2016

May you live in Interesting Times

Monday 11th July 2016Thursday 14th July 2016Baggie

We are rapidly approaching the end of the academic year. A year that has been momentous for all three Baguettes in varying degrees. Éowyn moved to the big campus and automatically went from being one of the bigger children in a small pond, to one of the smallest in a larger pond. In addition to this change of location (and a change of teacher half-way through the school year) school work started to become more serious: there was homework and regular spelling tests culminating in her end of Key Stage 1 SATs. Amélie’s year was, arguably more momentous as she began her journey through full-time education with her reception teacher Miss Snow while Ezra begun his journey of school (or pre-school) life taking advantage of the 15 hours of child care that the government provides for over threes.

All three of the Baguettes enjoy school and that shows in their varying success in their respective development. Amélie is progressing well with her reading and writing and maths. Indeed she has rapidly progressed through the reading levels, finishing the year on level 10, one of only two that have reached those dizzying heights. Her writing is coming along and she has begun to create little books filling the pages with stories. She has also, in some ways more importantly, made some good friends that she so desperately wanted to do at the start of the year.

Éowyn, too, has progressed well. The previous school year saw her move schools and to a teacher that she didn’t get on with and this upheaval and disenchantment therefore meant she did not progress to her potential. This has been highlighted with hindsight in how she has progressed this year and how hard she works for a teacher she likes. Indeed, not only a teacher that she likes but teachers she likes. Éowyn’s first teacher of year 2, Miss Bernath left at Christmas to travel around Australia and was substituted by Miss Jetten. Éowyn responded well to both teachers and their respective teaching styles, progressing well in both numeracy and literacy. Indeed, since Miss Jetten took over and homework has changed she has scored 10/10 in every spelling test – only one of two in the class to have done so.

This may sound like it should be something that Éowyn and, indeed Lucinda and I would be proud of, and yes, we are however until last week we didn’t realise the pressure Éowyn was feeling. A constant stream of 10/10’s is definitely something to be proud of but it heightens expectations, not from Lucinda and me as such but from Éowyn herself. She begun to think that we would be disappointed in her if she got 9/10 or less. We didn’t think we had ever given her this impression and thought we were doing the right thing praising her for her outstanding marks, but that was not what was going through her mind. This came to a culmination and thankfully a resolution when she tried to fake illness on the day of her spelling test. Parents have an innate ability to detect fake illnesses and so we realised something was up and made Éowyn go to school. Wanting to get to the bottom of it I sat Éowyn down in the evening to find out what the problem was.

It was then that she confessed that she thought that we would shout at her or be disappointed in her if she didn’t get 10/10. You can imagine how we felt: the archetypal pushy parents. We had both been trying to praise her for her outstanding scores not put pressure on her to keep that 100% record going but somehow we had got the balance wrong. So, we had a long chat about how test marks are not something to get upset and worried about; doing your best is important but never worry about exams. Exams can’t measure the important things and certainly can’t measure you as a person, just whether you have a got a good memory. Yes, Mommy and Daddy are happy when you do well in a test but Mommy and Daddy are also happy when you read Ezra a story, or cuddle Amélie when she is upset or help Mommy to lay the table or help Daddy in the garden. These things are much more important that whether you can spell ‘discussion‘. We will have to keep an eye on this for the future.

The end of the academic year also means a number of things ubiquitous to schools up and down the country and so it is for the Baguettes. Éowyn and Amélie has their respective end of year discos, held on the same day though not at the same time. Amélie’s was straight after school, then there was an hour or so break for the teachers to tidy the school hall ready for the slightly older children in years 1,2 and 3. They both enjoyed their discos, dressing up and taking a little handbag with some money that they could spend on sweets, drinks, tattoos and glowing rings. When I came home from work, Amélie had returned from her disco and was shattered, getting ready for bed so I picked up Éowyn (and our neighbour’s son Blake).

