Our grandparents, Nanny Trish and Grandad Mal, moved to South France about five or six years ago and have got a huge house. And guess what? We’ve come to stay with them!!
Thursday
On Thursday, we got the plane to Bergerac Airport in France! We had to leave at half eight in the morning, even though the plane actually left at around lunch-time (I can’t remember the exact time). It took an hour to get to the airport, and half way through the drive we stopped outside William’s mum’s house to pick him up.
When we got to the airport in Stansted, we were all very exhausted from the drive but also very excited! We got our luggage off and had to go through the security thing for about two hours! When we finally got onto the plane, William sat by the window with Andy next to him behind us, and we sat with me by the window, then Mummy, then Tilly, and on the way back, it will be Mummy and Andy behind, Tilly at the window, me in the middle, and William at the end by the aisle. It was soo much fun, we could see the border of the UK, the clouds, then the sea, then more clouds, and then, finally, the border of France!
When we got off the plane, Nanny Trish and Grandad Mal picked us up in a massive seven-seater car they’ve borrowed for a week! It was sooooo exciting, because we haven’t seen them for ages! They drove us to their house about half an hour away from the airport. It is huuuuuuuuge! They’ve got a massive porch, then a massive hall, a huge kitchen with an island, and a massive lounge; oh, and in this house, there’s no bedrooms upstairs, and lounge downstairs; the lounge and things are on the top floor when you come in, and you go downstairs to most of the bedrooms! So when you look out of their windows you can see the ground half-way up!! Tilly and I have a massive bedroom with a double bed and a black, rusty key for the door (but we’re not allowed to lock it) and it’s sooo cool!
We then had a huge steak and onion pie for dinner followed by icecream with fruit in a chocolate wafer shell! It was delicious!
Friday
When we woke up in the morning, Mummy hadn’t slept at all (not joking!) the night before and her eyes were very sore, but she still managed to go out with us to the village in Monflanquin! Most of the buildings date back to the 1200s so it’s really old and posh and lovely! The Black Prince actually stayed there during the Hundred Years War!
Their house is at the bottom of the hill and the village is built on top of the hill. It’s really amazingly pretty, although because it is October a lot of things have calmed down now there aren’t any tourists – except us! We went to the supermarket and also to the tourist office, where we asked ‘What are the activities for young people today?’ in French!
Saturday
On Saturday, Mummy did get some sleep but her eye was much worse and she had to go to the doctor 🙁 Luckily she’s only got an infection and if she takes pills and washes her eyes out with special stuff six times a day she’ll be okay! We played games mostly because it was really rainy. We had hammy salad for lunch and chicken curry followed by banana cake and banana custard!
Sunday
Today, Sunday, we woke up and had chocolate-y cereal for breakfast with orange juice, and then played chess and wrote stories until we went for a walk. Nanny Trish and Grandad Mal couldn’t come because Nanny was making roast dinner and Grandad was helping. We walked up the hill to the village, where we saw the little dog from the bar running round where he wished! I wanted to call him Barrie because of ‘bar’, and then Andy said it needed to be French, so Tilly and I wanted to call him Pierre, but William, despite the fact the name had to be French, said why not Bardo, again derived from ‘bar’. So we called him Pierre Bardo, and when he ran by, Tilly and I, who still didn’t agree with Bardo, would say, ‘Here, here, Pierre! Come on! Good boy!’ but William, who didn’t agree with Pierre, would say, ‘Oi, Bardo! Come on, Bardo! Oi you, come here! Come on!’ (As you could imagine, it came to me and Tilly.)
For lunch we had a Sunday roast dinner! We had roast pork, roast potatoes, boiled potatoes, broccoli, carrots, and much more – but most of all, the APPLE SAUCE!!! I loved it! It was just apples from the orchard in the garden, and water too, but not so much it was watery, just enough it was sauce. It was delicious!! Nanny didn’t need it so I finished it off with a spoon! We had a scrummy fruit salad with whipped cream for pudding, too!
Monday
Today we woke up quite late in the morning after a long lie-in, so by the time Tilly and I were up, undressed, in the shower, hair washed, hair brushed, dressed, teeth brushed and all that sorted, William had gone fishing with our other great-uncle, Grandad Mal’s brother, Mel! Tilly and Mummy played chess and I had a French lesson with Grandad. Can you translate these sentences? I might have spelt them wrong though!
- Ou voulez-vous manger ce soir?
- Je regrette, ce n’est pas comfortable pour moi comma ca.
- Merci, c’est comfortable pour moi comma ca.
So yes, I had a French lesson, and then Nanny Trish made us delicious salmon with all kinds of salad stuff in it! It was absolutely scrumptious, and was followed by French yoghurt (yaourt in French), vanilla flavoured and prepared gourmet-style!
