They started with a brief but packed 3-day visit to Priory Farm to celebrate Grandma's 70th birthday with the Robarts clan. Apart from the usual fun and loveliness one might expect on a warm summer day in PF with all the cousins, the most memorable time this year was Sports Day.
We were split into three teams, told to don our team colours and made to compete in a series of school sports day-type events: 100 meter dash, egg-and-spoon race, sack race, 3-legged race etc. and even some swimming races. It was loads of fun, if quite hectic, and although predictably perhaps some of the kids found it hard to deal with losing (not mine this time, thankfully).
This is the men's 100m race which ended with Bob and Finn flying through Grandma's lavender and landing on the terrace below:
Then in the evening we had a surprise (for Laura) picnic in the field above Granny's walk, which was such a beautiful moment.
And then it was time to go home to London, ready to catch a plane to France the very next day.
For nearly two weeks now we have been in Vallauris, and it has been divine. The weather's been perfect, as always at this time of year; the house is as lush as ever. Papou and Lala emptied it with the expectation of selling it, and as a result it feels much lighter and more airy, where it used to sometimes feel a bit claustrophobic with its 40 years of accumulated effects. Even the garden is more open as some of the big old trees had to be cut back. And of course the view is as stunning as ever.
It's been so amazing for me to be able to spend a summer with the kids doing pretty much exactly what I would have been doing 30 years ago, i.e. spending hours in the pool, gorging on melon and nectarine and apricot, playing MixMax, the odd day at the beach or the boat, or a walk at the Plateau de Caussols...
We had our wonderful friends Clara and Federico and their kids, Gaia and Luca, with us the first week, and did a bit of sightseeing in Villeneuve-Loubet and Nice and Gourdon. Oscar went back to England with Papou for Priory Farm Music Camp, and then our friends left, and this week it's been just Fred, Leo, Audrey and me, with Lala staying at her flat 5 minutes away and visiting us frequently. Leo's learned to swim, and I've learned to swing from a trapeze, and we've enjoyed inviting friends over, but really we're mostly having a lovely, peaceful time en famille.
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