Holibobs to Brittany, France

After over a month from getting back, I'm finally going to write up about our lovely recent trip to Brittany. A few months ago, my sister, "B", had suggested we go on another joint trip together... she'd always been impressed with my ability to grab bargain holidays, and so we were going to get a holiday together and then exchange baby sitting evening duties... or at least that was the plan! Last year I discovered the joy of Sun Holidays - the bargain "from £15 per person" caravan deals. Personally, I am not a Sun reader... the first time I used them, I felt dirty by association (I'm quite strongly not a Sun reader! - I don't agree with their political stand point, and until the recent removal, I was disgusted by their need for page 3 topless models). 
Anywho, I managed to get over my personal objections, and figured that if I got a cheap holiday, then I could overlook the source (don't judge me... I'm not usually that movable in my ethical stand point!). Last year we had a lovely 5 days in New Quay, Wales at a nice little caravan park, the only problem with it was that 5 days just wasn't enough, by the time we'd arrived and got set up, and then on the final day of cleaning the caravan and getting packed, we only really felt like we had about 3.5 days of holiday. So this year we were determined to get a full week. Once the deal came out, it became apparent that the only 7 night deals were abroad - even better! Forces us to spend a little more, but hopefully have much better weather! Plus, we LOVE French food!! 

Bethany and my plan was to book separate caravans at exactly the same time so that we could be guaranteed the same site. Yeah... that didn't happen! After waiting until pay day, B kindly offered to book both of them as we were in Venice for my 30th at the time (not usually this much of a jet setter!) We'd decided on a park, and whilst keeping an eye on my Whatsapp I waited with baited (ish) breath to hear when the deed was done. First one booked - B's caravan was secured in our first choice site... she starts the process for ours - "I'm sorry, but this site is fully booked" - Say what?! Gah! That was not the plan!! Bless her, she spent aaaages trying to get through to them, on the phone, by email, looked into how much it was to book directly with the park (upward of £600!! - rip offs!), at one point she thought she'd found the solution - one for £250 odd... nearly booked it, but wait - no... that's not right... ah, yes, that's for a camping pitch (literally just the plot of grass! Not even a tent). Soooo... that was that plan scuppered. She managed to get us one that was about an hour away from theirs, so the plan became less of baby sitting exchanges, and more that we'd just meet up on a couple of the days... ah the best laid plans ey? 

Jump forward a month or so, and it was finally time! We were somewhat dreading the total of 14 hours of travel, but we hoped it would be worth it in the end (the journey there definitely was... the way back... not so much!)

We set off on the Sunday afternoon, as we were going to stay at B and L's that night to slightly break up the journey. We were all smiles on our first leg of the journey

Look at those cool dudes :)

B and L were heading to his parent's house that evening, as that was even closer to their ferry dock, so we had their nice 2 bed flat to ourselves that night - Partaaaaayyyy! No... just kidding, or at least Big A and I had no intention of that. Our excited 4 and 2 year olds had a slightly different plan! My kids are surprisingly good at bedtime - they are crackers maracas during the day, but once bedtime comes, they're usually settled quite quickly and easily... usually - hah! Not so much that night, we had our alarm set for around 2am (6am ferry from Dover, and Big A likes to have lots of time to allow for any set backs), and our darling boys decided that this was the night that they were NOT going to go to sleep - uuuuuggghhhh. Firstly we had Big Boy JD coming in and out, in and out constantly asking "is it time?? Are we going soon?" "I want some more stories" "daddy, Joey has opened the curtains" "mummy I want P (his cousin)'s teddies" "Can I have more books" "I not tired mummy and daddy" "I too cited to sleep!" etc etc.

Then Little JJ decided to join the party - guess who figured out how to climb out of his cousin's cot? Gaaaahhhhhh come on!!! Out, "come on, back you go"(put back in), out, "time for sleep boys" (in), out, "Damn it kids, we need to sleep!!!" (in), out, "Waaaahhhaaaaaaa give me strength!!!" (in) ... and so it went on. I can't remember what finally settled them, whatever it was, it wasn't until at least 11pm. Not impressed!

