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Rutland Water: one of my favourite places to go

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 Now that Saturday French school is off for summer, and with last Saturday proving a scorching hot day, I suggested we went to Rutland Water, partly for the beach, but also partly for a lovely bike ride as a family. We parked near the beach (Sykes lane), which was convenient as it meant we did not have to carry our packed lunches in our backpacks, but it also meant we could not go all around the peninsula as I would have liked as we were out of time. As it was hot, it was not ideal to continue pedalling past midday. Maintenant que mes filles n'ont plus école française le samedi matin pour le reste de l'été et que la météo de samedi dernier s'annonçait très ensoleillée, j'ai suggéré d'emmener la famille faire encore une balade à vélo à Rutland water, où se trouve également une plage! Nous nous sommes garés près de la plage (Sykes Lane), ce qui nous a permis de laisser nos paniers repas dans le coffre de la voiture. Néanmoins, sa position éloignée de la péninsule du ...

Tissington Trail Part 2

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 Last Bank holiday week end was quite full on as we had a hack with our younger in Manor Farm Recreation Ground. Le dernier week-end férié fut chargé commençant par une balade à cheval avec notre cadette. The day after, it was too nice not to finish the Tissington Trail that we started on the previous bank holiday Monday, for another 20 km bike ride there and back. Le lendemain, ce fût insolent de ne pas terminer le parcours de Tissington, entamé le précédent lundi férié. Encore 20 km comptant l'aller et le retour. Possibility to divert to the Peak trail Again, the views are amazing! It looked less busy than the other end, but equally ideal for walking or cycling with little ones. Perhaps that end is less popular as the options for a cuppa or a bite are almost non existant, unlike in Tissington. There is also a bike hire in Parsley Hay though. La vue est tout aussi splendide que le long du segment opposé. Ce segment était quelque peu plus calme, mais tout aussi idéal pour une prome...

Tissington Trail: cycling 13 miles on an old train track

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With bank holiday Mondays and lovely sunshine forecast, we have finally got around to investing in a rooftop bike track on our car. Hiring bikes every time was indeed costly and restrictive, especially as our youngest needed a new bike and this time it really cannot fit in our boot. We tried our new equipment for the first time yesterday.  Comme plusieurs jours fériés arrivent et la météo s’annonce toujours aussi ensoleillée, nous nous sommes enfin décidés à investir dans un porte-vélos sur le toit de notre voiture. La location de vélos à chaque rando s’avère en effet coûteuse, et quelque peu restrictive, d’autant plus que le nouveau vélo de notre cadette ne rentre plus dans le coffre. Nous avons essayé notre nouvel équipement hier. It went so well that we kind of forgot we had the bikes on our roof top and we were lucky a man stopped us moving forward when we encountered this height limit... Oops! Cela s’est tellement bien passé que nous avons quelque peu oublié la présence de nos...

South Wales Part 3: the Waterfall Country and the Cardiff Castle

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 Our last full day in Cardiff, we could not have been luckier with the weather. My cousin in France said it was wet over there.  As the tide was higher, first thing in the morning, we tried crabbing, though we found out it was much less common than in North Devon. We saw hardly any other crabbers. I don't know how our "Devon" bucket went down with the locals but no shop seemed to be selling buckets, so good job we brought our own. We still had some success! We were not going to swim in the sea but I found an idea: the Waterfall country! And we were not disappointed. We were near Glynneath although I cannot for the life of me remember the name of the waterfall we saw as it had a Welsh name. Swimming there was not possible either for a different reason: there was once an iron mine making water look very brown. However, several people were having a paddle and went behind the waterfall, my daughters could not resist following them, though again, we almost avoided wet socks, u...

South Wales Part 2: a dry day and a walk in Rest Bay

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  Our second day in Wales was not overly sunny but dry. The morning, our younger one was due to have a horse riding session, which she sent to, but her older sister was not so lucky with her surfing lesson that was cancelled due to a sewage problem 😞 Notre seconde journée au Pays-de-Galles n’était pas le plus ensoleillé mais il n’a pas plu. Le matin, notre fille a pu se rendre à sa reprise d’équitation prévue mais sa sœur aînée a eu moins de chance, pour son cours de surf, annulé dû à un problème de déversement d’égout compromettant la qualité de l’eau.😞 The afternoon was a bit sunnier, so we found Rest bay near enough Porthcawl, where we had no rest because our girls again wanted to climb the rocks, and at least this time, they found a couple of fossils 🙌 And the scenery was well worth the visit. L’après-midi fut plus ensoleillé, donc nous avons trouvé Rest Bay, près de Porthcawl, mais pas pour nous reposer, nos filles voulant encore une fois escalader les rochers et cette foi...

South Wales, part 1: arriving there and Ogmore by Sea

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  Welcome to Wales! As I expected, everything is displayed in two languages, which reminds me of the Basque Country, where I have been holidaying many a time since I was an infant. The only thing that surprised me was that sometimes, the Welsh version comes first, sometimes the English version does so I kept reading the wrong line. It was raining a lot on our first day, and our friends who now live in Cardiff must have thought we would have a bad impression of their new region! Thankfully, the rain stopped for an hour or two, so on our friends' recommendation we went to Ogmore-by-Sea, South Wales, on the Bristol channel where the tidal range is very high. We did not come to South Wales hoping to have a swim on the Easter week-end, but I was surprised to see a sign saying that swimming was recommended against, seemingly all your round, not because of the temperature, but because of the water quality... Bienvenue au Pays-de-Galles! Comme je m’y attendais, tout est affiché en deux lan...