French Chronicles - I

All that blogging by el10t about his French holiday has revived my affinity for the country and I've been coming over all nostalgic and envious. We haven't been to France for almost two years and now I'm itching to go back. I am also reminded that I kept a diary of sorts on most of our numerous trips (well, just notes, really) and, if you're very good, I might revamp them a bit and, over the course of time, use them to try and lift your spirits from the morass of melancholy into which people's spirits do seem to sink on a fairly frequent basis. I look after you lot, don't I?! As a family, we had camped on our own in various parts of France but, one year, some good friends of ours suggested we all go together and we subsequently spent four thoroughly enjoyable holidays on the same site in the Vendée with them. We found that part of the fun of the holiday lay in the planning and we used to hold various meetings to settle important details, for example, which routes to take and how to stay together on the road (ffs, don't mention Rambouillet). Copious quantities of wine were consumed at these meetings, the excuse for which being that it was necessary to ensure our temporary integration into French society was as seamless and unobtrusive as possible. The dangers of this soon became apparent: nobody actually took notes and, inevitably, it was very often difficult for any of us to remember what decisions had been made (or, sometimes, what had even been discussed). This of course meant that further (hitherto unnecessary) meetings had to be convened at which the business transacted was again not properly recorded. The vicious circle continued, although none of us really regarded this aspect of the planning process as at all vicious. It's a wonder we ever made it.