Summer Holiday 09 - The Lavergne's

Day 9 - Paris (Sat. 18 Jul)

We went to visit dear friends Eileen and Benoit. When we were in Paris last it was to celebrate our 10th wedding Anniversary 3 years ago and we stayed with them. Because our children came with us we did not want to impose ourselves on them and decided to rent a place elsewhere.

They live in Versailles, yes where the beautiful palace is situated. We went there when we were there last about 3 years ago and since our kids were not into palaces and arts, we though we'd explore the other part of the palaces that we had missed like the Petite Trianon and the Grand Trianon, go down to the canals and the farm area the palace had. It was a huge ground to cover actually and it gave us a good workout before dinner.

They were plenty of farm animals to amuse the kids, horses, goats, sheep's, fowls just everywhere on the scenic grounds. Quaint little cottages where the workers use to stay before the revolution, little gardens of fruits and vegetable just charmed the pants of us city folks.



Eileen and Benoit was very patience with our boisterous kids. French kids are generally more quieter and well behave, while my kids are spoilt in spite of my strict ways.On top of that since we have moved and live in concrete jungles all of their lives ....i.e Singapore, Korea, Shanghai and now Hong Kong they were not that at ease with nature I am ashamed to say. My youngest actually refuse to walk on sand or on grass and this is with his shoes on. I am delighted to say that these 2 manage to coaxed Noah to sit on the grass when they took them for awhile as Peter and I roamed the two Trianons.

We sampled delicious home made sherbets with flavours like coconut, kiwi fruits and blueberries as we walked towards the canals. The clouds were getting darker so we did not spend much time there wary of the fact that it was a long walk back to the car. There were big fat fishes in the canals and they fought with the ducks for bread that was thrown to them. Since I only had biscuits we fed them that and they don't seem to mind.

So we head back to the Lavergne home where Eileen cooked a delicious dinner and though us to eat the way the french do ie a minimum of 2 hours / 4 course dinner with cheese sampling and the wine and of course the dessert which is the highlight of the meal for me! I am still dreaming of the cake they had.

My boys loved it they had asked me whether we could have 4 course dinner everyday ....not bloody likely.