Adventures on Ile de Re

Why don't the hire car companies fit the carseats in the car for you? The one's we were provided with were rubbish. They fitted tightly to the back of the seat, but the front of the carseat lifted up when you tightened the seatbelts... didn't fill me with confidence and I had two to worry about... oh yes, and they were slightly different as well and the only guide we had to go by was the one on the sticker on the side of the seat...

Anyway, once the seats were fitted, off we set for le Pont de Re. We were pleasantly surprised to find that the bridge was just outside the airport. We waved at La Pallise where our ship, Braemar moored last year during the cruise we went on. About 45 minutes later we arrived at Bridgit and Gerard's house in Les Portes. Bridget settled us in and left us to it. We had a quick trip to Carrefour for essential supplies and got the boys off to bed.

Next morning we went for a walk into the village centre and had a drink sitting outside in the sunshine. How very pleasant. A baguette was purchased and we went home to make a picnic to take to the beach.

The beach, the beach the wonderful beach! It was perfect. La plage des Ballaines... it has WW2 bunkers which provided the perfect shade, but best of all, when the tide went out, it left behind a lagoon of water about 2 - 3 inches deep which was perfect for small boys to splash around and crawl in... what a wonderful time they had...

They splashed and crawled in the lagoon for two hours. They got absolutely covered in sand. It was everywhere... they had to be dunked in the Atlantic to get the worst of it off them and good old talc took care of the rest, well until we got home and the bath got the bits that we didn't even know sand could get into! Did we need buckets and spades? No! did we build even one castle? No! All we did was splash and splash and splash.

We had so much fun we went back again the next day and did it all over again.

So Saturday, after the beach, we were back at the house having tea when Auntie Bridget popped over for a chat. The boys loved her and she loved them. They played Peepo together and she really enjoyed watching them crawling around the garden. We had a lovely time together. Then we decided to go down to the lighthouse. We'd tried to go on Friday, but it was really busy and we couldn't get parked, so we thought that leaving it until later in the day might be a good idea... and it was! The sun was beginning to set and it had cooled down lots.

Many years ago, when Neil was a small boy aged about 5 years old, he went to this lighthouse with his parents and brothers Colin and Rob. Neil's parents died 4 years ago and Colin died a long time ago from Muscular Dystrophy. Anyway, when they were there, a photo was taken of the three of them sitting on the steps of the lighthouse... we decided we were going to recreate this photo with our two boys and here it is....

It's not a great photo, mainly because it was taken on my iPhone, but also because we had to rush it as they were both about to go crawling off in different directions, but it means a lot to me that we could take this photo.

Neil then went up the lighthouse and came back down again marvelling at his dad who all those years ago had taken Colin up the lighthouse on his back... 257 steps apparently!

So the end of another lovely day. We like Ile de Re.