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!

 

Sologne and Thanks for all the Fish*

*Actually, there are no fish in this blog post. Nor will you find the meaning of life, the universe and everything. But my friend made the joke and I thought it was funny.

La Sologne is the area of France south of Orléans where we went with some friends for our first ever weekend away with baby. It's covered with forest and lakes, which meant that it was beautiful in the autumn with the leaves just starting to change colour. It's almost completely flat, which made it an easy place to go for walks even with an increasingly heavy baby. It's filled with deer, wild boar, and the people who hunt them, which made for an exciting half hour or so when we took the wrong path in the forest and found ourselves in an area where people had clearly been shooting extremely recently!

The reason that the Sologne is so wild is that the ground is very wet and therefore presumably difficult to cultivate, so there isn't much agriculture. Lots of people had lovely big vegetable gardens and orchards though, so growing things on a small scale seemed to be easier. The villages were very pretty, with mainly timber and brick houses, while every so often in the forest we would pass an enormous château, usually with its own lake. (Passing the estate agent's window, we were tempted by a more reasonable few hectares of land complete with not one, but two lakes and a wooden cabin.) Sadly, although there were plenty of hiking trails, most of the lakes were fenced off in people's private property, but we were able to admire a few nonetheless.

Supercool Baby enjoyed her first hiking trip, doing lots of sleeping in the sling then waking up to admire the light dancing between the leaves when we stopped for lunch and laid her down in the grass. I think it did both me and Understanding Frenchman good too, to get away and do something we've always enjoyed, surrounded by good company, and just be able to bring the baby along. And after all the fresh air, she settled down quickly to sleep in the evenings and we could have fun cooking up a big meal and eating with our friends. Hopefully it's an experience we'll be able to repeat a few times before she gets too heavy to carry at all!

Cassis, Calanques and Cap Canaille

I'm taking a break from my series on Brexit here to talk about something a bit more cheerful. (The next Brexit post, on immigration, is actually sitting in my drafts folder, but it's such a complex and emotive subject that I'm a bit nervous about publishing it, hence the lack of updates over the past couple of weeks.) Understanding Frenchman and I spent Easter weekend in Cassis on what was probably our last trip with our hiking friends before the baby comes along, and it was awesome. My fitness took a nosedive after about 2 months of being pregnant, when I started to get breathless running for buses, but in the end, I think this may have ironically forced me to keep more active, because I keep missing the bus to work and having to walk instead. I'm not as fast as I used to be, and I can't keep up a conversation while walking uphill, but we still managed to clock up quite a few kilometres over the weekend.

On the first afternoon, we followed the trail out west, to the area between Cassis and Marseille known as Les Calanques. The Calanques are narrow inlets of water where a river has dug out its route to the sea between the steep limestone cliffs, and even although it wasn't very sunny, the water was still a gorgeous deep turquoise colour.

 On the second day, we went to Cap Canaille, the highest sea cliffs in mainland Europe at 363 vertical metres.This was a very direct climb up from the town, as there is a road and car park at the top, but no public transport, and definitely tested my remaining lung capacity, but the view from the top, with the dramatic cliff faces and rock formations, looking out over the Calanques, was worth every deeply-drawn breath.

 We had dinner that night at Le Patio, a traditional Provençal restaurant where I learned that the principal difference between soupe de poissons and bouillabaisse is that bouillabaisse is made with actual pieces of fish, while soupe de poissons is made with fish stock and served with garlic mayonnaise.

Our last full day was a bit damp and grey, so after the glorious sunshine at Cap Canaille, we were a bit less motivated to go out, but we managed a short walk on the dry, scrubby hinterland behind the Calanques where the air was full of the scent of rosemary bushes. As it was Easter, we played a traditional German game with boiled eggs, similar to a conker fight, where you have to bash the end of your egg against your opponent's to see which one breaks first. (We had decided against Easter Russian roulette, where you bash eggs against your forehead to find out which of the box has not been boiled beforehand ...)

On our final morning, we woke once more to beautiful weather and had breakfast on the terrace of our gîte, looking out to Cap Canaille. Then it was time to catch the train back to Paris, hoping that the sunshine would catch up with us eventually. (We're still waiting ...)