Back from a holiday

We've had a week off. Down in Devon with the family. We had a cottage on a farm. Luckily a local farmer had ensured the roads were cleared of snow. You have to travel for at least a mile before you get to a road that is more than a single track! The main Exeter to Plymouth road (the A38) is dual carriageway, quite a good quality road. We turned off for the farm we were going to; up the slip road and you are straight away on a single track road. Very rural!



The local village had no shop, but it did have a pub and a church. We visited both on Sunday. There was a family service at the church, but the two or three usual families that attend were away, so it was just our grandchildren. I think the vicar was quite pleased, he had a talk about advent calendars (I'm not telling what he said as I've made a note of it to use next year!). I have to say they were very friendly and didn't mind our two year old running up and down the side aisle.



The car park for the church and the pub was the same. So it was easy to slip from one to the other for lunch...



As we walked back along the single track road to the farm, we came across this note pinned to a gate.

Ah! The countryside!

Here we are in the South of France! We have snatched a week's holiday with one of my wife's cousins who lives over here.

Just to make you envious, the picture is taken from the kitchen window.

As soon as I'd taken the picture I scuttled out of the kitchen - well, I am on holiday!

Keeping up with the news ...

Even though we are abroad on holiday, I buy a newspaper to try to keep up with the news. In the paper yesterday I read that French women are turning their backs on sunbathing topless. Sales of monokinis (the bottom bit only of a bikini - I hadn't heard the word either!) are apparently falling.

The article harked back to 'French post 1968 society' where some insisted sunbathing topless was a woman's right, whereas "family groups claimed exposed nipples would scare children." Which is a bit odd seeing as their mother's nipples are one of the first things they actually see.

That is, unless they were bottle fed. A debate about that was featured in another article in the same paper.

It's good to keep up with the important news whilst on holiday!

Olympics

Well, we're on holiday on the Isle of Wight and, as you might guess, the weather is not good! So I'm in the local library. The holiday has given us time to watch a fair amount of Olympics and hasn't it been fantastic? Well done Great Britain! (I hate "Team GB")

I was watching the women's beach volleyball, actually because I enjoy volleyball, although no-one believes me. My wife pointed out that the Brazilian team had "BRA" across their tops. She wondered what the team from Nicaragua had on their briefs.

But back to the medals. Or at least that grating misuse of English, turning medal into a verb, which it isn't (except, perhaps, in America). You win a medal in a sport, you don't medal in it. That is something different and spelt meddle.

This doesn't, of course, detract from our athletes, congratulations to all of them! Even those who haven't won any medals, because they had to be brilliant to qualify for the team in the first place. It's interesting and heart-warming to hear so many of them saying how much they owe to their parents. At a time when we hear so much of gangs and knife crime, it's a timely reminder that there are an enormous number of good families out there, with kids not getting in to trouble. And just a few of them go on to win medals at the Olympics.