Author Archive for Simon

Jo-Jo need hammer…

Jo-Jo need Hammer, Jo-Jo hit dog, Dog Woof-Woof

He suddenly, rather excitedly came out with this one just after finishing his milk this morning ! Strange things kids come up with !

Foire Agricole 2008

Every year in autumn St Gervais holds the Foire Agricole. The farmers bring down their Cows, Goats, Sheep, Donkey’s and even pigs this year and they are paraded through the main square - leaving a lot of sawdust an clearing up to be done on Monday !

Joe loves to see the animals, and Dad usually enjoys drinking the German beer (Which ran out before I got there this year!).

Here is a quick slide show with the sounds of the fair.

 
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Chicken Pox All Round

Well, Joseph has caught Chicken Pox (In his words “Jo-Jo has Chicken Pox, Same as Daddy”), which was inevitable given that I have just had it for 2 weeks. He has coped pretty well with it so far, definitely better than me! We are in a bit of a sorry state as a family - I’ve just recovered from, first a bad cold, then a stomach bug all around the Ultra-Trail, then tendonitis of the knee, then Chicken Pox, Trace now has a bad Gastro, and Joe has Chicken Pox. Then Sparticat (One of the Kittens) looked like he’d been run over - Luckily he seems to have recovered which is a relief.

Today Joe is still covered in spots but much more jolly and himself. He has even come out with some fairly comedy lines - “Mummy has hair, Jo-Jo has Hair, Daddy has hair, James no hair” ! No idea where this came from, well ok, the James bit might have been slightly prompted!

His speaking is much more confident now. He copies most things you say so we have to watch our more colourful language! His French is also coming on from going to the Creche and the Child Minder.

First Camping Trip

We went on out first camping trip with the 3 of us to see how it would go. 2 Nights in the Vercors with our friends Pete & Helen and their 2 little ‘ns Thomas and Anna.

Joe loved camping, as it meant he was outside all the time. He tore around the campsite, playing on the “Slide-a” and making lots of new friends, including quite a few Girl friends !

Pictures here:

Mazing !

There was a really bright double rainbow yesterday evening which we took Joe out to see and he was really impressed - Isn’t it amazing we said - he replied “Mazing”! Now when we say rainbow he says “Mazing” with a big sweep of his arms to indicate the rainbow.

New Stairs go in

This week we got the new stairs built and installed by a friend who is a carpenter. A Brilliant job by Barrie in just 5 days ! Even batter than we had hoped for. It Would have taken me about 5 months and would have looked like a Homer Simpson spice rack ! Here are some photos’s

Original Stairs:

Old Stairs.jpg

The Old Stairs Removed:

Stairs Removed.jpg

New Stairs being Built

Stairs.jpg

New Stairs Installed

Stairs Finished and In Place.jpg

Boois !

Boois is what Joe calls his Orange waterproof jacket ! I have no idea why he calls it Boois or what it means, but he is quite definite about what Boois is ! It’s funny that he seems to make up words for things, but I guess it’s all part of learning language - it’s also quite ingenious - maybe I should try that with French !

Another word is “Tinny” which is anything round, or things that go round, including flashing lights, and cable cars.

Oh Dear, A Mess !

This was what Joe said when he saw the photo’s of the kitchen Wall being knocked down! And it was a big mess - There is rubble all over the floor now. Still it’s progress.

I’m putting photo’s in a photo-stream which you can find at the bottom of the sidebar on the right. Click it to see them all.

Joe’s talking is really coming on fast - that was pretty much his first full sentence. He now copies everything you say.

Bathroom Tear Out

The bathroom was the first room to be pulled out. I needed to know how all the plumbing went! Here are the photo’s.

Bionnay Chalet Renovation

As you may know we have finally bought somewhere bigger to live. A little chalet in the village of Bionnay, just up the road from St Gervais. We aren’t living there yet though because it needs quite a lot of work!

I thought it might be fun to document the work with some pictures. You will get to see how it gets much worse before it gets better (hopefully!). So here is the first post.

These pictures show what it looked like when we bought it.