Monday, August 24th - a vacation that almost wasn't a vacation

Andrew woke me at 5am this morning saying that his tummy hurt, "BAD". I wish I had a thermometer with me. He felt very hot and he was due another dose of motrin. I dosed him and sent him back to bed. I drifted back to sleep, and he woke me again at 5:45am saying that his tummy REALLY hurt. The poor kid - we never offered anyone any dinner last night! I guess the heat and the late lunch were enough for Paul and me and we didn't think about food! My poor son! I got up and made him some toast and OJ and asked him to go back to bed when he was done. He did, and he slept past 7, which is a RECORD for Andrew!

It had not been a good night. At 3:30am, Paul and I were awakened by banging noises. It turned out to be the pretty blue shutters on our French house, but it sounded strange and took us awhile to identify what was causing the noise. I didn't return to sleep until after 4am, and then Andrew came in at 5 and 5:45am.

When Andrew woke shortly after 7am, I got up with the kids (once he's up, they all follow with-in about 1/2 hour) and let Paul get some rest. Paul and I had determined the night before that if Andrew was sick, we should stick around our house, at least in the morning, to monitor him and decide what would be the best course of action.

I wandered into the local village for our breakfast deliciousness, and had a funny experience this morning. The lady offered me a plastic grocery bag to hold our various bags of croissants and pastries, and I attempted to add the baguette to the bag. She took it back out, threw a bunch of fast French at me, and indicated that the baguette should NOT be included in the bag! At first I thought it was because the baguette was hot, and it might melt a hole in the plastic bag. However, when I felt it, it was just nice and warm, certainly not a contender for causing any melting of the bag! I just carried them separately while exiting her store, and consolidated them for the return to our house (up the hill) after I was around the corner. Funny!

The kids loved the pool this morning and we kept Andrew quiet inside the house. I had bought him a little toy at the local drug store to cheer him up. Around noon we agreed to venture out for lunch, then return to Roquebrun with our bathing suits for a swim in the clear river.

Alas, more bad luck was in store for us. Can you believe that we could NOT find a restaurant open for lunch on a Monday???! It turns out that after the rush of the weekend, it's common in rural France for restaurants to close on Mondays and sometimes Tuesdays! My enterpreneurial nature was truly offended! Sadly, we ended up at the exact same restaurant that we had been yesterday, and JUST BARELY in time to order off of the main menu! Lunch took 2 unexpected hours. The food was good, but the length just shot our day. It was close to 3 or 4 when we finished, and we still had to get to the grocery store (which closed at 6) before day's end. The kids were very disappointed (as were we) that we still couldn't swim in that wonderful looking river!

By the way, it's not common to find an automatic vehicle in Europe. That's one of our main problems. I can't drive a stick, so anytime we want to go to something with-in driving distance, we're dependent on Paul. Otherwise, I could have made a groc store run while he was sleeping this morning.

The other note I want to make is that despite the look of the pictures, the river Orb had an amazing current. It was NOT an easy feat to get across to the waterfall. Although it was not hugely deep ( I think it got up to my waist or just a little higher), it just looked like a lot of fun to find your way across and then enjoy the waterfall and rock pools on the OTHER side. I could understand the kid's disappointment!

We rushed to the store, grabbed supplies for the rest of the week, and cooked a light dinner that night while the kids swam in the pool. I think the quiet day was good for Andrew.