Hibernation

St Sévrin
Yesterday's weather: Sunny, cool.

I had been asked to pop to the wooden toy shop to collect a replacement toy car for little grandson #2 (the dog ate the original) and, never one to leave things to the last minute, decided to go today, the day before we head to the frozen north for a few days.

Unfortunately I didn't realise that France is now closed for the winter - well, all the touristy shops in the touristy villages must be closed. The particular village I needed to go to seems to be completely closed. Such a shame that the little lad will have to wait until next spring for his car by which time, of course, he will have grown out of cars and will want some sort of robotic noisy alien type thing.

It seems very strange to be gathering bottles of wine, local delicacies and children's favourites and to be packing up for a trip to the UK. I still trip over the words describing where we are going as it seems so natural to say we are going 'home' for a few days.

We don't have a home in the UK, even though we are still British citizens. I'm trying to find a substitute phrase - 'visiting the kids in England' is too long but that is what we are doing. A six-day whirlwind visit spending most of the time in the car travelling from one place to the next. It will be lovely to see everyone again but I'm sure it will all go in a mist of 'hellos' and 'goodbyes'.

So much nicer to have people to us, in couples or families where we can spend some quality time (don't you hate that phrase) with them.

Bookings being taken for next summer, kids!