Towards a holiday history

I started full of good intentions saying I would get the holiday recorded and written about - never did, still have the photos tom pull out too.

I did manage to get this far though.....

We’re all going on a summer….

Another August breaks and again the crew and I pointed our noses at the ferry. Two cars one trailer and a congested motorway. The trip out was seriously uneventful, by our standards anyway.

Management found herself in work mode on the ferry. An adoptive parent, who took on a child then discovered he had long standing severe mental health problems. This completely overwhelmed her family and social services did a passable impression of Pontius Pilate.

Currently the service were telling her that having agreed to adopt him, they would look after him till he is 18 then he would be her problem…

Ahh the delights of work.

I am coming to like the new ferry Armorique, despite this being high summer the ship felt uncluttered and roomy.

Naturally I assumed this was due to the ships size, turns out that this is the year that no one booked to go. Talk in the French press not of the bloody Brits being a pain but of the Brits and their cash staying home..

The place instead filled with people from the med bent on escaping the blast furnace weather, as they say a door closes and another opens.

It has been a piece of typical Brit folly, yes the euro has risen sharply and yes prices have risen too. But the net effect is to make the absurdly cheap just cheap.

Unlike previous years our ferry costs will not be covered by the drop in our cost of living but that is mainly down to us spending 9 days here instead of 30!

Of course it would not be us without a trip to mayhem, and off the ferry we went and took our separate ways. Management headed off and we spent half an hour not finding her.

Down to the house and the modern world intruded, the house had been turned over. Pretty recently by the look of it too.

Proper opportunistic thieves, grabbed some silly random items more annoying than anything else. Bring forward a few plans already in the pipeline; New windows for the upstairs and knock a hole in the wall to make a doorway. A trip up to the pub of course being the tool to get a few recommendations the promise of a devis.

Children have been amused by lovely weather and trips out. A balmy day at le roche du diable.

Naturally everything has not gone like an operation planned with military precision.

Every day bright and early the management and I head off for the intermarche on our own and every day we trawled the special offers to see what’s cheap. Normally of course all went smoothly, not this day. Management managed to walk off with the wrong trolley and started loading someone else’s I was sure this wasn’t our trolley, the wine and cider had mysteriously vanished for one thing. But of course I have learnt to pursue the line diplomatic and let her have her way.

Some few minutes later I became aware of a bit of a commotion an aisle away. I had of course wandered back to get wine and cider…

Meanwhile one of the locals had returned to her trolley and found that some oik had replaced it with another. The principal source of grief being madam realizing that; whilst her original trolley had a euro piece this new one had one of the plastic blanks you can also get from many supermarkets. Someone had made off with her euro and (looking at the armful of wine I was carrying) was planning on squandering it on high living!

Naturally I plunged in at this point to try and defuse matters but of course finding out that I was Anglais, or so she thought, was enough to transform a major crime into a serious international incident. Madam had not forgotten Agincourt and was out for revenge.

Actually of course she wasn’t too far out as it was welsh longbowmen who cut the guts out of the French nobility at that famous English victory.

But anyway, just as things were getting complicated and the arm waving at it’ very worst, round the corner came the management. Calmly, she walked up the aisle past the carnage she had created. and walked on, affecting not to know me at all!

Revenge as they say can be a bit sweet and a bit of time biding delivered unto me my time.

Back to the house and young D who had been quite poorly overnight had fortunately made a complete recovery. This was in no way linked to him being told he could stay home in bed if he was ill of course!

Out we went in our little convoy of cars. D, it turned out had not recovered and, as we were driving through town, on a junction turning left, he announced he was about to be sick.

Thinking how that might smell after few hours in a hot car I told him to get his head out the Window and not a moment too soon. Little D exploded everywhere.

Now, nicking a little old ladies euro in the intermarche is one thing. But a child having a Moby Dick into the very posh Peugeot cabriolet that happened to be passing at the time is in a totally different league of transgression.

Management told me all about it later; the chap had decided to pull over and explain all to her; in some detail too. Me, I had seen that my car was in a dangerous position on a junction and pulled away, effecting not to have noticed events in the back of the car. I did stop but only when it was safe and my, that was a long way up the road…

This turned out to be a grim portent. One by one people started going down with the dread bug. Not before we found had a Barbie in a mates house, the trip back an eventful little chance to cope with management behind the wheel and children frightfully keen to get home and to the toilet.

Of course 9 people and one toilet is not good maths. .

Bethan and Gwion being the worst affected. Gwion effecting a precision long range vomiting style (usually out the back kitchen window) while Bethan adopted more of Blunderbuss scatergun approach.

Congestion and competition caused significant hold ups and near crisis hammering on the bathroom door. This approached a Billy Connolyesque scenario.

Open the door, screamed Bethan

Can’t called Gwion

Going to kick it down she screamed.

A moment of comedy in a sea of errr sick.....

Things though come to an end and about 18 hours later things had calmed.

Time to resume normalish life.

The kids have, over the years develped a deep love for the camp site Ty Nadan, not really that far from the house. It has been the scene of some of their happiest childhood times and a visit for what is probably their last childhood holiday had to be organised. The huge pool complex is a mad attraction, one beloved of them all, the lack of crowds this year made it all the nicer. A chill out time for everyone where adults can relax away from the need to do housework or keep the angels time managed.

Then time seemed to run in on itself and all too soon it was a night in Santec and a ferry home.

Of course it was going to feel short, normally we spend a whole month in France but this year it was just 10 days. Now we are home and as I sit here the "holiday" has virtually slipped by and their childhood with it.

R