After a late night the children were up early!

Sun creamed up and ready to get down to the pool!

We packed our bits quickly and got the coffee on. A few pastries and a lot of grandmas jam later, we were ready to head to the pool.

I approached the pool with caution in case my face had a wanted sign up. I was in the clear!

After a cheeky beer and a crepe for the kids we recreated our holiday photo and set off.

It was hot! Properly hot! And then Freckle started kicking around and we had a little break in our journey! Stew managed to reconnect the vaccum pipe with cable ties and I properly filled every vessel with water we owned as I felt sure that we were going to be on the side of the motorway broken down in the baking sun! How wrong I was! Stew did put his fancy polarised ray bans on the back of one of the bikes and we had to stop on the side of the motorway – with some amazing luck they had clung on for life to the back of one of our bikes and lived to fight another day.

We turned off the road headed for our camp site and suddenly people were flashing and waving us to slow down. Rapidly but became clear that we were approaching the early stages of a Forrest fire. Stew in the first instance thought we could pass, but as we approached we had to to a super hasty u turn and the fire zoomed along the trees. (I don’t know much about putting out fires, but I do know pointy trees are bad and round trees are good). We managed to drive around it but this evening the Forret du peche is still burning….

We made it to the camp site and what a site it is! 500m from the lake, little pool, massive pitch… perfect!

It really is a brilliant campsite, and stew says if I can’t paddle board tomorrow it has to go on eBay as everything else is perfect!!! No pressure!

Bbq for dinner, and a few precious moments just me and stew with sleeping children and full tummies! Did I say I love France?

After an early rise we had planned to leave Soulac and head to Biscarosse via a few hours with the spencer family who were part of the way down the coast.

We decided that a few hours in their fancy camp site would be nice. When we arrived we decided to take a pitch for the night and make a day of it. We secured the pitch beside the Spencer’s, unpacked a bit and headed to the pool… then the beach… then the pool again! After an incident with mistaken identity in the pool… we headed back to get ready for dinner.

Pitched as the best burger in France we headed down to a beach front bar for a huge burger and more fun in the evening.

Back for bed and then end of a great day of fun and laughs in the sun!

We headed the 10 mile cycle to montivilet, with beach stuff packed. It didn’t seem nearly as far this time, with the children easily managing the 20 mile round trip.

A bustling busy market was perfect for a seafood lunch with everyone trying and most enjoying oysters and prawns.

A highly competitive game of volley ball on the beach got us nicely warmed up for a swim in the sea. The waves were epic and we all had lots of fun and saw more of Katie than we had intended!! Katie also lost her sunglasses, and Spenny and I were sent flying up the beach with one final massive wave!

We found a resturant which was open and all had a meal together… before our cycle home.

Early nights all round!

A morning cycle to the supermarket to buy supplies, before welcoming the Spencer’s to our campsite!

We had planned the beach but the kids enjoyed chilling out on the site, playing on the park and making friends with the other French children. Katie suggested they give them a high 5, but she got the number wrong so now a high quatre is the order of the day!

With the mummies enjoying lot of gin and tonic, it was early beds all round to prepare for the long cycle the next day to meet up with our friends again!

I didn’t’ sleep brilliantly last night, I just couldn’t get comfy and had just finished my 4th book of the holiday (fat girl slim… must get running again!!).

It was raining, and i could sense that it wasn’t going to stop… and I had forgotten to preorder the bread from the campsite…

We got packed up and left the campsite with a minimum of arguments… with Fraser not wanting to go swimming to wind his sister up… and her not washing his bowl up to pay him back!

We left the site and were impressed by the new windscreen wipers on the van… for. A bargain 4 euro for the pair! We then remembered it was Sunday and that the shops were shut which was going to make our lack of food, and breakfast slightly more worrying! We were headed south in the direction of Royan to get the short ferry across to Soulac. Along the road we managed to find one open bakers (several closed supermarkets…. 8 actually, all closing 5 mins before we arrived!!) and got a bit of bread and some really delicious pastries.