Éowyn and Blake were hyper when I picked them up. They couldn’t stop talking and telling me all about the evening and the amount of sweets that they had eaten. There is no proof that high levels of sugar caused children to behave hyperactively (is that a word), however I think sweets coupled with the excitement of being at a disco with all your friends didn’t help. It was like walking home with slightly drunk friends who can’t stop giggling and half tell you stories that make no sense to your sober mind.

Unfortunately Ezra is a little too young for a disco, however the nursery organised a pirate party for the class. Ezra was quite excited at home about dressing up as a pirate and looked quite good with his hat, sword and drawn on beard. He seemed quite happy when I dropped him off and all his friends were dressed in their pirate finery. When Lucinda picked him up, however, the teachers said that he got a little overwhelmed with all the piratical shenanigans and spent most of the day sat on the lap of one of the teachers. Poor sensitive soul.

The other main school event found at this time of the year is ‘Sports Day’. Éowyn and Amélie have been placed in the same house at school and with modern school days being about team effort rather than sporting prowess, we knew it was going to save arguments and were thankful. However they had to wait a little longer than we expecting for this year’s sports day. The weather this spring and early summer has been awful, cold and wet and the weather was so bad that the event was postponed for an extra ten days (and even then nearly didn’t go ahead on the second date). Indeed, the weather has been so bad that we have, on more than one occasion, serious considered lighting the fire. 1st July 2015 saw temperatures approaching 37ºC, 1st July 2016 it barely touched 17ºC, however Summer will start soon.

Therefore, Ezra had his Sports Day before the girls. Ezra isn’t very sporting, he can be lazy and you don’t find him running around for the sake of running. Therefore, it was no surprise that he didn’t win any races for in addition to his inherent unsportyness (another new word for you all) he is one of the youngest at nursery. Some of the other children are 18 months older than him and when you are three, 18 months is a significant percentage of your age. Nevertheless in the spirit of ‘no one is a loser’ Ezra received his medal (real plastic gold) of which he was very proud.

Éowyn and Amélie’s Sport Day was all about team races and therefore eliminating the individuality of the races (for both eliminating individual competitiveness and because with 90 children per year and 3 years worth of pupils, it would probably take a two-week tournament to involve all children in all races individually). As mentioned both girls were in ‘Yellow’ house and so the result didn’t really matter, however it was the icing on the cake that ‘Yellow’ won!

Discos, parties and Sports Days are not the only things that have been happening since the last update. Amélie has taken a bit step towards growing up: she had her first solo sleepover at her best friends. Amélie has had one sleepover before but with Éowyn at Éowyn’s best friend, and has had sleepovers with the other Baguettes at Nanny Fran’s but this was her first on her own. She had a fantastic time and was impeccably behaved and so can go again!

Despite the weather we have had recently we have nonetheless had invites to a couple of barbecues. The first was Lucinda’s friend Lisca. Lisca and her family live in High Wycombe and the barbecue was in part to celebrate her birthday and as a good-bye for her, Theo and the kids are moving to Norfolk. There will be no more nipping over for a Saturday afternoon barbecue, Norfolk is a tad further than High Wycombe.

The second barbecue of the weekend was a little closer to hand: next door. Our next door neighbours are completely renovating their house and building a two storey extension so, somewhat ironically, it has brought us closer together as neighbours as we have had lots of, amicable, discussions about the work. We felt very blessed to be invited and kids loved playing in their big garden, especially since they had hired two large inflatables: a bungee run and a basketball game. It must be the ‘in-thing’ to do at barbecues for Lisca and Theo had hired a bouncy castle at their barbecue. We will have to buck up our ideas for our next soiree.

