Big, busy and beautiful: Bordeaux

We wanted to do one more family adventure, so on Friday we took the train to Bordeaux. It was a gorgeous September day. It must have hit 27 or 28 degrees in the late afternoon. We wandered around the centre of town, had Middle Eastern take-away, enjoyed the public gardens, had drinks in a central cafe on the "place" and wandered around some more. All in all a lovely city. The architecture along the river is beautiful (though UNESCO designations are being handed out left, right and centre it seems).

The public transit system is focused on the Bombardier electric trams. All very stream-lined and "whooshy". They also have tiny buses (perhaps 8 seats, 12 passengers) that dart about.

I love the shot of Sophie (on her first swing - poor girl, already 10 months...); it's as if she is saying "It's a long way down, dad" - though she was gleeful throughout the experience. She also had her 1st train ride that day.

Mike ended the day on a happy note: by tasting and buying some wine! I got an early birthday present of a mosaic ring.

6 and counting

Sophie has another tooth on the bottom. Fitful sleep, some cries of pain and voila! The real question is how the ones on the top are going to come in next to the centre gappy teeth.

I am going to post about Bordeaux and then sign off for the next couple of weeks as we head to the UK tomorrow; Mike's back to Saint John and work on the 1st; the rest of us head to Montreal on the 3rd and SJ on the 8th. Seb's behaviour has become extremely challenging again, so we may be in for rough travel.

Sophie loves to cruise around the kitchen

Here are couple of shots from a few days back. As with her brother at the same age, Soph loves to watch the washing spin around. She also enjoys good dig in the bottom drawer of the chest of drawers that have been with the Wedges for so many years.

Her spots are drying up and she is in good spirits. I can hear her on the top floor crawling around and banging things together. It's rainy day - after stunning weather yesterday. So I think we may be upstairs a lot. Seb also has to practice for more busking at tomorrow's market!

They are way ahead in France - 2 months in fact

Michel and Marite desperately wanted to celebrate Seb's birthday while we were still here. Seb invited them to come to Canada in Nov, but they politely declined. So on Wednesdy night, we trooped over to their place and had dinner with them and our neighbours, Russ and Isabelle - whose son David was actually celebrating his 6th birthday that day.

I am attaching a shot of the whole gang of celebrants. It was fine evening of good food, wine (and more wine), and high spirits. For the boys, it was an evening of chips, fries, cake and presents!!! Michel made Seb a cool t-shirt by "pop-arting" a photo of Seb on the accordion. Plus they both got these wacky balloons. But the highlight was a (huge) remote control car... Un/fortunately, its battery charger doesn't work in North America, but look at Seb's face.

The strangest places

Sophie is a determined crawler. Every move seems quite an effort but she gets where she wants to go - and perhaps other places too. Here, she is under her travel cot looking for ants or dustbunnies or something. I am sure she found them...

She seems much happier, though last night she was up 3 times - once to nurse, once to have a meal and once to have her diaper changed. At 5.30 or so, when she was squirming away merrily in our bed (so I could at least lie down), I reminded Mike that before we had Seb, we had agreed that he would do as much of "nights" as possible. Parental leave is great! Besides I am working a few days this week.

The family is out on an adventure (it might well include a toy shop, shoe shop and hairdresser). So I should get back to work.

Better than any minimum wage we know

All you have to do is be three almost four and dress up in a clown suit for 16.25 Euro/hour. No talent but lots brazenness needed. The rest of the day was spent with friend Peter and his family at Castelnaud - touring the vide grenier, visiting the medieval fortress, playing in the Dordogne, having a horse and wagon ride and picknicking. Sophie kept a respectful distance from all crowds.

Seb is very maturely saving his sous for a big toy - probably more playmobil bits & bobs.

And we thought Sebby had it bad...

Here she is, poor poppet. We can't count how many spots she has. Her scalp feels like a pommander it's so bumpy. She has virulent pussy ones on her face and angry ones all over her tummy and back. She has some right on her lower lip and on her eyelid by the lashes. They are starting to spread to her arms and legs, so I imagine that she will be contagious for another 3 or even 4 days.

It must be bad because her demeanour is understandably suffering. Our little Soph is glum and tetchy; Seb has even learnt the word "fractious". She is sleeping well-enough at night, but hardly at all in the day. She is off her food but on her milk. And she goes through periods of just swatting endlessly and fairly fruitlessly at her itchy bits and so we have her on anti-histimines.

I've included a pre-pox shot of her. She loves to crawl over to the root vegetable basket and rummage around. She is wearing a very sweet ensemble of clothes donated by everyone else - right down to her nappy. So thanks Aunties Erin, Kelly, Deb & Nell!

Never met a berry I didn't like

'Tis the season for wild blackberries (and yet we can still get local strawberries in the market). Seb & Mike went on a couple of bike trips with picking a top priority, when the former was contagious with his "pox". His spots are vitually gone, except for the final big 3 that may leave marks. The backs of both knees where the eczema comes look horrific...

Recently, he has been entertaining his glum sister and having the neighbours read him stories, as well seeing March of the Penguins with his dad and receiving a Ramadan calendar from Auntie Roberta (whose hand-writing he recognises from all the envelopes and postcards received over the past 6 months).

