As much as I love the warmth of spring and summer, there’s something about the autumn light and the urge to wrap up, nest, and make warm, hearty food that makes me wonder whether I should really choose autumn as my favourite season. The weather cooled all of the sudden just a week or so […]
Continue ReadingAfter a busy return to real life after the holidays (September), we launched ourselves into a new phase in October and it has flown by with not a minute to spare to update the blog. So what have we been doing in all this time? Well… We went to the park. We walked. Some shorter walks […]
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The Plan When a friend suggested joining them for a walk naturally I agreed. We don’t get out on “proper walks” as often as I’d like and making a date with someone else is always good motivation. Said friend suggested tackling the Pic du Bugarach. Okay, I said. I checked the route she was thinking […]
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The two-year anniversary of our arrival in France came earlier this month and passed without the slightest hint of a bang. A day I’d hoped we’d mark with some kind of celebration – or at least acknowledge – became a day of stress with us viewing two more unsuitable pieces of land (north facing, etc., […]
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Camping. We all had a lovely time on our first camping trip so promised the smalls another couple of camping adventures before the end of the summer and rentrée. A friend had spoken highly of Orlu, just south of Ax-les-Thermes, where there’s a beautiful nature reserve. I’d read a blog post of hers describing it […]
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She started pedalling at the beginning of the holidays. I was impressed with how easily she migrated to pedals and attribute that to her riding the same bike without pedals for the prior 9 months. It meant she got her confidence on it, grew into it, and was as confident on the bigger bike as […]
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We left the UK almost two years ago to the day, running from the island I had called home for my entire life. With the cataclysmic din of the Brexit vote still ringing in our ears our departure was not entirely the celebration we had hoped it would be. Instead of starting a new chapter […]
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It’s that time of year for the second time in our lives as parents. Yesterday we watched our DD, now nearly 5, skipping down the road to go off to her school. She loves it there and was so happy to be back. I don’t think we’ve bored her silly over the holiday but at […]
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With the last week of the holidays looming, I really wanted to get out and finish the remaining 20km of Lavelanet-Mirepoix voie vert (greenway). I rode the first “half” (from Lavelanet to Chalabre) with DD and DS a few weeks before and it worked out well. It was much easier than I thought it would […]
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Last year, as I wrote in an earlier post, I really struggled with the long 8-week summer holiday. This year? Well there was the four week buffer at the beginning, with DD at the Centre de Loisirs part time and DS at crèche, meaning just four weeks to fill – and also only four weeks […]
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