Allez mes enfants

Bonjour mes amis. Oui, nous sommes en la France.

(I’ll complete the rest of this meandering drivel in pigeon English because it’s now 30 years since I passed my French GCSE and my memory has never been good).

We left Barcelona yesterday morning. Brilliant place, which you’ll surely know if you’ve been. Everyone seems so laid back, including “Kamal, the Indian guy” who greeted us warmly upon our arrival and smiled manically as we departed. We’d paid him by then, and didn’t break anything.

The next challenge was to train it to Perpignan.  Initially, Charlotte wasn’t impressed with the views.

And then we left the tunnel.

She was thrilled as you can see.

We only had a couple of hours in Perpignan, which at least gave the kids an opportunity to begin to understand that France is just that little bit madder than anywhere else on the planet.

For example, this fine example of modern French art stands proudly in Perpignan town square.

Well, sits. On a big wooden chair.

Then it was time to clamber aboard another magnificent train - spotless, loads of room, fast, on time - for a 15 minute scoot to Argeles. A bit of lunch, a big shop (26 beers for €11), an overpriced taxi and easy passage into our static holiday shack.

And as if by magic, Charlotte entered full-on holiday mode. 

Then we hit the water, me literally after Jamie made me try out each and every water slide. I don’t mind that sort of thing, but I was very tee shirt tan conscious so early in the trip. Hopefully my body colours will even out over the course of the week.

After pizza al fresco, we had a wander around the site and caught a glimpse of the nightly show. It was called McCavity, presumably because the producer didn’t want to pay Andrew Lloyd Webber a pile of cash for the privilege of calling it Cats. 

Meow.

As I look out of the window to my left, the sun is peering over the distant trees at the start of what will hopefully be another beautiful day.

And to my right, there’s this.

They’ve even pulled the curtains.

So that’s what happening with us. I hope the weather’s OK back in Blighty and you have exciting Bank Holiday plans in place.  Failing that, there must be a pub nearby.

I’ll be in touch.