Hello all………Sarah missed some great highlights from today, so I thought I would add an extra post to include them.

Firstly, let’s explore why the forgetfulness!  In an Ant and Dec stylie……Too drunk, it could be you……..Too sleepy, it could be you………..computer ran out of battery, it isn’t you……….distracted due to the remaining Malaria symptoms (see previous blog), it could be you………………….yep, you have guessed it, too drunk (a lethal cocktail of fizzy white wine, red wine and gin!!!)!!!!!

So, today was a little cooler (well this morning anyway), so why not spend a little time making Freckle look good?  Fraser and I took to the task of sorting out rusty chrome.  Now I read some medieval magic that said if you rub rusty chrome with wet tin foil, there will be a transformation……well shiver me timbers, it is amazing!  Fraser and I, armed with a ball of kitchen foil sorted out the hub caps, wing mirrors and headlights, like they were new!  One for the geeks – apparently, aluminium is softer than chrome but harder than rust and rubs it off, even Paul Daniels (god rest his soul) would be amazed at this magic!

So, a lovely drive into La Rochelle.  They are very proud of their roots with roads named after kings of England who ruled here in the past.  The town is amazing and I found myself in the middle of a park, a city square and the back streets, but with one thing in common, the people all loved Freckle!

So we got back with a the Turners making their debut in Freckle.  It turns out Adam is a bit of a David Bellamy in terms of being at one with nature (Sarah thinks Chris Packham is more contemporary)!  Anyway onto Adam spotting, them stalking and catching a lizard, to the children’s amazement.  Not really something we see at home so the kids were v excited.

The final highlight came as the camp entertainment toured the site, drumming up support for the big event of the night.  Tonight he was coming round in an electric golf buggy, with a massive PA system playing some tunes and dressed as Michael Jackson, in the red leather suit!  Trouble is he has a beard and a definite ringer for the Bo Selecta Michael Jackson He He!

We hope the Turner family arrived home safely……..Adam did well ordering a taxi.  Not sure how to be honest, he thought the “person” on the other end was an automated machine……..nope just a Frenchman!!!!!

Bon Nuit xxxx

4.45am…. thats what time the bin lorry came with it beeping and crunching into the campsite. The next time we woke was about 8am to a huge stinky trump from one of the adults followed by a quick exit to the loo! They shall remain nameless!

This site is really fab for many things but it is quite noisey… thats not to say we wouldn’t come back but its got more hustle and bustle than the previous sites we have stayed in. We love la Rochelle and Stew has declared it his new favorite french city. This may seem like quite an accolade but when pressed as to his previous favorite he said he didn’t have one!

We were all up by 8 and directly opposite the campsite there is an “artisinal boulangerie” selling pretty cakes so I popped over for breakfast and some bread for the day.

After breakfast I read the last bit of my book, before having a bit of a clear up and then finally doing my roots. Its fair to say that I’ve not done the best job but I’ve cheated my overly aged hair successfully for another few weeks!

We literally had no food so I went over and did a supermarket sweep of the aisles and got in some nice food for this evening. The children were super excited that we were expecting the Turner children for a play in the swimming pool, and a bbq.

Stew hopped in to la rochelle to collect the Turners whilst the Adamson children waited impatiently. The children played and we chatted and then headed over to the pool for a couple of hours. It amused me as the Turners did not have the required wrist band for access and when the life guard patrolled the swimming pool, Adam sat in his hands! good skills!

A bbq and some wine followed whilst the children played.. the girls painted their hair blue, and a then adam and stew went to Decathlong (again!). Well I say again…. Adam didn’t know anything of this Decathlon of which we spoke! Stew soon saw that as his duty to deal with that!

Soon it was time for bed and without anything to really report on today, we’ve all had a fab day and are feeling very relaxed!

We woke up first thing and remembered it was Sunday…. and so our hopes of restocking the supplies in the van were zero!  I had to go for a 4km bike ride to find a bread shop which was open…. it needn’t have been that long but I got a bit lost, and took a detour.

When I returned it was worth the effort… If i had a sticker for best pastry of the holiday it would go to that shop! Yum!

We got ready and headed over to the pool.  When we got there there was Euro pop blasting out whilst a guy jumped about excitedly offering an aqua aerobics session.  Luckily after the session they kept the music going… as it was quite fun.

We had a chat with the guy that followed up from the aqua aerobics guy, his job was to do swimming pool games!  We decided that Mr Hargraves would  be very good in this role as basically it involved wandering around the pool chatting to people on holiday! I just read my book but stew and the children enjoyed watching the fun.

We got out the pool and headed back for a little time out of the sun.  Stew decided he would head over the the decathlon across the road, as we had only been to the shop 3 times so far in the last 2 weeks!  sadly it was closed.

We had a bit to eat and I washed some clothes and some other exciting jobs, and we got ready to head into the town.  It was more straightforward this time as we knew where we were going!  We weaved through the streets and parked our bikes by the marina.  We walked along the quay side in the sun and saw the harbour tower where the diving had been done from the day before.  All trace of the excitement was completely gone already.  We decided we would head up the tower to have a look how high it was.

The first interesting thing that we learnt was that La Rochelle had been an autonomous city, and went from being English to French a few times over the years!  The building itself was incredibly well maintained and restored, and was fascinating to wonder around.  It was both a royal residence and a defensive fort and had been built so the royals didn’t bump into the soldiers along the corridor.  It was the first building to have 2 spiral staircases so that one could be used as a service and the other for the residents.  Stew was impressed that this building technique was around a few thousand years ago and is still used now!  It was also used from time to time as a prison.

On the top where the diving took place the floor was uneven and the walls low!  I was terrified, and got sweaty feet in my flip flops and made sure that the children kept both their feet on the ground at all times.  I don’t know how they came up with the idea of even jumping off the side let along doing hand stands!!

Once our feet were back on the ground, we decided to hit the shade again and refresh with some cold white wine.  we ordered a small caraf of wine and sat by the boats.  The Scamps have been rather taken with the human statues at the various places we have stopped and there were loads in la rochelle.  So they spent a happy 20 minutes pretending they were statues before going and using their french to order ice creams and sat by the sea wall to eat them.

We had another wine and then got the bill and regretted it! it was nice wine though, and we learnt to look at the menu before ordering wine blindly or they might give you something which, though very delicious costs more than a meal for an army.

We walked back around the marina and stopped and watched some street artists, in particular a group of street dancers.  They were really good, and even though they had to pause a few times to let the odd bus through, they were very entertaining.  Fraser got pulled up from the crowd, and stood up for a few minutes looking nervous, before bursting into tears as he didn’t know what they were saying.  In the short time he was up there, the turners were walking past and looked over, thinking I’m sure that looks like Fraser!  So the children watched the rest of the show together.

After the show we headed for some food.  We picked a restaurant with a lovely view of the towers and chose the set menu.  The starters were an assortment of seafood and flame grilled prawns in brandy sauce, so we shared a bit of both.  Main course was steak with pepper sauce and the yummiest chips!  I don’t know how the steak in France always looks so rough and tastes so good… I wonder if its cut in an opposite direction to the UK?  anyway it was delicious!  For dessert I had cheese and stew had a profiterole as big as penny head, filled with ice cream!  It was an amazing dinner with a stunning backdrop.

We headed back to the bikes and cycled home. Straight to bed for all of us when we got back, and the children were asleep in seconds!