Open house, open hearts

Many people kindly wrote this past week to reflect on the fantastic celebration we shared 10 years ago, as well as on all that we have got up to since. One of the vows that we made as a couple was to have a home that was open to the world. Well, we have just hosted our 98th, 99th and 100th guest here in Issigeac! (For good measure, we consider the 100th to have been young Ben).

We moved in 37 months ago and despite the state of the house, friends and family have flocked here. We've had several multiple visits (these people George & Lorraine & Roberta keep coming for some reason) which I've counted separately (the other half thinks that is "cheating"). We've had people stay when we were not here, we've hosted friends of friends; someone finished a novel here; friends have presented new babies and paramours.

This summer has been especially busy with 33 visitors and so many wonderful memories. We hope that we might have some guests at Christmas in Saint John and that when we move on in 2008 we will be able to coax people to visit us in our new home wherever that may be. Plus, there's always next spring in Issigeac!

She DOES have a forward gear

Sophie finally managed to co-ordinate forward movement this morning. Her big brother was cheering her along; it was very sweet. But time to batten down the hatches, start closing the doors and clearing the floors.

No matter how fast she will get, she couldn't out run the chickenpox. The first little spots showed up on her face yesterday (we were hoping they were baby acne or milk spots) but she had more on her arms this morning. Not as angry red as Seb's but still the pox... So that means another week of trying to quarantine the household from other kids and spaces where pregnant women linger (like DIY stores or supermarkets). I am getting a little cabin-fever, though Seb is holding up remarkably well.

Medieval Days - Part III and final

Here is the last installment of our regional tour of medieval re-enactments. This time (a whole week ago Sunday) we went to St Macaire, in Gironde (33) - the next department over. The knights were beautifully costumed, as were the villagers in their borrowed costumes. This year's theme was the 12th century marriage of Madeleine of France, the king's sister. A real highlight were all of the free old-fashioned games that were set up in the streets, and the fantastic children's area. It had a castle & figurines to play with, a coconut shy, a pole to climb and rinng the bell, helmeted foam sword-fights, a team-based pails of water contest, archery, and a collaborative ski game (long cross-country skies for 4). But the hands-down favourite was the hobby-horse joust. Sebby was in his element!

girlfriend deserves her own entry

Irreverently refered to as our "houseplant", sunny, smiley Sophie continues to thrive. Tooth # 5 arrived in the middle of the night and she is as right as rain today (unlike her sleep-deprived mum). She still hasn't found forward-gear but she does get around. Yesterday she became a carnivore when she found a scrap of ham that Seb had dropped!

Here she is wearing a reversible Petit Bateau outfit that the Harrolds gave Seb.

Still no sign of the chickenpox, though it could be delayed as long as another week. Seb has one blister that just won't burst and scab over (the end of contagion). It's been 9 days and we are needing to go out and socialise. Fortunately, he got to have a playdate with his Franco-American friend Peter yesterday. But he really wants to go to Bergerac to spend his sous on some more playmobil characters. He has over 14 euros saved up; pretty good going for an almost 4 year old.

There I go again blabbing about Seb, when this was supposed to be Soph's post!

Tonight's dessert is blackberry pie with the berries that Mike & Seb picked this afternoon and baked in a gorgeous ceramic pan that our neighbour made; it even has a head & shoulders image of her husband on it (worth a later picture).

Time/thyme; it's all the same to me

Yesterday, Sebastian set out to get some thyme from the herb pots in our courtgarden. He came back proudly clutching it and declared "here's some clock, mum". I do not make this stuff up.

Meanwhile, the adults have created the to-do-list from h-e- double toothpicks, as my father-in-law says. We leave on Sept 26 for a 3(Mike)-7 (rest of us) days in the UK. I keep reminding Mike that it is a wishful to do list and as long as the key items are done we will be fine. But as we are doing our first house-swap, we want the place to look good. On top of it all, I have 5 more days of work to do the week (or so) or Sept 17-24; I don't think Seb is going to be impressed but I plan on telling him that I have to earn the money for the plane ticket or we can't pay for the flight home...

The knight in training had a bit of a bad temper today. Hopefully, he will be merry again tomorrow. He doesn't seem to be suffering too much from the chickenpox but we still have a couple of days where he can't mix with others. To cheer him along, Michel and Marite (our neighbours) presented him with a wooden bowling set. He hasn't broken any windows yet...

Spots, spots and more spots

The photos say it all...

K-I-T update 3

Hear ye, hear ye. Lords and ladies (and those in between), the council of elders met yesterday and decided to confer on Sebastian Crawley, knight-in-training, a shield for cooperation. Said shield is of the highest quality, hand-crafted by master shield-maker Mike the elder. The heraldic colours of sunny orange and metallic purple were chosen by junior Crawley to represent his happy disposition, while the truly medieval symbols of lion, sword and sunshine (let's play "one of these things doesn't belong") were designed to instill wonder into friend and foe on the play-fair battlefield.

The last step is to aquire the all-powerful sword - sometime over the next week. And he has been promised a helmet of some sort by Halloween. I still need to get up last Sunday's medieval day but all in due course...