Sorted!

Posted by Rosie

sorted

ˈsɔːtɪd/

adjective

  Brit.informal

organized, arranged, or dealt with satisfactorily.

A bit of history:

A couple of years ago the following conversation took place in our house:

Simon, "Rosie, would you like to go to Rome to celebrate our wedding anniversary?"
Rosie, "and pray tell which teams will be playing rugby at the same time as our trip?"
Simon, "Damn!"

You see Simon likes rugby but I don't.

This year, as once again we near our wedding anniversary there is a rugby match Simon would like to see, in Paris so knowing that the wool could not be pulled over my eyes, he came up with Plan B.  He suggested we could go with 2 friends and whilst the blokes went off to watch the rugby we girls could do something else.  I know that all sounds rather sexist but that would actually make 4 poeple very happy ... except for the slight problem of our friends not being able to come. Foiled.

Plan C was needed.  "We could go with the boys!"  I suggested.  Simon and Tom, who also likes watching rugby, could go the match on the Friday night whilst Ben and I could do our own thing and then we could have a weekend "en famille" in Paris.  Yup - that would work.  However, living on a smallholding with lots of animals and having a gite means that for all four of us to go away together some detailed planning would be needed.

1. Animals - luckily a neighbour had recently said that she would be happy to pop over and feed the farm animals and cats.  Sorted!

The Louvre

2.  Find accommodation - Simon set to trawling hotel booking sites without too much success and rather a lot of groaning at the prices when I had a lightbulb moment. We have recently listed the gite on AirBnB* and wondered if we could find something suitable on there.  The map feature made it easy to locate places near the rugby stadium and we sent off a couple of emails.  One person got back saying his place was not available and another never got back.  However 3rd time lucky we found and booked a very nice looking apartment just 1km from the stadium. It was cheaper than any hotel Simon looked at and has free parking, a kitchen so we can eat in on the first night and being an apartment will just be a whole lot easier than a hotel when travelling with the boys.  Sorted!

3.  Book rugby tickets -  I left Simon doing this and after much grumbling and occasional swearing he managed to get tickets booked AND printed (Printer was playing silly whatsits!). Sorted!

4.  Dogs - our animal sitter can't look after the dogs however a couple of phone calls later and this was also sorted.  Ironically the dogs are going to the friends who cannot come to the rugby for the weekend.  Sorted!

5.  Get the boys out of school early - Hopefully Ben's teacher won't mind if he leaves an hour early (i am yet to ask) and Tom luckily has a free period last thing on a Friday so can leave early anyway. Half sorted! 

Notre Dame

6.  Itinerary - with only a weekend to visit and one evening taken up with rugby we need to organise what we want to do in Paris before we go.  To date this is still at a list stage but high up on this agenda are a trip to the Catacombs and a bus or boat ride around the main tourist sites. We can't book a trip up the Eiffel Tower this late and don't want to queue for several hours and I have been outvoted on going to Versailles (sulk) ... so as I type this part of the trip isn't quite sorted but will with luck be finalised at the weekend. To be sorted!

With several changes of plan, loads of telephone calls and much sorting we may actually be fairly close to getting a family trip away.  It is a bit of a rare event for us all to go away together and as you can see needs much sorting.  That said, Simon and I did manage a trip to Paris two years ago when the boys had a school trip away.  It was then we had the photo of us below taken - but can anyone tell us the significance of the steps?

Parisian steps.

* You can view our AirBnB listing here if you want but if you do want to book a holiday with us you are better coming direct to save the paying the AirBnB booking fee!