And then, within what felt like minutes, our alarms went off. Poor old A, had to drive for 2 hours to Dover (with a last minute dash back when I realised I'd forgotten my glasses - I'm always leaving them all over the place!)

Of course those jammy boys were able to fall asleep no problem!

 I think I had a bit of a nap too, but didn't want to sleep for too long, so as to help A stay awake.

We got to the ferry dock with plenty of time to spare, and finally our holiday was really starting! The sleep deprivation got put aside (mostly) for our excitement to finally get going!

Our Family on a Ferry to France! 

Big A decided to get involved with the soft play - who says it's just for little kids ey? Oh wait... the sign does. Ah well!

After the uneventful, and motorway full (not particularly scenic) 6 1/2 hour drive, when we got to  our site (La Grande Metairie, Caranc), we were very very glad to be able to get out the car!! Thankfully the park is lovely!!

 Wonderful swimming complex (pic off google - not mine) - we had many many an hour was spent in that! :)

We get to our caravan, unload the car and chill... for all of about 15 mins. By that point it was getting on for about 7pm, and the supermarkets around there close at 7.30, and we were huuuungry. We needed to get our holiday food. Whilst in years gone by, we've tried to spend not a lot on food, and more on trips out, now, due to having kids, and A's high pressure job, our last few holidays have had very few long trips out, and much more R&R with lots of yummy food, and boy oh boy, do the French know how to do yummy food!

We got continental meats, cheeses, juice, Orangina (love that stuff), ice creams, baguettes, croissants, pain au chocolat, a giant 1kg jar of nutella, jams, BBQ food, things to make crepes (in my uni days, I was known as the pancake queen, so yes, they were home made, not creperie bought), ice creams etc etc etc... we love food!

Here's a picture of our continental lunch the next day. Yuuuuum!

My kids have had a dairy intolerance since they were babies, it is actually getting a lot better recently, but that's a very recent discovery (found out the week after this, that they'd been having milk at nursery, and their fine! hah!)

However, we found these amazing cornettos that were made out of sorbet!! (sorbet doesn't use milk) The boys thought they were the very best things EVER! Many of those were consumed (we don't police treats as heavily when we are on holiday).

That afternoon after swimming, we decided to have a look into what all the standing stones were that we'd been driving past...

(this is a google images shot - not mine)

Turns out there were hundreds of menhirs literally a few yards from our caravan site - people came from miles around to see them - that was a nice unexpected surprise from the area! 

I don't know about you, but my first thought when I heard they were menhirs was of Asterix and Obelix :

Really loved those comic books (graphic novels??) as a kid... and now!

We found a forest next to them and played hide and seek for a while

Found you!

Off on the search

It then evolved into a "who can find the biggest stick/branch" game

Big Boy JD's basuka!

Which, of course, then turned into a sword fight with daddy! Star wars light sabers at the ready!

We then went for a walk - the menhirs really were amazing, and all in straight lines - incredible what people were capable of back in the day without the machinery we have now.

Lovely daddy and sons shot :)

JD definitely takes after his father in not liking to give a normal smile for pictures.

Realised I hadn't appeared in any pictures for a while, so to prove I was there, I thought I'd get a random selfie shot of A trying to show them how to blow on grass to make it squeak (that will sound seriously strange if you've never done it! hah!)

There was this great little look out tower further up that we climbed - see what I said about the menhirs all being in straight lines - amazing!

That evening we decided that, as Brits, it had already been far too long in the sun without some burnt food! So a BBQ was started, the entire place stank of lighter fluid for a while after that! I think Big A might have got a bit excited by the big-a-boom that it caused each time.

As it turned out, the BBQ had very little burnt bits, and lots of yummies - oh look, I've just seen further proof that I was there - my shadow taking the picture! ^^^

Wednesday morning was crepe time!! JD and A went out for a walk, JJ was happily sat in his cot reading books - he knows that when he comes out of his cot, he has to give me his dummy, so he was stubbornly refusing to come out - it was hilarious, he was in there for a good 30-40 mins whilst I was working in the kitchen.

