Look out, baby about - by Theo

As I had a week off work for Semana Santa, we decided to take the opportunity to head up to France to stay with Cathy and Jean. Rosie was again a superb passenger, not complaining too much and after an early start (7am) on the Sunday we made it to Ste Croix around 6pm with quite a few stops along the way.

Usually I find it very relaxing to be at Cathy and Jean's. It's a pleasure to get out of the city into the beautiful countryside around their old farmhouse and forget about marking or lesson planning for a week. Plus Cathy is an excellent chef and I'm always amazed at how she manages to pull 5 course meals together in a matter of minutes from seemingly nothing. At least one upside of Kate not being pregnant was that she was able to join in with the booze and unpasteurized cheese.
But this trip had a slightly different feel. Jean is sadly not in the best of health and therefore wasn't his usual busy, bustling, ebullient self, which cast a slight pall over the week, although he was still able to guide me (his card partner) to a bulote whitewash over the ladies' team, and join us at a delicious barbecue lunch at Alex and Dawn's, whom we had met the previous summer. However the biggest problem when it came to Kate and I really relaxing and unwinding was our darling daughter; she's just far too mobile nowadays.
When we visited at Christmas Rosie had only just started crawling; it was easy enough to sit with her on a rug while she tentatively moved around. Now, she's on the verge of walking and, with the aid of a helpful hand or her trolley, which we discovered goes off-road, she zooms off everywhere.

Mind you, she still objects to crawling outside (which we're pleased about) so regular shouts or moans from her require Mum or Dad to pick her up and move her to her desired location, indicated by pointing and her ubiquitous new word "dyim" (meaning = there, not there, this, not this, that, not that...).
Indoors she was happy to crawl about, although low steps, uneven surfaces and easily openable cupboards meant Mum and Dad (and Nonna) had to be ever vigilant. Not that we aren't vigilant at home I hasten to add, but this was a whole new level of watchfulness, a Def Con 2 of baby minding, if you will. All this meant that by the end of the day we felt much like our darling daughter - completely exhausted.
Not that she used the holiday to enjoy luxurious lie-ins. Oh no. After lulling us into a false sense of security the first night by sleeping through, Rosie got progressively more wakeful as the week went on, until three in a bed from 4am became the norm.

Still, it was wonderfully refreshing to be out of the city for a few days and spend time with Cathy and Jean - and for Rosie to enjoy some grandparental devotion, which never goes amiss. Now we're all back home enjoying some post-vacation recovery time.

Loafing in the Lot - by Theo

After the wonderful hospitality of different generations of the Kuhfelds in London and Kent we arrived at Dover docks at 7.15am braced for a short crossing and then a mammoth drive. Rosie, who has proved a better flier than her mother and better sailor than her father, is not the world's greatest car passenger so we dreading the long haul from Calais down to Ste Croix in the Lot valley region. However, some judicious timing, several breaks on route and Kate's tireless entertainment efforts kept our PFB generally pretty chilled when she wasn't asleep, so when we finally arrived Chez Cathy & Jean at 10.15pm we were merely frazzled and not on the edge of mental breakdown as we'd anticipated. The warm welcome and soup we were met with at our home from home went a long way to restoring us.As we were not the only visitors at Labouysse, Cathy & Jean's converted former tobacco drying house was at capacity. They had very kindly given us their double room, allowing us to be able to actually move around without tripping over various baby paraphernalia, while Kate's Aunt Frances was in the spare room we usually occupy, her cousin Erica was in the caravan that usually serves as Cathy's painting studio while our hosts themselves had set up a bed in the old oven room in one of the other buildings. Amazingly bathroom queues were at a minimum all week!I only met Frances briefly at our wedding and had never previously met Erica (who Kate last saw over 10 years ago), but they were excellent company, taking to Rosie immediately (and vice versa), politely allowing me to win at backgammon and keeping the franglish flowing over the lunchtime banquets Cathy provided. Trips to the local swimming lake as well as various friends of Cathy's with swimming pools were very much on the menu. Rosie was rather lukewarm about swimming, unlike the pools which were generally a bit cooler, though with much patience she was generally enticed in.Kate's sisters Anne-Marie and Claire were also in the area, staying with Kate's former step-dad Tim round the corner at Lebreil, so a trip round there for lunch was very much in order as was a delicious lunch (again) at fellow expats Mike and Brenda. On a slightly cooler day yesterday Claire and Mia walked round to spend the day chez Cathy and join us loafing around in Cathy's garden, eating her food and playing games. Frances and Erica have departed today, heading on to visit friends in Germany, and we are leaving tomorrow ourselves, thoroughly relaxed and fed-up (in a good way!), heading home to Madrid via San Sebastian.

