Konnichi wa! Here’s a great idea if you want to learn basic French before your next siblu holidays. I first read about One Minute Language lessons on the excellent website This French Life.

One Minute Language lessons are basically short podcasts that you can download or listen to on your computer, that give you phrases and a few words to get you up and running abroad.

They start with ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’ and then move on to introductions and pleasant greetings. It’s really basic stuff and my first thought was that it’s a bit too easy, but by the time I’d moved on to One Minute Japanese and One Minute Romanian I realised that lots of people don’t know how to say “hello, how are you” in all sorts of languages.

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10-days in and we’ve already had more than 700 entries to the Mum of the Year awards, that siblu is supporting with Netmums.

The entries have been funny, sad, heart warming, inspiring, moving and emotional.

I’m not a mum, so the responses I’ve seen so far really show just how much of their own time mums give up to help others.

Lots of the time, if they didn’t do the work, nobody else would.

There are people setting up, supplying and running toddler groups for their local community, volunteers who help in schools and raise vital funds, and mums who provide the bedrock for local community groups.

We’ve also received stories of good deeds, such as a young mum who has set up a course for teenagers to help understand relationships and parenthood, the mum who is running her own youth projects after her local council cut funding for their own schemes, and the mum who set up a football team for children with special needs.

Are you, or do you know, someone who you think should be Mum of the Year?

There’s still three weeks before the nominations close, so keep on sending your nominations to us.

Exciting news for siblu brochure watchers, I can exclusively reveal the new look for our second edition 2009 holidays brochure… and it’s more of the same.

We asked a group of siblu customers to choose a picture for the front of the siblu brochure and their feedback was surprisingly straightforward.

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Poitou Charentes (which includes the département of Charente Maritime) is known as the sunniest region on the Atlantic coast. There are big, big beaches, beautiful countryside (although most holidaymakers don’t venture inland), great towns to visit (La Rochelle, Royan, Cognac), some interesting theme parcs, including Futuroscope and Puy du Fou (okay, I’m stretching the region’s boundaries with the second of these, but it’s worth a mention), and of course there are three great siblu parcs - Les Charmettes, La Pignade and Bonne Anse Plage.

If you want to find out even more about this part of the world, then take a look at this great blog on Poitou Charentes, with opinions on everything from favourite restaurants (not including the really expensive Michelin-starred ones) to the 10 best beaches. By the way, the winner of best beach is the stretch of coast closest to our three holiday parcs!

Dropped in at our Les Charmettes holiday parc recently to catch up with Steve Smith, the parc director, and check that all is well. Steve apologised that he had received a letter just the day before and had opened it by mistake before realising it was for me. I was just a little surprised when I pulled out an official invitation to a meeting with President Sarkozy, near La Rochelle, the following day.

Quick change of arrangements for the week, formal shirt borrowed from Philippe Burgaud, our holiday parc director at La Pignade and with extra attention to my morning toilette there I was just a few yards from the human dynamo.

Amazing what can happen when you least expect it.

If you take a look at siblu.com you might notice things are looking slightly different, but you can’t quite put your finger one what has changed.

That’s because our web manager has been tinkering with the layout, making it easier for you to get to really interesting information that you might not have known was there.

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The talented team at siblu aren’t just Francophiles committed to delivering fantastic family holidays, we’re a finely honed bunch who can put our skills to any number of activities.

For example, Katie from our call centre – on the end of our reservations line after 6pm each day - is one of the leading lights behind Handmade Oxford a craft fair celebrating the works of an array of independent artists.

If you’re near to Oxford on 9 November why not pop in and stock up on goodies for Christmas, there will be everything from stonework to scarves, baked goods to bags. And the show is free to get in to  - a perfect way to spend a Sunday.

The Energy Saving Trust has just launched research about the environmental habits of 11 countries across Europe. The findings make interesting reading, but as my focus is on France, I couldn’t help but raise any eyebrow when reading the following bullet point tucked away in the text:

• Twenty-one per cent of Frenchmen and women spend more than 10 minutes a week waiting for their food to arrive in a restaurant.

What a strange statistic to use in a report on energy saving.

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