‘May you live in Interesting Times,’ is oft purported to be a Chinese curse. The saying is apocryphal and there is no such evidence of its use in China. The closest Chinese expression is ‘Better to be a dog in a peaceful time, than to be a human in a chaotic period,’ and that is exactly how we find ourselves at the moment. I could write reams about my feelings regarding the result of the E.U. referendum but this is not the forum. However, I will say that it is extremely concerning that the political elite that offered this choice to the general public to placate voters of a far right party had no plan of what to do if the ‘leave’ side won because they are so out of touch with the general public that they never truly believe that the ‘Leave’ vote would win. But win they did and since that vote, the Prime Minister has resigned, the leader of the Brexit campaign has resigned (because he really didn’t want to win), the leader of UKIP whose raison d’être was to leave the European Union has resigned because his job is done. The Labour party are ripping themselves apart because they have a leader than 60% of members like and voted for but none of his M.P.s like and have tried to use this political maelstrom to try to oust him rather than take the Government to task for their lack of vision. There seems to be no leadership and no direction and no one wants to activate article 50 – which is the no turning back exit from the European Union. And in our democracy 0.2% of the population are going to decide our new Prime Minister. ‘(Theresa?) May you live in Interesting Times’.

Work is still manic but for once viewers in the UK can see some our work. The Caribbean Premier League (T20 Cricket tournament) is happening through July and into August and can currently be seen on ‘Dave’ at 1300 each day (that there is a game). This is a rerun from the game that will have happened through the previous night, however they are broadcasting a number of games live. Both the re-runs and the live offerings are coming under my watch so if you find yourself watching cricket on Dave think of us.

Before I leave you today one amusing little tale. Ezra has stopped telling you that he loves you. If you say that you love him, he will reply with ‘I like you.’ Regardless of the incentives you offer or how many times you tell him that you love him we will only go as far as telling you that he likes you. Cheeky little tyke!

I will leave you now to enjoy the photos and see you soon.

Peace and Love

Baggie

Minions!

Sibling Love

Crazy Minion

Coming for you

Can I fit through here?

Surveying the view

Foxy lady

Rainbow guide

Little Fox

It is cold!

It is still cold!

It is cold over there!

Punky bath time

Pirate Ezra

Bouncy castle fun

Warming up

The obstacle course

And through!

Auntie Liz entertains

Can I have a tattoo?

Tower bridge at night

The Guinea Pigs went on holiday too!

Thursday 30th June 2016Friday 1st July 2016Baggie

I truly feel like I am spoiling you at the moment. Two large write ups covering our holiday in Europe (and no, not the decades of EU membership) and now a third in just over a fortnight. You should feel blessed.

So what brings the keyboard out again so soon? Bookends of stories surrounding the holiday that I thought best sat outside the holiday write up itself. With work being manic before I went on holiday (and indeed has been doubly so on my return, hence the delay in this triptych of essays) there was not time to squeeze in an update before we left, so let me make amends.

So last we spoke of more mundane activities the football season had just drawn to end and I was hoping that work would calm down. There was a lot to do before going on holiday and I knew that would mean some long hours but was hoping for some quality sleep. All three children are relatively good at sleeping. Ezra may wake early, and then go into his sisters’ room and tries to wake one of them up (usually Amélie, because she sleeps on the bottom bunk) but the nights are usually undisturbed. That first night after the final day of the season (or not the final day of the season as it turned out, due to a bomb scare at Old Trafford) I only managed half the amount of sleep that I usually get.

We put the children to bed as usual but around 2100 we heard Ezra crying. He doesn’t usually cry so I went up to see what the problem was but couldn’t rouse him. Thinking it was just a bad dream, tucked him back in and came back downstairs. As we went to bed Ezra was crying again, Lucinda went into him and he woke complaining of a tummy ache. We tried to calm him and gave him some Calpol but it wasn’t comforting him. Then he looked me in the eye and said, ‘Daddy, you take me to the doctors please.‘ There was such a level of earnest pleading in his voice that I could not refuse him. It broke your heart to hear him pleading. All sorts of horrible things went through our minds and so I wrapped him up and took him to the walk-in clinic (there is no local A&E any more it has been replaced by a walk-in clinic). When I got there it was closed. It is only open 0800-2200 and by this time his was experiencing bouts where he was screaming in pain. So I got him back into the car and hot-tailed it down the motorway to our nearest A&E.