of sewing and planting...

Before I start this post proper I just want to say something about sewing. Sewing by hand is not something I do for pleasure, but if the necessity arises for tears in clothes to be repaired or buttons replaced, I don't object to sitting down with needle and thread. And as an act of love (which probably won't be repeated all that often) I don't mind spending a few hours, preferably with a gin and tonic or glass of cider nearby, sewing patches in my husband's jeans. Plus, it's worth it to be spared the sight of him marching down the street with the innards of his pockets hanging out the sides of his strides in what I can only describe as a testicular fashion.

But once sewing becomes mechanised the potential for complication and frustration is greatly magnified and frankly, I can't be doing with it. I once spent an entire week - a week of leave from work - making two pairs of curtains. It's a week of my life I will never get back and I have vowed not to throw away so much precious time in that way again. After his own experience at the sewing machine, Theo has gained some insight into my attitude towards that particular domestic activity. But his mosquito net-curtain for Sheena will, I'm sure, prove to be a very useful addition to her facilities come the hotter weather.

Speaking of weather, it's been disappointingly British in Quercy over the last week - unsettled and it has to be said, rather chilly. But we're still enjoying our absorption into Mum and Jean's vacances routine of multi-course meals (admittedly, that doesn't only happen during the holidays), generous aperitifs and a lot of card games.

We also had the honour of being included in the Ste. Croix spring lunch, to which the entire village came and only VIP outsiders - which sort of included us - were invited. On this occasion it was also "the planting of the Mai", a ceremony used partly to signify the induction of the new village council, whose elected officials now include both Mum and Jean.

In true French style (of which I highly approve) the fete started with aperos and nibbles all round before the Mai - a very tall piece of sprouting bamboo - was duly planted, mainly by Councillor Jean, who got his best trousers covered in mud and quick-drying cement in the process. A short speech was made by the lady mayor of Ste, Croix, who said she and her fellow councillors would work for the pleasure of the local people. A sentiment applauded with no small amount of lechery by the mayor of neighbouring Montcuq, who'd come to add his official presence to the gravity of the occasion. Jean, no respecter of authority, made sure M. Montcuq got some well-deserved heckling, much to the approval of most of the onlookers.
Then it was time for the lunch, a proper, sit-down affair, which Theo and I were able to share by leaving aside the smoked salmon of the salad starter and the poultry and sausage of the delicious cous cous main course. Portions were generous and after the ice-cream and coffee that followed we all felt absolutely stuffed. Ste. Croix being more of a hamlet in size than a village, there were about forty people there and Theo was absolutely right when he observed that it looked like a scene from something like the Midsomer Murders, not so much because of the type of activity underway, but because of the cast of characters. The glamorous lady mayor, the local busybody, the disapproving middle-aged woman, the black guy, the woman in the wheelchair... Unlike The Midsomer Murders there was no trail of bloody bodies, but judging from some of the stories told to us by my elected councillor mum, the place is a hot bed of affaires, break-ups and personal dramas aplenty. One final observation - unlike the mayors in England, who generally hang about wearing ridiculous capes and outrageous amounts of bling, the lady mayor of Ste. Croix organised the meal, made the aperos and served out the food. And all she got to denote her status was a modest, tricolore sash.