Easter Monday at la mairie

We walked down to a local village hall on Monday to take part in the annual Easter egg hunt.

For a French event, it was surprising organized, children from toddler sized to MK size had the fore-gardens of the mairie in which to hunt for eggs (mk found lots)

Whereas the over 7's had the woods behind to search

I managed to get a shot of Alexis with his best friend Jeremy. Alexis wasn't as lucky as MK when it came to finding eggs, but she shared hers with him and Gaby too.

This is our local town (village) hall, where drinks were offered. Can you believe the weather, once again, hot, and that's at 10am.

Night Night, tomorrow, sword-fencing for Alexis and another shopping expedition with the girls..scary prospect

7 the 22nd Part three

The idea was to have a cheese cake for lunch and a chocolate strawberry cake in the evening, but MK said later in the afternoon she'd rather wait for her papa to come back the following Saturday for the second cake (he will not be back now).

The cheese cake (with philadelphia) was cut just for papa and we shared to rest later that evening.

Now she doesn't need to steal Alexis' bicycle now, present from Alain and I.

7 the 22nd Part two

MK and her favourite doll called Lola..or is it Lilly..

Marie-Kate was allowed to open some presents in the morning, a couple before lunch and the rest just before her papa left for Angola.

She had some books, a game for her dsi (Gaby's old one, that she sold to us, for MK's birthday), some pencils and Hello Kitty stuff, clothes (thanks mum) and some lovely clothes for her doll that she had at Christmas from her Mamie and Papy.

photo taken before she got all dressed up it her new clothes from Grannie

Be back later with the final installment of Miss MK's birthday.

7 the 22nd Part one

I am a little late but with Alain leaving unexpectedly and still away, I've been busy with the family, which has been a good thing really, I'm even enjoying read a J. Wilson book with Gaby (she's got them all), this one's a little sad though, it's called Whale Song (I think).

Anyway, as Alain had to leave just after lunch on MK's birthday and we knew he wouldn't be back for Easter Monday either, the children, big and small, had their first Easter egg hunt here in the garden before he left.

Of course there's always someone who doesn't find many eggs and goes off in a bad mood, and this year it was Gaby. But in the end, they all say down and I shared the smaller eggs out between them to stop world war three starting (especially as I was the one who'd have to deal with it later).

Since living in France, we've never experienced such hot weather over Easter, and before we lived in the sunny south.

Just time to say hi

Guess what, our bedroom is still in progress and will have to go on hold for this long Easter weekend at least, as Alain has had to leave for Angola. He was supposed to go on Monday, but at the last minute, had to leave today. Today is Marie-Kate's 7th birthday and it's quite sad for her (and all of us) because we weren't prepared.

Alain isn't working on Girassol, although he has done in the past, but from the comfort of his office. This time he has to supervise tests on an anchor system and doesn't come back till Saturday 30th if all goes well. Sometimes life sucks!

He'll miss Easter Monday too. I bought some eggs today so the children could have a Easter garden egg hunt while he was still here. Had to do it early though as the chocolate melted fast when you have temperatures in the high 20's (degrees c). It's been warmer here than in the south of France for about a week (photos to come later).

Birthday girl is happy with her new bicycle, books, clothes and dolls clothes (photo's soon, promise)

Day Off

Painting in progress in our bedroom.

95% of wallpaper stripped off entire stairs and landing (yippee)

Many batches of biscuits baked and eaten

Homemade pizzas back on menu

Yummy blanquette de veau à la vanille eaten last night (family favourite)

Board games played and lost, even grumpy teenager Oliver joined in, and played a couple of games of Twister...

After all that, I think it's time for one day off, and where better to go than Paris, to see this

Messerschmidt exposition at the Louvre before it ends.

And before, find somewhere to eat, and afterwards it will be time to shop for pre teenager and grumpy teenager while the two little ones moan and groan.

Glutton for punishment...Bedroom

I felt like being lazy this morning, the younger children are happy, and teenagers are either sleeping at friends or here and I probably won't see either of them till way pass lunch-time.

Alexis asked me half an hour ago, what was I going to do today and before I could answer he said our bedroom was yuck (his words), and I've decided to get started on it. It will probably take all morning to fill in all the holes but at least that's something.

On the walls when we moved in, there was an orangy coloured velvet fabric that covered the entire bedroom which really was awful. Mr H used this room as his office, hence all the holes to be filled, because he had a floor to ceiling shelving system where we have the headboard now.

I'm going to keep the room as empty as possible, just our bed, armoire and bedside tables and a comfy chair under the second window...rocking chair which was there, is now downstairs and the small table too. Nedd to find a place for the chest of drawers that's empty, pictured in our bedroom.

The patches of paint, colour pigeon, was what I really wanted to use here, but I'm worried about the long winters and lack of light, even if this is a big south facing room.

This is one of our two windows. My H had the original ones changed for these modern ones which is a shame. On the other side of our little road you can see our neighbours house. Guess what, after almost six months here, she came and introduced herself on Friday. She's really quite shy (like me) and she has her hands full with her job and children and their house needs lots of work doing too. She told me that she had visited our house, but there was too much work to do and the kitchen just put them completely off.