The Telfers in France

The Telfers at Warragal Park

2009-02-17T05:28:00.003+01:00

As we are no longer in France, I will not be posting any more new posts on this Blog. (I will be doing some editing and adding old content so that The Telfers in France blog is complete.)
I am continuing to blog as The Telfers at Warragal Park.
If you are interested in following the progress of our family as we continue our lives at home, please add the new blog to your bookmarks. Or better still, join as a "follower"!
www.warragalpark.blogspot.com.

Hugh in the Pool

2009-02-01T07:57:00.002+01:00

Hugh gained confidence in the water after spending a couple of days in Nanna and Granddad's pool in York. But we have to make sure to keep a good eye on him, because he is a bit too confident for a little boy who can't swim.
Here is a video showing how he jumps in.

On The Beach

2009-01-27T06:11:00.004+01:00

Sunday on the beach...

The Telfer house at Busselton.

We have still not been home to our farm. Instead we spent several days at my parents' place in York, recovering from jet-lag, before heading down to Busselton. Roger's parents used to live in a house on the beach front, and now Roger and his sisters use it for a holiday house. The first morning we were here I went for a walk on the beach in the morning, testing out my new 28-300mm lens. It is a monster, and I am not used to the push/pull zooming, but it does a good job.

Our house is on the far left in this photo.

The shoreline, where Odette enjoys searching for interesting shells.

Some local wildlife...

Looking along the shoreline towards Busselton, and its famous jetty.

Because it was a long weekend there where plenty of people around, and some friends from Darkan came to Busselton. Stuart and Kerrie Putland brought a boat and a "biskit" to tow behind the boat for some water fun. Stuart's brother lives in Busselton so he brought his family down to the beach on Sunday, and they set up a much needed shade shelter. Ian and Marita Putland and their children came from Perth and spent Sunday on the beach too. The Marcoux family came and spent Sunday afternoon on the beach and stayed for a barbecue on the front lawn (I use the word "lawn" loosely because the garden has not been maintained and there is probably as much sand as grass now.)

Stef and Marie on the water.

Matthew, taking it easy...

Odette, Sophie and Bonnie, with best friend Kirsty.

I wasn't allowed to take my new camera on the boat (didn't want to test out its splash-resistance so soon...) so I didn't get any photos of Stef on the biskit (i tried on the mobile phone, but can't download them.) He handled the rough conditions really well, and stayed on for a lot longer than I thought he would, depsite Stuart doing his best to dislodge him. Eventually Stef came off in spectacular fashion, and now Stef is suffering with a sore back and shoulder and wondering why he was so silly. I thought that it looked like lots of fun, and even though I didn't have my swimming costume (forgot to pack...) I had a go in my clothes. Stuart was a lot kinder to me so I didn't suffer so much damage, but still my shoulder is a bit sore, just from hanging on.

The Tin Kettling

2009-01-21T07:01:00.007+01:00

The crowd that surprised us as we were leaving Sainte Marie d'Alloix. Can you spot us amongst the crowd? Sophie and I were beckoning for Hugh and Odette to come and join us.

I don't know what it is called in French, but it was a surprise when we heard the commotion outside the house just as we were preparing to leave for the airport on Saturday. A group of people had walked up the road towards the house banging, whistling, hooting and waving flags. It certainly was a surprise!! We thought we had already said our final farewells...
I was so surprised that I laughed until I cried. It was certainly a send-off we won't forget!

Thanks to Annes' Mum for climbing on the garden wall to capture this angle...

I thought I would be clever and capture some video on my little camera. Photos wouldn't do justice to all the noise and carrying on being generated by the little throng. However the video is not quite what I expected. Goodness knows what went wrong here - I haven't looked at the settings that resulted in the time lapse style footage. It was all a blur anyway, filled with emotion, so this may in fact be what happened...

Well now I know there is a time-lapse function on the camera I will have to find a valid application for it...

