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Thomas getting all Gallic! Nice shrug son! An aside on the experience of travel on the children…
Thomas has quite taken to French mannerisms – his gallic shrug is a sight to behold and will doubtless get us in to trouble soon – see picture. He has also decided the Oui and Non are his stock answers to all parental requests for help… Miles, of course, retains his aloofness and prefers to keep his counsel on all things foreign…
Both are sleeping well in their bunk beds in “the Major”, loving the swimming pools at every campsite we stay on, learning to play ping pong – watching the locals play Boules (and bawling when they cant play along themselves) and generally wrestling the days through…
Unfortunately the mountainous roads are inducing our travel sickness tendencies, even Mummy is succumbing to it, thanks to Big Pharma for the little pink pills known as “Joy Rides” which keep the puke at bay…
Our campsite near Avignon in the Vaucluse, Le Thor – Isle de la Sorgue. The playground (the new focus of our lives) here surpasses any other we have ever set eyes on in any town in any land – a miniature medieval town complete
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The Jardin De Trains - great fun with vigneron (wine-seller) themed sand pit – can you imagine the authorities allowing a wine themed sandpit in England? And the swimming pool a labyrinth of slides.
This is one reason we are here, the other is the proximity to the Cote du Rhone AC vineyards, fabulous towns and the weather.
Yesterday we took the boys to a local town, Carpentras, to the Jardin Les Trains – a lovely afternoon spent with 25 miniature trains running through a landscaped garden (Tricia we have photos to give to Peter for something for him to aim for!) and a whole load of Brio to play with. All topped off with a stop in the town itself for sweeties on the way home and where every shop looked like the Harrods food hall – how can they be so stylish here?
Today we made it to Chateauneuf du Pape (I remembered it was made from 13 grape varieties – I was listening back in Ealing girls – Julie please forward link to them) for a wine and chocolate extravaganza and a trip to Gigondas before arriving at a play park in Vaison La Romaine for a picnic lunch with the
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The three amigos! local school kids.
Thankfully the tourist petit train around the streets of the medieval city was running and we were whisked up to the highest points around the 11th Century castle where we grazed our knees on the steep incline walking up the narrow cobbled streets to the top and the accompanying panorama of Mt Ventoux – every step the boys took buoyed by the promise of a dairy free ice cream and easy to satisfy as most French glaces seem to be sorbets and therefore dairy free – hurrah!.
A brief aside for avid watchers of My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding…..
On arriving at the near empty campsite I took one look at the only two caravans occupying the tourers pitches. Beautiful, enormous twin-axled Tabbert vans with shiny aluminium go-faster stripes. A brief saunter by detected strains of R&B coming through the window, Errm Simon, I think we have MBFGW going on here…
The caravans were washed inside and out every day, light-weight girls were popped through the roof hatches to wash the roof every afternoon.
A few days in to this routine and Simon started to get twitchy about the mucky state of
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Twinbo gangsters our GRP and nearly joined in (thankfully a downpour saved us from the bother). So glad Nicky C didn’t get that bumper sticker for us!
A big Romany festival (the May 24 pilgrimage) was taking place in the Camargue in a few days time at Saint Maries de la Mer and we decided to go and take a look at the region which first became known to me in at Junior School story time “The Camargue”.
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