Our little girl is growing up

A quick update on Lily

– rolling over generally from her back onto her tummy,

- some days her eyes are green and other days they are brown but she still has the dark blue/grey ring around the outside,

- hair is slowly growing a light brown colour (much much lighter than mine) with her eyebrows really light brown

- bald patch is disappearing,

- last weigh-in was 8.1kgs,

- now on two solid meals a day (she is really enjoying her solids although not surprised since food has never been a problem),

- likes standing up (aided of course),

- loves the camera

and of course she enjoying watching the rugby world cup with French commentary. It's very funny to hear the commentators screaming 'oh la la'!

She is really enjoying her food - so far she has eaten apple, pear, veuve, peach, banana, avocado,pumpkin, potato, zuchinni. Here are some photos of Lily eating her breakfast.

Lily`s first swimming lesson

We went over to Martin and Eric’s to lounge by their pool for the afternoon and Lily had her first dive (or should I say dunk) in the water last week.

She really enjoyed the water and as Michael pulled her through the water she was actually kicking her legs – this could be the Renford’s third generation Channel swimmer! Lily wasn’t too sure about the whole par lava after she was dunked but as her dad says she will just have to get used to it!

A few weeks in Provence

Our first visitors arrived three days after we arrived and it was great to see Alana and Daniel get off the bus in Aix-en-Provence after their mammoth nine hour bus trip from Barcelona. They were greeted with smiles from Lily but then soon realised it was past her bedtime as she screamed for a good portion of the one hour drive home. Daniel asked ‘If Lily is so tired why doesn’t she just go to sleep?’ Hmmm…good question.

We went to St Tropez, St Raphael, Cannes, Gorge du Verdon and Alana kept Lily entertained with various nursery rhymes on the car journey. By the third day Daniel was volunteering to sit next to Lily and spoke the handful of French words to her over and over – Lily loves it when people speak to her in French so luckily we are in the right place!

Alana, Daniel and Lily in Cannes

St Tropez

Alana and Lily relaxing

We went to Antibes last Saturday to meet the english speaking mothers group that I found on google. We walked up and down the beach but couldn’t find a group of people with loads of kids so we gave up and had a lovely day on the beach. Michael is really happy since Lily loves the beach, although he struggles when she tries to eat sand. We’ve found a great beach in Antibes, Plage de Salins. Sandy beach, free parking, nice and quiet with a kiosk on the beach serving an Americana sandwich (a baguette filled with hamburger meat, frites (hot chips) and tomato sauce – YUM!)

Lily in Antibes

Everyone is topless on the beach which wouldn’t normally bother either of us but when there is an 80 year old grandma sitting next to us in a g-string it is not a pretty site! There are loads of retirees on the beach since the national retirement age in France is 50 and those that do work only work a 35 hour week. And one third of the working population in France work for the government. The government is trying to pass a bill to increase the retirement age since they say it is unsustainable for the economy but surprise surprise the unions are not happy!

The day after Alana and Daniel left, Bec arrived! It was a last minute trip and it was fantastic to see her since we didn’t think she would actually come. And the day after Bec arrived my mum arrived. And then two days after that, Michael’s nephew, Josh, Jen and little Amelia arrived! It has been so great to see everyone here – we didn’t think we would have people come visit us.

Jen and Amelia(Milly)

I suggested we drive to Cassis which is on the coast about an hour away (we have learnt that wherever we need to go it is always about an hours drive away – ask Martin how far is blah blah and his response is generally ‘about an hour away’!). The area is known for its bouillabaisse, a yummy fish soup. We had a walk around, found a nice restaurant and then found out we couldn’t have it since you need to preorder it! It was a shame but it was still worth the trip since we did a fabulous drive from La Ciocat along the coast and then through the mountains to Saint Baume where Mary Magdalene spent her last few years.

My mum, Bec, Lily and I spent a day in St Tropez (as you do!). We had a Cosmo and ate sushi while we people watched. My mum wanted to sit in the shade but no, we sat in the front row with our chairs facing out with the sun in our eyes! It was worth it! We went shopping but I didn’t buy anything but Bec bought a great pair of shoes which I loved….I’ll go back when they are on sale!

One place that we hadn’t been to in the area on our honeymoon and which Bec found out about is the Porquerolles, which is the largest of the Heyres islands. Lily seemed to enjoy her first boat trip and lazing in the sun. The island was beautiful although the water was too cold for Bec, Lily and I. Of course Michael went for his hour swim as he does when he sees a stretch of open water.