St. Peter’s hospital in Chertsey is where all three of the Baguettes were born and the nearest A&E department. In addition to the standard A&E department St Peter’s has a separate paediatric A&E department. I was surprised how busy both A&E departments were when we arrived but in fairness we saw a triage nurse very quickly but it was a couple of hours before we saw the doctor. Ezra was much calmer in the hospital, he had occasional bouts of pain but was probably a little tired not to mention over-awed by the occasion. We were directed to a cubicle to wait for the doctor so I popped Ezra on the bed and as the doctor came in to ask me what the symptoms were, Ezra had fallen into a deep sleep. This allowed the doctor to give him a full examination and thankfully it was nothing that was part of the many scenarios that had been running through my mind. He simply had constipation which had caused his bowel to go into spasm. So painful yes, but some paediatric laxatives would cure the issue. It was nice to know that it was nothing major but I could have done without 3 hours of sleep at the start of such a busy week!

Midweek it was a ‘Stay and Play’ opportunity with Amélie’s class. Since Lucinda had her wards on a Wednesday I took the opportunity to spend the first 30 minutes of the school day with Amélie and her class. It was a good opportunity to see what they get up to at school and have a detailed look into the things that they are doing and have been doing recently. There were the usual toys for them to play with (including Lego and Stickle Bricks – I haven’t seen Stickle Bricks for ages and remember playing with them at school when I was about the same age) as well as a table to learn maths, a shop and a table set up as an Indian restaurant, where they had a taste test the previous week. The 30 minutes seemed to go quite quickly and I said goodbye to Amélie before reluctantly rejoining the adult world.

The first weekend after the end of the football season and the last before our holiday was quite busy. It was Lucinda’s birthday mid-week and so we decided to have a little get together for some of her closest and oldest friends (oldest as in, known the longest rather than physical age!). We had planned on this being a barbecue but as per the summer of 2016 so far it was threatening rain and relatively cold, so the barbecue was left in the shed and we made do with a buffet. It was also the day of the F.A. cup final and so after an afternoon on genial chat we gravitated into three separate groups. The kids were all off playing upstairs, rehearsing shows that they put on for us later that day; the boys were huddled around the television watching the football and drinking beer while the ladies sat in the garden drinking wine and catching up with gossip. A good time was had by all and we decided that we do not host enough get togethers and have promised (to ourselves) to try to rectify this in the future.

The next day saw mommy left at home while Daddy and the Baguettes heading north up the M40 to West Bromwich and Nanny Fran. We were obviously going on holiday, the next weekend and so needed someone to look after the guinea pigs. Unfortunately, no one in the area could come round and look after them in situ, so we asked Nanny Fran and Auntie Liz if they would look after them, and they thankfully said yes.

The plan was that all five of us would head up to nanny Fran’s in the S-Max and it would all be nice and easy. However, the S-Max decided that it would display an engine malfunction light and was booked into the garage for the following day, therefore it was down to the trusted Civic to make the journey. Now a Honda Civic is a mid-sized car but the guinea pig cage is anything but and it was only just possible to squeeze the cage, their food, sawdust and hay, the guinea pigs themselves and the Baguettes in. There was no room left for Lucinda.

It really was a flying visit with a drop off and a couple of hours rest and refuelling (us, not the car) before heading back home. We had a week before our holiday began but Toffee and Frazzle were on theirs.

We returned from holiday on the Monday and thus were unable to go and collect the guinea pigs off theirs until the weekend. The week saw the girls return to school, what would have been my dad’s 70th birthday and my return to work and over 4,000 emails. I had deliberately not looked at any of my emails while on holiday (and I had informed everyone that I was doing that) hence why my inbox had bloomed. It was a wise decision despite the pruning that is still required because it meant that I wasn’t tempted to keep checking my phone every five minutes and getting frustrated that I wasn’t there. I wasn’t completely out of touch though and I had told everyone that I would be taking phone calls and text messages – which I did on every day (bar one) that I was in Italy. That sounds bad but a quick phone call is so much easier to deal with than the saga that an email chain can become.

The weekend quickly came and Saturday saw the five of us in the S-Max heading to Nanny Fran. We stopped at our friends in High Wycombe on the way for lunch and a catch up. It may seem weird to say but I actually think that the guinea pigs missed the hustle and bustle of the family and the Baguettes had missed their pets. It was some much more comfortable heading back down the motorway with the guinea pig cage in the S-Max than it had been on the way up to Nanny Fran’s in the Civic.