Pancake queen strikes again! (I'm not being big headed... it was genuinely my nickname around pancake day at uni - I used to make up to 80 pancakes for a massive group of us - 3 frying pans on the go at once! Good times :) )

Oh look - you can see our huge vat of Nutella behind the milk ^^^  soooo yummy.

That morning we were meeting B&L at a beach they'd been told about. Apparently it was really beautiful, and really really long so there would be plenty of space. It was about 20 mins from us, and so off we went. As it turns out, it was a really massive beach - we're talking miles of sand. As such, there were many car parks, we saw one likely looking car park, and could see that there was a clear pathway to the coast. There were some people just getting into their cars, and so B (as she's not shy talking to strangers), asked in broken (but better than mine) French whether that was the way to "la plage" (beach). For some reason, the response we got was much longer than a simple "oui" or "non", but it sounded mostly in the affirmative, so we figured we were in the right place. We walked down to the hidden beach (it was obscured by a sand bank), and were immediately greeted by horrible sand! Less like sand, and more like sand paper! All full of scratchy shells and painfully non soft rocks. But we are Brits... so we'd see it through - never give up, never surrender and all that.

Got a cute nakey shot of JD whilst he wondered off to find somewhere to wee half way through changing into his swim suit... This photo was ironically quite appropriate - you'll see why soon (or you might already know if you read my "To holiday, or not to holiday" blog that I wrote a couple weeks back).

We carried on, despite the horrible sand, and had a nice time pottering about - paddling in the (very cold) sea, looking for shells, and taking a couple family shots.

We even attempted to build a sand castle, but it ended up being a sand mound and moat, as it wouldn't stick together.

JJ's help wasn't exactly helpful... bless him!

This ^^^ was quite a funny moment when L was batting away a wasp and managed to wallop off his glasses accidentally and popped out one of the lenses. B is pregnant by the way... it isn't too many French delicacies eaten ;)

We went for a walk along the very beautiful (and painful) beach, and as we went we noticed a few people who were clearly very comfortable in their own skin - their completely naked skin! It was a little surprising for us conservative Brits, but we plowed on - each to their own and all that. Thankfully the kids were young enough not to scar them too much.

Haha! Big A had borrowed my flip flops at one point in a desperate attempt to make walking less painful - it didn't help (you can just about see him wearing them in the picture above)

Oh - look, this is a familiar shot (it's the blog background currently in case I sound crazy)

Love the look on JJ's face - very much a "JJ look".

As scratchy/painful as the sand was, the boys had a wonderful time playing in the sea, and I got a few lovely shots of them

Oh look - another shot proving I was there - look at his little face! cutey pie!

Attempting to get some arty shots.

Then it was time for our picnic, I was quite pleased with the meat and camembert croissant sandwiches I'd made - they really were delicious (told you we don't mess about with food on holiday!)

B had made a nice pasta salad for them, but had forgotten to bring a fork or spoon... thankfully they were with family, so we weren't bothered by their hands on (literally) approach to eating their lunch!

JJ making his escape in the background - I tell you, the boy is fiercely, and dangerously independent!!

As we started to walk back, the one or two naked people had suddenly multiplied... there were dozens of them!! What the actual heck was going on?? Surely French people weren't all this unbothered about people seeing their ging-gang-goolies!! We even saw someone fly fishing in the nip!! Full on fishing, walking around, reeling it in with everything on display for everyone to see - I thought he was quite brave throwing a hook around with something so exposed and vulnerable!!

We started joking that maybe we'd accidentally come to a nudest beach "haha! how funny would that be? What a story! Nah, surely there would have been a sign on the way in, so as to prevent people accidentally walking on to it"

Weeeeell.... actually as we left, we discovered there was a sign after all... it was even translated into English for us dumb Brits.

Oops!

Ah well... it was a fun day, and we certainly had a new story to tell! Will definitely be more careful as I approach a French beach in future though.

After Wednesday, it was back to the usual - food, swimming, chilling out:

Pastry + Chocolate = Hell yes!

