... the trip to Holy Island, as the weather isn't brilliant. Not that I've EVER been to Holy Island on a good day; even when I used to take the kids from school my main recollection is of trying to find shelter from the elements - AND the seagulls as well come to think of it. I couldn't possibly eat my packed lunch for fear that I was going to be swooped on and would then pass out from terror, disgracing myself in front of the children. It was also a non-starter for me to ever do the Billy Shiels boat trip round the Farnes - that would be my idea of sheer hell, all that swooping and diving and flapping (and that would have just been me trying to escape from the gulls!)
I remember being in the Vendee one year when our kids were little. I think it was the year we decided to go for the whole of the summer holiday and we must have run out of stuff to do, because somehow we ended up going to a Bird of Prey centre and attempted to watch a display which filled all the rest of the audience with awe, but reduced me to a jibbering wreck seeking refuge UNDER the seats and covered by an umbrella. This is NOT an exagerration and I could still have cold sweats thinking about it even now.
But, the worst place for birds (apart from Kielder Water which is chock full of the little types that are sometimes worse than big ones) was at the fish and chip shop just before we got the ferry at the terminal in Amsterdam. These were quite simply the biggest, most agressive and persistant gulls ever. They started to attack as soon as people came out of the shop and then blocked the way to their cars and then landed ON the cars, pecking at the windows and the roof just like a scene from that old Hitchcock horror. Needless to say, I didn't even attempt to get out of the car and just looked on in shocked horror waiting for the moment when their beaks broke through the window at which point I just knew I would die of a terror-inducd panic-attack.
(Now that I come to think about it, maybe we'll not go to Holy Island at all - just in case!)
LILY & ROSE
Here are some photos of Lily & Rose. There are a few from the first time we saw them when they were just 4 weeks old. They would fit on your hand at this age and didn't look much like westies!
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I drove to the Vendee when the boys were little too. Much of France was going through a heatwave that summer and even the beach was too much. Mercifully the Mercedes had aircon. I remember the tide didn't come in till late in the afternoon and we thought we were stealing a march on everyone by being there early. Of course there was nowt but rockpools and crabs as far as the eye could see. Playing tennis in 42c heat will live long in the memory as will the irritating 9yr boy from Berks in the next next (French Country Camping)tent who's screaming vocabulary seemed to consist of nothing but "Nuyyyu" - which was meant to be "No". His middle class, ever so right on parents were so utterly feckless, and pandered to his every whim, while we seethed and sweated over the camping gaz and Matthew and Daniel looked at us as if butter wouldn't melt....with that "see how good we are-can we have another ice cream?" look written across their innocent little faces. They were good times.
ReplyDeleteOh yes - the heat was amazing and at times quite unbearable - but then again the rain was something else as well. We went to the Puy du Fou, which is where the bird thing was, and the heavens opened after weeks of scorching heat creating rivers in all the previously dry ditches.
ReplyDeleteWe stayed in a gite in St Benoit, a tiny village just a few kms from the beach. We would sent the kids out every morning to the boulangerie to ask for their own breakfast - pointing was not allowed!
After five weeks we came home and our children had turned into mahogany-coloured French children!