Category: Family life

Ar poull-neuial – The Swimming pool

We went to the swimming pool in Guingamp today. I must say that I am not a big fan of water, and usually avoid this kind of places. But as we say in French: “Il n’y a que les imbéciles qui ne changent jamais d’avis” We all had fun, me included. No pictures to show, as we are not allowed to take pictures there, but you can check on their website: http://www.cc-guingamp.fr/piscine/piscine.htm. It was also quite cheap. We only paid € 9,80 for the four of us (that’s about £8).

It was also a new cultural experience. The changing rooms were mixed, as well as showers and toilets. That’s the kind of things you have to do when you are a missionary. Off course, you don’t get changed in front of everyone, but go in a small cabin. Although I am a Frenchman, I was a bit surprised at first. Maybe I have lived in th UK too long.

My kids will always amaze me

Esther often tells me I am too soapy. But I cant’ help it. Some months ago, we tried to teach Jean-Baptiste to ride his bike without stabilisers, with little success. Today, he decided he wanted to try, so he took one of them off, and I helped with the other one. And off he went. I was rather sceptical, but I saw him climb on his bike, and he was gone, no stabilisers. By the end of the afternoon, he was quite confident. I was gobsmacked. These kids will always amaze me.

Jean-Baptiste’s birthday party

On Wednesday, Jean-Baptiste will be 5. To be honest, I am not a big fan of parties. Especially when I have to organise them. I am rather of the boring kind who just enjoy sitting down with a coffee and chat for hours. As a consequence, we had not put much thought into organising a party for him, but last week our friends Alessio and Katy kindly offered us to use their garden if we wanted to do something for him.

So we did prganise something. We invited a handful of friends from school and church at the last minute and had a simple birthday party in their garden, with a couple of games and a few magic tricks by Alessio. It was great, and relaxed, the weather was hot and sunny. The children seemed to enjoy themselves running around and jumping on the trampoline. I even enjoyed myself, chatting and playing around with the kids.

A relaxing weekend.

One needs a relaxing weekend from time to time. This one was most relaxing.

On Saturday morning, we went for a long walk from our house to the other side of the River Taff, some parts are very wild, and you’d almost forget you are in a city with over 300 000 inhabitants. I’ll post a couple of pictures later. Then, Esther and my mum did a few boxes before going to the church BBQ in Porthkerry country Park, Barry.

Getting to the BBQ was quite a challenge for my map reading skills. I am usually quite good at reading maps, but this time I failed miserably. We got lost twice before finding our way and it took us an hour to arrive instead of 30 minutes. There was a good group of people, lot of youngsters, good food, good fellowship. The gospel was clearly presented by one of our elders. One the way back, we had a quick glance at Barry Island (my first time there), and went home in just under 1/2 an hour.

Sunday was nice and warm. I took my parents to the station, and we went to church. Then we had a great afternoon in Pontypridd with our friends the Pikes. We were in the garden all the time, chatting away and playing around with the kids. It was great to leave the stress of moving behind for an afternoon, and just enjoy life.

The coming week is busy with the commissioning service tommorrow, and lot of admin to prepare the move. Then I finish work officialy on Thursday.

Another rather good weekend

We had a rather good weekend again. We spent Saturday in Shrewsbury for a Family reunion. All the family on Esther’s side was present, the sun was shining. We enjoyed each other company and good food. The children played well together.

Thanks to the wonders of technology (and my online backups), I was able to retrieve the presentation on Brittany I’ve given in Churches in order to show it to those who had not seen it, in spite of the fact that I had not taken my computer with me.

On the way back, a bad accident on the A49 reminded us to be grateful that we have been kept so far.