We were lucky to arrive and get straight on to a ferry within a few minutes. This meant we were straight on our way. Once on board we cracked open the double, and found a couple of new games we could play with it… OH MY WORD…. I shall just call it Dobble Extreme.

We go to the campsite, and ended up back on the same pitch we stayed at 3 years ago…. perfect! We had some lunch and set up the tent in super quick time…. just before the heavens open end.

It just didn’t stop raining all afternoon… there was only one thing for it, we put a film on, snuggled down and opened the wine!

With the kids safely deposited into bed, Stew and I are foraging for food! Apparently summer is back again tomorrow!

The weather this morning was miserable, I woke up really early and sat in the drizzle…. Knitting!

This camp site ask you to pre order breakfast and the selection we had this morning was amazing!

Whilst we sat waiting for the endless showers to pass, the children had a well earned lazy morning watching a film and chilling out whilst we drank coffee and read our books.

We decided enough was enough and we would head out into the rain and set off on the long ride to La Rochelle…. with the prize of a 3 scoop ice cream from the world famous Ernest Gelato….

before we set off Fraser had skidded off his bike, scraped his legs and hit himself on the cross bar… somfor the first 15km he rode his bike standing up.

We flew over the bridge, and we would find out later this was due to the strong wind being behind us!!

Once on the outskirts of the city we stopped to adjust the bike seats for added comfort… Fraser sat on the grass and a huge gust of wind blew penny’s bike over and the handle bar landed right on his head…. it was awful! With no idea where we were and the shock of the huge bang on the head I was really concerned! Eventually Fraser was cheered up when I went for a wee on the side of the track… apparently he’d never seen a girl scoot down for a wee…. and further for the amusement, a passing elderly cyclist got to see the sight too!!

Back on our bikes we headed into town and found a spot to park our bikes… I felt sure the weather would mean we wouldn’t have to queue… but no! The ice cream is that good the queue went out the door and around the corner as usual. Then children had been looking forward to this since we left home and had been planning their flavours on the journey.

We had a walk around the port and decided before long to head back to the island… the clouds were looming blackly over head… Frasers words were they were very threatening.

We snaked out the city quickly and passed wee corner, when stew and Fraser decided it was their turn for an au natural wee! Fraser, full of calamity rose straight into stationary Penny! No tears this time!

The traffic to get onto the island was choc a block so we picked a car each to beat! Our cycle into the wind was hard, Fraser was feeling the burn and penny was powering up the hill. We flew over the top of some impressive wind surfing, and down the hill… passing the man who had seen me earlier squatting in the bushes… much to the children’s delight!

Back to camp, 40km later the children hit the pool. Penny challenges an older boy to a race! She did doggy paddle and he swam his fastest!! She is such a monkey!

Stew and I had a couple of drinks and ordered the children some pizza as a treat for their great efforts of the day!

Back for some food and a game of shadow puppets at the van… all of our sore bottoms are tired and tummy’s full of ice cream.

Today started well with some granola, fruit and yogurt…

We got up and dressed and the children even helped with the washing up… I however needed to do the weekly wash! In a van the size of ours, we only really bring 5 days of clothes and its always necessary to wash a few bits every couple of days, but the weather has made this tricky! This morning however I got it all sorted, and hung, widow twangy style, everywhere!

We headed into the town of Sain Matin for a ride and a shop. This really is such a fab place to come… there are many tandems available to hire…. for some reason we were not permitted!

We managed to get an oyster glove thing for stew as he now has several puncture wounds in his hands from the hundreds he has opened this week! The shops are exquisite and offer only the most unique of products.

We cycled home via the shops for some essentials (melon and pate) and then had some lunch.

The kids hit the pool and i took advantage of the golden thing in the sky to do some washing! We all had a great play in the pool for a few hours, before happy hour in the bar and pétanque for the children.\

Back at the van a delicious BBQ was very much the order of the day before trying to get the children to sleep with a background bass sound of euro pop whist catching up on many days of the blog!!

Sorry for the interrupted service, but normal service will resume!