Summer Holiday - Carnac

We headed north to Carnac, Camping Le Moustoir. The weather was red hot and for the first time we ran into some heavy traffic. the delay wasn't too bad and we reached the site by mid afternoon. The kids were excited by the slides is the swimming pool, so they got there trunks on and headed over to the pool.

When the kids came back we rode the bikes into Carnac, lucky for us there was a craft market in full swing, this kept everyone entertained, there was some unusual bits and pieces. We headed to a local pizza restaurant, sat outside and enjoyed the atmosphere. The food was nice and we relaxed with a few beers! By the time we headed back to the site it was pitch black, no lights 0n our bikes so we had to be careful.

Next day we headed dun to the beach, Finlay again spent time is the rock pools, I collected shells. We had ice cream and a few drinks at a local bar before heading back to the swimming pool. I joined the kids on the slides is in the jalousie Both Jack and Finlay thought it was good fun to do daft tricks on the slides when the life guards wern't watching.

All too soon it was time to move on, we were heading to our last night near Caen. Again the roads were very busy, but we pulled in at Domaine de la Baie des Veys mid afternoon. I thought this site was quite near to Caen, but it was over 60 miles away!

The site was next to the sea on Utah beach, however we were next to extensive mud flats. The kids went for  a bike ride and came back well mucked up. After tea l went for a drink at the onsite bar. I tried one of each of the lagers that the bar had and got pretty drunk!

We had to leave the site very early to get to Caen for the ferry, typically l got flashed by a speed camera!

We made the ferry on time, typical crossing, it look ages. Once we arrived in Portsmouth it was an uneventful journey home.

We'd had a great holiday, good weather and lots of variety. Thankfully the puncture and lack of a spare didn't come back to haunt us. Just hope I don't get a speeding ticket!

Summer Holiday - La Rochelle

We headed south to L'Houmeau near La Rochelle. The Au Petit Port de L'Houmeau camp site was a 2 minute cycle ride from the beach, however there wasn't much sand just thousands of barnacles and oyster shells on rocks. This made for great rock pooling but no good for sun bathing. Finlay was in his element and we spent a couple of evenings looking for crabs Finlay, is quite happy to grab anything he can get hold of, some of the crabs he was going after were bigger than I would have liked to pick up!

We rode into La Rochelle on the bikes, it was about 4 miles, some of the route was on protected cycle routes and other parts were on cycle lanes on the roads. Both kids are pretty safe now, even on the right hand side of the road. We headed through the Parc Charruyer and left our bikes next to the beach.

Heading into the old town we got some food and enjoyed the atmosphere. Andrea and me visited La Rochelle before we had kids, on one of our motorbike touring holidays. So It was interesting to go back with the kids. we took lots of photos, walked around the shops and walked around looking at the boats and ancient buildings. When we arrived it war sunny and hot, but as the day went on it clouded over.

The kids were getting board so we got back on our bikes. In the park the kids found a small off road mountains bike track, this kept them occupied for a while. We then headed back to the camp site.

We ate out at a sea food restaurant on the sea front at Le Plomb, we were made welcome by the owners, even I enjoyed the food. Normally I struggle with "fishy feasts". Finlay and Jack both had muscles and Andrea had some weird fish which she enjoyed.

On our final day on the camp site we had our first Lazy day, the kids played on the camp site and both Andrea and me read our books all day, pretty unusual.

Summer Holiday - La Barre De Monts

We'd had a long drive out to the west coast but soon found or camp-site Le Grand Corseau. After some confusion about deposits we got set-up.  I was happy to sit down and grab a beer.To my amazement a family of red squirrels appeared is the trees in front of the van. I got my camera and spent 30 minutes photographing and watching them run around, feeding, playing and fighting in the trees, really cool!

The site is well placed for the beach and a 5 minute cycle ride from Fromentine. We had a lazy few days using the beach and site swimming pool. In the evenings we rode our bikes into town and had ice creams watching the sunset and generally relaxing. The weather was red hot, happy days.

There was a small pond in the trees near the beach Finlay enjoyed taking his net trying to catch frogs but everything in the pond was well used to little boys and Finlay struggled to catch anything other than tadpoles.

