G Kisby says hello...

Now, there's a lot of pressure on me as I enter the blogging world.

Unfortunately it is not the pressure of being better at spelling and punctuation than Nelly (Mabel's now proof reading her posts) or of being a better writer (I'm nigh on a professional journalist, check out that 15 word intro - I'd get a job at The Sun, no sweat). No, I'm under pressure to be funny. Not a situation I normally find myself in, let alone when the competition is my wife. For years I have lived with 'I reckon I could do stand-up' or 'man, sometimes I make myself laugh' coming at me from the other end of the sofa and I've rarely returned comment but now it feels like I'm Crowe in Gladiator or something. So I'm just not going to be funny.

The thing is I don't really have anything that makes me suitable for blogging. If I was left to my own devices I'd spend Saturday morning cleaning the house, Saturday afternoon watching Soccer Saturday and Saturday night eating curry. Which is pretty dull. Nelly asked me to blog throughout Nelly's Eggs but she was dead good at it so I didn't feel I could add anything. However, like any discussion with a Bryce woman I lost. You always lose, never have a discussion with them. So here I am.

We're in France which I've always juggled with Devon as my favourite place in the world. Lots of similarities - nice to look at, nice food, nice drink, bit more sun than Hudds - but as Devon appeared to be on floodwatch this week I think we made the right choice. Plus, France has the bread. With Nutella in the morning? Oh yes. Normally we're in France (replace with anywhere really) with one of the other Bryce women in my life, Fee, plus Al and the boys. In said scenario we all have very distinct roles - Fee and I sort stuff out and Nelly and Al sing Disney. This always involves Fee and I going to the supermarket on day one and stocking up as many trollies as we can humanely push around L'Eclerc - one with cheese and salami and the rest with BWS (sorry, I work for a supermarket). Without my shopping buddy I was left to my own devices but old habits die hard. Turns out buying a 1kg jar of chocolate spread for a 6 day jaunt because 'the boys eat most of it' just will not wash and I now have to drink my weight in Beer D'Or just to prove that I did need that much.

We have had a great time in the first three days - it's a far cry from getting up at 5am to go to work for 12 hours - but I won't repeat the tales Nelly has already regaled you with. She gets the good days I get the challenging ones. Today we went to a garden exhibition. Which was far better than it sounds. And I'd hope so too at ten pound a pop. Nelly and I went five years ago when we were jobless bums touring France in Billy Punto and it was quite interesting. I'll call it garden art. Anyway, there's a children's garden and what we thought would be all sorts of sensory experiences for the Mabes. Trouble is I think we over-stimulated her (for a change) so that every time she had to come out of a 'garden' she did so kicking and screaming and often slapping me in the face with alternate hands. This is tricky when you only have one hand free to block. We called it a day early and fed her cheese crackers all the way home just to keep her happy.

I've just made coq au vin and am well on the way to finishing the bottle I was forced to open to cook with. Debut over. I'm blogging from a blogger app but can't figure out how to stick photos in the middle of text so they'll all have to be tagged on at the end, sorry. A couple of the garden extravaganza and one of some cute girl in a pool...