Bonjour mes amies. I've come back from our holiday in France. The weather was 'changeable' in that it kept raining and then was sunny for a bit and then rained again. We stayed in a farmhouse owned by a friend of my parents. They kept saying how it was rundown and very basic.

It was actually rather nice in a rustic sort of way, with bullocks on one side of us (definitely bulls, we checked!) and horses on the other. The farmhouse could have been gorgeous if someone spent some money on it, it had loads of extra 'cellars' or barns that could have been turned into further rooms.

As it was there was a kitchen/lounge (decent sized) bathroom, separate toilet and then up steep windy stairs to 3 bedrooms, 2 a decent size and one little one. We picked the big bedroom as the other one was a bit dusty.

It was so nice just to be able to relax and sleep a lot. I hadn't realised how tired I actually was. I was in my bed around 10 most nights and up at 10 in the morning and slept the whole time! We travelled round Normandy, visiting the local villages, shops, abbeys, churches and chateaus.

They eat so well in France, I'm jealous. The bakeries had the most wonderful biscuits, chocolate meringue cakes, lemon tarts and succulent apple tarts. I managed to have at least one ice cream a day (it's my aim on holiday). We ate a lot of pork for some reason, local sausages and smoked pork. I also tried... snails! They were actually okay, they tasted of nutty mushrooms with the texture of shellfish. I'm not sure I'd make them myself but did eat them all.

I also had some seafood (though not as much as I'd have liked!). Lots of mussels, big luscious prawns and scallops.

I managed to be very sensible about booze. I had some wine (a small glass) or some cider (again a glass) every other night. I'm going to avoid alcohol for the next week just to get my body back to normal. It was very odd being in France and so meagre with the alcohol but there was a good reason and i was okay about it.

Now we're back home and I'm craving vegetables, we had quite a lot of fruit, even if it was in cakes or ice cream but not enough vegetables.