A lazy sunny sunday

I discovered another thing other that the French do well today and that is markets.  After skyping James' family in Wellington we decided to head to the Tournefeuille market as we will be living near there.  We were expecting something quite small and organic, like the lovely farmers markets at home.  Instead we find this very crowded, busy hive of Sunday activity.  There were fantastic produce stalls and amazing fromage sellers as well as salamis, meats and bakeries.  There were also clothing, jewellery and toys.  I bought some fruit and vege and James had the full french experience by lining up for some cheese and getting the man to cut him off a piece from the round.  Jasper struggled with the crowds and smells so I ended up taking him and Hannah out while James and Penelope bought the salami and ham.

We decided to get in the car and explore and came across a river with a cycle track on it as well as a playground (haven't found many playgrounds in Toulouse).  It is quite close to where we will be living so will be wonderful to be able to cycle into the village along the river.

We then came home and had our yummy cheese, ham and salami for lunch.

It was very hot again today so the kids and James had a swim in the pool.  It got too hot for me so came back into our air conditioned apartment.

A full week of school for the kids this week so hopefully they manage with the long days in the heat.



 

Crusade to Carcassonne

Bonjour, James here. Thought it was about time I had another go at writing a Blog.

I have started going to the Gym in the mornings to try combat the effects of all that great French food.  This morning I was joined by Jasper. It was great to have some company, but he would only last 30 sec before he got bored of that machine and wanted to try the next one. Luckily we were the only ones there, but it was hard to get a bit of a sweat on, stopping all the time. That was until he wanted to try the treadmill - this was my chance! "What you want to do, is try one of the programmes on the machine....say for 15mins!"  I suggested. It may be wrong to take advantage of his gullible youth, but I wanted to get a work out too.

So there he was on the treadmil, while I was beside him on the Exercycle. His programme started easy enough  but I had to try not to laugh out loud as the machine speed up and his little legs were flying with his eyes wide. To his credit he hung in there for the full 15mins and was ready to go home.

Today we traveled to Carassonne which has a well restored fairy-tale city in the middle of it. We decided to go on an adventure to get there taking in some of the sites off the beaten track. I loaded all the places we wanted to go into the GPS - it asked me if I was sure about this? Didn't I want to go the quickest route? (Yes even the GPS questions my requests - even though I have changed the voice to Ken the Australian, I think it must be Female!!) I gently promised the GPS that we would go the quickest route on the way back, which she accepted.

So our first stop was a village called Castelnaudary. We do not have a guide book! Google is all very well, but you can't take it with you (easily). We thought that this village must have a castle, but we did not see one. It was lovely though, and Jasper and I went into a little old Peugeot bike shop while the girls went to the bakery. We had morning tea down by the canal.

Back on the road and we weren't too sure about the route that the GPS was taking us, I thought that she may be getting me back for daring to suggest an alternative route. Rach thought that we should find an easier, not so turny route, I was caught in the middle, not wanting to upset either of them, but as the GPS had the power to get us lost, I decided to go with her. It paid off as we were soon making our way though the gorgeous, village of Saissac, with the main street following the ridge and the rest of village seemed to tumble down into the valley  below.

On we wound though the beautiful country side, we could only imagine what it would have looked like if the fields of sunflowers were still in bloom. Eventually we arrive at the village of Lastours, which had a number of old castles in various states of ruin.  It was a good climb up, but at least we got to pay for the privilege. The lady behind the counter looked at us and said that it took two hours. We felt very under prepared in our jandles as we saw the hikers coming down in their tramping gear. It wasn't that bad. We decided to split up, Rachel suggesting that I take Jasper on ahead. Jasper had obviously recovered from this mornings Gym session, as he bounded up, talking none-stop about how we were knights of the Crusade, attacking these baddies in the castles.

From our vantage point high up on top of one of the castles, Jasper and I proudly surveyed the destruction that we had caused by conquering the baddies and taking over the castles. 

We spotted a Queen and Princess in the distance, who were obviously impressed by our efforts.

Back down we went ready to get stuck into the Birthday lunch that we had promised Jasper. Unfortunately, by the time we got there, they had stopped serving food. We had a couple of drinks and made our way to Carcassonne. 

Rach spotted the Castle sticking proudly out of the surrounding city. It looked like something off a movie set. As we got into the city we couldn't find the way up to the old City. So once again we gently asked the GPS, and she was like, "Oh so you need my help now?" She helped us alright, took us through the narrowest streets she could find, I was driving in the gutter just to avoid the parked cars. I don't know how she did it, but the GPS also managed to get us into the middle of a wedding party who were obviously not expecting any vehicle to be coming down such a narrow street. Eventually we did find a carpark out side the old city, and it was even more impressive close up. Jasper said "Peter Jackson should use this in the Hobbit movie!"

Found this Princess out side the castle.

By this stage we were staving so, we were on the hunt for some food. Being touristy, there were plenty of places to choose from. We ended up having a good feed of Pomme Frites, salad, Pizza and I shared my Magret de Canard with the girls, not telling them that it was duck until they had told me how nice it was.

We explored the rest of this beautiful old city for another hour or so, but there was still more to see which we have left until we come back...hopefully showing some Family or Friends around.

As promised, we drove home using the most direct route, which was on the Toll roads which allowed us to cruise along at 130kph. Once home, we got in our togs and jumped into the pool to cool down as it was about 32C.

Friday

James took Penelope and Jasper to school today so i was able to get on with homeschooling Hannah.  She wasn't quite as keen today but we used Mathletics and sunshine books online so she enjoyed that.  We are so lucky to have a wonderful correspondence teacher in NZ who has organised so many different resources to use.  It is good to be able to use pen and paper resources as well as online resources as it gives Hannah a bit of variety.  A big thanks also to the fantastic staff at Ouruhia school for getting us set up with correspondence.  I am really enjoying homeschooling Hannah and am not sure what I'll do when she does go to  school - the first thing will be to find a cafe that sells a good cup of coffee!

The board at IST met tonight to decide the plan forward for Hannah.  So hopefully the results from that will be positive and she can start soon.  There is also another little girl with DS who has enrolled at IST but not able to start yet, so they really do need to be able to accommodate children with special needs as there is a need.  The family is staying at the same apartments as us so I have been able to have nice chats with her.

I am really enjoying meeting people from all different countries and have chatted to other families at the apartments from Spain and Germany.  So lovely to see the children playing with other children who can't speak English and they just make up games and all join in together.  Penelope even got an invitation to a birthday party today - the whole class did but still, very exciting for her.

After our school work Hannah and I went for a walk to the shops to get some things.  We got some pool toys as the pool here is quite deep and they can't touch the bottom.  As soon as we got home Hannah was in her togs and in the pool!!  By this time it was over 30oC so a swim was a nice way to cool off.  She then got to have another swim when Jasper and Penelope came home from school so she was happy about that.

A beautiful day today in Toulouse and it got to 34oC so lovely and hot! Tomorrow we are going to go to Carcasonne and James has programmed the route into the gps in the car and is all ready for our first French road trip.  Hopefully it will be another fine day.