William came back at about half past twelve, having caught no fish, and said it was a three out of ten and said it was his first and last time at fishing. However, I think we were all cheered up when we went to Chateau de Biron, which was really fun! It’s like a massive great big castle, with audio guides and things! Nanny Trish couldn’t go up and down the steps though, so she sat at the bottom for some of the sight-seeing. We saw loads and loads of chambers, chapels, courtyards, and chambers – all huge! Now we’re having a barbeque!!
Tuesday
When we woke up Tuesday morning, we went to the local shops and the hairdresser and the pharmacy and the rubbish-dump with Grandad Mal, and then had a delicious lunch of soup. We then went to a little town called Pujols, where we went round the streets and also visited a lovely little toy shop! The man had set up a wooden table in the middle of the room crowded with wooden toys, all really cool to play with! He also had a bottle filled with water with a slip of straw in it which he had painted a smiley face on and made look like a stick of cabbage, and when you squeezed the bottle the straw went to the bottom of the bottle, and release, it goes back up! The law of it was made by Descartes, who, as Tilly and I know from our Latin, famously said, ‘Cogito ergo sum,’ when he was wondering whether or not life was a dream or real. The Latin ‘Cogito ergo sum’ means ‘I think, therefore I am,’ in English.
We then went to a town called Vilnerve, where we went to the shops and saw a really old bridge. We also went to LIDL to get some ‘Crusti Crocs’ a brand of crisps a bit like Pringles, but MUCH BETTER!! We got the ‘hot and spicy’ flavour which was absolutely, outstandingly boiling! They were really tasty though! We then went to Great-Uncle Mel’s, where Great-Uncle David came round, and we had an ‘aperitif’. An aperitif is like a little thing to wet your appetite just before dinner, and you do it by having a nice drink and maybe some nibbles. We, of course, brought out Crusti Crocs! We finished off the whole packet between the three of us (though before it had been seven of us eating half) and had some water. At the end we saw the bats flying past on the porch! When we got home it was already nearly nine o’clock, and we had some braised streak stew with mash and beans. By the time we got into bed it was nearly ten o’clock!
Wednesday
This morning, Wednesday morning, we got up and Tilly and I had a shower. When we got upstairs, chocolate cereal was on the table! After having some, Grandad gave us three a French lesson! It was really fun. Now I can say extra stuff like ‘I make my bed’ (‘Je fais mon lit’). Now we’re about to have a brunch!
For our brunch, we had French sausages, salad, tomatoes, bacon, baked beans, and much more! After it, Nanny and I started making a dreamcatcher. It’s going to take a very long while and Nanny Trish is going to have to work on it when we’re back in the UK and then send it with our Christmas packages. It’s consisted of a golden dreamcatcher hoop, and then there’s some white net with multi-colour-catch-the-light sequins on it Nanny is going to drape over the back of the hoop and sew on with blanket stitch, and then there’s going to be a big cream bow. I’ve also made some little strings with beads dangling off them that we’re going to hang onto the net in the middle. *Smiley face*!
I also helped Trish with making dinner – delicious breaded chicken and salad! And Matilda spent a long time practising on the sewing machine and William did some origami.
Thursday
We’ve just got up and we have to go home 🙁 I don’t think I’ve ever been so sad in my life. But anyway, we’re going to catch the plane, and we bought a massive bag of French sweet assortments with Grandad to suck on when the plane takes off and arrives. Last time mine and Tilly’s ears hurt so much they were still ringing when we got off the plane! But that was because we hadn’t swallowed enough to even out the pressure in our ears, because we’d only brought Twix bars and not actual things we can suck on. Better luck this time!
Before we caught the plane, we had a few hours to spend in Bergerac. Bergerac is a really pretty, old city, and we had a walk round the shop and saw a statue of St. Someone d’Bergerac, who actually has nothing to do with Bergerac at all. It was really pretty, and there were loads of old house dating back quite far away. We also went up to the river, where we saw some people fishing.
For lunch, we went to a posh French restaurant, where we had an amazing ‘croc’, or main, of a yummy but with-strange-ingredients-and-combinations chicken, cheese, and roasted vegetable sandwich with tapenade! It was really delicious. Then, for pudding, Andy had a chocolate and orange mousse, Grandad Mal and I had a panna cotta with forest-fruit coulis, and Nanny Trish, William, and Tilly had a coffee and banana tiramissu. It was all really tasty!
The we had a walk along the river Dordogne after which, unfortunately, we had to go to the airport to say bye-bye :'(
It was, of course, raining in Cambridge when we got off the plane, alnd also our car had a flat tyre! But it was worth it for such an amazing holiday! I hope we can go again very soon!