before we set off to France we really did wonder about whether or not it was sensible to take the bikes.

Bike riding is a large part of our family. Our kids often cycle to school. My OH cycles to work, and has to be said is a bit of a bicycle geek, since I have got a bike we have done far more family cycles with the smaller girls in the little carrier seats and it is something that we really enjoy.

The OH was keen to take them but I was scared that the car might not even leave the driveway! But we decided to take 4 bikes and hire one kids bike when we got there.

To be honest we had no way of attaching another thing to the car!

At the campsite, initially, the kids used theirs a lot. Perfect for hopping on to go to the pool or to their groups in the mornings. I felt pretty confident with all of them being on their own in the campsite. They are all really confident cyclists and we have taken them on supervised rides on the roads so they know to pay attention to cars etc.

We decided to attempt a longer bike ride from a beach cycling back along a coastal path to the little village. It was a perfect day, warm but with a breeze and so we set off with the promise of an ice cream in the village once we made it there. After a short while we discovered a few things about the french:

1. They LOVE to cycle on their coastal paths in their masses.

2. They get REALLY unhappy if you ‘ride’ the wrong side of the street. 😉

3. They are very SERIOUS about cycling. It seemed every so often we seem to have blundered with our 3 erratic left side/right side child cyclists into a sudden whirl of pelaton like, lycra clad cyclists. With their heads down they seem to barely raise an eye brow of acknowledgment as we shouted alerts at the children and prayed hard that they wouldn’t just ‘stop’ slap bang in the middle of the path and cause a mini pile up!

There were little spurs running off the main path and like a travellers on a train we lost and gained fellow cyclists at different points as they went about their summer business. But things spaced out and we cycled along the side of the sea, through the delightful, sandy, tree lined paths that are so characteristic of this area of France. It seemed a lot longer than we had thought and the euphoria of making our destination is matched by the sadness of realisation of the return ride. But there was minimal moaning but maximum sore bumitis. But it was a good trade off for a really lovely way of spending an afternoon.

The area we had parked in was one of those headland beaches were the wind was really strong. Perfect for kite flying and before we headed back to our camp we sat and watched some of the stunt kites. They are so incredible. Our kids were inspired and grabbed out national trust kite and set off onto the sand dune. The gusts of wind took the kite soaring and it was all they could do to hold onto it tight enough so as it didn’t blow away. The girls all had a go, but my son stayed out there for a LONG time trying to copy some of the stunt kites and work out how to do some moves with his kite.

The beach looked amazing in the later afternoon sun. We did this ride towards the end of our holiday and the kid’s skin had taken on that lovely golden ‘caramel’ colour from their days enjoying the sun.

They looked healthy, happy and very dirty…and content.

The little girls were playing in the sand whilst the older ones flew the kite and a french couple came over to me and started speaking to me.

I was slightly panicked ( my french is really poor) till i worked out little bits of what they were saying and made up the missing bits to make a sentence!!

They had been watching my littlest girl as she twirled and jumped into the sand dunes and they were saying:

Cette petite fille, est-elle votre fille? Elle est tellement belle. Tellement joli….

I sort of worked out they were saying that she was very pretty and i replied with my thanks… hearing i was English they then wished me a.. bonnes vacances   This was summer living, outside, healthy and enjoying the incredible things that nature has for us. A good day. It was a bonne vacances

Trying to get back into the swing of things for blogging but the jobs list IRL is so large now even for a multi-tasker like me it makes me want to run and bury my head in the duvet. We have three birthdays in three weeks, secondary school applications, photoshoot editing and not forgetting starting school for one of mine and then you know…work!

Im not sure that i will make it every week back to the blog. I have been thinking a lot about why i do blog and what i want to get out of it…but thats another post..

for now…some French fun.

I have been having a bit of an issue with accessing my holiday images. Just a different camera that my software doesn’t recognise (i think) and so I have gone through a little bit of a long winded route to get some images together for country kids this week.

We were camping in France, you can’t really get more Country than that. We had gorgeous weather, which makes camping bearable but not desirable in my opinion 😉 So we did a lot of out outdoor fun activities. Generally when the weather was really hot we went to the beach and the pool. On the few days when it was overcast we decided on something like a bike ride or in this case we drove to an inland lake and hired a little battery powered boat.

Our son was very excited about the fact that he could drive a boat. I think he had more of a David Beckham at the opening ceremony of the olympics kind of idea in his head. When in actual fact what he got was a sort of stairmaster speed boat which putt-putted off into the distance for an hour or so.

I stayed on the shore with our little one who had fallen asleep in the car and so we watched them return once she had woken up and i think she was a tad offended that she hadn’t been included! I think the initial excitement may have worn off quite quickly and one of my girls mused out loud that it had taken a really long time to get anywhere!

The little lake area had a small beach area and a climbing frame which the kids made good use of. Then it was off to some crazy golf. A very British way to spend the afternoon!

I am most definately out of sync this week. Its really hard getting back into the swing of things after a holiday at the best of times and getting back into blogging seems really tough. Where we went for our holiday in France wasn’t remote really, there was wifi available at the bar (for a cost) but i only used it once and that was down to mainly needing to check emails for some important updates we were waiting for. But other than that it was very much radio silence and i liked it.I

I liked not feeling under pressure really to write, tweet, re-tweet, instagram, facebook etc. It felt good. I almost laughed when i sat down for my hours wifi and after checking emails my first look at facebook in over a week probably was met with someone musing on if they should take a shower and go to bed or stay and watch the TV. Don’t you just love social media 😉

I liked the freedom. Freedom to not connect.

and right now im not sure where to go with that feeling of loss i have now as i come back to my computer and all the things i need to keep up with.

I just don’t know.

But this week, as i haven’t been able to get my holiday images onto my Mac ( long story) and i had wanted to post an image i took on one lovely morning run in France. I  thought i would go back to an image, i think i took with my phone, one misty morning in Bognor, on the holiday we had with Butlins. Quite a contrast to our French holiday but there is the same intention behind it i guess.

I like to run and i have since discovered on my holidays that i like to run in different places. Although having a map is useful! But in France i tried to run often to the gorgeous little village of Le Fenouiller. I am still missing running in the sweet sunshine of western France…But still…

back to Bognor..

I took off one morning early and run along the seafront thinking that i might possibly get really bored with just going in a straight line but i actually really enjoyed it. I guess maybe because its the sea and there is something so mesmerising and endearing about the ocean. Or maybe its just because i’m naturally very nosey and peering into other people’s drive ways and noticing their gardens and their choice of curtain fabric just makes the run go even faster.

I spied these little line of blue huts and had to stop to grab a shot. Its all there from a photographers point of view. Uniformity, colour and leading lines. BAM!

I have never really ever felt like i would love to own a shed on the beach, and to be fair these were on the prom and not really that close to the beach and the beach was all pebbles..so not a great start. But i have never really ‘got’ it. Maybe i would if these were huts on the mediterranean coast, or spain or some other sun soaked country. But..cold and drizzly UK?

not so much…

But i still LOVE this shot and i can remember the exhilaration of running on the beach. Sometime i would like to do it again.

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