happening around the lake that we had to dodge. We settled in a lovely spot on the beach and all went swimming in the lake. Penny, once reassured that there weren’t actually any alligators or crocodiles in the lake like grandad had told her, was happy to swim out quite a distance with her dad, practicing a,, her strokes and jumping in off our knees. Frasers swimming lessons seem to have been less successful so far! We dried off and played slice the sandcastle for a while then all decided that a refreshment break was needed…. The children had decided they were in the market for some chichi’s, sticks of doughnuts, but the queue was huge so they settled for a crepe in the beach bar, whilst stew and I had a glass of wine and beer, and we enjoyed a bit of terrible europop, from the same duo that were playing in the beach bar the night before. Penny thought that she was experiencing an intimate gig of some pop stars though, and wanted to know where the dance floor was.

We headed back after Fraser fell off the picnic table and bumped his head, following the train all the way round the lake, proving to be an effective way to deal with the congested woodland paths! The children were shattered and were in their beds early whilst we had a leftovers bbq to use up all our bits before mum and dad head home tomorrow and we go in search of an elephant! The bbq was washed down by a bottle of Noz’s finest valpolicella, at €1.99…. much more sucessful than last nights noz wine with was revolting! The adventure continues…. Whoooooooooooo! We really a so lucky to be enjoying this.

Will update photos next time we have good wifi as having a bit of a palava!

Today started with a long lie in and then the most enormous pain au raisin for penny. We all got ready and headed off on our bikes to show daddy how to get around the lake. I got the old garmin watch out to clock the distance around the lake… It’s a 3km cycle. On the side of the lake is a man made beach, which the kids really enjoyed. Penny was busy making a beautiful sandcastle and Fraser tipped a bucket of water over her head. It was like watching laurel and hardey.

We got back in time for lunch…. We got all the food out and ended up with a really quite impressive spread of cured meats, cheeses and olives. Yum. We’ve decided to try and keep Fraser p all day today and not let him nap as he had been a bit of a toad the last few nights. We headed over to mum and dads friends house in a closely village to do an errand, then went to a totally random shop called Nos…. It’s just a strange shop selling all kind of things really cheap! We managed to find some tat to buy and some more cheap wine, and then we went on to Sainte Suzanne, a medieval castle type fort, where we spent a happy few hours wondering around, the stopping for a coffee and an ice cream.

Saints Suzanne has 2 parts, one built in the 11th centurary and the other in the 17th. The kids loved the medieval loo, and the dungeon where Fraser could pretend to rescue trapped penny in an American accent.

They are over in the pool now, enjoying a bit of evening sunshine, before tea and an early bed. Stew and I are headed on a hot date…. To the creparie by the lake….. It’s been so fab all being back together.

I’ve included some pics of our pitch right beside the lake, it was a really warm night last night and so I woke up this morning with the blinds down, to a view of the sun over the top of the trees… If I could have taken a photo I would have.

Liz…. Note the bunting!
Someone tell Tracey, the flip flops that she hates broke in the sea! She’ll be thrilled!

So not much to report today! It’s been sunny and hot, but we spent most of the day waiting! Daddy finally arrived at 6pm! So so nice to all be back together today…. We can finally start the holiday proper!

The children were horrendous last night, finally settling about midnight… I was totally exhausted from driving, 9 days of camper vanning. Today was mostly spent trying to prevent arguments, and answering question on the site from other interested people about freckle. We did go for a bike ride around the lake along with a play in the park.

The site here is quite full, and there are a lot of English and Dutch people here. Penny loudly pointed out that the lady across the road speaks duck. I can’t help but feel we are missing something here though… The sites we have been staying at have been mainly municipal (owned by the local council) and everyone that stays there seems to have an respect for the site and each other. This is much more commercial…. More of a holiday resort. I guess we will adjust.

Anyways I’m off to spend some lovely time with my fabulous husband and enjoy the beautiful forrest and lake view. Tomorrow we are going to play in the lake and then stew and I are hopping to have a hot date with mum and dad babysitting.

So this morning we left Rennes and headed towards the lake at Sille. It’s in the direction of Le Mans from Rennes not far really.
After a later than planned start (the kids didn’t wake up until 9am!) we headed off in convoy. Me and penny were like Thelma and Louise! If I’d had any charge on my camera I’d have taken a photo of her dancing along to sclub 7! We stopped for a picnic at an aire on the mail road and it was so so ho, that we had to our our butter back into the fridge. It was our first experience of a payage in freckle. The road was certainly more direct and quicker, but tucked in behind dads caravan we managed to save a bit of fuel using his slip stream, whilst compromising on the view. Whilst scenic, I missed the little French towns Caroline and I had become used to.

We came via the supermarket in the sweltering heat. Dad had to pop out later and noticed on the thermometer that it was up to 38 degrees and the Tarmac was melting. Meanwhile I was having my own issues with freckle. The campsite took a more laid back approach to pitching, on arrival you were simply asked to find a pitch and let them know where you were staying. The setting couldn’t be more beautiful, with a few static vans dotted in with quite a few safari tents and yurts. But the pitches weren’t clearly marked so it made it difficult to know where was available. Once we decided where to camp we set up, I levelled freckle, then the pitch next door became available, and dad decided that we’d be better on there. Or pitch is in amongst sycamore trees, right beside a huge lake (with a low level fence separating us). With the new arrangement of dads van I needed to move the van and it just wouldn’t start. I’m assuming that the starter motor let me down again, but the freckle firmly refused to start! After rolling around on the forrest floor and a good squirt of wd40 on the connection, I was still getting no joy, I have to admit to calling freckle a name! Ultimately I got her gaming but not without a lot of swear, head scratching and a bit of a push from daddy!

Once we were set up eventually, we were reunited with our bikes…. The kids went for a dip with grandma, then we headed out around e lake to one of the many small restaurants. The children shared a delicious stone baked pizza, whilst I had a goats cheese salad…. Given that it was 8:30 it was still absolutely sweltering hot.

We headed back after dinner, and I knew that the children were going to be a challenge….. Getting them settled this evening is proving a challenge to say the least!

Tomorrow daddy arrives!! Yippeeeee!