Big A's epic lunch time sandwich

Those sorbet cornettos really were epic

They even decided at one point to wash the car ... with a mop! Well... why not... we're on holiday!

The evening after our trip to the beach, I felt a bit sore on my neck/upper back. I'd been wearing a halter neck swimming costume, with a top over, and so when I finally discovered my sun burn, it was in the most random shape! And genuinely sore!! Properly painful!! And guess who had forgotten to pack aftersun! oops!

So painful!! When sleeping, I had to wedge my head high enough, so that the pillow suspended my head above the sheet, and far enough that my upper back didn't touch anything. Ah the joys of being pale!

On Saturday (our holiday was going SO quickly!), we headed over to B&L's camp site, they had a lovely caravan, funnily enough it was 3 bed, even though there's only 3 of them! Jack pot!

They's bought the most delicious BBQ food - so so yummy!! So the boys got busy making fire! It's funny isn't it? It doesn't matter how traditional men and women are in their roles when it comes to who cooks (I do pretty much all the cooking in our home, and I think it's the same with B - we genuinely enjoy cooking), the moment fire and meat comes out - the men get involved!

"Man make fire" and all that :)

We had a wander around their site - they had a lovely little farm and fun things to do - including a bouncy castle! The kids (and adults) very much enjoyed that (sadly, post children, I can't bounce too enthusiastically .... TMI? ;) )

Yes, your eyes do not deceive you, that is a heavily pregnant person bouncing on a bouncy castle - she doesn't do things in halves, that sister of mine :)

The men folk had arranged to do a giant zip slide thing that afternoon, so off they went, and we waited (for a lot longer that we'd thought it would be) next to a river (what numpties - little kids plus rivers, plus boredom... silly!) for them to slide past us. The kids had a grand old time squabbling over toys, attempting to make the great escape, and getting filthy in mole hills - you know, the usual.

Finally, after nearly an hour (we had thought it would be about 20 mins), the group started to slide past, and eventually our husbands came too.

L came along - zooooooom!

Then A came sliding past

Final zip slide was across a river, so mad a great shot :)

On the way back, we found a play park about 3 min walk from where we'd been waiting - doh! that could have made the hour's wait a lot easier! Ah well.

Sunday brought more yummy food, swimming, and chill time:

Crepes for breakfast again - yummmmmy

Lunchtime chocolate treat

Cuddles with daddy - it was a bit colder that day.

That afternoon the weather wasn't great, but JD was determined he wanted to go swimming, so JD and daddy went to the pool, and I stayed home to clean up the caravan and JJ watched Toy Story 2. I love this ^^^ shot of him - watching Buzz, wearing a Buzz top and holding a Buzz toy! :)

Final evening meal of the holiday was steak and chips!

Big A approves highly of this one!

Monday it was time to make our long trek home, we allowed plenty of time to get to the Dunkirk ferry, and were making good time... 6 hours into our 6 1/2 hour journey, we got stuck in traffic outside Calais - clever us had planned our trip home the day after the world cup final! Gah! Doh! Soo... 2 hours later, the traffic finally starts moving again. It was VERY hot in the car, and all we had was chocolate and no drinks. Not the most fun we had all holiday.

Eventually we get to the dock and thankfully DFDS let us get on the next ferry without any extra fees. After missing the ferry by 20 mins, we had another 1 1/2 hours to wait for the next (I think at this time I started crying... I couldn't cope with the idea of even longer to wait, especially with a 4/5 hour drive home! I had to be up for a 6am start at work the following day too!)

Anyway... eventually we got on board, got a nice drink, spent our final euros on a ferry dinner and we were much happier.

Big A taking some chill time on our way back.

Overall, despite the horrible homeward journey, we had an absolutely wonderful time, I am amazed and very grateful for Big A's uncomplaining (mostly) driving all the way there and back (I did tentatively offer, but thankfully he said no thank you - I only passed my driving test a year ago, didn't fancy French roads just yet!)

I highly recommend Brittany to anyone - some wonderful places and amazing weather. Great time had by all :)