Well, here we are back in London after another big adventure! This time, we started in Sussex at the Steiner School Camp - beautiful countryside, high class camping with fully stocked communal kitchen and food to die for! Not what we're used to in Canada, where we have to put the food in the car or up in a tree so the bears or raccoons don't storm the tent!! Kids had a great time playing and swimming, adults enjoyed great food, drink and music around the campfire.....the highlight for me was the KIA dance workshop!!!Just like skating again!! Felt great to have such a fun intense workout and move to the music.

Then it was off to la loire, actually south of the loire, near la Vienne, in a small village called Berthegon (north of Bordeaux) to stay with Claire and Jason in their old stone farm house. It was REALLY hot and 'buggy' but the company was great -kids played with Gil and Hester and swam in their little pool. We toured many chateaux in the area, including the home where Da Vinci spent his last four years - IBM engineers built some of his inventions and designs and that was definitely a highlight in Amboise - oh, except for le marché where we nearly lost Bailey!! The police had him after he had left the market, crossed two streets and returned to the bar in front of our hotel we had only stayed in for one night!!!! Another highlight of this visit was definitely the meal Jason prepared on our last night of prawns and squid..worth cutting our camping trip to Versailles short.

We spent the extra night in Amboise as there was too much to do, so we only camped for one night in Versailles. A five minute walk from Huttopia - which we would definitely recommend - is the RER train to Paris....20 minutes later and Sé and I were in front of la Tour Eiffel!! After a lovely day exploring Paris by bus, visiting Notre Dame and strolling around the left bank, Sé and I took the Eurostar through the chunnel and were home in Muswell Hill in less than four hours!! Amazing!

Now we are just trying to unpack and get things done -like Ian's thesis -without any particular routine or rhythm to our days .....it's like starting over again, this summer holiday thing!! Jaxon enjoyed his first real visit to the library to pick out books his he started reading full on - that was fun!