Back in Australia

2009-01-20T02:06:00.004+01:00

Just a quick post to say that we are back safely after our trip home. I don't know why I was so worried about it (I do really - because I remembered the trip over). Maybe it was because the kids were all ten months older, or because they were more experienced and knew what to expect, or maybe because it was our natural sleep time during the longest stage. In any case they all travelled very well.
Monsieur Hesse drove us from Sainte Marie d'Alloix to Lyon, Saint Exupery Airport. Then we had a short one hour flight to Paris, Charles de Gaulle Airport. The five hour wait was not too long, as it took us nearly two hours to get from our flight to the departure gate. That included customs and toilet stops. Then Sophie and Bonnie and I had a very long walk to the duty free shop to find Nanna's Chanel No. Five present; and a long walk back again to get our boarding pass so we could buy it. Then Odette and I had a long walk to a gift shop so she could choose the most beautiful Eiffel Tower snow dome for Nanna and Granddad. From Paris we flew to Singapore where the one hour stop was just long enough for us to get onto our connecting flight, without having to sit down and wait. From Singapore we flew to Perth and arrived at 1.55am local time. My parents were waiting for us, and they drove us back to their place, Hope Farm in York, where we arrived just before 5am.
Now we just have to work out our jet lag...

Today I'm looking forward to two of my sisters and their children coming for lunch. The kids are looking forward to a swim in the pool.

What's The Weather Like Today?

2009-01-16T05:49:00.002+01:00

I just added a new "widget" to the side panel, to compare the weather in Le Touvet, France, with Collie, Western Australia. These were the closest stations available to compare with Sainte Marie d'Alloix (where we are now) and Darkan (where we will be next week).
At the time of adding, the French one was -4 degrees Celsius and the Australian one was 40 degrees Celsius. Goodness, I am bracing myself. And I hope the air-conditioning is working well at home!

A Flying Thing

2009-01-14T00:19:00.006+01:00

The Marcoux's house is the highest one in this photo.

Here is a photo that I took this morning. And to get that view I had to get off the ground. Courtesy of William Raffin of Envie d'Ailes at Sainte Marie d'Alloix I was taken up over our village to get some aerial photos.
The ultra light machine we flew in is very simple. At first glance one wonders how it could fly.

Me in the back, with William Raffin as pilot.

But when the contraption is teamed with a parapente sail, the aerodynamics are right and it flies like a bird - only without flapping its wings.
The photography was not easy - I didn't have a lot of time, and there was a bar that was in the way right where my natural camera position would be, and a helmet blocking the view directly in front. Looking through the viewfinder was difficult because of the vibrations caused by the motor of the machine, so I did a lot of pointing and shooting in the general direction (next week I'll have my new EOS 5D mkII with live view so I will no longer have to look through the viewfinder all the time). After a few minutes in the air my fingers began to freeze. I have soft leather gloves which are great for manipulating the camera (and tieing shoelaces and doing up kids' zips) and have been plenty warm enough in all other situations. But today they failed me and my fingers got painfully cold.
Despite the cold I loved the flight. The view was magnificent. And it was fun. I started thinking about getting one of those things to fly around in at home. A two-seater so Roger could fly while I take photos...

Looking over Sainte Marie d'Alloix, towards the Chartreuse.

The winter landscape.

After my flight it was Roger's turn, so I took some photos of him in the air too.

Can you see that smog? Weather conditions have trapped the air in the valley, causing pollution to peak. The speed on the motorway has been limited to 70km/h to try to limit the pollution while the weather conditions keep the smog trapped.

Roger coming in to land.

There were army guys doing training while we were there, and the things they fly in are even more fantastic. Sort of like a big fan strapped on their back - no wheels.

Counting Down

2009-01-11T22:24:00.001+01:00

The end is nigh. This time next week we will be in the air somewhere between Paris and Singapore. (Actually I started writing this post this morning. By this time next week we'll be on Australian soil.) I have been a bad blogger lately, because it is a little sad looking forward to the end of our wonderful time here in France. And I have been busy getting photos made into a slide show to show at our farewell gathering last night.

Farewell Party

2009-01-11T09:59:00.004+01:00

Last night we had a huge party!! And I didn't take a single photo. So all you have is lots of writing, sorry...
The Mairie had sent out invitations to everyone in the village, inviting them to come to see a slideshow presentation of the photos I have taken in the village during our stay. I went through the photos I had selected for the book, and culled out ones that were not vitally important or not particularly pretty, and put them together in a movie slideshow that lasted over one hour. I used Adobe Premiere Elements 3 to put it together, and in the end all the work I did getting the soundtrack to match the slides was wasted. I burnt the DVD and tried it on the computer and the TV, but neither of them had any sound. I guess I'll probably work it out one day...
I had a practice run with the projector in the hall on Tuesday morning, to make sure everything would hook up properly and it went together without a hitch. Easy as pie. So I rocked up on Saturday evening and plugged evrything in and can you guess what happened?? I couldn't get the movie to show up on the screen! I fiddled with the computer display settings until I got a picture up, but it was cut into a very narrow panel on the screen. More fiddling with the computer, more people offering helpful advice, and more frustration. Eventually some bright spark fiddled with the projector and bingo! Dim the lights and on with the show...

