Driving Home

Rainbow
Originally uploaded by oiseau.

You really know it's the end of the holidays when this is the sight that greets you as you approach home!

So a Top Ten (in no particular order) from nearly three weeks holiday:

- Having the family summer house and pool to ourselves in 30° heat
- Not getting up before 10:30am
- Nigel's Baked aubergine with pine nuts, feta cheese and mint
- Reading through 10 books provided courtesy of Reims public library's foreign literature shelves
- Catching up on the celebrity gossip courtesy of Voici and Public
- Ice creams at La Rhumerie on the port of Cavalaire
- Reading my first French book from beginning to end
- Jumping from the car on the motorway, near Lyon, before it burst into flames, conveniently close to Frog's best man's home
- Staying with friends for a weekend in Amsterdam on Prinsengracht
- Cycling along the canals of Amsterdam in the last cooler rays of the summer sun

Packing

Sundial Var
Originally uploaded by oiseau.

After a lazy couple of weeks in the heat, a cooler breeze has arrived just in time to send us off on holiday. We'll be leaving tonight for two weeks in the Var. It's a long drive through the night to reach the south-east corner of France and Frog is currently napping in preparation. I am meanwhile avoiding the last of the ironing and wondering if the ten books I took out of the library will be enough to keep me going, when farniente is the only plan we have for these vacances.

I also have Kristin Espinasse's Words in a French Life included in the tower of books. I'm a fan of her website, A French Word A Day, even though I do sometimes wonder if we are living in the same country, given that the differences between our regions are often larger than the similarities. I like her style of writing and the fact she doesn't rely on oft-used cliches to conjour up Provence. I also have a little feeling of smugness when I realise I know most of the words now, which I didn't a couple of years ago.

I'll just remind myself that the last report on the family house pool was a temperature of 31°. That will be my motivation for the last of the T-shirts awaiting the iron.

Bonnes vacances à tous!