The South of France

The South of France was wonderful! We stayed in a little village called Tressan in the Languedoc-Roussillon region. Neither of us had stayed in this area of France before so we were excited to explore the area.

We were very nervous about the drive down because we'd be spending 6-8 hours in the car and in Hong Kong we hadn't managed to do more than half an hour in the car without a Maddy-meltdown - so we crossed all our fingers, held our breath, and prepared for the longest trip of our lives. But it was great!! Maddy slept most of the way and the countryside was just beautiful.

Driving under the trees

There were some great bridges! We crossed this one.

We even made time for a little pit stop - photo time!

Our "hotel" in Tressan was a French gîte called "The Pool House" because it was... a pool house. ;) The residence is owned by a lovely British lady named Carole, who made us feel welcome and at home right from the start. Click on the link to see more pictures and maybe get some ideas for your own travels. We highly recommend the place!

Sadly, the pool was just a tad too chilly for regular swimming although Derrald took a dip everyday. If Derrald could make a petronus, it would be a polar bear.

This baby. Just chillin'.

This was the first time we have stayed in a self contained unit style accommodation (ie with kitchen) and it was perrrrrrrfect. We cooked and cooked to our little hearts content. Okay, bread and cheese hardly requires much cooking... and that's mostly what we ate. Baguette and Camembert. But we also got sausage and mushrooms and asparagus and avocados in the market and picked wonderful wild fennel and rosemary from the garden to season everything. We never had to worry about bringing a baby into a restaurant, each of us juggling the little one while the other one shoves food into their face as quickly as possible. It was magnifique!

Our kitchen and romantic home dining. 

Carole has two lovely dogs. One so shy we never saw her after our initial arrival and this sweetie - Bardot - who liked to come visit. Here she is being Maddy's guard dog.

The only problem (depending how you look at it) with the Pool House is that it's wifi was down so we had to sit on Carole's front patio to get internet reception... which Derrald did daily of course. Maddy liked to have her own seat. So she had to get tied in. With my pashmina.

Sports Illustrated Dad? I don't think Mum would approve of this. You said you were looking for hotels in Barcelona...

I told him Mum! 

The area is known for vineyards and we were surrounded by them. Derrald even convinced me to wander among some of them, although I was sure we were trespassing and would get yelled off the property by some angry old Frenchman at any moment... Maddy played it cool. The following three photos are some of my favorite ever.

I insisted Derrald get a photo of me with the poppies. They are so beautiful and all over the country. Plus, I'm wearing my French stripes.

Speaking of French stripes... check out the stripes of our beach umbrella as we sat on the beautiful beach! This little stretch of sandy paradise was by Marseillan between Sete and Agde. 

The Beach, or as we say en France, La Plage.

At least it's her dress and not the sand right? Although, she tried to eat the sand too.

We tried returning to the beach another day... but as you can see, we left the swimsuits at home this time and brought only a picnic lunch... bread and cheese for us, D's hair for Maddy!

The first of many shoulder rides.

Lunch?

We did lots of day trips. One of my favorites was to the city of Montpellier. I think this would be a great city to go to University in. 

There were lots of fountains all over the city and you can see by the time we got to this one D was getting a little fed up of me photographing them all!

We really enjoyed all the different architecture - historical to modern. A very enjoyable walk.

Party Panda.

Gangsta Panda.

Maddy enjoyed it too... at least, what she could see of it!

Um, Dad?

Dad!

Oh, Dad.

Another stop I HIGHLY recommend is at Saint Guilhem le Dessert. (yeah, try saying that one! "Sun-Gee-Yem-Le-Days-Er"). It is a very cool little ancient town nestled up in one of the valleys just north of where we were staying and it's a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Well worth the visit.

Who needs a garden when you've got a wall like this? This would be my house. Lovin' it!

I wanted to add this photo to point out how manly Derrald looks even wearing a cotton candy pink scarf flourished around his neck. Way to work it D-dawg!

Again, poor Mads might have got stiffed out of seeing some of the sites...

And last, but certainly not least, Carcassonne. Another World Heritage Site, we stopped in here on our way to Barcelona and it was a real treat. A fairy tale castle with proper princess towers topped with witches hats, a drawbridge, and a moat (albeit not working). 

We stopped for lunch in one of the courtyards and while Derrald ate the foie gras I ordered the cassoulet - a dish the region is famous for. It's basically a white bean stew baked in a clay plate. They throw in some meat like pork and/or duck. And voila, a tasty, hearty dish that fits right in with the atmosphere. Bring me Another!

