Lynda Ansell

When we were on holiday in France last summer, we visited Montargis to do a self-directed walking tour of some of the 121 bridges in the town. Struan loves bridges and he also loves numbers so before we visited, he and his sister wrote big numbers on sheets of paper. A bit of negotiation was involved in this as Struan wanted to write all the numbers himself. He struggles with sharing but he compromised on writing the odd numbers (which meant he wrote one number more!) and Sally wrote the even ones. I was going to catalogue each bridge we found along the route.

The kids loved finding all the tiny bridges and crossings among the grander structures and at one point had a great run around in a picturesque ancient square. Half-way round though, Struan decided to jump backwards up onto the railings of the highest bridge there was on the walk. I try to keep a good eye on him as he has a very limited sense of danger and can act impulsively but this took me completely by surprise so I let out a horrified scream! This in turn upset Struan so it took a while to calm him down and reassure him before we carried on again. Overall, though, we had a lovely family time that day, walking, skipping and running around this beautiful old town.