The community surprised us by presenting us with some gifts, as a reminder of our stay here in Sainte Marie d'Alloix. Isabelle said some very kind words, to which my response in my surprised state was somewhat inadequate. Roger spoke in English, so about half the room would have understood some of what he said. We now have, to take home with us, a big book with aerial photos of the Alpes (can't wait to have a better look at it) and a small relief map of the region. The kids were given a CD with 42 French songs and rhymes for children, and I'm sure we will have fun singing along with that in the car in Australia.

We have been extremely fortunate to have been in such a welcoming little community. The kids have made friends who will be sad to see them go. Roger has been helping people to practise their English. People have got used to seeing me around with my camera, and mostly have been happy to have their photos taken. There were a few times when I didn't have my camera with me and I wished I had. For instance, when Fred was teaching Justine scuba diving in their swimming pool; or when young Jeff killed a rooster for the first time (the red blood on the white snow would have been very artistic I think.)
So last night we had a hall full of locals trying to spot themselves, or their house or their kid or their dog, in the photos. Roger counted 150 people sitting in chairs. There were kids sitting on the floor at the front (well they sat for about ten minutes before starting to run around) and others standing at the back. Everyone brought some food to share, and the Mairie provided drinks. After eating, Fred and Anke cranked up the music and the dancing started. There were even computer-controlled disco lights, thanks to Benoit whose company Airstar uses lights in display products. As the night wore on Anthony plugged his i-pod into the "virtual D J" playing through Fred's laptop and the tempo of the music changed. He and his mate had dressed up in hats, sunnies and jackets and they put on a bit of a floor-show and managed to get more people into the groove. They even got Roger doing a few groovy moves.
Some people left after the photos and the food; some only came later after their other commitments had finished. We finished up at about midnight after a really fun evening.
It was a night to remember, and I didn't feel sad at all, knowing that we have made so many friends during our time here. We expect that we will have the opportunity to return the hospitality when some of our French friends come to visit us in Australia. They are more than welcome!

Window Fridge

2009-01-07T10:52:00.002+01:00

Drinks in the "window fridge".

When it is colder outside than it is in the fridge, you don't have to worry about food going off. It is so handy to have the juice on the window sill. Just open the window and grab it - but it might be worth putting a little warm water with the juice so it doesn't freeze you teeth when you drink it. Lately we have had the problem of the apple juice freezing when we leave it in the window fridge.

Chanson de Noël

2008-12-24T22:51:00.004+01:00

Here is some Christmas comedy for you. Odette was trying to teach Roger how to sing the Christmas song that she had learnt at school. We were left wondering whether Roger was trying to sing in Japanese or another, unknown language.

P.S. My first attempt at uploading to You Tube.

Joyeux Noël

2008-12-24T16:58:00.003+01:00

Merry Christmas everybody.
We won't have the white Christmas we were hoping for - the last few days the weather has been fine and "warm" (about 9 degrees Celsius) with blue skies.
But we have a turkey, and some presents under our real Christmas tree.
Now we just have to wait and see if le Père Noël finds us here in France...

Toilettes??

2008-12-24T00:25:00.005+01:00

This sign was a welcome sight as we were walking around Pont-en-Royans, because Bonnie had been saying she wanted to go to the toilet for the last half an hour. It is very hard to find a public toilet in France, and when one is found it is often not very appealing. We thought our luck had changed, until we found the said toilets... They were all locked up!

Bonnie outside the locked toilets.

The facilities are obviously for the use of summer visitors, and we were out of luck. As were the several other visitors who came by looking for the signposted toilets while we were there. And in the absence of toilets, what do you do??? I won't embarrass Bonnie by showing what she ended up doing, but here is how Roger helped Hugh to do what he had to do.

Seeing people peeing in public is something we have become accustomed to. We even saw a car stopped on a round-about on a major road, with the driver standing with his back to the traffic relieving himself. For men it is not such a big deal. For women and girls it is a little more awkward to find a suitable spot.

