Once we’d moved into our new house and Alex, Graham and family had been to stay over Easter, the plan was to have some time off, time to wind down, do a bit of nothing for a while and recharge the batteries. But you know what they say about the best laid plans…….

Nick was in Majorca, cycling, for the first week of the family’s visit; in fact I dropped him off at Toulouse airport just a few hours before I had to pick up Alex and co. We got them all home with Adrian’s help; as there were six of us, we couldn’t all fit into one car. But it was OK, we’d got the Renault at home, which Graham could drive once they’d arrived. Best laid plans?? Two days later, the Renault started to cough and splutter on the way back from a market trip, dying on the way up the hill from Nogaro. Graham’s not much of a mechanic and I’m spoilt when it comes to all things mechanical as Nick does all that; so I phoned Adrian, who diagnosed a problem with the points and suggested looking at a video on you tube and following what they did. Graham and I headed off to Nogaro, armed with a piece of sandpaper, followed the instructions and lo and behold, managed to get home! But only just; this would take a little more expertise than we possessed; it would have to wait for Nick’s return and in the meantime, we couldn’t all go out together. But the weather was superb and we could go out in groups.

I took Alex and the girls to Tracy’s one day; Tracy is a mad Englishwoman who has more animals than the average zoo; the usual cats, dogs, chickens etc, as well as peacocks, goats, pigs, sheep, guinea fowl…….  and of course, our old goose, who has now trained Tracy’s goose to be as aggressive as he is himself! The girls had a fantastic time, playing with and feeding the animals.

Once Nick was home he looked at the Renault, but it wasn’t a quick fix, in fact it’s still not done, so we could still only go out five at a time. We took Izzy and Sophie to the big open air art festival in Salies de Bearn, where they tried their hand at pottery, making baskets filled with chicks.They were fun to pack to take home!

We had an all female trip to the Grottes de Betharram, which was amazing; a huge series of underground caves, full of stalactites and stalacmites. You walk part of the way round, then have a short boat trip and a train ride. Sadly, you can’t use flash, so I couldn’t take photos.

Nick took Alex, Izzy and Sophie to the tree top walk in Aignan and we saw lots of Kieran, Alice and Artie, who, of course, everybody loved.

Once the two weeks were over and they’d gone home, the place seemed very quiet; now we could have some time off. But it just doesn’t work like that; there’s still so much to do on the house and it’s time to plant stuff in the garden, to pull out the waist-high weeds, to mow the grass every few days…….  So we’d have a few days away in the camper; the forecast was good, so we went to Vieux Boucau on the coast. But after one lovely day, when we cycled to Cap Breton for lunch and back along the cycle track, it started to rain; so we came home.

The next trip was tp Jaca in northern Spain; again the forecast was good, but we spent two days trudging round the town in the rain before admitting defeat and coming home, bikes soaked, but not having been off the van. The weather was gorgeous on our return, so back to work in the garden, work on the house, work on the quilt I was making with a friend for a competition, practice for a little gig I’m playing with a few friends soon; no time even to write a blog!

In the meantime, we’re still waiting for this mythical time off to materialise.