Flunch

Before the Flunch story lands here, the foto above (j’adore! - with Antoine, Renata, Pierre, Marinette, and me) is the day after Christmas when we left the country to head to Renata’s family’s beach house where we stayed for 2 days. I don’t have a foto of Flunch, so sorry.

Flunch is the name of a cafeteria-style chain restaurant in France, some of which have a playland for children.

The Flunch in this story was inside a shopping mall building and had the playland. Antoine, little Renata, and I arrived there around 4pm on a very rainy day.

The earlier part of our day was leaving The Beach House around 11am, after Antoine could work a few hours at home and I cleverly entertained Renata for that duration. We stopped for croissants and coffee on our way out of La Tranche Sur Mer. We were headed out to make the long journey to Paris … that I personally wished had started much earlier in the day.

We hit the road around noon, and had a so-called 5-hour drive ahead of us. The rain was more relentless the further we traveled. At one point Renata needed to use the little girls' room so Auntie Diane got to take her, at the rest stop. It kept raining, and we were seemingly nowhere near Paris.

The best news of this rainy journey was that Antoine got news from his realtor that the house for which he was a buyer-candidate, was now his. I loved that I was there for this great news, and got to listen in on calls to Pierre and Charles. Originally the idea was that we’d have dinner in Paris, with Champagne, to celebrate.

Mmm-hmmm. We had a very late lunch, at Flunch. The food was alright, the fresh hot frites were the best part. Renata loved the playland and on the way home, we agreed it would be best if I sat in the back seat with Renata. It would be a while before we arrived Paris.

Now I really got to be clever, as we had no external toys or games to play with, and it had been years and years since I entertained toddlers in the back seat. Among silly songs and other nonsense, I led us in a game of French Broadcasters., inspired by Antoine listening to soccer and the back-and-forth commentary. I blabbed some French words and lots of other gibberish, then I pointed to Renata and said, et toi? Then she took her turn. This went on for a while, was great fun, probably unnerved Antoine and, oh well.

Finally, some hours later we were in the vicinity of Paris – now in rush hour traffic and, we could miraculously could see the Eiffel Tower. Lit up and quite beautiful, we directed Renata’s attention out the window and she loved it. Very relieved, we finally landed safely at my apartment around 8:30pm.

The day had been long and arduous and we were all exhausted. Renata tucked in to bed with me as soon as I could manage, and Antoine still had some hours of work to do. He’d been a saint to do that drive, and I felt bad saying good night.

I dozed off snuggling my precious little love, profoundly grateful for the day’s end. My heart of hearts had wished that Renata would get to see the Eiffel Tower with me on this trip. My prayer at the end of each day with her is always, thank you for another day together, perfect as usual.

Today had been no exception.