A few days before Alex, Immy, Katie (Alex’s friend) and Sienna (Katie’s daughter) arrived for a fortnight’s holiday, I received an email from my Australian nephew, whom I’ve only met once, when he was 13. He was on holiday in London and could he come over for a couple of days? Fortunately Alex and co had decided to stay in an apartment in Dax, as my place isn’t huge, so I was able to welcome Chris.
I went to pick him up from Biarritz airport the day before Alex’s arrival, armed with his name on a sheet of card; I needn’t have worried about recognising him, an obvious blend of both his parents. Nor need I have worried about how I’d get on with a 26 year old aspiring actor who’s just finished drama school; he was such good company and a very easy guest; just as well as two days had morphed into five.
He was a huge hit with Arthur and Emily, when we looked after them the next day, so Kieran could pick up Alex and the others from Bordeaux; they soon cottoned on that he could lift them up onto the zip wire at the park, or give Emily a piggy back when her legs were tired, unlike their aged grannie!
Thursday was the start of the Dax fete; a huge event attracting over 100,000 people to the town. I explained to Chris that everyone wears red and white; so we headed to the supermarket to buy him appropriate clothing, before going to Kieran’s for a barbecue lunch. After lunch we all went into Dax; one item on our timetable was to listen to Kieran’s neighbour’s choir competing against two other male voice choirs. The contest was held in a big marquee; most of the people there were either drunk or heading that way, we were squeezed in like sardines and the noise levels were high before the choirs started singing! The winner would be decided on the level of applause, so we stayed quiet for the first two and cheered wildly for Didier’s choir. They won and we wandered off to look around the rest of the fete.
The following day was “children’s day” at the fête. I suggested to Chris that he might like a trip to the Pyrenees; it struck me how far we are from Oz, when he’d never heard of them! We spent a few hours in St Jean Pied de Port, in the Basque Pyrenees, near the coast, a beautiful old fortified town, but when I joked that we could go to Spain, Chris couldn’t believe his luck! This was his first trip to mainland Europe; if he could tick off Spain as well as France that would be fantastic! So we drove just over the border and went for a short walk; we could tell we were in Spain by the “policia nacional” building in the village.
After a day at the beach with Alex, Kieran and the rest of the gang, it was soon time to take Chris back to Biarritz; I think he enjoyed his stay – we certainly enjoyed meeting him.
Katie’s partner was coming to join them, so Alex and Immy moved in with me for the last part of their holiday. We spent a great day at a big water park on the coast and no, I didn’t do any of the many slides – I’m really not that brave, but offered to look after all our belongings – more my style.
We had meals out and at mine, spent an afternoon painting and Immy loved the accrobranch (treetop obstacle course). All too soon it was time to take them back to the airport, a trip Kieran nobly volunteered for. The apartment felt very empty for a while, but it’s not that long till Christmas.