I went to see Wicked last night in London Town.

It was fabulous, wicked and very green!

Here is a little clip for you….

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I am pleased to report, that we are all packed and nearly ready to leave for France.I say ‘we’, as there were complications with the childrens father, who wasn’t able to have them during the first half of the half-term week. So we are all going.

I decided not to book any baggage as, 1) it costs £7 (or thereabouts) per case and, 2) we only have a few bits for a 2 night stay.

This morning, we packed our little hand-luggage ruck sacks. The Boy has  a Lightning McQueen one, Diddy’s is Arial and mine boring black…I’m hoping it will look smaller!

We weighed them on the weighing scales, which is quite an art…the scales switch off, just as you step onto them. We are all well within the 10kg mark. We got the tape measure and measured carefully the dimensions of each ruck-sack, all perfect…

Then to the picnic. Off to Sainsburys for all sorts of goody’s, after all, we are at the airport for a few hours, (over lunch) and then on the plane for another hour or so. We get hungry travelling and have as much fun with our picnic as anything else!

I just hope they don’t charge extra for the lunch boxes, it does say each passenger is allowed one item of hand-luggage. Are they that strict? We’ll see!

All I need do now is entertain and feed two excited children. Oh, did I say I have to intervene in a few fisticuffs too?

Still, only one more sleep and a few hours left to go…

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It’s half-term again next week….doesn’t it come around quickly?

This time I am off to France for a few days. Ryanair flight £20 going out and 1p coming back….not bad! This will, in theory, be my last ‘holiday’ trip, the next one will be the real McCoy!

There are all sorts of things to discuss and without the children around, it may even be possible.  I’m quite looking forward to it now.

Plum is going too and we overlap for a few days. It looks as if we are in the Cottage with the new wood-burning stove. The old wood-burning stove had, in a previous life, been employed as a smoker of kippers, somewhere near Arbroath. So the new one, hopefully, promises to produce more heat and less smoke!

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Myself and Diddy were treated today, for our January birthdays, with a trip to the theatre.

We were taken by my sister, Plum, to the Royal Albert Hall to see the Cirque du Soleil. The show was called ‘Alegria’. I have never been to a Cirque du Soleil show before, although it has always appealed to me. It was all very exciting, as we weren’t sure where we were going….it being a ‘Mystery Tour’…and we found out only half an hour before.

And what an amazing, entertaining, joyous, beautiful  experience it was too! I never knew the human body could achieve so much or stretch so far! I now feel as graceful as a hybrid elephant/hippo, (a hippophant or an ellyotamus!) and very old and stiff. I am still coming to grips with the contortionist act…was it one of the most beautiful or one of the most disturbing things I have ever seen? I can’t quite make up my mind, although it made for uncomfortable viewing at times!

There was a girl who could do amazing things with a handful of hoola hoops. Two going up her body and two going the other way,  all at the same time. Oh, and sometimes whilst twirling a very long ribbon.

There was balancing boy, who could do a few neat tricks on a couple of sticks…never seen muscles like it! A cool act involving a complicated trampoline affair and lots of flying artistes and the Russian poles, which had synchronised throwing in the air of a couple of fit and muscle bound chaps…I particularly liked that one!

From start to finish it was pure entertainment….lovely!

Can’t figure out the contortionists though! It’s just not natural!

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 I had a bit of a shock last night….I have been informed that Billy is coming on Saturday, at an unspecified time, to pick up some boxes from me, to take to France.

This is good news, honestly. I have been saying for a few months now….‘we need to get Billy to do a quote, to take some preliminary boxes, from the first/initial de-cluttering stage, down to France, to get them out of my way so that I can start on the decorating’.

It seemed quite a good idea at the time. We have a lot of ’stuff’, all non-essential, but far too useful to actually throw out. Only, it’s in the way at the moment…so why don’t we ‘get Billy to do a quote……decorating’.

I think it’s the shock…things are really moving now…only a few months and we plan to make the move, we plan to be there! And so much to do!

Plus, I happen to have Diddys eight years old, birthday pyjama, sleepover party on the Friday night. Yup, four screeching 8 year old girls….methinks I won’t be in any fit state for tea-chests and cardboard boxes!

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I caught this article  in the Telegraph today, whilst browsing.

Although my two are fairly good with their table manners, I’m thinking it might be a good idea to enrole them anyway. Experimentation with new food is not one of The Boy’s strongest points and more than one set of cutlery…well!

It may give them a taster for when they are tucking into their school lunches at the ecole primaire; or at least buffer the shock a bit!

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We stayed at Aunty Debs this weekend, in London Town and while we were there, I thought it might be worth a trip to a Waterstones to see what is available in the Learning French section.

We went to the Gower Street shop, which is an amazing experience! Four floors, possibly five, of books, books, books! It was very difficult to walk around without being distracted, so we had to put our blinkers on.

The language section is huge, from French to Mandarin to Arabic and back again. We managed to find a section just for childrens French, where we found Serge the Cheeky Monkey!

The pack consists of a DVD, CD, parents’ guide, workbook and flash cards and at £25, I thought it was worth a try. So armed with our new French is Fun! activity box and a couple of French childrens’ dictionarys, we left very pleased with our efforts.

So far, the DVD has proved very popular, with both children enjoying the antics and songs of Serge and his friend Pascale, the parrot. The format is the same for all of the programmes, Serge and Pascale deal with basic language ’sets’…Je m’appelle, le temps, la famille etc. There is a cartoon of the Coco football team and slots where Serge visits France to meet real French children. In each the recently acquired French is repeated throughout.

I am hoping that the enthusiasm for learning French is not short lived and that both Diddy and The Boy have a smattering of the language before we leave. If they keep up with Serge, as they are doing, I don’t see why not!

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I had a little chat with Diddy the other day about her concerns on moving to France. At that point she wasn’t at all keen on the idea, so I thought a discussion on the pros and cons of the idea may be of benefit to her.

It would appear that her major concerns are:

1. Missing Daddy
2. Missing her friends
3. Not being able to understand French

All reasonable fears!

Which brings me on to Muzzy. I have seen the adverts and always thought the character Muzzy looked and sounded a bit odd. I never took it any further. It was Diddys father who suggested it the other day and so I checked out the website.

It offers a free months trial, with only posting and packaging to pay for and then monthly instalments up to a total of £150. It seems quite expensive, but if the claims are true, she will wake up one morning, after having watched a few cartoons and be speaking French. Wow! Maybe it is worth it! 

My theory is that even with just a smattering of the basics, Diddy may be a little more relaxed and confident in her abilities to understand and make friends. She is doing a bit of French at school already and I am pleasantly surprised at how much she is picking up on only half an hour a week. Maybe a bit of Muzzying is all she needs to help her on her way!

Does anyone have any experience of the course? If so, please let me know what you thought of it.

I am pleased to say that after our little chat she is now much more keen on the idea and wants to sell the house now, take the Bilbao boat and move over.

Do you know anyone who wants to buy a house?

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The little Darlings are back, which always prompts a flurry of blog posting for me.

It’s strange, but I am so busy when they go away, and occupied doing other things that I never feel the need  or indeed have the time to post on my blogs….of which I have many for some reason!

I have come to the conclusion that blogging for me is a form of escape….from the children, from my routine, from Thomas the Tank Engine, from anything really. And it seems that when the children are away, I am more able to relax and be ‘Grown up’. It’s as if my blog entries are the adult conversations that I don’t get in every day life…an escape from that incessant chatter that only children can maintain!

I did miss them though!

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