Babies: miraculous and demanding. And when baby's aunt and nearly grown-up cousins come to visit, it leaves even less time for the trivialities of life, such as blogging. That's my excuse anyway. La soeur et les nièces arrived 8 days ago and left yesterday. In between early morning trips to the airport at either end, it was perhaps not the most exciting of trips abroad for a pair of teenagers but that wasn't really the point. The main attraction was obviously their six week-old niece and cousin respectively
Activities of various sorts were organised during the course of seven days otherwise crammed with vying with each other to feed baby, leaving the parents to deal with nappy changing, helping with the shopping, and pram-pushing on the daily afternoon walks:
Monday: a walk in the park for everybody in the warm afternoon sunshine.
Tuesday: the rest of us leave la bienheureuse at home with baby while we climb les Pentes de la Croix Rousse, walk back down through town and then have lunch on les Berges du Rhône, where mother and baby join us in the warm afternoon sunshine.
Wednesday: the breastfeeding pair are once again left behind as I lead an expedition on a two-river cruise in the warm afternoon sunshine: down the Saône past the new Confluence development, up the Rhône, and back again.
Thursday: niece number two kindly gives me the evening off cooking duties and prepares finger-licking fajitas.
Friday: back to the touristing as we hire Velo'vs and cycle down the river to Parc Gerland and back in the warm afternoon sunshine. Quite enough exercise for the week for some.
Saturday: finally time for the visitors to do their duty with a bit of gift shopping for friends and family back home. Meet up with mother and baby for a final walk along the river in the warm afternoon sunshine.
And then there were three. La petite has just spent her first night in a room of her own. And carried on the happy recent habit of sleeping through the night. Long may it continue...
