Le Soleil Brille à France

My body is still very much in holiday-mode at the moment, following my aforementioned two-week stint in South-west France to visit my parents (and to sunbathe. A lot. Until I got a severe case of heat rash all over, that is). It was shocked back into exercise-mode on the day of our return (Monday) - legs day, no less! Needless to say, my legs are still feeling the burn of 55kg barbell squats (it certainly has been a while! Helloo DOMS :/).

A break from the humdrum that is life in England was all too necessary for me. It was a welcome pause from the stress/chaos, and the fact that my parents live in a barn in the middle of nowhere was ideal for that very reason! Just the occasional noises from the horses in the neighbouring disused garden, plus the faint echoes of the water machines from the surrounding corn fields - these were the only sources of sound pollution, and could hardly be categorised as 'disturbances'!

I would say I ate very well in France, without steering too far off course - plenty of fruit and veg, lots of salad, icy water (the fridge ice machine was truly a god send in that heat!), and the odd cheeky beverage or two. While I did control my diet to a certain extent, I didn't restrict myself in any way - so yes, the odd patisserie did sneak its way into my stomach, and I was very content with that. When in France, ey!?

Ultimately, though, I did keep it as clean as possible. Overloading my plate full of salad-y goodness was a daily occurrence, as was a morning wake-up call of fresh fruit salad - mmmm, mmm! And one very 'foodie' event that I just need to mention would be the 'geant omelette'. This is a yearly event that takes place alongside the usual weekly Sunday Bric-a-Brac (basically a French car boot sale, but with the additional goat/pig for sale along the usual tat that you'd find in a standard car boot sale. Mum was tempted by the goat).

The Geant Omelette event effectively involved a tractor being used as a kind of crane to transport a giant saucepan over a fire, followed by a load of large-bellied Frenchmen adding the ingredients to the pan one-by-one. Cue the largest 'knob' of butter I've ever seen, a humungous amount of mushrooms and bacon 'lardons', and - wait for it - 1800 eggs! Holy cow(/chicken), that was a looot of eggs - far too many to be eaten by the couple of hundred attendees present!

To say I was glad that our holiday fell in correspondence to the geant omelette would be an understatement! Sad as it may sound, I've been wanting to go again ever since I attended the event back in my mid-teen years - haha! There's just something I find so fascinating about a fiesta based upon the humble omelette, and being the massive omelette-fan that I am, it's probably no surprise really!

Even though the British forecast is somewhat dreary and 'cold' in comparison to the soleil du France, I have to admit that my body is thankful of it - heat rashes are the worst! Hey ho, life goes on - back to work I go tomorrow, and I have a blummin' half marathon to prepare for next month! So yeah, 5 weeks of intense training commences here I guess. My belly just got all nervous inside...