Eurostar check-in at Lille was deeply tedious. An enormous slow-moving queue, bottleneck apparently the metal-detectors. If I wanted to stand in queues for ages I'd fly. Then there was the rather scary incident when a group of stupid people stopped moving as soon as they got off the immensely crowded escalator. Following a large chorus of KEEP MOVING, DON'T STOP! from everyone on the escalator, they finally shifted themselves, but not before I'd been propelled into the wobbly old lady in front of me by pressure of people coming down behind. I think we were about 30 seconds away from something very nasty. Perhaps I should write a stroppy letter of complaint.

Letter of complaint number 2 will be to St Pancras station management, about the signs which direct you to King's Cross bringing you out on a busy road with no pedestrian crossing within 100 metres in either direction, and a helpful temporary barrier blocking the opposite side for about 20 metres. So you have to cross this busy road diagonally from where you've been brought, or massively detour.

On a happier note, we had a very comfortable and restful Christmas, and it was great to have some real quality time with the family. I have a lot of photos of Charles opening presents to sort through. He had a great second Christmas Day, totally got into it, charged around the place until late in the evening and generally had a whale of a time. We got many board books for him, plus a trolley of blocks and some nice clothes. I think Tony and I got some DVDs and booze as well. We left money with Louise to package and ship what we couldn't fit in the suitcase.

Christmas Dinner was a turkey, raised on a local smallholding. It was the hugest turkey I have ever seen - 11.6kg apparently (25 lbs in old money) - and after 9 adults had attacked it and had plentiful seconds, there was still more than half of it left. It was also extremely tasty (as were the various accompaniments), so more turkey for Boxing Day meals and sandwiches today was in fact lovely rather than boring.

We watched a lot of Hornblower, though as I kept getting distracted/drawn away by a certain small person, I'll have to do something about watching it properly. I've never actually got around to reading the books, but what I saw of the tv adaptations was exactly my kind of escapist drama.

Just over 6 months old, but I have finally put up some photos from our trip to France in April, with separate collections for the signposted tumulus we stopped to explore, and the valley of monkeys.

As usual, most of the photos are of Charles.

Just back from a short break in Leiden, staying with Tony's ex-colleagues Dirk & Ardy, who were marvellous hosts and arranged for us to spend lots of time with other ex-colleagues Hari & Sander and Sander's family. Charles was somewhat trying, still very fond of the random piercing scream approach to expressing displeasure. If you have to go for long walks with a trying child in hopes of calming them down/sending them to sleep, there are many worse places than Leiden to do this.

Our outward journey started with a delightful interlude between Cambridge and London with a baby very like Charles but a few months younger; both of them seemed delighted to play around each other and occasionally grab at each other. In London we randomly met bugshaw and major_clanger, and were able to say casually that we were meeting nhw for afternoon coffee in Brussels. Which we did, and it went fast. Somehow we need to make time to visit Brussels rather than pass through it.

Nothing quite so remarkable happened on the return journey, although Charles did his best to charm the entire Eurostar waiting room and hid shyly from another toddler a little older doing the same thing. One of the onboard train managers managed to patronise us on both occasions she passed through the carriage: "There is a baby change compartment there" (yes we know, that's why I booked us seats here) and, upon finding Charles pottering in the corridor 2 seats away from us, and under our eye "is this your baby? - don't let him wander through the carriages when we're in the Tunnel". Grr.

Tony has been efficient with housework on our return while I settled Charles to sleep. I have tomorrow off work to recover from the holiday, then three days at work before we get back on Eurostar, this time via Paris for a week with Tony's dad in France.

Back to England on Saturday, changing in Paris is still awful. Family party in Beaconsfield on Sunday, my lovely sister-in-law Sarah is 30 today (which means I'm going to be 30 later this year, gosh). Got home about 9:30pm last night, up at 6am for work as usual this morning.

It was a lovely holiday, and a good, if tiring party yesterday. There'll be photos along eventually. james_r took some great ones which we saw on the way home. Apart from continuing to swim and eat too much, the main thing we did was visit Monkey IslandValley - La Vallee des Singes. Lots of monkeys and apes of different kinds, with territories mostly enclosed by use of water, and only the occasional fence. It's all buggy-friendly (or wheelchair friendly) and there are some play areas, but we adults all found it lots of fun. Charles was more interested in the humans than the animals, but I'm looking forward to regular visits as he grows up, watching him take in more and more of what there is to see.

The best mother-in-law in the world now has a blog: louise_e_f.

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.

Back from France after a few days visiting fanf's father. The break was lovely and we return with expanded waistlines, mild sunburn, 12 bottles of good wine, and greatly reduced stress levels in me (Tony wasn't that stressed when we went out!). Trains are the civilised way to travel, although the Eurostar terminal staff were approaching irritating queue lengths on the way out - we think because one of the screening machines was out of use. Which reminds me: in future, don't wear steel-toecapped shoes when walking through metal detectors.

We took travel Scrabble, which proved a hit. Photos will be online at some point.