Did our best to get out of the house by 9 this morning, but by the time we’d finished packing up the car, saying our goodbye’s, and managed to pry Liam off of the blue tractor, it was closer to 10 o’clock.
I can’t say we were sad to be leaving. The Gite itself was really lovely. A spectacularly restored house, and we were really happy with our apartment, and our little private terrace. We had our own BBQ which we used every evening, and the views were lovely no matter what the weather. And we finally heard the wild boar chowing down on the cherries out in front of our apartment last night, and even though we couldn’t see them, it was a great experience!! There were so many, and they made such a ruckus, and apparently this is the season where the babies are trotted out, so hunting season doesn’t start until they start to mature. Our host, Jeaves, was a lovely woman who Liam was quite taken with… although by the end of the week we were considerably less impressed with her competence as a business owner which has tarnished our memory of her.
But all the little things were really starting to get to us, and it was getting increasingly difficult to ‘make the best of it’. No mobile coverage, no power surge protector for the electric storms, a leaky roof, a missing shower door, and the fact that we had lukewarm water at best the whole week (not the easiest to convince Liam to take a cool shower!!!)
And probably the biggest shame is that we really didn’t get a chance to take advantage of the large property. Liam was quite anxious around the dogs, as he had been ‘nipped’ by the puppy on our arrival, and that little dog, as cute and innocent as he is, would not leave Liam alone! The moment we tried to take a little wander, the puppy was trying to jump in Liam’s face to play, and Liam would cry and need to be carried. The other dogs were fine… they had their excited ‘hello!’ moments and then just chilled out and did their own thing.
Liam had been asking to go home for days, and so, it was time. And so we bid adieu to Gites L’Elzet, and wished them well. And off for home we set.
We were anxious to get home as soon as possible as Debs best friend Nicole and her boyfriend were flying back to London that same evening, but we also wanted to stop off and visit the Pont du Gard, near Nimes.
The Pont du Gard is an old roman Aqueduct bridge that crosses the Gard river. It is the highest of all roman aqueduct bridges, it was made a UNESCO site in 1985, and it’s one of the most iconic structures in France, after the Eiffel Tower. I was originally planning to do a whole day trip out that way, but Liam is too young to go in a canoe, which would be the ideal way to explore the area, as the water is nice and slow moving. Spectacular scenery, I hope to take him back there when he’s a bit older. But he did like the ‘big, big bridge’, and it gave him a last chance to have a bit of a runabout before the last 3 hours or so of our journey home. He did end up napping for almost 2 hours, and with the help of Wall-E on the iPad, we made it home by 4:15 with no drama at all.
We were happy to have a short visit with Auntie Nicole and Colin before dropping them off at the airport, and then we were all very, very happy to just be home.