One night we cycled onto the bridge that joins the main land to Noirmoutier we had fun on the beaches collecting shells and building sand castles.

Summer Holiday - Paris

Whenever you mention driving into Paris the first thing people say is "your not insured when driving around the Arc De Triomphe . So heading into town I was a little nervous. Thankfully the route was pretty straight forward and I didn't have to deal with 8 lanes of Crazy French drivers.

Once we got settle I took the bikes off the rack and we went for a ride in the Bois De Boulogne park next to the camp-site  My idea was to do a reckie mission onto the other side of the park near the centre of Paris. We headed off in a random direction, being under the trees meant that we couldn't see the city, by luck rather than management we found or way across the park, crossing several busy roads on our adventure, also skirting around the lac Inférieur.  We stopped at an artificial waterfall for a break, had a coffee and then to my amusement rode past a photographer in the middle of a pornography shoot!! we zoomed past on our bikes and the kids didn't notice the young girl spread eagled on a tree stump!

Back at the camp-site we had takeaway pizza before heading for bed. Early up and into Paris using the bus from the camp-site  it dropped us off at Porte Maillot, from here we headed to the Arc De Triomphe  We used the underpass to get into the middle it would be impossible to walk across the road! The queue for ticket was pretty short so we soon were heading up the spiral staircase, through the innards of the monument and out onto the top. The views were pretty impressive and we spent quite a long time walking around looking at the famous monuments that are known the world over.

We headed back down and walked along the Champs Elysees the kids looked for all the posh car showrooms that were everywhere, Andrea spent time looking in the perfume shops. I was happy to admire the views. After lunch at McDonalds we continued onto the Louvre, it was pretty hot, the kids got ice cream and we headed for the shade.

From here we headed down onto the Seine crossing on the Pont des Arts bridge, covered in padlocks, Andrea and the kids got scammed by a bloke making friendship bands, they were very expensive!

Next we headed to Notre Dame, to be honest the cathedral at Amiens was more impressive. The kids were sick of walking so we got me Metro back to Porte Maillot. This was the highlight of the day for Jack and Finlay, typical kids. We soon found the bus stop and headed back to the camp-site.

After tea me and Finlay went for a bike ride and found a cool waterfall opposite the Longchamp racecourse in the park. This was Finlay favourite place is Paris.He loved running around, under, behind and over the waterfall. For something so simple it kept Finlay entertained for ages.

Our second day in Paris started by our pre booked visit to the Eiffel Tower both kids were Unsure about how high it was, they thought it was unsafe! The pre booked tickets worked well and queuing for the first lift took only a few minutes. When we got out of the lift on the second floor it was petty busy.We took some photos and admired the . already impressive view, it was a really nice day, perfect for taking photos.

Queuing for the lift to the top was a bit of a bun fight, it was very busy. The ride to the top was pretty amazing and you really got the feeling of how high the tower is. The lift stops on an interior room, steps then take you to the outside observation walkways. It was well worth the effort, even the kids got into everything and their initial fear disappeared  On the way down we used the steps between the 2nd and - 1st floors, Jack really didn't like this, he felt very unsafe.

Back at ground level we had some lunch at a nearby cafe then headed to the Seine for a river trip on one of the many tourist boat trips. We sat back and enjoyed listening to the on board commentary. The bot went a all the way to Notre Dame and bouts again, lots more photos.

We headed for the tube station and ended up waiting for ages, cancelled trains! However me were soon back at the camp-site.

I started preparing for our journey over to the west coast, nearly 300 miles. Tomorrow was going to be a long day.

Summer Holiday - Amiens

The camp-site Camping Parc Des Cygnes was next to a park, on the bank of the river Somme, it was about 2 and a half miles from Amiens, via a path on the side of the river, ideal for the kids, no traffic.

Jack in Action!

Once we got settled we headed to the park, there was a kids play area with some fountains, Finlay thought this was ace and spent over an hour running through the water, cooling off. Looking around we noticed there was a skate park. lt looked like a huge swimming pool that had been drained, not the sort of place for little kids to learn how to skate.

