croissantkatie

So, as of Saturday evening, I am back from France. It was a fairly standard family holiday for us, fun in places but not so fun in others. There is only so much time we can all handle being in a confined place with each other after all. But I'm not going to dwell on those bits! The arguments were circular and repetitive enough without me repeating them here.

It, thankfully, wasn't too hot for me and for the most part was warm without me getting ill from the heat. This did have the slight downside of me not equalling my book reading record of two years ago when I finished all my books and then proceeded to read all my family members' as well because I couldn't go outside during the day. This is probably a good thing as I actually went out and did stuff! I went to aquagym with my Mum several times, which was hilarious. I also went kayaking and canoeing on a lake with my Dad and brother, which was awesome fun, even the part where I capsized the kayak and then managed to sink it. We also spent a fair amount of time wandering aimlessly around French markets and discovering in cafes that most of my Dad's previously good French has been forgotten.

We went to the chateau at Blois as well, which was interesting, if rather tiring. Whilst we were there, we found this awesome bar which did the most fantastic croque monsieurs and the people were really friendly. That place wins the second best food place of the holiday, after this tapas bar we went to. It was really good, and we're fairly sure that at least one of the couple who ran it was Spanish given the brand new World Cup Champions Spain football shirt hanging on one of the blackboards and obscuring part of the menu. They also did amazing pudding, which made me especially happy.

I spent a very happy couple of days just sitting around, reading and listening to test match special. The reception on the radio might have been awful, but it was still rather wonderful.

Favourite people of the holiday:
Elma - a little old lady with missing parts of her fingers who was amazing at table tennis. She gave my brother a run for his money
Julien - a man who seemed to run pretty much every single activity on the campsite. He ran the football tournament, table tennis tournament, aquagym and then took part in a show in the evening. He also happened to look like Reubens Barrichello and by the end of our stay, my brother was calling him Reubens when talking to him.