Two anonymous public pee-ers...

We have one very fussy child in our family, who refuses to use a public toilet unless it is spotlessly clean. As you can see from the pictures below, not many fall into that class.

The public toilet in Sainte Marie d'Alloix.

The bottom photo is the one and only public toilet available to visitors in Sainte Marie d'Alloix. At night there is no light (the globe has been removed so people can't leave it on all night) and there is no washbasin, let alone soap or hand towels.
I think in Australia we are spoilt with public toilet facilities which have separate male and female toilets, facilities for the disabled, mirrors, wash basins, soap, and hand towels or hot-air dryers. Congratulations to the councils which supply such good and clean facilities!

Pont-en-Royan

2008-12-23T23:56:00.004+01:00

The typical view of Pont-en-Royans
shows the old houses perched on rock over the river.

On the weekend we went for a drive and visited the village of Pont-en-Royan, in the Vercors. It has heritage listed buildings which are built into the rock right up the side of the river.

I imagine that in summer these pots would be full of colourful flowers,
and the trees in the background green.

The village is obviously very pretty in the summer time, and there was a playground, well-equipped by French standards, on the banks of the river. However the kids had heaps of fun playing in the deserted car-park where we parked. There were car bays marked with white lines, which made good tracks for running races and another game which Odette and Bonnie invented. There was the tiniest bit of snow left on the ground which gave something for Hugh to kick.
We had a picnic and enjoyed the fine day,then strolled around the village. But we didn't have time to visit the museum of water, which looked like a modern building and the signs showed the promise of an interesting display.
We enjoyed the change of scenery and the sunshine, but didn't stay too long as we knew that it would be dark by 5:30pm. By 5pm on the way home we realised something wasn't right as darkness seemed a long way off. And it was - we had used the clock on TomTom, which was still showing Summer daylight saving time!

A Shopping Centre Somewhere

2008-12-23T23:23:00.012+01:00

I braved the shops on Monday, to do some Christmas shopping. Not that I have much to do; basically just a little something for the kids, and le Père Noël (Father Christmas) will take are of the rest...
Can you guess where Sophie and I went shopping? With shops called Foot Locker, New Look, Urban Culture, Go Sport, The Phone House, McDonald's etc. etc. ...

Did you see anything there that looked particularly French? Did it look a bit like where you did your Christmas shopping? It could have been in any one of hundreds of cities throughout the world. But really it was Grand' Place, near Grenoble.

Bonne Anniversaire Hugh

2008-12-19T10:04:00.003+01:00

Yesterday was Hugh's third birthday. He had a great day which started early & ended late. He is now allowed to go on the bus to school so in the morning we were down at the bus stop nice & early with Hugh first in line to catch the bus to school. He sat up the front behind the driver & said he really liked going on the bus which is great as it will now save us a fair bit of driving. After school we had a small party for Hugh with 3 families coming for the cake & a drink.

[That was Roger's report from yesterday. Thanks for the contribution Roger.]

A Sharp Dressed Man

2008-12-17T21:12:00.004+01:00

The girls, little fashion victims that they are, are quite harsh on their father when he ventures out in unfashionable clothes. But what choice does he have, given his wardrobe? It is either that or go naked; which in this weather would be even harsher than the wrath of his young daughters.
The girls are, after all, little models. Oh, and superstars and chic mothers. In these photos they were taking their babies out for a walk.

Bonnie

Sophie

Odette and Hugh

So it is no wonder Sophie, Bonnie and Odette did not want to be seen with this scruffy looking bloke who went to get their Christmas tree on a recent Saturday morning.

The Christmas tree carrier

In a pair of tracky dacks, a loose tee-shirt and a "United Farmers" green beanie he looked as far from French classic as you can get. But when chastised by the girls the only thing Roger could say was "It's a pity it's too cold to wear thongs!" Yes thongs would certainly have completed the look my dear. And yes, I have decided that some new clothes would make a wonderful Christmas present for my husband. (Don't tell him or you'll ruin the surprise...)

[And now I am wondering what the automatic translation is going to make of "thongs" for those readers who are translating this into French... I am quite sure he didn't mean a g-string, but some flip-flops for his feet!]

