The One About The Welly Boots....

My family first moved to France when I was 7, my sister was 5 and my little brother was only 4months old.  We moved into a new build housing estate, with terraced houses which each had three floors plus a basement below.  As we settled into our new home and the village we found that there was a really strong english speaking community.  There were other families in our estate (which we called the square, even though it was the shape of a triangle! The clue was in the name 'Place Blanche de Castille'), with Americans next door to us, South Africans a few doors down, Danish over the way and a British family a couple of doors in the other direction.

My sister and I attended the British School of Paris (although it wasn't strictly anywhere near Paris!) and the school had built up an even wider network.  So each village had its appointed Welcome Mum - who was a parent to one of the children at the school, who would welcome any new families into the area, and arranged social events for the Mum's whilst the children were at school and the Dad's were at work.

That's just a bit of background... I'm sure you want to know where the welly boots come into it???  Well just next to our estate was a Park, and when we first moved there it was still in construction.  They'd put a large pond in, there was another area where they were going to put a clear pool (not for swimming, just deep enough to paddle in when it was hot) a play area, and a seated area.  They had also landscaped the park so it wasn't completely flat, but made up of lots of hills.  As it was still in construction, the grass seed hadn't been planted yet, so it was just earth everywhere.

Well, one afternoon the other children were all going into the park to play, and of course my sister and I wanted to join in.  My Mum put us in our welly boots and gave us strict instructions to stay with the other children.  We got round to the other side of the park, and were quite happily running around with the others, when my sister and I literally got stuck in the mud by the pond!  Our welly boots were stuck and we couldn't move them!  It must have rained the day before and that area hadn't dried through.  Two of the others girls had to lift us out of our boots, and carry us all the way home back to Mum!  From what I remember she put us straight in the bath as our trousers were covered in mud too!

This story was written for Sian's Storytelling Sunday, so make sure you pop over to her blog today and read all the other fab blogs!