Lily and daddy on the boat

Main beach on island

Bec, Lily and me in Nice

Villa de Renford

Finally here are some photos of our villa. We took these the day after we arrived three weeks ago but have not had a chance to upload them! What happened to our relaxing time in Provence?!

Our villa is in Trans en Provence - a lovely little village located in the Var region of Provence. The village has one pub, two boulangeries (bakeries) and five restaurants with four of them being Italian. It is a little like home with the number of Thai places, Provence is full of Italian restaurants. We have found our local, La Toscanina – great pasta and you can get 1.5litres of Rose for 8euros (which is about $13). It has a great location - so peaceful and relaxing and Carrefour is less than five minutes away.

Village
We are getting used to the lifestyle – I’m sending Michael out each morning for croissants and baguettes for breakfast. The chocolate croissants are just divine but I also have a weakness for plain croissants with a delicious French raspberry jam (which I found out you can buy in Sydney) and also the pain au raisin…..mmmm.

We are speaking the little bit of French that we can – Michael has café au lait down pat. The language barrier is still a little hard at times but we generally get what we want, although we have been a little scared when ordering but then there is a sigh of relief when our meals arrive to confirm that we hadn’t actually ordered the pig nose salad! We are slowly coming to grips with parts of the French language – ‘h’ is always silent, you don’t pronounce the ‘s’ on the end of a word, ‘j’ is pronounced as a ‘h’ and the ‘r’ should be rolled from the back of your throat.

The second night here we heard some strange noises in the ceiling and apparently we have some (cute) lahars, which are like little squirrels, living in our ceiling who party all night. You will be lying in bed and you can hear them chasing each other around. We are getting more used to them now but we have to make sure we warn our guests since they could think we are storing little people up there!

We live about three minutes walk from our good friends Martin and Eric. Martin was the one who found this villa for us so we are extremely grateful to him. It has been great to have them so close by especially since they speak English and Eric makes a divine tiramisu!

Road to villa

Front of villa

Back garden

Lounge

Main bedroom

Second bedroomKitchen

Bathroom (for some reason the bideau is not with the toilet!)
Colourful toilet

Our brand new Citroen C4

Bonjour!

We have finally made it to the south of France. Our villa is lovely and we have settled in and it already feels like (our second) home!

We have spent the trip saying 'when we get to France' - we will start Lily on solids, we will sort out all of our emails etc etc. Well Lily must have felt the same. On the first night in the villa she rolled over..twice! We only brought away a few toys with us and we bought her some new ones and she rolled over to grab them (we must have been depriving our little angel!) She is very proud of herself when she does it- she smiles and her eyes light up! Oohh our little girl is growing up.

The first day we spent almost four hours at Carrefour buying supplies and essentials - it is such a great place...it has everything!!! I am very proud of myself - we have been here for three days now and I have only eaten two pain au chocolat!

I'll post some photos of the villa later on.

The wheels on the bus go round and round

Ahhhh....look at me!

We have decided that Lily is a born traveller - she has no problems with all of the different beds (one week she had five different beds and still had no problems sleeping!). She is constantly happy and of course knows when to work her magic to get her way!

She is not quite rolling over yet although she is trying to and she absolutely loves standing up - her chunky thighs (as her 2year old cousin Oliver affectionately refers to them) are coming in handy. She now lets us know when her nappy is 'uncomfortable' (that is if we have not smelt it yet and by all reports it only gets a lot worse when they have solids...hmmm there's something to look forward to) and has such a wonderful happy personality that you cannot help but be happy around her. She has developed the most infectious laugh and constantly giggles when we sing 'The Wheels on the Bus go round and round' - which has been sung on many occasions in the car when she has quite simply had enough of sitting in her carseat, which invariably happens when we are either a) on a freeway or b) stuck in a traffic jam! Unfortunately the song does not always work.

She loves being part of the action especially when mummy and daddy have just received their meals, regardless if it's breakfast, lunch or dinner! She will let you know when she feels left out of the conversation - I think we have created a monster..she loves being the centre of attention!

Where the feck is funghi?

We decided last week to come to Ireland for a week - ahh sure why not? I was a little concerned about all of our luggage on the cheap Ryanair flight since we had quite a bit with us. It was the first time I have been told by a check in staff to try and transfer the heavier items into our cabin luggage so that we wouldn't have to pay as much excess! I think the cute baby card helped - we got Lily out of her stroller and put her in front of the check-in staff so we were greeted with oohs and aahs rather than the usual (low) level of customer service. It's amazing how much nicer people are to you when you have a cute smiling baby in your arms!