Life’s now settling into its usual routine for the Baguettes for the last few weeks of the academic year and as this update is a little belated there will be another in a couple of weeks to get you up to speed with more recent events.

Before I leave a quick shout out to my Auntie Margaret who is waiting for heart surgery to repair her aortic valve. Get well soon and when you are up to it we’ll come down for a visit.

Peace and Love

Baggie

True love

Daddy and Ezra

Group selfie

The children

The ladies

Ladies selfie

Delicate wave

May the force be with you

Poser

A cheeky Nandos

Guinea pigs gone wild

Cool dude

Our first taste of Eurocamp, Italian Style! – part ii

Saturday 18th June 2016Thursday 23rd June 2016Baggie

Hopefully, you have read part i before jumping straight in to part ii, if you haven’t and you would like to remind yourself about how we got to where the following begins then please click here.

As you are reading on I am assuming that you have read part i and so I will begin. With the organised trip to Venice a no-show and our hearts set on going to Venice on Wednesday we asked at the information desk for options. We were told that there was a bus that stopped outside the campsite that took you to Ponte Sabbioni from where you could get a ferry. That option filled us with dread. A long bus journey with three young children before an equally long ferry journey before we stepped foot on Venice, wasn’t our idea of fun. We had also read some stories of people who hadn’t been that attentive to the various timetables and found themselves stranded in Venice or Ponte Sabbioni because there are only so many ways back, indeed the return bus from Ponte Sabbioni stopped in the early evening and we didn’t want to be held hostage to public transport timetables. Therefore, we decided to cut as much of the public transport aspect out of the journey that we could. Thus,we would only need to concentrate on one timetable and so we fired up Waze and headed south in the Ford Focus to Ponte Sabbioni.

We blindly trusted Waze through back roads and across country all the way to Ponte Sabbioni. There, we parked at the first car park we saw, which was a very reasonable €7 for the entire day; cheaper than 5 return bus tickets! We joined the queue for ferry tickets and before long we were aboard and heading across the lagoon to Venice. Lucinda and I took a city break in Venice back in 2005, long before the Baguettes made an appearance. Nevertheless, Venice probably hasn’t changed that much for a couple of hundred years, and certainly hasn’t changed since Lucinda and I visited.

We got off the Ferry and decided that the first task was to try to find somewhere to have lunch, to put some fuel in our bellies in readiness for exploring the alleyways and campi (little squares, the name piazza is reserved for St Mark’s Square – campi means ‘fields’) of the island. Moving away from Piazza San Marco and its ludicrous prices we found a small pizzeria away from the hustle and bustle. Suitably sated we began the exploration of the city. The Baguettes are too young to fully appreciate the history of Venice and so we decided that we would not join the tourist queues for the tours of the Doge’s Palace, St Mark’s Basilica or its Campanile and simply view them from the piazza.

Venice is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world. The little island welcomes over 20 million visitors per year and thus outnumber the 60,000 or so residents on a daily basis. With this in mind we were very conscious that it could be very easy to lose a Baguette in the overcrowded alleys, and so we took a water-based felt tip pen and wrote my mobile number on their arms. Slightly paranoid, maybe but better safe than sorry.

Venice was an adventure for them all. They saw Piazza San Marco and the aforementioned, Doge’s Palace, St Mark’s Basilica and its Campanile and the Bridge of Sighs. We then walked through the alleyways via the Pandora shop (Lucinda wanted a Venice related charm for her charm bracelet) and the Hard Rock Café (Lucinda wanted a Hard Rock Café badge for her collection – the Hard Rock Café was not there when last we visited). We showed them shops full of Venetian masks and Murano glass as we weaved towards Ponte di Rialto (The Rialto Bridge) one of four bridges (and the most famous) that span the Grand Canal. Unfortunately, the bridge is currently obscured by scaffolding and so they did not see it in all its splendour.

