Bonsai Etape Vienne

... s right, the Paint Ninja got an opportunity to apply his hard-earned Home Depot knowledge in the area of house painting. Wasn't so bad, actually...painting's kinda fun when you've got decent music to listen to, plus I was using odorless paint so I didn't have fumes to deal with. And for what it's worth, I did a pretty good job. It needs a recoat, and the primer coat was uneven and sloppy (not my doing), but ...

... around the pool in the sunshine for a week, until the weather changed and became more autumnal. Helene left us after a fez days, and we stayed on our own in coussay whilst papa, maman and granny went back to Thouars. It's nearly the end now, only one more stage until we come back home!

... down the Nile, felt the effects of a meteor hitting the earth, dodged dinosaurs and experienced the lunar landing from the viewpoint of an animated fly.
We reached another Howie milestone when both parents chickened out of the dancing with the automated robots. The boys described this experience as 'awesome'. We will take their word for it.
Our campsite tonight is a special Campervan designated carpark, a bargain at only 6 euros, we just need to be on our way before 8am.

... through the woods. I saw the snakes that everyone has been telling me about an I've been miffed not to see. Unfortunately, not the full body, but a wonderful glimpse of a green and yellow snake's tail-end, even that was around 2.5 foot long and the body as thick as my wrist, to have seen it in its full glory would have been brilliant, but it was busy getting away from me and didn't speak english to come back and pose. There were then ...

... and found another free camping spot. However, this place wasn't so luxurious. In fact as we were going to bed some french kids started drinking on a bench a few yards away. Olly had a go at some manly stuff and tried his hand at fishing. Need I say he failed. Fish don't like pain au chocolat. But on the plus side we saw a frog the size of a puppy.

... No, failed again. Well, we did pick a good camping spot. Hang on a minute why does it sound like a shuttle is taking off. Oh yeh, we did not realise that we set up camp a few metres away from a train track! At least the trains will stop over night. No, they did not. Even when I was young I never mooned anyone. But this was an outrage. Needless to say me and Alex visually attacked the next passenger train.

... wandering round the market with them (and was treated to coffee and cake) and bought some earrings from a stall as I hadn't any with me and these blue studs were only 2 euro. The drive there and back was beautiful too.

That afternoon it was back out into the garden for more weeding and then a swim in the pool... I'm feeling like a very lucky volunteer especially after the hassles at the start.

Today, Wednesday has been back out on the veg patch with Jan ...

... have chilled out in the evening with various books that were on the shelf - Brave New World, Huxley; interesting and a short, easy read; The Time Machine, Wells (I think), again nice and easy and short and an utterly bizarre one called Ex Uterus about a woman that loses her uterus in a shopping mall...random!

I also seem to have a sign on saying sting me that the local horse flies have noticed, so am very itchy!

But, I'll be back ...

Our bus strolled into the Tour de Buis site on * lovely Sund*y *fternoon...Off the bus followed c*me migits (the 8 yr olds) *nd gi*nts (15 yr olds)...It's so e*sy to comm*nd respect when you're t*ller th*n cert*in kids, but when 15 yr olds *re *lmost * he*d t*ller th*n you *re, th*t's when you've got to put on your thinking c*p with figuring out how you're going to cr*ck the psyche of *n *dolescent. This time *round I w*sn't * director nor * regul*r Americ*n counselor ...

082906 Vienne How do you describe a jazz festival? Most of it is indescribable, but I will try to put it down for memory's sake. Fortunately on Saturday we got our tickets for the train from Lyon to Vienne. The machines don't work for foreign bank cards, so we waited in line for the guichet (ticket counter). Thus we got the reduced fare for the jazz festival and found out about the 11:35 bus to bring us back. We sat across from an engineer ...