This is what three weeks looks like

Two weeks on and I’m still lacking much motivation. Things are getting up to speed though, shortly my daughter will be going back to school signifying the end of the summer and the routine will dramatically change again and in work, all our customers have returned from their holidays and have started dumping crap on us again. And it’s taken me two weeks to just sit down to write this post. Shouldn’t really take that much, but energy and focus have been lacking. I guess the dull weather since getting home has putting on a drain, especially when we had such lovely weather on holidays.

(More pics and drawings after the break)

He was so tired, he just fell asleep outside

When I was on holidays, despite only get one true sleep-in (as in I wasn’t woken by the kids at 7am, my wife and myself took turns getting up to take care of the weeks) and despite the weather not being gorgeous all the time, I was rather productive. I wrote three new short stories. They are currently sitting on my laptop awaiting editing, but it was fun to just write and they are rather short. I will eventually get them up online, if you care to read them. I also spent a huge amount of time working on my Lost Heroes RPG: Book of the Gods. In total I wrote 27,288 words (is that a lot?), all for my own pleasure. I’m still chugging away at Book of the Gods, but my rate of progress has severely slowed (writing this post means I’m not working on it). But it’s moving forward at least.

The weather before we left: foggy, cold and raining!

The holiday was great in general. It was nice weather most of the time, expect for one memorable storm that started suddenly with thunder and lightning in the middle of the day. Then hailstones the size of large marbles and ten minutes later, it’s over.  An hour later, the sun has dried everything.

There was some family crisis, my poor wife hurt her back and shes still have some serious problems with it now, over two weeks later. It’s slowly getting better, but I won’t get into it. Besides that it was just good to get away.

The weather in France

I also got to do some drawing and painting, some of it came out quite nice, but I certainly didn’t produce as much output as I have done in previous years. One of the quirks of the place we go is that there is no television, no Internet connection and we don’t even bother to turn on the radio. It’s absolute great to disconnect. I did try to “tweet” a little while away but it seems I forgot that a text message is longer than 140 so I ended up with loads of messages that cut out right in the middle! Anyway, I left behind any of the work I did create so I all I have of the stuff I did are these photos:

I’m not too fond of the watercolour though. I never finished it, becoming frustrated by the mixing of the colours (I couldn’t produce enough consistent colours). I didn’t get the chance to do another though. The great thing though about where we go is that its full of inspiring things! Books and posters from the Napoleon era, this antique box of gaming stuff, these old boilers in every room or this great big tower at the front of the house:

But holidays can’t last forever I guess. And now I’m back in the real world. Go me!

Related Posts:

• Going on holidays tomorrow!
• Inking some Graphic Art
• My first thoughts on using charcoal
• Final renderings and access to an A3 scanner!
• New Lost Heroes Image: Renegade Chosen Matthew

Children cannot cease but find new ways to embarrass their parents. Alice, our 4-year-old, actually is not that bad but there was certainly, shall we say, a public incident, while on holidays. We were staying in this lovely old country house and we had got this great big inflatable pool out the back. The kids were hopping in and out all day long and we had allowed them to take up the habit of peeing on the grass behind a tree (rather than run across the hard stone floors inside while wet). Alice’s older cousin, who is a boy, stayed for a week and she started copying him, learning that she could pee standing up if she was wearing just her swimsuit.

Anyway, on the last day of the holidays we drove for 6 hours straight back to Paris. The kids were wrecked from being couped up all day in the car so I took Alice and Tristan, our 1 year old, out to the little park beside the apartment block. There was a small playground, too big for Tristan, too small for Alice but they still played there. As Alice was climbing up the ladder to the slide, she froze, clenching her legs together. “Daddy. I need to go to the toilet.” She looked like she was about to pee right there and then. Okay, okay, I thought. I lifted her down and said “we just have to go out of the park and up the lift. You can hold it that long can’t you?” She nodded her head while biting her lip. I picked up Tristan and started strapping him into the buggy when Alice called out “Daddy, I can pee her!”. She was pointing to a small patch of grass, outside the little playground, beside the very public pavement through the park.

“No Alice. We just have to walk over there and go up the lift.” So I went back to strapping Tristan in and then I looked again over at Alice. She had pulled her trousers and panties down to her feet and was about to try peeing standing up. Two mothers, who were sitting on a bench while their own children played, were in fits of laughter. Of course, I couldn’t pass it off with a witty comment because my pidgin French is awful. I had to finish with Tristan and then pull up Alice’s trousers and walk off with my bright red cheeks. Arg.

Related Posts:

• Fringlish!
• My daughter wants to be a Ninja!
• I’m back two weeks already? My my my…
• Extermalade, Extermalade, Extermalade!
• Alice the Rabbit goes into the Farmer’s House

While on my holidays last month in France, I came across some humorous “Fringlish”. Check this out:

It’s a brand of sugar, in a pink colour, called “Daddy”. That’s right you can buy your Sugar Daddy in France in a pink container.

And then I came across the “Plate of Terror!” On one of my first trips to France, I was given a menu in a restaurant that had bad English translations on it and in the desert section they had for Chocolate Mouse: “Chocolate Moss”. This time, I was surprised to find the “Plat du Terroir”!

Plat Du Terroir on the Menu

Note: Terroir actually means Countryside (i.e. Countryside Dish) and it was gorgeous, hot French cheese and potate and lovely ham. Yum.

Related Posts:

• Kids Lesson 345: What not to do in a public park
• I’m back two weeks already? My my my…
• My daughter wants to be a Ninja!
• I failed at NaNoWriMo 2011, but it isn’t all bad
• Timelessness