The Baguettes really enjoyed exploring Venice. Éowyn and Amélie spent some of their remaining Euros to buy a Venetian fan and Éowyn also bought herself a pen with pictures of the major landmarks of Venice. One thing that we didn’t take into account, which was evident as soon as we disembarked and we felt foolish for not considering it before we landed was the fact that Venice is criss-crossed with canals, it is kind of what it is famous for (although Birmingham has more miles of canals that Venice), and to cross those canals there a a myriad of bridges. Now, many of these bridges are decades if not centuries old and as such were not designed for accessibility. Therefore, taking the pushchair for Ezra was perhaps a bit of a luxury and we should have made his 3 year old legs walk the 15 or so kilometres that we walked that day. Still, was good exercise for yours truly, lifting the pushchair up a flight of stairs, across a bridge and down a flight of stairs every 100 metres or so. I have no idea what wheelchair users do.

We planned to visit Murano and Burano on the return journey, but time was pressing on and the baguettes were getting tired. Thus we made do with a flying visit to Murano. Murano is an island (or more strictly a series of islands linked together by bridges) about a mile north of Venice. It is world-famous for glass and the glass art and jewellery and so we browsed the various glass shops but all we bought was an ice cream and a Murano glass Christmas tree decoration before boarding the ferry back to Ponte Sabbioni and home.

After our excursions in Venice we decided to have a relaxing day by the pool on Thursday. It would have been a nice relaxing day except it was somewhat marred by an incident that happened at dinner. Throughout Wednesday and Thursday both Éowyn and Amélie loved playing with the fans that they had bought with their money in Venice. Taking our evening meal and our favourite restaurant the fans came too! Before our meal arrived Éowyn decided to go, with Lucinda and Ezra, to the toilet and against my advice she took her fan. As they left the toilet there was a mum with her young daughter heading towards the toilet. As Éowyn returned to the table she realised that she had not picked her fan up after washing her hands, so Lucinda and Éowyn headed back to the toilet. The mum and the girl left the toilet and Éowyn and Lucinda went in. The fan was not there. Éowyn was distraught. So Lucinda headed over to the table with Éowyn, apologised for disturbing their meal, and asked if they had seen the fan or indeed picked it up while they were there – the evidence did kind of point to that. Before Lucinda had even finished the sentence the father replied ‘Nein‘ and both turned from engaging eye contact with Lucinda.

Lucinda returned to our table and as we sat consoling Éowyn and contemplating what we should do, and indeed feeling impotent but not wishing to start an Anglo-German incident we noticed that they had quickly paid their bill were leaving the restaurant. We are certain they picked it up, possibly in all innocence but they did have the perfect opportunity to do the right thing and return it to an obviously upset 7-year-old.

Éowyn learned a hard lesson that day and we spoke to her about her feelings saying that she could either hope that the little girls loves the fan and it is her favourite toy and she treasures it for ever; or she could hope that the fan breaks and it upsets the little girl and her parents have to buy her a new one; or indeed anything in between but however she feels is fine. She was still upset despite contemplating on this emotions so Lucinda and I became 7 year olds ourselves and helped Éowyn make up a rhyme about a mum, with a stinky bum that gave a fan to her daughter, when she really shouldn’t oughta! This cheered her up.

The next morning, Éowyn said that she had thought about her fan and hoped that the girl really looks after it and loves it but she was still upset that she had lost it. She is more magnanimous than I. After breakfast we decided to explore a little more of the area and drove to the nearest town to the resort: Porto Santa Margherita. Porto Santa Margherita appears to be geared around tourism and there are many hotels along the sea front. One of the striking things that you will notice about our photos is that there are not hoards of tourists in the background. It seemed very much that we were the only ones on holiday and in Porto Santa Margherita that was even more pronounced. It appeared that the holiday season hadn’t even started, it felt like an English seaside town in November (except for the 25ºC weather and clear blue skies). There was only so much that we could do to entertain ourselves in such a quiet town so we headed back to Pra’Delle Torri.

