Haribo

Who doesn't love sweets? I sure do, so when a trip to the French Haribo factory was proposed, I was pretty happy to say the least! Spending the day tasting new flavours of sweets and seeing how they are made was so much fun. We even got to 'make' our own sweets, by inserting a coin into the machine, which was very exciting for the little girls, who then spent the afternoon telling everyone how they are now 'proper sweet makers'! Perhaps the most exciting part of the day was the Haribo shop, which sold all of their sweets by the tonne for exceptionally low prices. At this point I was cursing RyanAir for having weight restrictions, so I had to make do with only the free samples... 

Haribo c'est beau la vie, pour les grands et les petits

Montpellier

I'm no good with public transport. That's a fact. So when I decided to visit the lively city of Montpellier, I didn't quite take into account the 2 hour bus journey followed by an hour train journey... Once I'm on the train/ bus, it's fine, but getting to and from can be rather challenging. Add to that that in France you have to compost (?!) your ticket before getting on the train. A day later and I'm still not entirely sure what that is but I didn't get arrested so I think I'm ok! To add to the stress, the bus I was meant to take to Nimes didn't turn up so I used my D of E navigational skills to get to Avignon and take a different train, very proud of myself! 
Once I got to Montpellier, I managed to befriend a guy (who was the spit of Tom Daley), who took me to the shopping arcade so I wouldn't get lost, and then I shopped until my heart was content! 'Les Soldes' (sales) are massive in France, with huge reductions in every store, so my luck was in! I then spent a few hours wandering around the shops and the gorgeous side streets that are littered with hundreds of cute restaurants. Unfortunately my Tom Daley friend had left by then and I didn't really fancy a 'meal for one' surrounded by thousands of happy families. 
Instead I grabbed a crêpe to go and jumped on the road train to see all of the historical buildings that Montpellier has to offer. Perhaps the most striking is the Arc de Triomphe, which was built as a sort of replica of the one in Paris. I then spent a few more hours mooching around the vibrant city, which has gone from the 20th most populated French city to the 8th in just under 20 years! Its population is 40% students, so everything there is really catered to a younger market. 
After a lovely day, I headed back on the bus, only to find that it was the same bus driver that I told 'I would like to ride you' and I'm 100% sure that he recognised me... brilliant. 

Le Pont du Peyrou - L'arc de Triomphe

Place de la comédie

Tiny alleyways filled with shops and restaurants

Colourful statues at Place de la comédie

Avignon Festival

So when I visited Avignon a few weeks ago, it was a beautiful, peaceful, historical city that I immediately fell in love with. However, this time when I visited Avignon, it was like a completely different city. Thousands of people roaming the streets, every single wall  covered head to toe in posters and dozens of people singing and dancing on the street, all because of the annual Avignon Theatre Festival. Throughout the entire month of July, hundreds of shows are put on daily; with shops, cinemas and even churches converted into theatres. It was madness!
I browsed through the brochure, which gave me far too much choice of hundreds of shows daily, and found a handful of shows that I would have liked to see. However, Shakespeare and Hugo aren't exactly 'child-friendly' so I actually ended up taking the kids to see 'Kid Manoir 2', which was the most bizarre interactive show about a video game set in ancient Egypt. The kids seemed to find it absolutely hilarious but I just didn't get it... 

Some of the many street performers

Tour de France

Admittedly the most I know about cycling is how to ride a bike, so perhaps spending a day at the Tour de France isn't the most 'me' day out I could have done, but it was actually an amazing day! After trekking up a mountain for what felt like hours in the boiling heat, we finally arrived at the celebrations. A tiny path had been taken over by hundreds of caravans and people in the brightest T-shirts I have ever seen, the atmosphere was electric! 
Before the actual race passes, there is what can only be described as a mini-carnival with dozens of floats driving past throwing out sweets, merchandise and tasters of their products. However, due to my lack of hand-eye coordination, I didn't manage to catch any of the cool souvenirs or sweets, I only managed to catch one thing... a free sample of washing up liquid. 

After all the floats, it was the main event. We had a great spot right at the edge of the road, which perhaps annoyed the caravaners who had been there nearly a week just to get a good place! The crowd went wild for all the cyclists, with people of all nationalities cheering for their country. We purposefully placed ourselves on a hill so they wouldn't zoom right past us so I managed to get a few good pics!

Kayaking

So when I was told that we'd be spending the day kayaking, I pictured us packing a picnic in the car and heading to a lake where we'd just chill for the day, using the kayak mainly as a sun lounger.. I couldn't have been more wrong! After a 6am wake up call, we were on our way to Ardeche to kayak through mountains for the whole day. A marathon of 25 kilometres in the boiling heat, not my idea of fun. However, I actually really enjoyed it. It was the most picturesque landscape you could imagine and the white water rapids were so much fun, such a brilliant experience!

Cinema

'Cinema' to me normally means itchy seats with minimal legroom, overpriced popcorn and massive movie theatres. However, in France it seems to be slightly different... Firstly, we had to buy a general ticket and then queue up again to exchange it for a film specific ticket, which was all a bit odd. Then when we went into the theatre, it was a tiny room not much bigger than my living room where there was a massive scramble for seats. Although the seats were incredibly comfy with lots of legroom! What topped off this weird experience was a man walking past every aisle with a tray full of M and Ms that you could buy if you should wish to. I became 'Strict Au Pair' and banned all sweets as I didn't want to inflict the pain of three hyper kids on everyone else in the cinema!

