The winter holidays are over!

Last week was the rentrée or back to school week on Reunion.  This winter I have been lucky enough to be home for the holidays so we have lots of time to do stuff together as a family during the holidays.  We have been on walks in the woods and along the coast, spent lots of time at the beach and in the sea (even if it is not the hottest part of the year), started making meals from around the world with the kids and generally lazed about the place.  All in all a pretty wonderful winter/summer holiday in a pretty wonderful place and how lucky we were to have it!

Picking wild berries on a family walk, very tasty!

Sam and Ela enjoying the sea at L'Hermitage

Ela in the Saint Pierre Bastille day parade

Sam at the Bastille day parade

Sushi night!

Hundreds and hundreds of little cairns that people have built along a few hundred meter section of the coast at Le Gouffre, very creepy if you ask me!

Aurelie at the mini blow up water park!

And Ela too!

Interestingly (at least if you live here and have kids in school!) the school year is a bit different here compared to mainland France (and Ireland), rather than a main summer holiday and a shorter winter/Christmas holiday the kids here get two similar length holidays of six weeks for winter and summer/Christmas. So we poor parents don't get overwhelmed by months of holidays all at once but rather two more manageable chunks.

Lemons (and other citrus fruits)

It is lemon season in Reunion at the moment and for me that is heaven, my go two drink in the fridge at home is the juice of a couple of lemons in mixed with water.  So just before I headed away for work (to Armenia this time) we took the chance to go to a lemon orchard and pick as much fruit as we wanted for the low low price of €1.50 a kilo!

Aurelie and the kids among the trees

As a result we had plenty of fresh lemons (and some other orange citrus fruits that I don't care about) resulting in a fabulous lemon tart and lots of fresh lemon juice.  It's the simple pleasures!

Playing in the sea at Etang Sale

Not much to say, just me and the kids enjoying playing in the ocean at Etang Sale (while Aurelie reads on the beach)!

I don't like Mondays

I sing a lot, just generally for no specific reason, and sometimes the kids pick up on some song and sing it too.  So for the last few days the kids have been singing the Boomtown Rats song "I don't like Mondays" after hearing me sing it to myself a few times, first Ela, then Sam.  Tonight I wondered to Aurelie "why did they pick up on that particular song" and she looked at me deadpan and said "because they don't like Mondays"!  Well consider me told!  Plus school is out for the holidays on Tuesdays so no more Monday blues in this house for a while.

Ela rocking to the Rats!

I don't like Mondays

I sing a lot, just generally for no specific reason, and sometimes the kids pick up on some song and sing it too.  So for the last few days the kids have been singing the Boomtown Rats song "I don't like Mondays" after hearing me sing it to myself a few times, first Ela, then Sam.  Tonight I wondered to Aurelie "why did they pick up on that particular song" and she looked at me deadpan and said "because they don't like Mondays"!  Well consider me told!  Plus school is out for the holidays on Tuesdays so no more Monday blues in this house for a while.

Ela rocking to the Rats!

Sam's first dive!

A little while ago during one of the mid term breaks from school it was time for Sam's first try dive or bapteme!  As I had recently started diving with Neptune diving association we arranged for Sam to have his dive during the week along with a few other first timers.

So early one Wednesday morning Sam and I headed to the West of the island to Cap L'Houssaye to meet up with David from Neptune who was the instructor who was going to take Sam on his dive (I was just going along to watch and take photos)

Cap L'Houssaye

As it was a shore dive we got our equipment together and headed down through the woods to the sea shore where David took each of the try divers down for their dive (in each case accompanied by another diver (parent or friend) who went along for the ride and taking photos etc. while the others waited on the shore.

Wetsuit on (not sure that it had much effect as it was hanging off him!)

First breaths underwater!

Sam and I

On the surface

Certified!

Identifying the fish that he had seen after the dive!

Living where we do Sam is well used to snorkelling but breathing underwater was a whole new (exciting) experience!  All went well and Sam enjoyed the dive and seeing the life beneath the waves so now we just have to wait a year before Sam can get certified as a junior diver so we can go off diving together.  

Mauritian Rugby Tour!

From  the Journal de l'île de la Réunion, Sam and the Saint Pierre rugby club U10's were in Mauritius for five days for a rugby tour.

A successful tour all round on and off the pitch with everyone having a great time and the Saint Pierre boy and girls winning 5 and drawing 1 out of their 6 matches against three of the Mauritian U11 teams.

