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Welcome to Evie's family and other animals!
We are a fun and very active family and we've been hosting students for English language immersion for 6 years and we love it! We have welcomed children as young as 10 up to adults in their early 20's. Every student is unique so each and every stay can be tailored to their needs and interests. Lessons are always fun and interesting and adapted to the level and age of each student.
As well as giving English lessons I also help my husband with his business administration and look after our children and animals and have a large organic vegetable garden. Gary is a carpenter/joiner and has a workshop where he makes everything from wood and he plays bass guitar in a band. Thomas is 12, nearly 13 and loves all sport, particularly tennis, football, Ping-Pong and swimming. Jessica is 10, nearly 11 and loves horse riding and playing acoustic guitar. She also loves drawing and painting and making bracelets etc. We try to eat together as a family each evening whenever possible. We eat a wide selection of different food styles from all over the world and use as much of our own vegetables from the garden as we can and we don't eat much in the way of processed foods but make a lot of things from scratch. Friday evenings we go to the local dairy farm to get fresh milk, butter and yogurts, the children love to see the calves drink their buckets of milk. We have ducks and chickens for eggs and to eat, so they have to be fed and watered every day and the eggs collected, a collie dog called Socks who thinks the chickens are his and helps look after them; he is very intelligent! There are now two cats that we rescued as kittens last year and they live outside in our barn. We also have some sheep and hopefully lambs in Spring. We have been renovating our house and a lot of it is finished now but we are still making improvements all the time. Our children spend very little time with electronic devices and computers, they are allowed a bit of time but it's definitely not a large part of their daily lives. We prefer if students spend as little time as possible with their phones and tablets. They are only with us for a short time and we really want to help them with their English and to make some great memories of their time with us.
Ideally we prefer to have one child at a time for immersion stays because this way they get a truly immersive experience. But if a child really doesn't want to come alone the first time then obviously they are welcome to book with a friend or family member. We've had a boy come with his father who stayed in our gite so he was here if his son needed him, but not part of every day life. We've also had friends come together and siblings.
Stays during the school holidays are usually from Sunday to Saturday, so six nights. Depending on availability I can sometimes accommodate bookings of different lengths and/or starting/finishing on different days, so please contact me for further information.
Our day is usually to get up and have breakfast, help out with tasks like watering the animals and collecting the eggs or picking vegetables in the garden. A minimum of five hours of English lessons must be booked with each stay because it's a really great way to work on any little mistakes that are being made, to revise, and to learn some new things. So the lesson will be in the morning. If you book extra lessons, then all lessons are completed before 4 pm depending on the activities planned, the individual student's needs, and the number of hours booked.
Activities depend on the weather; if it's nice outside, we'll go for a bike ride (we have a spare bike for students to use when they stay with us), sometimes locally or we may put the bikes on the bike rack and go to Cognac or Jarnac and ride alongside the Charente. We like to swim; in our pool or at the lake ten minutes down the road or sometimes in the Charente river. Kayaking is also a family favorite, as is Aqua Jump and Accrobranche so if you love water activities or climbing in the trees, then these are great activities! We also like to go to places like Zoodyssée which is a local zoo for animals from Europe or La Vallée des Singes, which is a favorite of the kids as they love to see the different monkeys. Sometimes we may go to the large pool in Angoulême; it has a very big slide. Occasionally we go to the beach for the day which is just over an hour's drive away. We also like to cook outside on a BBQ or a fire pit or just on a fire and we do this all year round, even in winter!
If it's raining, we might stay inside and do some baking or a large puzzle or watch a film with homemade popcorn. We also like to play board games or cards. The kids might do some painting or other craft activities. We like to see what our students are interested in and do activities that they will enjoy.
From 810 € / week
+33 7 49 08 56 74