Happy Christmas

A lovely Christmas spent in France, mainly near Paris with Erika and Emmanuel and partly in the Loire valley to see Alister's parents.

A visit to the Cirque d'Hiver and a walk along the window displays in on Christmas Eve and then an exciting Christmas Day with all 7 cousins, plus uncles aunts and grandparents.

Birthday Boy

Eight friends for an eighth birthday. Mattéo had a collective present from his friends - a remote controlled "jet" plane. Its first two test flights were fine and the third flight went so well that a large part of the rest of the day was spent by Alister retrieving it (successfully) from a tree!!

Mattéo's M'amie was happy to be part of the party and our dear friend Rene treated us to a lovely magic show at the end.

Autumn

The first snow of the season coincided with a trip to Heidi's Hutte - lots of fun in the deep and powdery snow and then some board games in the warm living room.







The highlight of our autumn was a visit to Renato and family in the eternal city - Rome. Lovely to see our friends and exciting for Mattéo and Juliette to discover so many things.

Summer 2008

Sunshine and jazz, happy walks and fun in the water.

We spent the summer in France after the week in Hardelot. Delphine and the children enjoyed the beach near Pornic on the Atlantic coast.

Alister found the children in Angers at his mother's house and spent a very enjoyable week at the Jazz workshop of the Angers music conservatory.

When we returned to Munich, Juliette started with her new english language kindergarten at the European School.

Of course we continued visiting the hut in Tirol and were able to help out more physically with the haymaking.

Kitten Korner

Early in the morning of 27 June 2008, Tirol gave birth to three healthy kittens, named immediately by the children Lily (black) and Flip and Flop (both stripey).

Here is a selection of photos and films:

Holiday in Northern France

We spent a very nice week along with Alister's family (Maman, Dad and Marielaure)in a small seaside town called Hardelot - which is near Le Touquet, towards Calais.

The beaches are quite special - soft fine sand and a tide that retreats a long way to give plenty of flat area to do all sorts of beach activities, especially "Char à Voile" (land sailing). Delphine and Alister had an introductory session in a very unpleasant Force 6 wind with rain and hail and later in the week went for a proper sail up and down the beach, splashing through puddles and chasing seagulls.

The weather was generally bad - but we did have three beautiful days and we made the most of those days by visiting the beach. It is almost always windy there, which is why it is quite a popular sea activity centre (kite surfing, land sailing). We did some fun kite flying, Mattéo went body boarding and "skimming", Juliette tried some gentle body boarding, Alister and Marielaure went body boarding and surf kayaking (Marielaure had brought her kayak over from UK) and Delphine played on the beach with the children.

At the end of the week, Alister returned with his mother to Munich , and Delphine took the children to the Atlantic coast to stay at the family seaside home.

May and June