I'm visiting Louise (Tony's mother), with Tony, Charles, James & Rosie. The weather is unseasonably lovely and we've been making good use of the pool. Travel was by Eurostar to Poitiers and then a convoy of hire car and Louise's car to her ex-farm, now home and self-catering cottages in the depths of rural France.

We have been very lazy on the whole, some plans to set up wireless access to the cottage proved pretty much impossible to achieve on this visit due to lack of shops selling basic supplies - james_r can rant about the details. I have managed to find some lovely clothes for Charles, some fitting now, some for later. The French do plentiful clothing for children that is not pastel pink, pastel blue, white, or beige. Hurrah!

Other Charles notes: he has slowly come to enjoy the swimming pool, if we're careful about introducing him to the cold water. He has an elegant UV-protective swimsuit and matching hat and we try to keep him in that or in the shade. So far he has not got burned. He has enthusiastically munched on bread and croissants, and though he clearly likes crusts, they don't soften enough to go down properly, so we have banned them. I tried offering him some banana, and not only did he recoil, when I left the piece on his tray for later investigation, he picked it up and dropped it over the side of the high chair with deliberation and a look that said "I told you I didn't want it". He has been incredibly clingy to me for the first few days, though I am now allowed to leave him with daddy for a while without being pursued by sobs of abandonment, and he is slowly getting used to Louise again.

I'm off to eat some lovely food and perhaps accompany James to the local airfield.