( Please forgive me for not responding to comments on my last post.....possibly, this post will explain why I have been so bad at keeping in touch with you all ).
Our 3 weeks of hosting all the family is over. As always, it has been a fabulous time spent with the people we love the most. We have managed to have adventures with them all as well as spending time, here at the house in Caunes, which I think they love as much as we do.
They
didn’t all come together….but in waves.
The first wave was relatively calm…. 2 adults, 3
children…..and us. We swam in the pool, we built lego models, we played in the
3 bears house ( and one of us, 3 year old Clark, …got stung by various wasps.....he was very brave). We saw
knights in Carcassonne, we swam in the sea at Gruissan and in the lake at
Carcassonne, we built sandcastles, saw some real castles and explored
playgrounds throughout the area.
Wave 2, after a week, involved our daughter Jess and her
partner, Matty. They spent a couple of days of their 2 weeks with us, in Sete ( birthday present to Jess
from us), and it was a treat for us to take them there, drop them off and pick them up a
couple of days later, stopping to have an amazing sea food meal with them.
Wave 3… the day after Jess and Matty arrived, involved Carole,
Mark’s ex wife, and her partner, Peter.
Life was more complicated by this stage as we now needed 2
cars to go anywhere if we all wanted to go….so beach trips, and even trips to
restaurants started to take on a trek like feel.
Wave 4 ( 2 weeks after wave 1 began) was really
complicated….. Matt and Sarah-Jane and their 3 boys left on the 10.55 flight to
Liverpool, which had arrived in Carcassonne at 10.30, carrying the 4th
wave. Good old Ryanair..... one plane bringing one bit of the family, and taking another bit away. It was just a shame that the cousins couldn't meet to have a chat on the tarmac.
There was a 2 hour gap between one set of occupants
leaving for the airport….and the arrival of wave 4, which consisted of Jodie
and husband Kieron, 2 of their friends and their 2 children.
I think, in future, we need to organise more than a 2 hour gap......it wasn't really long enough to restock the fridge, wash and dry bedding, and generally regroup.
So…. I do hope you are managing to keep up with this…..
for meal times…..breakfast, lunch, dinner, and all snacks between times….there
were by this stage 10 adults and 2 children…as opposed to the 8 adults and 3
children that had been involved in the previous stages.
We managed some expeditions with the 2 cars full to
bursting….a trip to the lake at Carcassonne must have looked as if we were
heading off to the other side of the world for a month, with towels, tents,
blankets, pic-nics, buckets and spades, balls, beach chairs, a table, water
cannisters etc etc.
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| I think I look tired....but incredibly happy in this photo....hugging the gorgeous Izzie. |
I can reflect now, that despite meals out,
several guests taking turns with cooking, and lots of help with setting tables
and washing up…… I am very glad I do not run a gite. I have no idea how people
cope……and I'm too old to learn !
The washing machine has been whirring away for the last 2
days, the mountain of washing is nearly clear. The toys have been picked up,
the last of the lego models will be dismantled tomorrow, and I will slowly get
round to wiping the finger prints from all the windows. I may leave them for a little longer......the last of the evidence that those beautiful children were here.
So…..please don’t get me wrong, we have had a wonderful 3
weeks. It has been lovely to spend time with our adorable grandchildren, it has
been brilliant to spend time with our children and their
husbands/wives/partners/friends.....and I cant wait to do it all again.
Actually…that is not completely true. I need a brief recovery period ! I
want to do it all again, but I need a little bit of a rest first.
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| Clark....doing exactly what I fancy doing.... |
