Mormons, Tattoos, Spanish Dancers and a sore shoulder

It was definitely a good thing to get away for a week. Too often we fool ourselves into thinking that spending the summer in Biarritz will be like a real holiday. It is not. The fact that we could disconnect from everything domestic was really beneficial. I managed to get up to date with all my outstanding copies of the Economist (I learnt that if it wasn’t for the lack of a spell as a missionary I’d probably be a Mormon… http://www.economist.com/node/21554173), I did some open water swimming in the Atlantic, I spent large amounts of time in the pool with the kids, I also spent large parts of the week trying to count the number of Spanish, German, Scandinavian and English people who didn’t have tattoos. I even managed to strain a muscle in my back lifting a Spanish dancer (don’t ask). Sandie really enjoyed the fact that someone else did the catering all week, Maxime loved the pool, Jessica lapped up the sunshine and the twins were just generally happy with everything. The only downside was that Maxime fell out of his bed on the last night (no drink was taken m’lud). After a fall of only 30 centimeters, one week, three doctors and six x-rays later we are still trying to work out what is wrong. Hopefully a trip to an orthopedic surgeon next week will shed some more light on a troublesome left shoulder. He has however learnt the meaning of “man flu” and “milking it” and he still makes a pretty good stab of opening chocolate yoghurts with his arm in a sling even if it is in a degree of genuine discomfort. I sense a week of excessive pampering with Papy John coming up…