Tag: Children

Holiday House in France

Make a Wish

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Like most people in this world, we need to find the money to pay the boring bills and especially with an 18th Century house, there is always something desperate for a cash injection. As soon as we decided to return to the UK, we realised that if  we wanted to keep our hideaway in the south of France, we would need to rent it out. It isn’t an easy path we’ve chosen and I’m sure that we will encounter many bumps along the way but we feel it is worth it.

Worries are an inevitable  part of life but we do appreciate how lucky we are. At the end of 2011, Rascal 1 fell ill with severe pneumonia and had to stay in hospital for two weeks. After many miraculous drips, frightening chest drains, incessant injections, pockets stuffed full of courage, she made a full recovery but for many children, life deals a much tougher hand.

We have decided to give away a week at our hideaway in France every year to a charity auction, to help raise money for special causes. This year we have chosen the charity Make-A-Wish to help those brave children who sadly need so much courage. Make-A-Wish will auction a week at our hideaway at The Valentine’s Ball at the Dorchester Hotel in London in February.

Here’s to a happy, healthy and exciting 2013. Carpe Diem everyone.

 

France, Holiday House in France

Just Imagine

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Living in Montreal is exciting, invigorating and refreshing as most adventures are. Since moving here in February 2012 I think we have adapted brilliantly but we do miss our hideaway in France. One of the biggest changes for us was moving from a house in the country into an urban apartment with no garden. The Rascals were brought up with the room to roam and they spent most of their precious hours in France dressing up and running around making noise.

There was space both inside and outside to create the cacophony that children love to do, to run riot and dance up a storm. The freedom to let their imaginations fly. Although our apartment in Montreal is a good size, we are on the first floor with some rather unlucky neighbours beneath us. I cannot help wincing at every little leap and thunderous thump which is probably every second of every day. They are simply not used to noise restraint and neither are we.

When friends used to visit us in France, they waxed lyrical about the space which I took for granted then but can finally now appreciate. Maybe I should be more of a Tiger Mum but what I really want to do is give them the luxury of being imaginative, curious and carefree. We could all do with a few of those ingredients in our lives. Roll on holidays, I can’t wait to let my Rascals loose at our hideaway in France.

“We don’t stop playing because we grow old;

we grow old because we stop playing.”

George Bernard Shaw

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