We spent a couple days with Sandra, Niall, Michael and Liam in Mountshannon in County Clare in their new mini-mansion. What a lovely house and they certainly did spoil us while we were there. Visited Galway, the Cliffs of Mohr (didn't get out of the car...it was raining and we've seen it before!) and Lahinch - the surfing spot for Ireland. It was so good to spend time with Sandra and the family after not seeing her for over five years. I originally met Sandra when she was contracting at one the companies I worked for, Wall and Madison, all those years ago.

Sandra with Lily

Lily with Liam(2months) and Michael (18months) Heffernan - yes, Lily is pulling Liam's hair!

Sandra and Vanessa

What a small place Ireland is....there we were buying nappies (as you do) in Dunnes supermarket in Ennis and we run into Anthony Collins' uncle Patrick with Catherine and Roisin! We met them at Bec and Anthony's wedding in April. They live a few hours away in County Sligo and were just passing through Ennis after a few days in Lahinch which is where we were on our way to! It was great to have a chat over a very ordinary hot chocolate.

From Mountshannon we drove down to Dingle to be greeted by Paul Dineen lying flat on his back - he hurt his back carrying a boat (or was that single-handedly trying to stop the boat rolling down a hill?!). This visit to Dingle was very different to when I lived there for three months over five years ago but it was so wonderful to be back there - I realised how much I love Dingle. For a population of over 1500 people there are over 50 pubs! And no, we didn't see Funghi the dolphin.

We were of course in Ireland for the All Ireland hurling championships with Limmerick vs Kilkenny. Apart from in Kilkenny the whole country was going for Limmerick since they were the underdogs and of course we love the underdogs. Michael enjoyed the game with Paul and I went upstairs to put Lily to sleep and then fell alseep myself so missed the whole game. If you know me you will know that sleep is more important than almost anything! btw Kilkenny won.

We were stuck in a traffic jam!

View of Dingle from Connor Pass

Paul (lying horizontal) with Lily

Lily and daddy overlooking Killarney Lakes

It's Michael's birthday today and we are now in Dublin. We had dinner with Trish (my old flatmate) and new hubby Stephen last night at my old fav Cafe Bar Deli. We enjoyed a walk around Dublin today, visiting the old haunts....Grafton Street and Henry Street (but was not allowed to buy anything since we have way too much luggage but Michael has promised Lily and I that we can go shopping crazy in France - not sure he is prepared for those credit card bills!). Michael also got to meet Claire who I used to work with at the Ulster Bank once upon a time when we were looking into non-resident accounts. Claire still works for the Ulster Bank and also recently got married. We went to Cafe en Siene for afternoon tea and went for a walk around Stephens Green....ahh the memories - it was great to show Michael and Lily around Dublin for the day.

Time to go and pack (again) for our flight to Marseille tomorrow morning - we need to check in for our flight at 5am! That is going to hurt. We are really looking forward to beginning our three months in the south of France - are you jealous yet?!

Ella Bella

After a lovely week in Portugal we arrived on the doorsteps of our wonderful friends, Will, Rachael, Charlie and Ella Marsh in Brent Knoll, near Bristol in the UK. I had a very important role to play - I had to renounce the devil as Ella's godmother. It was a really lovely day and Ella was the belle of the ball in her gorgeous dress.

Ella Louise Marsh....future supermodel

Marsh family photo

We spent the week with the Marshes and Ella and Lily became good friends once the initial slapping and eye gouging stopped. At first Lily would cry everytime Ella would talk to her but then she got used to Ella's high pitched conversation. Charlie helped to entertain the girls and I still have in my head 'My name is sportacus' - thanks Charlie.

Vanessa and Ella

Ella and Lily enjoying some playtime

Lily and daddy

On the long weekend we went on a roadtrip to Woollacombe which is on the west coast, a couple of hours from Bristol. We stayed at the Woollacmobe Coast Holiday park courtesy of Lindzey. It was an experience to see how the 'other half' live. The beach was absolutely packed and the weather was so so...of course Murph went for a swim but Lily and I stayed on shore and enjoyed the sunshine before a big cloud of low lying mist moved in.

Charlie, Ella and Maddie (Lindzey's daughter)

Woollacombe Beach

What, don't you like my sunhat?