August

I thought I would write lots about what we did in August, because, unlike in July, we actually did plenty of interesting things. But it's now September, la rentrée has come around and I think I may have to resort to a quick summary of the highlights:

Grandparents Galore
My parents came to visit, then we went out to Brittany to see mamie and papy. SCB loved being pushed on the swings, going paddling, building sandcastles and generally being showered with attention, but unfortunately chose the only week in the year when we had unlimited babysitting on tap to become ridiculously clingy, howling and grabbing our legs whenever UFM or I tried to leave her alone with any of our parents. So there was no "us" time for us, but it was lovely to have everyone together. My mum impressed us all once again with her French conversational skills and papy taught everyone how to play palets, a Breton game where you throw round metal discs on to a board and aim to hit the target.

Beautiful Beaches
As usual, we tested the waters in both the north and the south of Brittany. We went to Carnac, which was beautiful but windy, and Saint Enogat, where, after a picnic and sandcastle-building with granny, SCB suddenly dashed off across the sand to the far-distant sea (the tide was very, very low) and had a wonderful time splashing about in the shallows.

Making a break for the sea

Magnificent Mountains
After Brittany, we spent two weeks in the Alps. Despite only having learned to walk eight weeks before, SCB took to scrambling up mountain paths with gusto. She didn't go very far ( a few hundred metres at a time) but she was happy to be carried by us the rest of the time, so although we were limited a bit by how far we were fit enough to carry her, we managed to do some proper mountain walks for the first time in almost two years.

Mini-Hiker

Our second week in the Alps was spent in Beaufort, the town north east of Albertville famous for one of the most delicious (and expensive!) cheeses in France. The whole area is ridiculously charming. Even the ski industry hasn't spoiled the little villages of delightful wooden chalets, all with flowers in window boxes on the balconies. Even the cows whose milk is used to make Beaufort cheese are more charming than other cows. When Understanding Frenchman told me that the illustrators of Heidi visited the area for inspiration instead of going to Switzerland, I wasn't at all surprised. In practical terms, it was also a good place for us to be, as you can drive fairly high up into the mountains and there are plenty of accessible walks. On the days when we didn't have the energy to hike, we also appreciated the outdoor swimming pool and enjoyed wandering around the village eating artisanal ice cream.

Beaufort

Faithful Friends
After all that fun, we might have been a bit sad to come back to la région parisienne, but luckily two very good friends came to stay for the last couple of days of the holidays.We've always liked having visitors, but since travel has become more complicated for us since the arrival of SCB, we appreciate people coming to see us even more. Having guests was also a good motivation to head into Paris and generally make the most of our last few days of freedom. I was sorry to see them go, but the gourmet delicacies that they brought from their home town of Birmingham (i.e. an enormous bag of Cadbury's chocolate) has been helping to lessen the pain of the rentrée and has been much appreciated!

 

Recently we have mostly been ...

Walking in the park. The weather has been gorgeous and SCB's favourite thing to do at the moment is to toddle along holding our hands. At the moment she seems more interested in speed than balance  literally almost trying to run before she can walk!) though, so we might have to wait a bit longer for her first independent steps.

Walking on the beach. SCB has also been eating sand, getting covered in sand and destroying the sandcastles we lovingly built for her. Our parenting lesson of the month has been learning to always apply suncream before we get to the beach in order to have a slightly less sticky, sandy baby.

Visiting mamie and papy. Heading out to Brittany has been an easy getaway for us to make the most of all the long weekends recently. Highlights from our recent trips have included watching baby swallows learning to fly in the barn , the first barbecue of the year, and plenty of goes on the swing in the garden and even a little pony ride for SCB. Last Saturday we visited the town of Arradon and went to a little hidden beach (sort of - it might just have been empty because it was cold).

Going to a Norman-Breton wedding ( and yes, the jokes about Mont St Michel were flying).  This was actually the first French-French wedding I had ever been to in France and it followed a fairly traditional format. The only unusual thing was that the church service came first. It's illegal in France to have a church wedding before you're officially married at the mairie (religious ceremonies are not recognised by the state), but because this was the groom's second marriage, the church service was a blessing and not a full wedding mass. It went on for about an hour but I couldn't tell you much about what was said because although SCB was extremely well behaved, making sure she wasn't getting up to mischief took up most of our attention.  We were a bit worried about how the evening would go, as French weddings go on for a long time and even the dinner often doesn't finish until after midnight. We had visions of taking shifts to sit hungrily with her in a darkened room at the gîte, but in the end she sat in her buggy throughout most of the meal then calmly fell asleep about 11, only waking when they turned the music up at about 1am, at which point we decided to quit while we were ahead and all went to bed.

Holidays At the End of the Earth

I'm not really allowed to say that Finistère is my favourite part of Brittany - Understanding Frenchman is from the Morbihan, so obviously that's the best bit. But between you, me and the internet, the most westerly département is very beautiful and beautifully under-populated, even at the peak of the high tourist season, and that's exactly what's needed for a summer holiday antidote to Parisian living.

There are reasons for this, of course. Our gîte in the little village of Plournéour-Trez, on the north coast west of Roscoff, was a six hour drive from Paris. A six hour drive from Paris would also get you to the Alps, the Atlantic coast, the Dordogne and many other places which are a whole lot warmer than Finistère. The difference in temperature even with the Morbihan was noticeable; even on sunny days there was a fresh breeze that's had us wrapped up in fleece jumpers as we eat our dinner on the terrace.

But when you can swim in sea which looks like this:

hike along coastal trails with views like this:

lay out your towel on a beach as empty as this:

and appreciate that the rain waters gorgeous flowers like this:

a little shiver every so often doesn't seem to matter too much.