Bricolage

Yep we swapped diy English style for bricolage. Same thing really but with it being sunny, the risk of mosquito bites and not having the tools that you really need to do the job! Things that had broken (aka a lot off investing in the French economy): kitchen tap, dustbin, dishwasher, hoover, toaster and cafetiere!

This picture is showing a few things: the neat grass (hand cut as we don't have a lawn mower) and the new flower borders (put there to try and make some kind of demarcation between where the weedy sandy area stops and the soily planty area starts.

This is a similar view but with a fairly neat looking tree. Not easy to achieve with a secateurs and a saw (bought for the occasion) - many blisters were created for this.

I also painted the ceiling - this was horrible as it required 3 coats and as it has that cladding the painting had to be done in 3D - not easy when you are trying not to paint any of the beams.

We tried to get some feedback from Tristan but he wasn't keen on the holiday house at all and just requested to go home as it was "always dirty and messy"! When pushed he grudgingly admitted that he liked the shower (that was the only positive thing he could say about the whole 2 weeks!

Transport

(Well it's a tenuous title where I can dump the remaining holiday pics!)

Tristan captaining an electric boat
... and in the little train (yes this is an update of last year's snaps!)

Tristan went on 2 pony rides, both times on Pauley, a little black pony whose mission in life was to consume any bit of grass he could see and avoid exercise. Tristan brushed him first

and then the walk (or drag away from food) started.

Manu was inspired and then (how is this for an economy drive!) volunteered to play the part of Pauley without even the grass as a motivator!Tristan really discovered French but wasn't too impressed by it. He understood that words aren't absolute and so decided if we could make-up our own languages, so could he; I said "mummy says church and papa says eglise", Tristan replied "...and Tristan says dong"!

Plage

We went to the beach pretty much every day. This is him taking his need to wear hats very seriously (although we normally used sandcream rather than chocolate!)

Tristan was a bit scared by the waves and kept insisting that we should "go back up the beach" and running in and dragging us out if we had out feet in the water.

We did manage to trick him into the water by building a big sandcastle - but note the disapproving looks he is giving the sea as he realises his fortification isn't going to work!

The one day of bad weather was when Gaelle and Lionel (plus kids) jpoined us. Not only did we have bad weather but they had both had stomach upsets - so were delighted to see that we had a great big plate of raw sea food waiting for them!

'Pacques'

Yes we spent Easter in France (and the next two weeks including the wedding)! We went overnight by ferry from Southampton. Tristan was very excited but slept fairly well in the cabin 'crash and burn' style after running over the boat. We went to Aiguollon - papi and mami's house has been redone following the floods last year. We had to go to the doctor as Tristan had an infected zizi! He wasn't embarrassed at all but was rather keen to display it whenever asked (no photos!)!

This is him hunting for Easter eggs in the garden.

It was really hot so we had to rush him round the garden and even so some of the eggs were rather soft (we had to help him eat them - no-one had got us any in our own right).

...and here he is hunting for crabs in the mud.

Current status of the garden

Well 'dizzy' (and us) have been working, 2 of the three raised beds are built and one of them planted. I'd bulk ordered 72 plants from a catalogue but when they came couldn't work out which were which so I have a feeling that there will be a lot of tall plants at the front and short plants at the back - it may not quite look like the picture in the catalogue!

What's been a bit depressing is that we'd planted a privet hedge about 3 months ago and it was really starting to grow now, and over the last 3 nights it's been all but stolen! We have done lots of things to try and deter the thieves, tying the plants together, adding rattling objects putting up a camera (initially not filming, but we are now considering making it live as it is day 3) but to no avail :-(

playhouse

Grandpa came down and built Tristan a playhouse... we had billed it as an indoor tree-house but it seems to be erring on the beach-hut side! This is the early stages...

The curtains at the bottom are a way to camouflage all his plastic bleeping toys - although already they are spilling out the edge. And here is the finished article - now we just need to find appropriately proportioned toys to go in it!