Another quiet week and weekend, with a brief, somewhat noisier interlude on Friday evening and Saturday morning. The much anticipated visit of the Doctors C and the mini-JeZs took place overnight Friday. Stopping off in Lyon on their way from Calais to the sun and smoke further south, they arrived at about 8pm via an unscheduled detour through Paris. Satnavs are useful things, if you pay attention to them instead of getting wrapped up in a Dr Who adventure. Eight and a half hours cooped up in a car, albeit a rather large one, stores up plenty of energy in small five and seven year old boys. Cue much charging around, and a visit to the playground by the river, with only a brief pause to wolf down some food. Now I know why one ten year old sometimes sounds like a whole herd of elephants upstairs.
Exhaustion eventually took its toll and J-minor and Z dropped off to sleep after the minor problem of cuddly dinosaurs left in the car was solved by a fish and dolphin substitute respectively. They even let us lie in till after eight the next morning, and we waved our visitors goodbye just before midday, wishing them luck on the four hour journey that took more than six on the busiest traffic day of the year, on the busiest autoroute in the country. First day in August: half of France, and a quarter of Belgium, Holland and Germany climb into their vehicles and head towards the Med.
As for us we, erm, spent the rest of the day relaxing and recovering. Sunday, we took advantage of the blessedly cool weather to cycle down the river to Parc Gerland to watch steam rising from the ground where a new metro tunnel is being dug, then all the way back up to Parc de la Tete d'Or, then on to Parc Feyssine, then finally home to allow me to park my behind on the sofa and watch my second football fix of the weekend, a gratifying display by the much derided young Guns. Yes, the new season is nearly upon us, and optimism surges from somewhere once more...
