Eco-family Explorers

Nous sommes aux Cornouailles, de nouveau, et nous commençons à préparer le retour..Nous nous inquiétions un peu pour Nathanael et Myriam , qui nous disent qu'ils ont tout oublié. Mais pendant notre voyage depuis le Dorset, ils ont regardé un film sur Nausicaa (le centre nautique à Boulogne sur Mer), tout en français, sans aucun souci :-) Depuis qqs jours, les jeunes français sont en vacances (en Angleterre les vacances commencent plus tard, vers le 20 juillet d'habitude) et il nous semble qu'il y on a pas mal autour de nous. Nous avons rencontré un groupe d'étudiants et puis une famille française pendant notre visite au Eden Project (et oui, Myriam a tourné la tête en entendant la maman proposer un petit gâteau à son fils - et en a gagné un, pour le coup :-) Nous sommes venus ici l'année dernière, et on a le droit de revenir dans l'année. L'endroit est tellement beau, magnifique et grand que nous avons bien eu besoin des 2 jours. En fait, revenir

Since we left the last destination on our Atackopoly board, it's felt a bit like a waiting game - we're waiting to go home again. We have a hopefully amazing week planned at New Wine  at the end of July, and when we were thinking about what we wanted to do with the month inbetween, we decided to go back to a few of our favourite spots. So we're back in Cornwall. Let me give you a guided tour of how we got here... Whilst on the Isle of Wight we mostly did this: (the onsite pool, we were in here almost every day, the weather was so fabulous) and this! Yes that's right, lots of eating, drinking, and swimming. Actually we did a fair bit of cycling too, as the Isle of Wight has a great off road cycle path, along a disused railway (as I am the one usually pulling Myriam, hills are not my friend). This was definitely one of our favourite Caravan and Camping Club sites - the pool is AMAZING, and the Isle of Wight is small, so everything (if you choose to go any

This post is part sales-pitch, part maintenance log, part equipment review, and part love-story. For the past 10 months our home has been the safe and comfy interior of our 2006 Hymer Classic 644 camper. It has taken us everywhere we've asked it to, and dealt with all the crazy roads and hills we've ventured up and down, and it has kept us warm and dry whatever the weather. It - or should that be 'she', her name is Lucia - has given other drivers moments of panic as they suddenly imagined being stuck on a country lane for hours, and yet those difficult moments quickly passed as our reversing camera allowed us to resolve the situation. Sometimes she has felt too big, and sometimes she has been too small - but most of the time she has been just right. We bought Lucia on the 18th May 2017 in preparation for our year-long tour of the UK and have been very happy with our decision. She sleeps the 5 of us comfortably, and we have even occasionally slept 7 when fam

Here is a video of the battle of Hastings of course I don't mean that I went back to the 11th century and took a video safely standing on a hill!!! Now you know what I mean! 

This trip was never really about sight-seeing, but back in Spring 2017 we decided that if we were going to go travelling for a year it would be a good idea to know where to go. In one of our now infamous family meetings we brain-stormed the places we would like to go during our year of travels. The resulting list was a combination of places the kids had heard of, places we'd been to as kids, places we'd never been to as kids, and fish. The Atack-opoly board was produced to metaphorically set our target destinations in stone and ever since we set off it has guided our choices of destination.  As I write this we are currently staying on the Isle of Wight, and combined with Laura's trip to the Tower of London with the kids last week we have now collected all the properties on our board. So job done, we can all go home. Except that this list was always more or less just for guidance rather than being a firm plan. We will indeed go home sooner rather than later - the Eu

Voici la vidéo sur la bataille de Hastings qui explique comment ça s'est passé. 🏹🏹

Dans les derniers semaines, nous avons passé pas mal de temps à visiter Londres.. Retour en images (et mots!) En mai, c'était Ma grande aventure orchestrale - au Royal Albert Hall. Un spectacle de musique classique pour enfants qui était magique, captivant, magnifique. Avant le spectacle les membres d'orchestre accueillent les enfants, les invitent à toucher et jouer les instruments. Plus de 5000 places (équivalent presque du Zénith) et donc impressionnant. Pour moi, c'est un lieu mythique, car ici a lieu tous les ans les BBC Proms..  trop de souvenirs d'enfance... #GoldVaultSelfie Fin mai, une journée pour visiter le ' City of London '. C'est le cœur de Londres, le quartier des finances/ affaires, et aussi la vielle ville romaine. Donc nous avons commencé notre journée en cherchant les murs d'un site des bains publics, et puis nous sommes allés visiter le Temple de Mithras  -un musée créatif, gratuit et fascinant, avec la re-création en s

We're back in Guildford staying with my parents for 5 days - having left here about 3 weeks ago. One of the definite bonuses of this year's trip has been the opportunity to spend more regular time with family, just doing normal things (and the odd day trip out of course!) We have been able to pick up cousins from school, hang out in the library with Grandma, watch TV with Gramps, do puzzles with Grandad Ian, and play cricket with Uncle Ed..  But as most of you are not family, you probably don't want the details on how many overs the boys beat Uncle Ed by.. So in between these trips (which just about coincided with my mum's birthday and then Father's day) we've been off round the East and South East of England - in Essex and then Brighton. Can you spot Lucia? Our trip to Essex was to cover a gap in our UK map! and to catch up with Andy and Alison Griffiths, who lived in Paris many years ago. Andy was a curate at St Michaels, and is now involved in trainin