Holidaying in the South of France

We're into the second week of our 3-week holiday in the South of France. Yes, you Americans, that is pretty long. It's even long to us.

We spent last week with my brother and his family, who came all the way from Boston to Perpignan to be with us. They spent a week touring Italy and then hopped a plane to Marseilles and drove the rest of the way. Seeing them again for the first time in 3 years was a real blessing. They had never met our one-year-old in the flesh, except of course over Skype. Our little L got to know his two cousins, who are now 5 (Z) and 7 (J), and by the end of their stay, he was regularly giving them cuddles at random moments (exiting a carpark; entering McDonalds; etc). J and Z were such good sports. When we were otherwise occupied, they followed L around like little sentries and made funny faces at him to keep him from crying.

A peaceful, uneventful week? Not quite. The worst of it came when my brother and his wife took a day off to Barcelona, leaving Z & J with us, and my brother was outmanoeuvred by the Tire Slash Robbery Gang and lost his and J's passports. To get J a new passport, Hubbie and Papie had to drive him the 2 hours to Barcelona to make a physical appearance at the US consulate. My poor brother lost all his photos of Italy (which he took great pride in) and my sister-in-law thought this might be the last holiday she would ever have abroad (my brother was very upset by the robbery).

That same day, L came down with another nasty bug that kept his temperature up around the 40-degree mark for 4 days. It kept him up at night. That meant it kept us up at night. It didn't help that it was constantly higher than 30 degrees every day he was ill (that's close to 90 degrees Fahrenheit).

Hubbie insisted it was just teething again (as L had a very high temperature when his botton teeth appeared). But we finally called a doctor, who immediately came around to the house (a real perk of the French health system) and prescribed antibiotics for some sort of throat bug. L is feeling much better now though he still has a slight fever.

So although we are now in the South of France eating nice food and drinking nice wine, it is not such a big change for me, as I still chase after L all day and still do not seem able to blog or write much at all...

Oh and good news in case someone out there is following the Flat Sale. We have had confirmation that the buyer officially has their mortgage in place! Woohooooo! We are on our way!