Saint Patrick's day in Reunion

Today is our fifth Saint Patrick's day (the Irish national holiday) on the Island so Lá Fhéile Pádraig Sona Daoibh/Happy Saint Patrick's day!

Coincidently it also mid-term break for the kids so this year they are off school for the day so we decided to run a kids board gaming morning in association with our local Association "Les Coeurs de Mont Vert".

The entrance to our local hall (or Caz)

There was lots of fun with the kids playing Forbidden Island, Carcassonne, Dobble (known as "Spot it" in the US), Croc (know as "Get bit" in the English speaking world and is a game of sharks eating swimmers, hmmm, perhaps a bit close to the bone here on Reunion!), they played with Kapla blocks and giant pick up sticks as well as couple of other games that I unfortunately didn't get the name of.  

Ela flying the flag(s)

Plus there was face painting with shamrocks among other design and me trying to explain the history of Saint Patrick and why Cuchulain or Fionn Mac Cumhaill would make far better symbols for the Irish national day in my broken French (thank you Ela for being my reluctant translator)!

Gaming time!

Carcassonne with Aurelie caught in the act of "fait la bise"

Home again!

After well over a month in France and Ireland we got back home just over a week ago, we were quickly reminded that 1, it's the rainy season, it rained pretty much non stop for the first week and 2, plants grow like crazy given warm weather and rain!

Our view on arrival

Looking out from the house

The rain let up a couple of days ago apart from the occasional shower and for a couple of days we were busy getting the garden shipshape once again.

And a week later (tidied up after after the rain!)

This is Vetiver, I cut it back three days before taking this photo, the green shoots have grown since then!

Of course this time of year is also when we get the most fruit from the garden!  While the lychee season finished while we were in Europe we are still getting plenty of passion fruit and goyave and soon we will have bananas and avocados again.  

One of the nice things about having so much fruit about is that people are so casual about sharing the bounty.  As we were leaving for town today our neighbour stopped us to give us a bag of mangos from the trees in their garden (that sort of thing isn't unusual), similarly when our current batch bananas and avacados are ripe no visitor to our house will escape without a bag full!

Beasties from Guinea!

While in our remote camp in Guinea it wasn't all work, work work so I took the chance to use my Moto G to take some pictures of the local beasties at the camp and out onsite.  I was amazed at both the wonderful variety of beasties and at how far phone camera technology has come on in recent years!  While we did hear bigger animals and birds off in the bush I didn't get close enough to photograph any of them so it's mostly bugs below. 

Dragon Fly

And again.

Butterfly in the ladies loo

Another bug in the ladies loo but no idea what it was!

I wasn't the only one taking pictures of bugs in the ladies loo!

Mantis

Another type of Mantis?

Friendly spider

This frog was a lot smaller than it looks in this photo!

Not the best photo but I found this not so little fellow crawling over my head on the inside of my mosquito met one night about midnight!

One of the flights I take most often is from Paris to Conakry in Guinea for work. The last time I flew that route back in November I managed to get some of the best photos I had ever taken from an aeroplane with my trusty Moto G.  I am continually shocked at how much cameras on phones have improved in recent years, soon to follow will be a post on photos of little beasties that I took while in Guinea.

Flying into Africa over the coast of Morocco!

The Atlas Mountains (I think!) and snow.

The Sahara!

Only in France!

Ah only in France would you get pyjamas for a five year old with a Nietzsche quote on it (and only for five year olds, none for six so we weren't able to get it for Ela)!

Scenes from Simandou

One of the reasons the blog hasn't been updated in quite some time is that I've been back at work iat Simandou in Guinea since early May with a just a couple of weeks break back home on Reunion since then.

Lush views back in May!

When I got here it wasn't quite the rainy season and while we did get the "mango rains" it was generally warm and sunny with occasional storms.  Since I got back from my break home a few weeks ago though it's been the proper rainy season with heavy rain, fog, lower temperatures and more rain!  As we are running a helicopter based drilling and excavating geotechnical investigation this has lead to some delays!

Market Day in Moribodou

Still our team and the local people here are great (mostly) and the work interesting so no complaints!

Preparing for the flag ceremony, each morning everyone at camp gathers to pay their respects as the flag is raised. 

Waiting for the helicopter.

And up, up and away!