It seems forever that Richard and I have been asked by the family to translate and find tables, directions, buy things in stores - all rather exhausting. Going to Spain was going to give an extra challenge where no one knew the language… It was going to be a long day of travelling to get from France to Spain. We started off with the alarm at 6am, of course it was already well light and the roosters had been practising their alarms for some hours previousl...

The day began as any other. We rolled over and fell out of bed around 9:00am. Another 10 hours sleep - we will receive a huge shock back in Sydney. Breakfast of boiled eggs, toasted baguettes and croissant tasted as good as always, this time prepared by the kiddies. We had a pretty slow morning. Around 11am, Miles, Kyra and Rory went to have a look at the market in St Quentin La Poterie, about 15km away. Claire and Richard stayed behind - Richard to catch u...

I was not getting to sleep at night, neither was Richard or Claire because "someone" put the dishwasher on all night so no one could got to sleep (except father who *snored all night long*). Everyone was tired the next morning except Dad. The boys had their usual breakfast before heading off to take the girls off to Nimes to shop. After dropping the girls off in Nimes city centre, the boys had lunch at a very entertaining bar. Dad had his usual carafe of Rose ...

Claire writing: We were rudely woken very early (well, at 7:30am) by the phone alarm. It felt like before dawn, but it really wasn't. We all raced to be first up - well, I lay in bed for another hour and I think everyone else did as well. We had the same breakfast we had enjoyed for the last three days, although this time we had toasted baguettes (too small for the toaster) and chocolate croissant! I think Mere (French for mother) was trying to clear some old...

Now we are getting the swing of this place... at sunrise (probably around 4am), the roosters start crowing, the dogs start barking, the proprieters, Tim and Pippa start doing the morning chores - a little sweeping, taking the pool blanket off, water the garden, feed the fish, etc... The Stantons sleep in until the breakfast supplies - nicely warm baguettes, croissants and eggs are delivered to our door at 8:30am... but today there were no eggs! It seems the...