Memories: French French summer holidays

[anotherbanana]

Madame promene ses fesses

Whilst Madame promene ses fesses sur les beaches de St.Tropez (with apologies to Jacques Brel) and Monsieur lies there in his Ray Bans carefully scrutinizing the young bodies of either sex which wander by (for no scruples has he when it comes to placing his plonker in private parts), where are the kids? Not there, for certain, nor at any banale colonie de vacances where they might meet 'bad influences' (though no worse than the drug dealers who sell their wares outside the gates of their college which act is not the responsibility of the school as it is not on their premises), but they are safely with Grandma and Grandpa..... who are in their middle seventies and will 'go on for ever' and who 'love having the grandkids for a couple of weeks or so'. And it is ok to fone up and let them know we will be extending by a few days as it is so good here. And bless the old folks, they love the kids so much, they never say no!

Now, the Vendée is full of retired folk who came here to enjoy a quiet life, close to the coast in a Département which is easy to live in, not too hot and at times bucolic without being decadent, unlike the South of France. These happy people have escaped from the travails of city life and the pressures of work and should, barring accidents and health problems and riots and .......... be able to live longer, more fulfilled lives.

There is however one nail in the shoe, one grain of sand in the knickers, so to speak, and it is happening right now - the grandkids annual visit!

Which is not to say that they dislike them, they don't; in fact they are very fond of seeing them for the odd few days either here or in their nice city flat where they can be taken out and treated to those things that their parents have neglected to give them, such as new trainers or a decent winter coat (actually, as every wily parent knows, the visits of the grands is a good time to get those very expensive items paid for by someone else).

But the summer holidays are a different matter, because after the first day or so of joyful reunion when the parents stayed, they are now alone with the little darlings for a couple of weeks which may be elastic. It all starts off ok, of course, with lots of outings and planned mealtimes, but then after a week or so it begins to deterioriate; the kids begin to whine, then they demand high cost stuff in the shopping basket, the outings are never enough or are too much. Things get frayed round the edges.

Plus, joy of joys, it is raining!!

And the old folk are exhausted from the effort of cleaning, cooking, running around doing this and that, Grandpa has pulled his back making sandcastles and Grannie is utterly out of ideas for food and resorting to the old favourites of pasta and pizza, and she is just dying for a quick nap when the kids remember a promised trip to Rhino Park or Pretty Frilly Factory outlet, and then they proceed to fight about which to go to........

Then they realise that the bank account is being drained, the pensions will never cover this month.

And so it goes on, the kids getting fatter and grumpier, the Grands getting paler and more stooped, giving each other sympathetic glances.

The dreaded phone call comes "Just another week, OK. It is doing us so much good down here, we feel quite revitalized. Kids behaving themselves OK? Tell them we miss them, bye."

They go pale!

She retires to the toilet where she cries for a happy hour and he goes to dig the vegetables which buggers his back even more, until ......

"Quand est que maman et papa reviennent. Je veux rentrer à la maison. Je m'ennuie ici. On ne fait jamais rien."

[idun]

Like that in the Vendee was it!

The only holiday I saw such a generation divide was when we called in Ernee in the Mayenne to see friends who were holidaying with friends there.

The town was full of pensioners with kids in tow, apart from those working in say our hotel, or cafes/restos and the few shops we used, no working age people about. Very very strange.

And those that were working, well, I don't know how to describe the slow service we always got, it was like everyone was stuck in first or second gear. No idea what that is about and when they heard my english accent, they spoke french to me so slowly, it was weird like a comedy sketch of talking to a foreigner.

Husband, why on earth were you so long in the boulangerie......... moi........... I just kept talking to the baker faster and faster until he almost reached normal speed when talking, well as fast as anything gets done here! [Www]

So wooly, thanks, I now know that it is not just the Mayenne with

child abandonment. And yes, most grandparents love their grandchildren, and will love having them there, but not for several weeks.

If we had been made to have kids when old, we would be able to have kids naturally when old.

[NickP]

Idun wrote: If we had been made to have kids when old, we would be able to have kids naturally when old.

The wonderful thing about being Grandparents is that after a couple of weeks you hand the rugrats back. Our daughter is convinced that I spend all my time with her children teaching them the things that she wasn't allowed to do when she was young.

Although to be fair I have noticed that the older I get the more my thought processes match those of the little ones and that makes for fun times. Maybe because the littlies and me have nobody to tell us off when we are alone.??

[idun]

Handing back is not always so easy in France. Big, big country and those grandes vacances are 8 weeks long.

AND sometimes even when the parents are on holiday they invite grandparents along............ those who have been doing more than their fair share of baby sitting........... and would you believe they end up baby sitting again.

[anotherbanana]

This particular text came about after chats with several different grands over a couple of years in the Vendée. They told roughly the same story each time. I bumped into them at the beach, in supermarkets and just wandering. They all had a slightly desperate look and tended to drag their feet whilst the kids hurtled around them.

[Lori]

Funny, reminds me of the ole saying:  "Family and house guests are just like fish. After three days, they all need to be thrown out !"

[Loiseau]

To be fair, the parents probably were working, having only one month's holiday compared to their children's two months.

[BritinBretagne]

About 30 years ago we were staying in our caravan on a site on the coast near Bayonne with our daughter aged 13 months. We got friendly with a French couple in a nearby caravan with a similar aged little girl. We were surprised to discover that they were not on holiday. Mother and daughter were enjoying the sun and the sand but dad, who joined in heartily with the evening barbecue and beer sessions, got up early every morning and drove to work. It turned out that he was an SNCF employee who usually lived and worked near Lille who had been seconded to the busy SW for the summer season. A family holiday combined with a change in the working routine plus a bit extra in the pay packet every month - what’s not to like about that?

[Ken]

Ah holidays!. Yes, I remember them. Wasn't it when we were allowed to travel beyond a few kilometres or even visit other countries without needing any sort of special permission?

Those were the days!!!!

[Lehaut]

But, could you think of a better country to be confined to, in Europe, than France?

[idun]

I can think of lots of places I wouldn't mind being confined to, and here is just fine thankyou. And there have been real advantages to be in the UK at the moment, really there have.

Still, if we had still lived there, I would have been OK in my old french house, because I could have done sweet fanny adams about it[Www] and the views were actually splendid, fantastic.

Not like on these silly programs where they show fields or something rather boring and yet there is an  'ooohhhh, look at that view!

[nomoss]

[quote user="idun"]

I can think of lots of places I wouldn't mind being confined to, and here is just fine thankyou. And there have been real advantages to be in the UK at the moment, really there have.

Still, if we had still lived there, I would have been OK in my old french house, because I could have done sweet fanny adams about it[Www] and the views were actually splendid, fantastic.

Not like on these silly programs where they show fields or something rather boring and yet there is an  'ooohhhh, look at that view!

[/quote]

The poor gubbers have possibly never seen a view from their house with more than one tree or a bit of sky not vertically above. And if you sling in a cow or two they will go nuts.