French apartment renovations, Day 681: Back to school, apartment ping pong, sun & sea, webinar

It's hard going back to school after more than 2 weeks off. Inga's morning classes were all cancelled. She and the friend her age went to the coulee verte and then to the "I love Nice" sign at the end of the beach.

I cut about 10" off my hair and bundled it in pigtails, adding to the collection of Inga's and Ivy's hair. I need to look into selling/donating it.

I got my visa application off today, only to find out that I need to translate our salary documents and bank statements with an official translator (they've never required this in past years...ugh).

We three women went to the beach in the afternoon. I optimistically brought my swimsuit, just in case...and it was perfect. We basked in the sun until we were good and hot, then we plunged into the water. It wasn't nearly as cold as I was expecting, and there was a warm layer about 15 cm deep on the top. We stayed in for at least 20 minutes. Eric joined us at the very end.

We haven't gone to the beach for far too long. I'm feeling a bit giddy about having time for fun things like that.

The kids had the idea of playing ping pong on the dining room table, only they had a tennis ball and one paddle. I sent Zari, Dio, and our friends' two kids to the sports store to buy paddles and ping pong balls. I told them, "You are authorized to buy a croissant or pain au chocolat for everyone on the way home." When they came back, they said some what guiltily, "Well, we didn't buy croissants...but don't worry, the pastries weren't too expensive!"

We ended swapping kids/apartments because our friend had a Zoom meeting at 6 pm and I had one at 7. It worked great being able to send the kids up or down as needed. There was a rousing game of ping pong in Le Chateau while I had a webinar upstairs (for Israeli birth workers, about "Why breech birth is important and how it works.")

We had to separate our kids from their friends at bedtime...it's going to be awesome having them downstairs for almost a month.

We finished off the day by bringing down some birthday champagne that our renter gave me.