Disco Z

2008-12-14T23:32:00.003+01:00

As if the kids hadn't had enough fun for one day, they also went to the "Disco Z" show in the afternoon. Actually we all went, and we had a ball. Disco Z was two guys in weird and funky disco gear, who entertained young and old alike, getting everybody up on the dance floor despite the lack of electrical equipment due to a blown fuse. (Well that's what happens when you run everything off one socket and leave the extension cord rolled up while in use...) They had acoustic guitars, an accordion, trombone, and tambourine which didn't require power, but the disco ball and lights would have added to the atmosphere if they had lasted more than five minutes before the fuse blew.
After the fun of the disco there were refreshments. Soft drinks and fruit juice for the children, and "vin chaud" (mulled wine) for the adults. Have you had mulled wine before? It is basically red wine heated with citrus and spices. The cinnamon and orange flavours were strongest in the vin chaud that we had yesterday and it was very nice indeed. Yes indeed...

Fun...

Games...

Refreshments...

Le Petit Train

2008-12-14T22:56:00.004+01:00

Roger in the little train with Hugh, Bonnie, Odette and Odette's friend Amandine.

The train ride around the village.

Silly me took photos instead of hopping in the train...

Father Christmas came to Sainte Marie d'Alloix on Saturday morning, in a little train that took people for rides around the village. Unfortunately Santa was not as Jolly as what we are used to. He basically handed out some chocolate "papillotes" to the children and then stood and chatted with some old folks.

Beaucoup de neige

2008-12-10T15:15:00.003+01:00

Our first Bonhomme de neige in the back yard.

It snowed overnight and it has snowed all day. There is over five centimetres of snow on the ground and the snow is falling pretty heavily as I write. Odette and I had fun this morning building a bonhomme de neige (snowman) on the back lawn. Now we have a veritable family of snow people. It was so much fun we kept wanting to make another one.
Odette and I had a walk around the village before lunch and saw some other kids and their dog having fun in the snow.

Kids playing in the snow with their dog.

Snowball fights...

Odette in her (big) "combinaison de ski" which we bought at a jumble sale recently.

A council worker putting up Christmas decorations at the Mairie.

We are thinking of making a toboggan track in the paddock out the back. But we'd have to be careful to have a good stopping ramp because the hill is pretty steep.
Soon I will have to go out and pick up Sophie and Bonnie from the Christmas card-making workshop they have been to. I'll take my camera and get some more photos of the snow...

Loto

2008-12-02T10:51:00.005+01:00

I took Sophie and Bonnie to La Buissiere for a kids' Loto (Bingo) afternoon on Sunday. The aim was to win the roller blades, the portable DVD player and the Nintendo DS Lite. They had great prizes. We didn't win any of them, but we had great fun. Bonnie got a consolation prize after finishing a row at the same time as another boy, and he drew the short straw (although I always thought the long one was the best). She won a face painting set, so we might have some funny faces showing up around here soon. (As is there aren't enough already...)

Sophie crossed her fingers, hoping for a big prize.

I don't think I could stand to play Bingo on a regular basis. The suspense is too much for me! Nearly every game there was someone on our table who was very close, only needing one more number to win. I would breathe in and hold my breath waiting for the caller to call the number, and then get disappointed when it wasn't the right one.
And speaking of numbers, it was very good practice for us to learn the French numbers. Bonnie and I would check each other's cards to make sure we were getting them right.

Sleep-Overs

2008-11-29T14:47:00.003+01:00

Noémie's grandfather puts balloons out for the party.

Bonnie had a sleep-over at her friend Noémie's place last night, for a "soirée pyjama" for her birthday party. It is the second soirée pyjama she has been to this month. Odette has also been socialising. She had a sleep-over at her best friend's house last weekend, and Amandine slept over at our house on Tuesday night.
Now that the girls speak French really well they are much more autonomous. I remember when we first came I had to go with them to help translate all the time. Now they correct me when I make a mistake in French grammar or pronunciation!

Autumn Leaves

2008-11-26T22:39:00.004+01:00

The children made the most of the autumn leaves. I started to rake up the leaves that fell off the trees in the yard, but the piles were soon spread out again. Here is how it happened...

Autumn and Winter

2008-11-26T22:09:00.004+01:00

Autumn colours in the landscape.

A multi-coloured mountainside.

Yellow...

Red...

I have never experienced a northern hemisphere autumn before. I have never been where the trees change colour and then all the leaves fall off. Our eucalyptus at home don't do that.
Over a period of weeks the landscape changed colour from the lush green of summer through oranges, reds, yellows and browns. Now, mostly it is grey. And earlier in the week it was white, with the first snows for the season.

