Ava's Diary

It’s been a busy couple of weeks. Dad was away at school for a whole week, and I was very grizzly and off my food. I missed my dad.

The next week was a treat though. I went with mam, dad, nanna and grandpa to France. A friend of mam’s lent us their lovely cottage in rural Brittany for a week.

It was my first flight. The people at the airport and on the plane were very nice to me. I didn’t have a seat of my own though; I had to sit on dad’s lap for the whole journey. My seat belt was linked to dad’s, and my teddy bear was tucked into my seat belt.

I waved at the trees and houses as we took off, and at the clouds as we got higher. I had a great time.

At the cottage, I had a great time exploring, and climbing the stairs. Only once I tried to launch myself off the top step – dad was coming up the stairs and I decided to go and meet him half way. He caught me as I fell! Phew!

We had some great day trips. We went to Mont St-Michel (not exactly pushchair friendly), Dol-de-Bretagne on market day, the seaside town of Dinard, and the medieval town of Dinan. My favourite trips though were to the beach. I loved the enormous beach at St Lunaire (in the picture) and the tiny one on the Rance estuary at Pleudheim. There I met Sally the Seal, who was snoozing at the water’s edge in the late afternoon sun. I liked the beach so much I threw that I never wanted to leave; I’ve never owned a ‘wobbly’, but dad reckoned I threw one!

But my favourite animals on the trip were the cows in the field next to the cottage. Grandpa took me over the see them every day. The farmer also had a lovely red tractor, which I waved at all the time.

I loved all the attention as we went around the supermarket, but I couldn’t understand a word that any of the locals said to me. But neither could mam or dad! There are lots of holiday snaps from France on dad's Flickr site.

Then last weekend we went down to our caravan at Tresaith. We were lucky with the weather, it only seemed to rain when we were all tucked up in bed. We went to the National Trust gardens at Llanerchaeron, and dad sobbed as he had to buy me my first proper kid’s meal – I usually just get a bit of everyone else’s meal. But no – I had a ham sandwich, a juice box, a piece of cake and some raisins. And I scoffed the lot.

Then on Sunday we went to Cardigan Island Farm Park, where I played on the swings and with the toys and puzzles.

I tell you, I was glad to get back to normal this week.