A while back, Marie-Danielle and I invited our grandson and grand-daughter, Rhys and Lily, to come stay with us in France for a holiday. Rhys is 12 and Lily is 10 going on 25. Rhys is a little shy and Lily is just a bundle of curiosity and fun. Rhys said ‘No thank you’ in case we made him eat snails. Lily said ‘When do I come!’ So, sure enough, accompanied by her parents and her brother (who stopped a couple of days then went back to Scotland), Lily arrived and the fun began.

One of the first things we did was to head down to Orleans where our French Grandchildren live. Clémence is 19 and Eléonore is 14. The plan was for Eléonore to spend a week with us so she and Lily could enjoy their holidays together. To see the two of them (Eléonore and Lily) together is like looking at a pair of sisters, and (thanks to Eléonore’s strong English) they got on just fine. By the way, yesterday, my iPad disappeared for a few moments. Now I know why… it seems to have taken that photo of the pair of them all by itself!

Eléonore’s father, Vincent, is a hunter – their freezer is full of wild boar. So on the weekend we stopped with them in order to collect Eléonore, they served wild boar for Sunday lunch. Now I have a good appetite, and a second helping of ‘sanglier’ was well in order. But I wasn’t the only one! Lily helped herself again, and again, and again, an again! FIVE helpings of sanglier later, she declared herself ready for dessert. And she’s only a little slip of a thing! Vincent has the tusks of the first boar he ever shot, mounted on a small wooden plaque. He explained to Lily who (due maybe to a slight misunderstanding in the transalation) decide that they came from the boar she had just eaten. She was impressed.