Newsletter from Plaigne, December 2009

Hello one and all.
It’s that time again. It seems to come round so quickly! Hope you are all well. Thank you to those who have sent Xmas greetings and presies. Now for a rapid tour of our year.
In February, we took the four girls to Spain for a week, in Santa Susanna. I had done a late booking offer in a self-catering apartment not far from the beach. The day before we were to go, I received a phone call to say the apartment wasn’t available. They offered us two rooms in a 4 star hotel right on the beach. Bang went our self-catering food budget. The hotel was great. The girls all wanted to stay for another week! We were about 45 km away from Barcelona, so we went there on the train, along the coastline (remembering our last visit to Barcelona with the car). Barcelona is a wonderful city and we visited as much as we could. On the way home at the end of the week, we visited Gerona. Again, the old part of Gerona is beautiful.
April saw David and I meeting up with Steph and Tom in Dublin’s fair city and it really is a fair city. We had a great time and we have photos to prove that it isn’t always raining in Ireland and that the sun does shine sometimes. We had a whole mixture of weather and got wet, warm and cold over the short period we were there. As per usual on our trips, we did much walking and exploring. Like to see as much of the places we visit as poss!
In June, we took Raymonde and Isabelle to England for ten days. We flew from Carcassonne to Bournemouth on the first day that Ryanair were starting that route. The flight cost 1€ each! We stayed with David’s parents, Enid and Dennis (thank you), and visited family and places that we like, such as Broadstairs. I managed to fit in a bit of family research in the cemetery. We went to Ann and Bert’s, in London and stayed for a long weekend. We all enjoyed it very much. Raymonde and Isabelle had done research before we went, looking in books and watching DVDs. Raymonde drew a picture of all the things they wanted to see. We decided that a boat trip on the Thames would be a good plan to cover everything. Tower Bridge was very cooperative for us and they saw it going up and down. Mummy was instructed to take lots of photos as their camera had run out. We spent the last day, which happened to be Raymonde’s birthday, in Bournemouth. Her treat was a visit in the oceanarium. I nearly had a fit when I found both girls with hands in the piranha tank! LOL.
In the summer, it was lovely to have family visitors and meet up with family. Simon and family came, and cousin Deb and family came. The cousins on two levels all enjoyed each other’s company. We actually did an impromptu visit to Deb and Nigel’s in the Alps so that David could help Nigel with the guttering. We had a really active but relaxing time. The weather was very good then and all summer long too.
In September, we did our annual trip to London. We stayed at Ann and Bert’s again (thank you for your kind hospitality and sorry about our departure time!), after a couple of nights at Den and Enid’s (and visiting recuperating Simon after his back op). We visited Buckingham Palace again and the National Gallery and spent a day in Greenwich.
In October, David and I, who were both rather stressed (you will see why later), escaped to Brussels. We did much walking and discovering, eating of Belgian chocs and, of course, I had moules and frites. Brussels is a wonderful city to discover and the Grand Place is delightful.
From the end of August to October, I spent a lot of time at the hospital. Three of our darlings were admitted to hospital, one after the other. Firstly, Isabelle went to children’s emergency. She was rather poorly and very thin. Her umbilical hernia which she’d had since birth, decided to go inside. This caused distress and pain to her insides. Couple that with swollen stomach glands caused by a virus, and you get a child in a lot of pain who can’t eat or drink. A blood anomaly was found at the same time. She’s okay now, although she still has an anomaly with her blood, but this doesn’t seem to bother her.
Next in hospital was Johnathan. He had a very bad car accident. He fell asleep at the wheel and ended up in the middle of a field after rolling over. He was discovered, two hours later, in an unconscious state, by a hunter. The rescue team had to cut him out of the car. He was in intensive care for a while before going to the normal service. His injuries included a fractured skull, shoulder and collar bones, bruised lungs and air trapped in his chest cavity. One of the rescue team phoned me to see how he was and said that he was very lucky to be alive, and it was probably due to him driving a VW, a strong car. After a couple of operations, and recuperation, Jn is fine.
Two days after Jn came out of hospital, Geoffrey went in, in the same service, for a hernia operation. The heavy work he’d been doing had taken its toll. Everyone is now recovered and back to “normal.” Yes, I know; what is normal? LOL.
As for activities, GC is continuing his correspondence course and is doing work experience. Benjamin is at a hotel school and has just returned from a hotel in Bordeaux where he was on marked work experience. He received top marks. Well done! Jn finished his apprenticeship and is a qualified electrician. Well done too! He is taking a year out before continuing with his BAC Pro. He is looking for a big enough enterprise to take him on so that he can continue his studies for the BAC. Demelza and Verity have started their last year of the Bac at the lycée. They have been looking at their options and choices for the future.
David continues with helping people with their renovations and is getting a good reputation for lime washing and tiling. He has found time to make quite a lot of progress in the chateau and Jn has been a great help in there too. We no longer rent out the apartment and he has knocked an entrance through from the rest of the house. As for me, I have been writing a lot and devoting much of my time to world peace solutions and healing the environment. You can see what I am up to on http://angelcuddlepublishing.com and http://6-musketeers-agency.multidomainrotator.com and one of my green blogs is: http://sarahpritchard.wordpress.com There aren’t enough hours in the day especially as I am only on dial-up and everything takes so long to do! We’ve been told that we may get adsl in 2010 so I am ever hopeful, but not holding my breath!
I have created a Peace Dot page on a sub domain, http://peace.angelcuddlepublishing.com and I would like to encourage you to e-sign the FUTURO-Plan world peace petition. You will find the link on that page. It won’t cost you anything but a little time. I will leave you with the link to the UBIEE ENVIRO Project Pritchard Family in Aid of UNICEF vortex which I have set up. I invite you to join us in supporting UNICEF, and at the same time, the environment, yourself and your children. Here is the link: http://ubiee.com/enviro/?tag=pritchardinaidofUNICEF I gave each of the kids a one time contribution in that vortex for Christmas.
If you want to contact me, my Skype ID is: sarahprit
Email: questions@sarahp.earthgreenmail.com
I wish you all a Merry Christmas tide and a Happy New Year, full of abundance in all its forms.
Many blessings,
Sarah