Road Trip part one. Are we going?

How long is it since I last updated the blog?  Oh? That long?  Well, how long is it that we have been married?  WHAT?  10 years?! No?!  Yes actually I worked it out on my fingers and everything.  So ten years of marriage, house renovated, offspring produced and growing and animals happily installed but we had never actually been away without the children.  It was time for a weekend just for us.

A famous earlier outing was when she was my wedding car.

The first problem was what to do with a weekend, I mean we are pretty childish in our tastes (give us theme parks, caves and seaside castles and we're happy) but it seemed a bit pointless (and unfair) to do kiddy things without the kiddies.  Not being ones for golf and spa holidays or swanky hotels with pools, adult holidays seemed a boring option too.  Romantic rural retreat? We live in one.  Paris? meh, been there and not really fussed. Then, to my husband's horror, inspiration struck.  My pride and joy, my impractical, my lovingly decorated 2CV is the one thing I can't do with the children.   Love my car as I do, I have to admit that it is far from being the safest vehicle on the road and that, added to a lack of decent rear seatbelts and the impossibility of using child seats,  has led me to ban my children from travelling in "ma belle".  So to celebrate the newly roadworthyness of my car we (I) thought that a road trip would be an ideal way to celebrate our anniversary - we would return either loved up and ready to embark on another ten years, or divorced.

Problem two, where to go.  Many criteria now had to be met for this trip.  Firstly - a maximum distance of no more than two hours drive (in a normal car), this was in case of break downs, father-in-law would be able to fetch us back easily - she has never been known to let us down BUT we hadn't been far in her for quite a few years.  Seondly, no mountains - weight in a 2CV is all important and two of us in her could have proven too taxing. Thirdly, no motorways.  Finally a few wateralls for us to park and walk to, and picnic spots, many picnic spots would most definitely be required.   This left us with the choice of one destination, the Creuse.

The Creuse is the next door "departement" to us and I adore it.  It is full of things like this and roads like these  (photos from the Creuse tourist office)

but to many french people it is imagined as something more like this. 

 So there you have it.; destination chosen and car prepared.  Children posted off to Grandma and Grandad and the adventure to begin.Tune in for road trip part II to find out if our marriage survived when I have finished selecting the photos......  Oh and do have a look at the Creuse - it gets an undeserved bad press.