Oman-Browns Visit!

Good morning from my bed with a coffee in hand and Dermott on the wireless. As predicted from me two weeks ago, it's been radio silence due to us having Katie, Steph, Sophie and Lauchlan here on holiday for a week. As you'd imagine, it was full on, especially with William still at school, but it was absolutely wonderful to see them, the kids all got on brilliantly, we just fell back into friendships that are now twenty five years old (what the hell?!), and the absolute nonsense chat flowed to the point of crying with laughter. You cannot beat it. 

Let me back up a little. Before they arrived, we managed to borrow a variety of items to make their trip easier. Alisha gave us a car seat, Odel gave us a bike, and we got helmets from the Billère velo association. Perfect. I met Alisha at the new skate / bike park on the Saturday to do the handover (and let the boys have a big play too) and William absolutely loved it. 

The rest of the weekend was spent organising and cleaning the house for them coming and it was a good opportunity to give the whole house a proper spring clean. I even managed to give baby clothes away! They arrived on Tuesday around mid afternoon and Iain drove up to Bordeaux to collect them. It was simply crazy that they were actually here. We moved to this part of the world so that we would see more of our friends and family but Covid just put a hold on everything for so long. Anyway, they got in, got a feel for their digs for the week, we did a quick loop of the town to let them see the mountains, we cracked open the fizz and got stuck into a big pot of bolognese, and it felt like no time at all had passed since we'd last hung out. 

The kids were all in the one room and although the first night was a bit excitable, they were brilliant and slept happily all week. William also loved sharing his room with them. With him still at school for the first few days of their trip, we were all still up and into the days by 8.30am every day so it meant we could take them out for walks and cycles in our usual spots. 

Before we knew it, the weekend had rolled round. The first few days had been somewhat of a daze involving lots of food and red wine, late nights and early mornings so we were in need of a bit of down time. At least, the adults were! 😉 William had previously told me that the thing he wanted to do most with them was go to AcroJungle so with the weather packing in, we indulged them all with a trip to soft play! As we needed to go by bus, it ended up a bit of an adventure and, actually, a perfect way to spend the day. By the time we got home, got the kids into onsies and jammies and ordered pizza, it was generally a quiet house. 

We tried to go a bit more french-traditional on Sunday with a long lunch at Brasserie Royale. Gen had lots of toys out on a bench plus our kids had taken their bikes, so they were very occupied whilst we drank Aperol Spritz in the glorious sunshine. Post lunch, Iain and Steph took the kids on the little train and later in the day we headed to Beaumont to let the weans run riot. Iain and Steph went to the pub to watch some football and Katie and I hung out in the park until about 6pm. Just brilliant.

The forecast for Monday was the best day of their trip so we were a big naughty and pulled William out of school for the day so that we could do a day of cycling, picnicing and sports in Gelos. A good reason to dog school I reckon. And it wouldn't be a hot day in Pau without a good run around in the fountains in Place Clemenceau. 

And before we knew it, their week was up and we were, once again, saying our goodbyes. It was wonderful seeing our kids form such good freindships but like I said before, it's just been great having such old mates here and sliding back into life with them. Katie and I were properly crying with laughter at old stories and utter nonsense and it was simply so good for the soul. You cannot put a price on that. 💛

In other news from the past two weeks, I have finally sorted out the health insurance policy issues and been able to make appointments for my follow up back scan and specialist appointment. I've also got a resounding "No" from my CAF application but it means I can finally draw a line in the sand. I had a shocker this week with a macOS update and spent over 24hrs trying to fix my laptop. At one point I actually thought my laptop had died. In the end, I needed to get walked through a disk erase and reload from a backup. I think it's fixed, and I'm breathing a huge sigh of relief. In sports, William has been moved up a level at swimming and is now doing proper lengths, over and over again. None of the infant playing anymore: he's doing proper stroke development and he must be shattered from it! On Wednesday this week, I walked past two boys sitting on the edge of the pool, chatting, that are in the “niveau 2” swimming group and thought, Jeezo they look big. I can’t believe William is going to be swimming with them. Then I realised one of them was, in fact, William. Unbelievable. He finished tennis this morning for the holidays, and he's still loving it. Iain and I had a gym hiatus while Oman-Brown were here but were back with a vengeance this week. Iain did my skinnies yesterday and there's been a marked decrease (11mm) so I'm stoked. 

I had a meeting this week with William's teacher and, as expected, he's doing really well. All his national testing has come back really good and she said he's just very settled in class and enjoys school. We're pleased. To mark the end of term, we took him for ice-cream after school yesterday. It was braw.

So that's us into the Easter holidays. Iain and I are both keen to head away and we're thinking about some sort of nothern / central Spain road trip but we need to do it on a budget so we were contemplating camping. But the forecast for next week is awful so we're undecided. We've got itchy feet though so I'm fairly sure that my next post is more than likely to include some sort of travel adventure. Exciting times. 

Lorna. :-)