So how did we celebrate July 14th?

Answer: In a tent! Thanks for your lovely comments - I scheduled three posts for while we were away, as I had some photos and things I wanted to share, and also because my mum is strong enough to go down to her computer room at the moment! It was lovely to find your comments when we got back - I'd been thinking of you all.We camped in the Ariege, an idyllic , very pastoral area of the Pyrenees mountains. It's less than two hours' drive from our house, and we resolved to drive relatively little and stay in the local area once we got there. We did a whole week's holiday on less than a tank of diesel!

It was easy enough to stay local when you campsite looks like this.

This is Ben's Make Do and Mend trailer, parked near a very cute riverside-building. The stove is very definitely his, too.I was content - I got my washing line up. (A bit worrying, if that's what it takes...)

Son 1 got a lot out of learning camp cooking with Dad.

Son 2 spent most of his time in the stream!

Our view (often filled with tents) included these velvet-red roses I'd brought from home, as they'd looked too beautiful to throw onto the compost heap while I emptied vases before leaving. The evening that they finally started dropping petals, I threw them into the water, and Ben and I watched one luminously red rose flow down the stream and away towards the little waterfall.

The next morning we found 'our' statue watching the second rose!

I refilled our makeshift vase with a few scabious and self-heal flowers from below my washing line.

The trees kept this patch of grass on the other side of our bridge quite shady all afternoon. When there was no-one camping there, we put out the groundsheet and picnic mat on the grass above the water mill, and ate picnics, drank cups of tea...... or laid down and stared at the sky through the leaves.

On to Bastille Day, our fête national, which is usually celebrated with fireworks. It was a much more mellow affair at our quiet campsite...

Our proprietor, who runs the campsite alongside a rustic sawmill, put up this sign announcing that he'd be roasting locally-farmed chickens for any family who wanted to buy one and take it back to their tent. We booked up...

A second sign, produced by one of his neighbours, announced that she'd be stopping by at the same time to sell organic produce from her garden - lettuce, onions and chard.

We bought some sweet, green lettuces and tangy purple salad onions, some drinks from the little buvette on site,

and the feast commenced!

But it looked as though the nearby town had other plans for celebrations... we resolved to go the following night... and I'll tell you all about that another day!

As you can see, we've had such a lovely time, and have so many photos and stories to share, that I hope to be posting every day this week. I'll let you know more about the wildlife, the mountains, the alternative lifestyles in the area and the things we got up to. Please do leave me a comment if there's anything in particular you'd like to know about...

j

And finally, in answer to your questions, both kind and quirky:

j

Son 1's heels and tendons are doing pretty well, and he can walk on the level and down hill without difficulty. Shame we decided to go to the mountains, really! These growing pains are indeed very real and have internet websites to tell you more about them (of course). His has a name: Sever's Disease, but there are all sorts of short-term problems of this kind, and they do go away, thank goodness. I'm so sorry to hear that some of you have more permanent problems, as that's a much more difficult matter.

j

My mum is tired but miraculously pain-free at the moment, so she's more mobile than she's been in ages. The doctors can't explain the lack of pain but we are all very, very grateful.

j

And those big knickers a) mainly came in job-lots of lace that I was buying and b) have draw-strings which, when pulled in, make all that fabric into a surprisingly neat pair of pants for a perfectly average-sized derriere! I have kind of wondered about sewing up the legs (they're open) and turning them into vintage lacy shorts, but I think no, really...