We were recently invited for dinner with the family of one of Molly’s school friends. They are a lovely family and we are really thrilled that Molly and Jeanne are friends. Jeanne’s mother had suggested that the two girls go to their house and spend the afternoon preparing a meal for the two families, which was a very sweet idea.

So Molly and Jeanne spent the day slaving in the kitchen (with a bit of playing thrown in as well I imagine ) and the rest of us turned up in the evening. It was a wonderful evening – the girls had prepared a starter of goats cheese on toasted baguette, followed by baked fish with rice, all topped off with some delicious apple tarts.

Jeanne’s dad makes his own wine from the grapes at one of the Vendee vinyards, so the vins de la maison were flowing freely all night. Lisa kindly offered to drive home as it would have been way too rude for me to refuse the top-ups to my glass

All-in-all the meal was beautiful and the company thoroughly enjoyable. Jeanne’s family speak no english at all, so this was a night of us speaking 100% french all night. Quite a big challenge for us, but we rose to the occasion and the conversation never dried up.

I think we are all starting to realise just how far we have come over the last year in terms of the language. This time last year we could never have even considered having a dinner party with only french being spoken but now we are quite happy in that situation, and the kids even more so. They are all doing so well now that I think they have well and truly overtaken Lisa and I in their ability to communicate.

This is great news to us, as giving the kids a second language was one of the big reasons for coming here and we can already see how glad they are to have it. Now, if only they could start giving us lessons so we can keep up with them, that would be even better!