On our way out I couldn't resist a quick picture with the statue of Lady Madeleine and my own sweet Madeline. 

Oh, and may our daughter's breasts not be as lopsided as her stone namesake. Cheers and thank you.

**looking back at this post I have failed to mention the city of Pezenas, which was actually the closest main city to us and was a wonderful little place. It has some fantastic streets worth exploring, the market place on Saturday (if I remember correctly) and was home to Moliere for a while. 

Here's one of Derrald's "artsy" shots that he kept making us take. This one is in Pezenas.

Lucky Eight

Eights are lucky in Chinese numerology and Maddy turned 8 months old this month (the eighth month!). I've been trying my best to be one of those "Super Moms" that get all crafty and cool with their babies. You know the kind. The ones that homemade blankets and onesies for their newborns, made sure they got footprints framed and up in the nursery, um, create an actual nursery... the problem is, I'm just not very good at it. It's not really "me". I'm Regular Mom*. I have great ideas that don't usually come to fruition but if they do, they are lopsided, uneven, just a little too much, not enough, blurry, too big, too small, but full full full of good intentions. ;)

Did I mention my cool sister-in-law got me some adorable stickers that have each month printed on them? Yeah! So I can simply stick them on the front of a onesie, throw down a cute blanket and voila, I can photoshoot Madeline at every one month stage. Could not be simpler right? Well... I'm doing my best! I've managed to get every month but number 6. I have not managed to maintain the white onesie, the fun blanket background and I almost never have a model who is willing to work with me... but it's been really fun and I just love seeing how Maddy has grown.

*I think I'm more of a "Mum" actually but I said "Super Mom" so for continuity I'll stick with it

She's not one to let you stick something on her without investigating it.

She's not one to sit still...especially now she can crawl!

Always something in her mouth! And preferably something in both hands.

Ah! Finally. There we go! My big little grown up baby girl. -Boy? Girl!

Bébé à Paris

Maddy's first trip out of the country was a fairly ambitious trek across the open seas (12 hour flight!) to the European continent. Derrald had an accounting conference in Paris during the month of May and by coincidence Ryan, Stefan and their family were going to be living in Fontainebleau at the same time so we decided to make the most out of this fortuitous situation and spend 3 weeks traveling France and Spain with a little pop-in to see Maddy's cousins. Now, 3 weeks is by no means enough to actually travel France and Spain. Do not think we are this disillusioned. We did the abridged version and with a 5 month old in tow, I think we did pretty well!

We certainly covered some ground. Take a look:

I didn't take any pictures from our flight over. It was actually a bit of an ordeal as it turned out they did NOT have a bassinet for us. Boo for flying with a baby and no bassinet. That's what I say. Boo. Thankfully, there some spare seats on the flight and we got the person sitting next to us in our row of three to move so we were able to put the Madster on her own seat in between us. She is as wriggly as a worm and it took constant vigilance on my part to make sure she didn't plummet off the seat to her death, but we made it! There were some tears, a lot of vomiting, a million diaper changes and not one clean piece of clothing between the three of us by the end, but we made it.

Bonjour Paris!

I'll save you the stories of baby jetlag and skip right to the good stuff. 

Day One. 

The Louvre. (good stuff)

The first Sunday of every month the Louvre opens it's doors to the public for free. We couldn't turn down the opportunity to hit the Louvre (for free!) so, on what was actually a bitterly cold day, we threw our baby in the backpack and headed out for our culture kick.

I wish I had taken a picture of the line of people waiting to get into the Louvre (for free!). It was... long. Very long. Hours of waiting long. Too long to wait with a cold, snotty nosed, runny eyed baby who might melt down at any moment long. We asked a staff member how long we could be expecting to wait (not ready to give up) and the delightful chap took one look at the baby and told us we couldn't wait in this line! It was too cold! We should go over to another entrance and ask the staff to let us in there. Well. That sounded good. We trotted off to the spot he had pointed out to us, politely smiled at the door staff and enquired about another line for people with babies. (How great was it that we had this baby?!) This was the one, and only, time we saw the snootiness French people are sometimes famed for. The conversation went something like this:

Hayley and Derrald say brightly " Bonjour! A staff member over there told us not to wait in the line but to come over here because we have a baby.{show adorable baby here} Is there another entrance for us? Where should we go?"

Young angry girl snarls down her front nose at us "No! You have to wait in line!" 

