More fun…. The French way

It’s taken me a while to jump into writing this blog post… and for once I have a legitimate excuse.

We’ve had our kids and grandkids here in two separate visits, which means life has been beautifully chaotic.

First came three toddlers with enough energy to power the entire island. I’m pretty sure they personally stress-tested every playground in Noumea. The parks here, by the way, are fantastic. If there was an Olympic event for “having one more go on the flying fox,” our grandkids would be on the podium.

Then they were followed by our four-month-old granddaughter and her parents.

Now this little girl is so bubbly and happy there should be laws against it. Every time she smiled, whatever we were supposed to be doing instantly became unimportant. She completely hijacked our schedule… and we couldn’t have been happier about it.

She had her very first boat trip and dipped her tiny toes in the ocean for the first time. Safe to say Poppy and Grandy were completely smitten. (I know… I was supposed to be tough.)

We’ve had a ball ducking over to Duck Island, snorkelling at Signal Island and Maître Island, exploring the French baby boutiques and helping the grandkids get their French fashion sorted. Apparently every baby needs at least one outfit that says, “Oui, I drool with style.” There may also have been a toy or three… purely educational, of course.

Suz even won a prize at one of the shops… exactly the same amount she’d just spent. (If you know Suz that’s at the top end of the card limit)

We still have absolutely no idea why.

The lady behind the counter spoke French. Suz smiled. I nodded confidently despite having no clue what was happening. Somehow we walked out with a gift certificate to the same value as what was spent. That’s pretty much how travelling works when you don’t speak the language. Smile a lot, point at things and hope you’ve accidentally agreed to a free gift instead of buying a small apartment.

We also discovered an electronic dart game that turned out to be ridiculously good fun. Mind you, champagne, wine and a few beers probably helped everyone’s aim… or at least convinced us it had.

Then, completely by accident, we wandered into a revolving French restaurant.

Who knew?

Not only does the restaurant rotate, but I reckon they served one of the best steaks I’ve ever eaten. By the end of dinner we’d done a full lap of Noumea without leaving our chairs. That’s my sort of sightseeing.

One of the great things about travelling is discovering the food, so I’m saving all the hidden gems, local discoveries and “you have to eat this” moments for another blog. Trust me… if you love food, you’ll want to read that one.

What I still can’t work out is how the French survive almost exclusively on bread, pastries, desserts, butter, cheese, champagne, wine and coffee… and somehow they’re all as skinny as whippets.

I’m convinced there’s a secret vegetable they only eat after midnight.

Somehow we stumbled across the Noumea outrigger racing championships and ended up paddling no where because unfortunately the seats were full of very fit men and women that we didnt want to annoy. So we just watched and clapped.

We wrapped up this part of the trip celebrating my son-in-law’s birthday. It started innocently enough with Giraffe beers (three litres each… because apparently normal-sized beers aren’t French enough), progressed to several more “just one more” drinks and finished exactly as you’d expect… with a cracking night and a fairly respectable hangover.

Somewhere around midnight the two of us became completely fluent in French.

Unfortunately, no actual French people agreed.

Now we’ve got a couple of days left soaking up the sunshine, swimming, snorkeling and pretending we’re not looking forward to the Isle of Pines even though we absolutely are.

Life’s pretty tough sometimes… but someone has to do it. 

We’re loving it, at least when we remember to drive on the right side of the road 🙂