Un, Deux, Trois!

19th December: Location - Neighbour's house

I love neighbours, but I really love neighbours with young children.
I just had a lunch on this miserable pouring rain day at my cool french neighbour's house, and it went for five hours.

As you might know, I used to have a sweet little boy neighbour, Fionn, and a messy little cutie Zarra but they moved to England. I still miss them terribly, but now, I have the ADORABLE Rebecca and cheeky Hannah, as well as the simply beautiful baby Shaun.

So, we went over thinking, just some biscuits and whatnot, but they had cooked us a full blown roast beef with yummy herb seasoning, lamb, potatoes, sweet potatoes, epic salad, tiger bread and zucchini pasta. They also had french red wine and fancy named Champagnes, but of course -I drunk coke. Got to set the example for the kids!

The meal was amazing, the desert even better. She cooked this intense chocolate tart which was pure crunchy chocolate and really seriously, amazing to eat. The best thing is, she enjoys cooking deserts, and know she knows we love it, she's going to cook us lots of things over the days up to Christmas! So darn cute, I love people sometimes.

Now the little girls are classic, they can be a huge handful sometimes but It's well worth it. They will peek at your undies and scream out, "Gemma is wearing pink KNICKERSS", or tug and eat your hair, accidentally rip out my earring and proceed to lose it amongst the pink bedspreads or force me to play 'Baby', where I had to eat plastic food and then take a nap. The backs of my legs are graffiti ed with pink lipstick and my back could be sore from, "Horsey ride!" as well as them having secret conversations about me in French, followed by much giggling. They get upset if I don't watch them for the entire duration of the ballerina fairy dance but regardless of all this, they are the cutest, sweetest and truly rewarding little girls to make smile.

If I can make those little girls happy so that twice a day, they count down in French, "un, deux, trois - GEEEEEMMMAAAAA" across the entire neighbourhood, then that is success. So maybe I lose a little hair, or I have difficulty staying awake while they read me a Christmas story because I stayed up until 3am that morning, but to think I could be a part of their memories so that when they are older, they'll go, "Remember that girl next door used to visit us?" as a vague memory, then it is so worth it.

The giggles, dress ups and fiendish grins remind me of myself when I was young, and I'm so keen to see more of my two jellybeans. I guess I better brush up on my French ;)

Melanie xx

P.S - I'll get a picture of them soon so you can understand how cute they are...and of any cakes she brings over.