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On paper our holiday was a disaster.... I'll tell you all the things that made it horrible, but actually we had a relaxing time and enjoyed ourselves a lot. We get along really well as a family, and enjoy the same kind of holiday - a lot of lying around reading, and eating, and swimming if possible, and driving, exploring and walking around old towns. And we did a lot of all of the above, except swimming, so we had a good time.
However... The weather was incredibly hot, for the first week and a half it was too hot to even go outside until almost dark, it was over 40 degrees every day. The mosquitoes were really fierce, Maddi got over 60 bites! Andrew slipped going down the stairs of the house we stayed in, and really badly stubbed his toe, it split the nail in half and bruised the whole toe, top, bottom and under the nail... Then on the last day in Italy, before driving home, he was loading the car and twisted his ankle. Not too badly, but enough that it was very painful to walk. The car window on Maddi's side got stuck open, and we had to find a mechanic to fix it so we could leave the car overnight at the couple of places we stayed on the way back through France. And our fish sitter called to say England had a one day freak heat wave that killed 6 of our fish!
But the topper was a call from Andrews brother saying that their mum had a odd turn, passing out, so had been sent off in an ambulance to get it checked out. She had a brain tumour. From finding it, to operating took 3 days. There was no way we could get there. She had the operation, it went well, they removed all the tumour and she recovered fantastically. However they have said that this is another tumour relating to the melanoma she had 20 odd years ago. I didn't realise that melanomas can go internal and 'seed', and then lie dormant for years before moving, lodging somewhere and growing. Last year she had the tumours in her lymph nodes, under her arms, this one had lodged in the brain. The doctors are going to do more tests but have said they believe this is the beginning of the end. It's not now an 'if' this will happen again, but a when and where. What they can't or won't say is how long they think she has. We are making plans to go back to see her at Christmas if she lasts that long, and will play it by ear if things take a turn for the worse before then, and for how long we will stay there.
So, yeah, not our best holiday? But there were lots of great things too - incredible scenery, some truly amazing meals - our last night we stayed in a Relais in France and ate at a 3 Michelin starred restaurant 'Bernard Loiseau' which was mind blowingly good, we found a great bookshop that sold original art and bought a very cool art work, and on our way to Italy we found a town in France with the biggest market where we bought an old oak pot hanging frame with 6 copper saucepans for 120 euro, which is about what one of the saucepans is worth in pounds! So, an amazing buy, but huge, and bloody heavy, and awkward to fit in a car already full of holiday stuff... But we managed and now just need to figure out where the hell to put it in our kitchen. We all got on really well, not a single fight, and really bonded as a family, so that made it a fantastic holiday.
Here are a gazillion pictures from our trip
Andrew and Maddi with a polar bear by Francois Pompon
Mads and one of her favourite things in the world, moustaches...
Us being ridiculous
The view from our bedroom balcony
Vineyards, we were in the Piedmont region, near Asti
It was just gorgeous everywhere you looked
Dawn, looking out our balcony
Driving home through the alps
Double rainbow at the Relais Bernard Loiseau
My dessert, a sugar shoe filled with wild strawberries and other strawberry 'stuff' that was as delicious as it was gorgeous!
The chef of the 3 starred Michelin restaurant was thrilled a kid was there and trying everything, including frog legs, so sent out this chef hat for Maddi. It basically says "For Madeleine, a gourmand souvenir, long live good cooking! Patrick Bertron, 30 August 2012"
The art work we bought
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