A million miles away from my local Odeon

 I was also slightly weary about going to watch Despicable Me 2, not only because it was in French, but because I haven't seen the first one and have a bit of a reputation for not really understanding films. However, this film was hilarious and now I really, really want my own Minion...

Despicable Me 2 

C'est les Grandes Vacances

Every single school year we would all get unbelievably excited at the prospect of The Summer Holidays, counting down the days for months and months, only to find that once the brilliantly long holidays did arrive, there was nothing we actually wanted to do! These children are exactly the same, now that I have to entertain them for a month, they don't want to do anything. This is why we all sat down and made up a list of all the fun things they want to do with their 'super-cool au pair' (so maybe I paraphrased that slightly, but that's definitely what they think, deep down inside.)

After a lot of reasoning and explaining that Skydiving just isn't an option, we settled for easier (safer!) activities such as making cakes, time capsules and treasure hunts! I'll let you know how it all goes...

La fête d'Afrique

So when I was told that I would be going to an African festival, I pictured lots of African dancing, African food and ultimately, African people. This African festival was perhaps a bit different to what I expected, with Salsa dancing, Paella and absolutely no African people! Despite this it was still a lovely evening raising money for Pissila in Burkina Faso, which is the twin town of the village I'm staying in.

My one photo of the Festival... 

Burkina Faso and France

Making crêpes

I've made a friend!
Au Pairing can be a little lonely sometimes, with it hard to find other people your own age, especially if (like me) there are no other au pairs in the area. However, on the school run I made a lovely friend in Isaure, and last week she taught me the art of French Baking, starting with my favourite, crêpes!

Maybe the first few attempts weren't so great, but they still tasted amazing!

Isaure the pro!

Immense concentration required! (and a funny face helps too)

Isaure's turn..

Feeling very proud (and hungry!)

French Market

One of the things that fascinates me the most about France is the amount of fresh produce they have. Unlike our weekly trudge around the supermarket, the French visit beautiful markets full of handmade scarves, soaps, and of course, fresh food! On Saturday I visited the local market with the girls, seeing the small town completely transformed by the hundreds of market stalls. The smells were amazing, freshly picked flowers, fruit and vegetables, and also the smells of the meat, cheeses and delicious snacks being cooked then and there. 

Cookery

Luckily for me, I don't have to do any cleaning and only minimal cooking here, unlike many other Au Pairs. However, I thought that I'd give the mum a few nights off and make some meals for the family last week. The French are completely fascinated (and disgusted?!) that I am vegetarian, and it is a topic that comes up every meal time without fail. I therefore thought that it would be nice to introduce some vegetarian cooking to this carnivorous family!

Finding all of the ingredients in France proved to be quite the challenge!

My chickpea curry - tastes better than it looks!

One night I made a delicious chickpea curry, which went down a treat even with the little girls, who helped themselves to seconds and even thirds! This dish was rather fitting as it's currently 'La fête du Pois Chiche' (chickpea festival) in the region! Yup, I didn't know that existed either... 
Another evening I made homemade pizza for the family: spinach pizza for me and ham and chorizo for the family. Unfortunately it was demolished too quickly for me to manage to take a photo!
And of course, I couldn't resist making chocolate crispie cakes with the girls... We can't be healthy ALL of the time!

A little too much of the mixture was eaten before the cakes were actually made!

'Roses des sables au chocolat' 

Water Fight

Before coming to France, I was so clueless as to what activities I could do with the children, so when I was mooching around my local bargain store, I found 200 water bombs for less than a pound - perfect! And they really did go down well on this particularly hot day in the south of France!

Proudly lining up the water bombs

The three little monsters!

Uh oh! Balloons flying from all angles!

'You can't aim at me... I have a camera!' 

School Trip

I'd forgotten all about school trips in primary school - packed lunches, long, rowdy bus journeys and bringing every item of clothing possible just in case it rained/ snowed/ was actually sunny. Today I went on a French school trip which was exactly that - even though there was no chance of rain in sunny Provence, every child had a raincoat in tow! 
We went to a Ferme Pedagogique, which was completely the opposite of what I imagined when I was told we were going to a farm. Instead of lots of animals, we played with instruments made out of vegetables, tasted all different kinds of honey and made collages out of herbs.  

Some very strange 'instruments' made out of rotten vegetables

All of this was very strange but the French just seemed to take it in their stride. My favourite part of the day was the cooking section, where we made Peach sorbet and sirop du menthe (like a mint squash - surprisingly nice!) As I was deemed a 'responsible adult', I was put in charge of cutting the peaches... 

Top chef!

My little team busy chopping up peaches

Sorting out the freshly-picked mint

After the cooking lesson, we went to see some of the animals, but I wasn't too impressed - French sheep having nothing on the ones back home! We also had a little lesson in beekeeping before we got back on the bus after a busy but fun day at the farm!

Beekeeping... without any actual bees for health and safety reasons!