We’ve had such a lovely, relaxed day! It’s started, as is now usual, with two cute babies rolling around on our bed.

We were up before 6am, but we’d all had a good night and Hattie and Joe only needed on feed each from bedtime onwards. Happy days! A good sleep, combined with paracetamol and a heat pack, seems to have sorted out my blocked ducts. Thank goodness.

The babies had feeds, Joe had some fruit, the babies went back to sleep, we had breakfast (and breakfast is the same every day: croissants bought from the bakery in a nearby village, fresh from the oven), the babies woke up again, and Mum, Pat and Richard got organised to go out and check out a weekly flea market. Before they left, Hattie and Joe had some grandmother cuddles and showed off their outfits for the day. Here’s Joe and his Gogga (my mother):

And here’s Hattie with her Nanna:

With no outings planned, we all kept it casual in shorts and t-shirts. And Hattie and Joe had a very closely supervised roll-around on top of the table.

After the grandparents went out, Tristan had a swim and I played with Hattie and Joe on the lawn. There are probably worse places to hang out on a sunny Sunday morning.

While everybody else was out, something truly wonderful happened: our lovely cousin Jan arrived with Roy, her partner! They’d driven their camper van down from Scotland over the past few days, to surprise Mum. They’re staying for the next few days, which is such lovely news.

The main mission of the afternoon was simple: to get poor Hattie’s digestive system working again. When she was put down for her late morning/lunch time sleep she was seriously uncomfortable, and as it had been at least a few days since she’d managed a decent dirty nappy, it’s not surprising. I ended up having to give her pain relief, and nurse her to sleep. She’s just struggling to adjust to solids, even though she’s still only really eating puréed pear.

The week earlier, when we were visiting Mum and Dad, pear and brown sugar had finally sorted out her problems, so I was keen to try that again. However, soft brown sugar is not readily available in France (they’re not big porridge eaters, I guess), and in the end Pat had to call some English friends who live nearby, to see if they’d brought any brown sugar out from the motherland. They had, so we’ve borrowed it and Hattie has eaten a pear and brown sugar lunch today. Who knows what mayhem might ensue? We did have some ‘progress’, and I hope that there’s more to come. Before having children I had never realised how much interest I’d be forced to take in other people’s bowels…

Anyway, the babies went down for their afternoon sleep and Tristan and I had a lovely swim, and then I put in some quality time in the hammock. This was my view:

When they woke up again we took Hattie and Joe to hang out by the pool.

And Joe narrowly resisted the urge to eat a high chair while waiting for his evening meal of pumpkin and sweet corn.

It’s 7.30pm now, and both babies are asleep. Joe was out for the count fairly soon, with a bit of shushing and patting to help him on his way, and Hattie lay chatting to Betty in her cot for nearly and hour before finally dozing off. A good day!