Rally Cars, Croissants and Cows

Our day started with fresh, flaky croissants from the Boulangerie, as it always does, with the exception of Mondays.  They are closed on Mondays.  Mondays are not our favourite day... just sayin'.

Okay.  Can I just say how much I love croissants here?  Oh, you may think the croissants, bagettes and french bread are delicious from Thrifty's... and I guess they are. Until you have the real thing.  Oh. My. Word.  We are all still in love with the flaky, sinfully "white" goodness of all things that come out of any local Boulangerie in France.  We will be forever tainted upon our return back to the land of Thrifty's.  Sigh.

So anyways, Ruby has been riding her bike down to get our breakfast and she enjoys the freedom and responsibility of being in charge of such an important task.  One time she came back and said "they were out of croissants..."  I said "Ruby, that can't be. I'm disappointed in you... try harder."  (Just kidding.. .well, I actually did say that but I was only sort of joking.)  She replied "Don't worry, I bought us pain au chocolat instead."  Bless you, dear girl.  Oh, My. Word... can we talk about those now??

(Clearly what I am about to Blog about isn't as interesting as food....)

Rally Cars.  Woo Hoo... 100's and 100's of them.  Lining up, revving their engines, and taking off like a bolt of lightening... rounding one corner and they are gone.  One at a time... for hours.  In the heat.  I refused to bushwack my way up a hill to catch the "rounding the corner" action, which I later regretted because the rest of the family was gone a very, very long time.  So I sat on a log looking bored, then peed in the bushes, then sat on the log again.  Then a Frenchman showed up to eat his baguette lunch and try to communicate with me.  It was funny.  The only thing he understood was "Canada".  Oh!!  Oui, Oui! Tres bon!

From there, we meandered our way to a place called La Chapelle-en-Vercors, because we were told of a nice "family friendly" hike around the village.  The hike started out "hike-y" and gave us a nice view of the town, but it sort of went downhill (literally) from there.... onto country roads with cows and the occasional vehicle.  Um, not what we were expecting.  But in spite of the heat, it was scenic and peaceful.

I felt bad for the kids, because before the hike we were eating our lunch right next to the local outdoor pool.  A cool, refreshing pool.  But instead, we drag them on a walk to see cows.  Haha.  (But I should mention something about the public pools here... we have been rejected because the kids don't have speedo swimsuits.. the swim shorts that we wear are "not clean" and are banned from the pool.  My kids refuse to wear the appropriate swimsuits (we're not wearing those!!) so we are limited to lakes, rivers, free places to swim.  I'm good with that.


P.S.  I may have had a glass of wine while writing this... maybe... But in my defence, have I mentioned how hot it is right now??  It's about 32 degrees.  I needed quenching,  That's my story.