Business Class to Paris with our babies

I can imagine our fellow passengers faces when Fred, Sharon, Shawni who is 18 months old and Barry only 6 weeks old stumble into the Air France Business Class with piles of hand luggage, feeling 'very shaky and sad'. I was surprised to see from my letter that we had 2 stops en route, Brazzaville and Nice, with two babies, with hindsight an heroic adventure.

During a recent lunch with Glynis and Alistair, we were delighting in stories of our gorgeous girls who both got married this year. I see from my letter she came from Durban to see us off. How thoughtful and I am going to thank her now, better late than never.

My first letter from Paris is dated 7 July 1986. We have arrived, are living temporarily in Aigremont, at the home of an ex-South African working at the same firm, he rented us his home while they went on their summer vacation. Entrepreneurial, but useful as we got fetched from Charles de Gaule with all our luggage and it gave us breathing room to look for a place to stay.

Looking at the letter I see my 'total exhaustion -have never felt so tired before'. Barry still not sleeping through the night and he has come out in spots, which I flippantly call a French variety.

Two children under two years, Barry just 6 weeks old after a caesarian birth, packing up all our goods, watching the container leave and saying farewell to our home in Arthur Road, which we had rented out, saying goodbye to my family, saying goodbye to friends. Landing and my comment to Mom 'hearing and seeing nothing but French - my lessons don't get me far at all!!' 

What an understatement, it took me the whole period we lived in France to learn to be able to chat and to get around the language with some ease. Fred went straight into French lessons and coped well but we had hilarious moments with him getting angry at his lack of vocabulary.

Even the shopping was eventful, the labels confusing and I bought lard instead of honey at the huge supermarket called Continent, which I mention looks no different to Pick n Pay.

I can see so many parallels with Shawni, she is the same age now as I was then, she is setting up a home in New Zealand as I am writing, the moving, the pressure and stress, the goodbyes. Opening bank accounts and meeting estate agents, my letter is full of the same. And of course, conversations about the weather and appliances. We are so alike, first thing we bought was the tumble dryer for nappies.

So Shawni, an excerpt for you, you played in a tub of water on the saturday and I had you in a jersey on the Monday.