another quick visit to some dear friends...

their house, a 16th century manor

one of the annexe they are restauring for a holiday house to rent.

one of the feature of the property that is recorded on the Unesco world heritage as a "supplement". it is an old "wash house" on the pond. because the water level varies it has pulleys and chains to adjust the hight of the floor. so the women didn't have to bend down too much.

YUMMY

wild strawberries, tiny but full of flavours...

now we are talking...

... summer holidays!

at a friends pool in Normandy. just to show Blair that hot and sunny CAN rime with Normandy!

OUCH...

that's what happen when you want to go and play in a wheat field and don't see the barbed wire...

special bike

on a hot sunny sunday afternoon, we ended up at my brother, Pierre's house with water fights and bike trial...

Mamie France

Baptiste and Alec racing the bikers

very hot...

special bike, hugh??!!it suits Alec perfectly he loved it, might get him into his own one, one day....

old houses, old architecture

" there's old house everywhere here!!!" "there's so many people in France" dixit Marco and Alec

12th century chapel on a friends property

restaured recently

Pont L'eveque, little town in Normandy

the local court house

the fountain in front of the court house

city of Caen and Mamy France

Marco and Alec aren't really good city kids...a bit noisy in an appartment! so we went to the park. a former rubbish land fill (from the 70's) transformed into a public park in the last 15 years. rose garden, maze, playground, animal park, water fountains...
back then we used to burry everything...even glass and rubber and plastic bag...well we can still see those things now...

a cut through the hill

watch that shaft!

cousins in front of a water feature

rose gardens

nice couch!

piano with Mamy France

maze

not even lost!

"I did it all by myself!"

bow and 1 arrow, SVP!
Marco has insisted for photos and putting in the blog...
the arrow is actually very sharp and the bow doesn't do badly either....dangerous stuff that is.

check this car...

Marco's spotted it on the side of the highway so we stop and came back to take some photos.
funny little old Italian car!
safety? what's that?

OOPS...

an inatentive lady managed to ram into me at a round about...
now that's a real pain cause it's my Mum 's really nice car. she really nicely lent it to me while in France!
what a pain, so here I was filling out insurance declaration on the side of the road.
the only good outcome is that Marco and Alec really know now why we always wear seat belts!!!
the choc was quite big compare to the actual damages.
SORRY Maman!

week end in Normandy

at aunty Melanie's house where we are staying, we invited lots of people (family and friends) to come and catch up with us. we went for a walk and played base ball a lot in between eating a lot as well!!!
all the cousins

cousin Camille and Alec

cousin Victor

Marco

Alec and cousin Chloe

walkers and bikers

Marco in an apple tree

lovely tracks of Normandy...

Beaumont en Auge township

a house

for me the odours were just delightful, so many memories...

great grand parents!

they are 86 and 85 years old and still leave in their house. it does look like a bit of a castle and was built in the 15th century.
they were so happy to see us again and played with us at soccer, badminton and took us for a tour in the park on the golf cart.
perspective

pigeon house

golf cart