Reillys on Tour

It was a warm Thursday morning. Despite it being mid-September and the beginning of autumn it still felt summery. Just another day of sunshine. But that wasn't quite true, for today was Benjamin's first day of school. He was going to get up, eat breakfast, put on a shirt, shorts and a tie and walk the 6 doors down the road to St Stephen's Primary. Lisette had reservations about the tie; the shirt too for that matter. It seemed excessive for a child as young as 4. But they were the rules. She had other things to worry about; John was faintly baffled by the level of stress accorded to the difficulty in acquiring shorts. But there you go. The morning began as most mornings did. Lisette drank a mug of tea upstairs. The boys drank milk, played and sat around her. Downstairs, Radio 4 could be heard in the background as John flicked various knobs and twisted dials on his coffee machine until something was produced that sat somewhere on the scale between "cappuccino" ...

It is a truism that there are holidays it is a pleasure to go on and holidays that make you appreciate home. We have just returned from France where we chose to stay on a French-only campsite, miles from the nearest town, where there was no public transport and (crucially) without any transport of our own. For the first half of the holiday we seemed likely to be falling into the second holiday category. We piled misjudgement upon unbelievably bad weather upon sickness upon unavailable taxis until we made manifest a teetering blancmange of calamity. The whole journey was planned in order that Benjamin and James might meet their Great Uncle Yves and their Great Aunt Nicole. I'm happy to report this was achieved. There was a gathering of 3 generations of Priou, all in the same room at the same time and enjoying one another's company. The rumours that the French had outlawed Bermuda Shorts seemed unlikely to have any basis in fact. I mean, it's a joke, right? Outlawing ta...

Miss Rachel at Nursery had a grand idea. She would give Benjamin a number of words and ask him how he felt about them. So she did. As Benjamin responded she diligently scribed away the results and presented Lisette with this at the end of the day: It's not the best photo I've ever taken but the contents are gold and I didn't want to forget them. So here they are; Rachel's words and Benjamin's musings: Police Car "Mummy might be worried that James will wake up." "I like them because they make me happy; I like police cars." Fish "Happy. They swim everywhere and I like to see them swim under water, I like to catch them under water, but I don't have a fishing net, maybe on holiday but then I need a suitcase too." Mouse "Worried because it might fall over - it would run into something and fall." Crocodile "I think it might eat. I would be worried." Monkey "Because it swings on branc...