Her timid partner on the door says "But they have a baby..." 

Young angry girl spits at him " Are they handicapped? No! This entrance is for people with disabilities not people with babies"*

Timid partner stands down.

Hayley and Derrald smile politely and say "Okay, thanks". They walk away.

*the girl was speaking in French so this is a rough translation thanks to my high school French

Now, as we are walking away a wonderful thing happens. An older lady (another staff member) runs after us. She literally had to run us down to stop us from leaving. She called after us and told us not to leave but to come with her. She walks us right back to the entrance we had previously been denied from and told the two front door people to let us in. She then escorted us right into the foyer of the Louvre (for free!) before flitting off to do other good deeds in the name of France (say: Fronce). It was wonderful. We didn't meet the eye of the angry girl who had denied us our fast entry but boy did I feel smug and happy.

Now most people would probably post a picture of the Mona Lisa here or one of the many other famous pieces that reside at the Louvre (for freeeeee!). But we don't roll that way. I assure you we got our glimpse of Leonardo's masterpiece but then we got to the good stuff. Like these beauties :

Which lead to this:

Zzzzzzzzz.....Clearly Maddy is enthralled by it all...

And then we indulged the Dan Brown Da Vinci Code fans in us and took a quick picture with the pyramid:

Don't let Derrald's shorts and t-shirt fool you... it was cold!

This kid had clearly just visited the above statues... or he's a Da Vinci code casualty?

And then it was time to move on. Our next stop was Notre Dame. The beautiful cathedral. 

They have erected a huge bleacher seating area right out the front of it so we pulled up a pew next to some girls who were clearly there on a school/group/choir trip of some kind and they serenaded us with an a cappella rendition of Robyn's "Call Your Girlfriend". 

Sweet.

Then Maddy had a meltdown and she needed a diaper change. This was another time the French love of babies was demonstrated to us as I joined a massive queue for the ladies bathroom, holding my wailing child and doing my best to look cool. Like I could handle it. One of the ladies exiting the bathroom noticed me and took me out of the line telling me to "Follow me! Come on!" She marched me right up the side of the line, elbowing other ladies out of the way, telling them to make way, I had a baby. She got me to the front, told the bathroom attendant I needed the next stall (because I had a baby) and then went on her merry way. Another French do-gooder. I then proceeded to change Maddy's diaper while precariously balancing her on the top of a toilet seat. I had no choice. There was no baby changing table and these people had been so kind to get me into a stall... where do French people change their babies diapers?

Now, it wouldn't be a real trip to France if you didn't get a protest or strike in somewhere. Luckily for us, the protest on this day was going on outside the Bastille. If I remember correctly this protest had something to do with the Communist party. 

Maddy's first protest rally.

That's the stuff.

On the days that Derrald was working (at his conference) Madeline (or as they say in French "Madeleine" hehehe) and I spent time playing, finding our toes, walking the neighbourhood, looking at flowers and counting the French pharmacies (there's one on every corner).

Looking our Frenchiest.

It's crazy that not so long ago this girl was simply fascinated with finding her toes. I didn't have to worry about her rolling over, crawling, pulling herself up... she was just a little blob on the bed with some pretty neat toes.

Full concentration...

Got 'em!

Springtime in Paris is everything the songs make it out to be. Delightful.

One more story before I sign off on this post. I paid quite a lot of attention to where the Pharmacies were in Paris. Firstly, because they are literally everywhere.

One on every corner.

Secondly, because Maddy seemed to have caught something on the flight on our way over and was dealing with a cold. Her first cold. When I went into one of these Pharmacies to find out if I could get something like Vics to help Maddy sleep the Pharmacist told me "No!" (the French say "No!" a lot...) You don't use Vics on a baby. Not en France. Apparently, en France you use suppositories. She then proceeded to give me a gangload of potions, creams, suckers and suppositories all to help with a simple cold. And here's the thing about being in France, you can't argue with a French person. You just can't. When they tell you that you need these seven things to treat a simple cold, you simply have to ask how much, pull out the largest Euro bill you have (because you didn't understand how much they said it was - high school French people! I can only count to about ten) and hand over your money. The saying is "when in Rome" but we were in France, and the French give their children suppositories to clear a head cold. Well, I bought the lot but never plucked up the courage to give them to Maddy. Maybe she suffered through her cold for longer than she needed to but I didn't have to poke her up the bum. She can thank me later.

Falling asleep in the sling on one of our neighbourhood jaunts.