Nathan's first experience in a swimming pool

For the first time since we left in early 2003, we went back to Morocco this summer on holiday. We took Nathan with us which made travel logistics all the more difficult. Flying with a 10 month old baby is tiring, since he has to be occupied all the time. On the way out he was sleepy but couldn’t get comfortable for a long time, and whined much to the delight of the other passengers.

On arrival, our rental car was a new Renault Dacia Logan – the car that’s been in the news, being a budget vehicle which costs around 5000€ / 6000$ new. It was a disappointment though, since we expected a Laguna (a much nicer car…). Still, there was plenty room in the boot of the car for luggage including the pram and air conditioning, which made it a reasonable car for the trip.

A lot of things have changed in Rabat, where we used to live. The development of a big new marina on the Bou Regreg estuary in Rabat is under way, and plans for a lot of new holiday apartments on the coast road south of Rabat are well advanced.

We stayed just south of Rabat; for the first week we were on the beach with friends, and for the second just back from the beach in a house with a swimming pool in the garden where Nathan is pictured with me and his red clockwork paddle boat, which ran around on the water much to his amusement.

It was also the first time Nathan had seen sand and the sea. He met his great grandmother, his maternal grandmother, his uncle and a few great-aunts, uncles and cousins. He’d just started crawling before we left, so he was around everywhere grabbing hold of things he shouldn’t have, and pulling himself up to stand and walk himself around whilst holding onto things like a table or chairs. His favourite pastimes were trying to move plastic outdoor chairs as far as he could before getting stopped, and crawling along long corridors in the houses we stayed at.

With the two hour difference between Rabat and Paris, it was hard to get back into the regular sleep routine with him. He’s back to normal now though, and it all seems like too distant a memory already.