Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.

The reason I haven’t posted recently is partly laziness (as the summer is here at last!), and also because I’ve been in the south of France with my family for two weeks on the outskirts of a little town called Antibes.  It’s an old town, and there was quite a lot to see and do around the town.

The first week was spent sunbathing beside the swimming pool, going to some local beaches and visiting a water park  – which was miraculously only two miles away!  Although not as awesomely-full-featured as other water parks like in Portugal and Italy, it was nonetheless a very fun day out, and as we were there early we managed to get on all of the rides without the first hour, before huge queues started forming.  That said, there weren’t that many rides to go on, but hey, I’m not complaining.

The second week of my French holiday consisted mainly of going to different places around where we were staying and spending the day there.  I went with my dad to Cannes for the day, where we explored, had an amazing time at the beach where the water was blissfully cool, and I made a panorama in which, with all the sophistication of modern panoramic-producing software, managed to leave a large dent in the ocean.

It turned out that the skiing instructor that my dad had back in February owned a restaurant on the France-Italy border, so the family went there for the day, and we were treated to a lovely lunch and a private beach (with sunbeds and some shade… yes!).  I took some very amusing videos of my brother and mum attempting to lie on the lilo waterbed, and failing miserably.  Fortunately for them, these videos are not fit for public consumption at this time.

On the way back from Nice airport, we ran into a fair bit of trouble – first there was a huge queue for all of the Easyjet flights, which meant that we very nearly missed our plane boarding.  Thankfully, they called us forward just before the gate closed, and we got onto the plane, and were the 2nd last group of people to do so!  Once on the plane, the plot thickened as I seemed to not have my boarding pass or passport… although after a few minutes my dad produced them out of his pocket, silly him.

So now that I’m home, the plan for the rest of the summer is:

• Wales / Paris trip with Charlotte in 10 days!  (Yes, my second France trip of July.)
• Re-learn first year university stuff, especially computer science things.
• Have a look over 2nd year stuff – I’ve been reliably informed that it is the hardest term out of the entire 3-year course… :S

Sounds relaxing, doesn’t it?

(Pictures will be added to this post in the next couple of days or so.)