We had some tea in the van and the kids got their state boards, we headed back to the park! Both Jack and Finlay did pretty well and flowed around the park taking care not to have accidents. Jack got braver and wanted to "drop in", I said I'd catch him, before long he'd cracked it, the smallest ramp was over 6 feet, Jack wasn't phased even after the odd near miss.

Finlay in Amiens

Andrea had been doing a reckie mission and had found the path into Amiens so we rode the bikes into town. We headed to the Cathedral,  the amount of detail, fine carving, and sheer size was pretty impressive. Everywhere was closed so we decided to return in the morning to have a good look around.

The weather was still okay so we headed into town as planned. We soon found a toy shop and the kids got some "cheap tat". We walked around and enjoyed the atmosphere Amiens is a nice place and we relaxed, looking at the shops. We went inside the Cathedral which was pretty stunning, lots to look at!

We got everything needed for a barbecue, heading back. The weather looked to be deteriorating, dark clouds were gathering.

I set the barbecue up and started cooking, the heavens opened, there was thunder and lightening, the wind picked up, thankfully the horning on the van kept me dry. The storm passed but the weather didn't look settled. We stayed in the van, tidying up ready for our next move to Paris. Overnight there was more rain and I was concerned that we'd struggle to get off the pitch, I was relieved when we reversed off the pitch safely. We were only a couple of hours drive south to our next site in Paris.

Summer Holiday - To Amiens

The trip didn't start well, we got onto the A1 and started heading south. After about 70 miles I ran over a lump of metal in the road, straight away I thought it might have caused some damage, but kept going being careful. I soon passed a car on the hard shoulder with a knackered exhaust, it looked like a bracket had fallen off and I'd gone over it. Sure enough within another mile there was a bang and the rear drives side tyre let go, the van swerved and felt petty unstable. I ran to a halt luckily in an sos area.

I got the spare tyre off the van but couldn't jack the van up, the one supplied with the van was a joke. Time to phone the breakdown company and ask for assistance, a guy arrived in a van with 20 minutes of our phone call, he swapped the tyre is no time. I asked him if he knew where we could get a replacement, but he wasn't interested, just said we'd have trouble finding a replacement at short notice. Looked like we'd have to risk the rest of the trip with no spare! The knackered tyre had a lump out of the tyre wall so there was no way we could get it fixed.

We continued on our way, taking it carefully just in case the front tyre was damaged we started to make good time. Although we'd been delayed we made it to Dover by 7pm. Parking on Marine Drive, we headed into town for a takeaway. The weather took a turn for the worse and it started bouncing down. Thunder and lightening, we got soaked!

It had been a pretty bad day, fingers crossed for the rest of the holiday.

Edgar Moore, Died 16th March 1918

Up early and away on the ferry, we were soon in France. First of all we headed into Belgium, to Ypres and the Aeroplane Cemetery by Zonnebeke.  lt made sense to pay our respect to Edgar Moore, one of my Mums relatives, it's something I've wanted to do for a while. We soon found the grave yard, kept immaculately we looked around, Jack pinpointed his grave, we paid or respect, took some photos and read about the battles that had taken place in the area. Finally we left our name in the journal at the graveyard gate.

We headed back into France and after a few hours found the camp-site at Amiens, on the Somme River.

White Rose Youth League Cycling Round 6 - Richard Dunn Sports Centre

Interesting tonight the track was reversed. First up was Finlay On his one lap time trail, which he did in 1 minute 57.2. This was good enough for 2nd Place.

In Jacks race he made a good start and got behind a girl, after a couple of laps he made a break and caught up with another group  of riders. they stayed together, but kept trying to break away from each other. When it came to the sprint at the end he was well beaten but he'd tried hard and had an interesting race.

Finlay didn't want to race, a couple of kids who he normally races with were not taking part, and were playing on the BMX track. After a pep talk Finlay got his head around racing. He got off to a good start and tucked in behind one of the older kids, he was dragged around for the whole race, unbelievably on the sprint for the line Finlay made a break and beat the other lad! All this effort was rewarded with a win in his age group. A good night.

The races are always unpredictable sometimes the kids do well other nights it's a nightmare. Thankfully tonight had gone well.