After lunch we headed back to the pool and only moved away for ice creams. Anyone with young children will know that they sometimes do not appreciate how quickly an ice cream or lolly can melt while they are eating it and before you know it they are covered in ice cream or there is a pool of ice cream on floor between their feet. Amélie had decided that she didn’t want a ice-cream but wanted a lolly instead. However, she wa taking her time and savouring it, oblivious to the drips collecting at her feet. Then she made the mistake and looked down at the floor. Then the screaming started for enjoying her lolly drips were some ants attracted to the sugar. I tried to calm her down but before I could stop her, she had climbed on the table screaming and sobbing because of the ants. The joys of parenthood!

Conscious that our time was rapidly coming to an end we decided that the final Saturday in Veneto should be spent in Caorle. Saturday in Caorle is market day so it sounded like a perfect combination. We eased ourselves into the day and headed to Caorle. We noticed that there was a park and ride car park on the outskirts of the town with free parking and a free bus ride into the town. We took advantage, although it appears that we were the only one. The car park was empty and there was no bus, nevertheless we parked and decided to walk into town. It wasn’t too far and the highlight of the walk was to wait for a swing bridge over one of the canals to swing back after letting one of the fishing boats back into dock.

We arrived at the market for about 11am (we were on holiday!) but like San Donà di Piave before we were too late. The market was packing up but there were still a few stalls open and time to grab a couple of bargains, including riding on the tailcoats of a nice German lady who was haggling in English for the same item as we wanted. We let her do the hard work and then said make that two! There was also time for Daddy to buy Éowyn (and Amélie who had broke hers, and Ezra who didn’t want to feel left out) a new fan – for a fraction of the price that Éowyn and Amélie paid in Venice!

Caorle did not let us down and we discovered probably the best gelateria in the world. You make your own gelato. Yes, as you walk in you can choose you choice of cone (or tub), then add your favourite flavoured gelato (as many as you want) and then add as many toppings as you can balance on top. The gelato is charged by weight and was very reasonable – although the peanut m&ms were probably a mistake.

After the ice cream we took a stroll along the prom (prom, prom) where the sea is held back by big rocks as many shore around the world. However the rocks that face the prom have been individually carved by local artists with a nautical theme – see the pictures on Flickr. We walked the full length of the prom passed the Church of the Blessed Virgin of the Angel to the beach. As we passed the church a newly married couple walked into the world as man and wife to the whoops and cheers of random strangers (including ourselves) who were playing by the shore.

Sunday, was our last full day in Italy and we woke to heavy rain. This lasted all morning and so we began the arduous task of packing ready for home. We then had lunch using the remainder of our food and by the time that was down the rain had stopped and so we headed to the pool. The afternoon was sunny and warm and so we stayed by the pool for a good four hours before heading back to change for our last dinner in Italy.

Before heading to our favourite on site restaurant we had one thing left to do that we had promised the girls that we would do before the end of the holiday: we headed to the bike hire shop and hired a two-man (person) pedal car. Lucinda and I were the power while Amélie and Ezra sat in the front seat and Éowyn balanced between Lucinda and I. We only hired them for 30 minutes which was ample for exploring the park, including a whole area that we hadn’t seen before which included two restaurants and mini golf course! Ezra didn’t like it at first and kept asking us to stop. So we encouraged him to say ‘Ciao’ to everyone. This was a great distraction and before long he was laughing and really enjoying the reaction he was getting from everyone. As we passed the Nutella crepe girls he shouted ‘Ciao, sweetie’, I’m not sure he whether he was being smooth or (because they also sold sweeties) that he was in fact saying goodbye to the sweeties. I’d like to think it was the former.

Monday morning we packed up and left the site early for one last arrividerci to our favourite town, Caorle, and an ice cream at favourite gelateria before returning to Treviso airport and home.

We thoroughly enjoyed our time in Italy and at Pra’Delle Torri in particular. Our first foreign caravan holiday was a great success and are already looking to see where we should go for the next Bagnall foreign trip. Obviously, you will have to tune in to see where that will be.

I will now leave you with a few more photos from our holiday and please look through the 600+ pictures on Flickr.

Peace and Love

Baggie