When we took Hugh and Odette to school it was easy to see which cars had slept outside the night before: they were covered in snow. Our cars here stay outside, despite the house having two garages. The garages are full of other things, as tends to happen with garages...
Which reminds me that Roger always harped on at me if I ever left the car outside on the farm in Australia. His argument was that the sun would fade the upholstery, or fade the paint (the car is white!), or maybe a hail storm could come and damage the car. The fact is that I DID leave the car outside for a few days once when the kids commandeered the garage for a beauty parlour. And do you know what happened? The parrots started to eat it! Those nasty birds (28-parrots) actually bit chunks of rubber off around the windows and where rails go on the roof!

The view from our balcony on Monday morning.

Cars at the school at La Flachere.

Sangcramiedalloix

2008-11-21T14:23:00.001+01:00

Odette can say Sainte, she can say Marie, and she can say Alloix. But when she tries to say the name of the village where we live it comes out like Sangcra-Mie-d'Alloix, not Sainte Marie d'Alloix. Maybe if she just slowed down a little it would help.

60, 70, 80, 90...

2008-11-18T11:45:00.002+01:00

Counting in French is pretty confusing for an English speaker. Last night Bonnie's homework was to learn the numbers upwards of sixty in the written form.
Up to sixty nine it is straight forward, but then the French do a funny thing that reminds me of the old English "four score and ten" type of counting. Instead of going to seventy they go to sixty-ten (soixante-dix), sixty-eleven (soixante-onze), sixty-twelve (soixante-douze)... up to sixty-nineteen (soixante-dix-neuf) for 79. Then eighty is four twenties (quatre-vingt), so eighty-one is four twenties and one, or "quatre-vingt-et-un"; and ninety is four twenties and ten, or "quatre-vingt-dix, and ninety-nine is "quatre-vingt-dix-neuf".
When I am reading in my head and there are numbers printed as digits I still read the numbers in English. And in conversation I need to halt when people talk of large numbers because it doesn't come naturally to me to think in French numbers. In French "soixante-seize euros et quatre-vingt-quinze" would not have me immediately think of 76.95 euros. I would hear the "soixante" and think of sixty, but then the "seize" means sixteen, so I have to backtrack and change the sixty to a seventy and add six. And "quatre-vingt" always confuses me because "vingt-quatre" means twenty four. Once I had that sorted out I would think of eighty, but then "quinze" means fifteen so I would have to backtrack again and add fifteen to eighty to make ninety-five! Needless to say I always look at the cash register display to find out how much I need to pay at the supermarket...
If I were to stay in France this is certainly something I would need to practise.

Our Daily Bread

2008-11-15T21:29:00.005+01:00

The characteristic twist of the paper that wraps the bread.

This is one of those posts that I have been thinking of for ages, but could be written any time. Today's (yesterday's) events have triggered the writing of it now.
The "kiosque" in the village is our local deli, with fresh bread and croissants every morning, the newspaper, magazines, lollies, cigarettes (essential to some) and a small collection of packaged foods and other necessities. Veronique who runs the place is a super woman who always has a smile and a chirpy voice. And she tries to help Roger with his French pronunciation. The kiosque makes a difference to the village. Villages without a boulangerie or a deli lack a heart - the people have to go elsewhere to get their bread, newspaper and cigarettes.
After I have put the kids on the bus in the morning I usually grab a baguette (the kids love to make a "tartine" with Vegemite!) and maybe a croissant or a pain au chocolat (depending on how devilish I am feeling).

Veronique handing Bread to Bonnie at the kiosque.

Several times a week I buy the local newspaper, and on Saturday mornings I like to buy Le Monde with the New York Times supplement in English for Roger. I don't have to worry about having the cash on me because Veronique has an exercise book in which she writes down our account, which she tallies up every now and again so I can write out a cheque.
And so it was this morning that Bonnie and I walked into the kiosque to be greeted by the familiar cheery voice and smile from Veronique. There were a couple of customers in the shop and they were talking a lot, but we didn't take much notice. Then I realised they were talking about a robbery and I asked if the kiosque had been broken into. But no, it was worse than that. Veronique made a gun shape with her hand and held it up, describing how she had been the victim of an armed robbery on Friday evening. Apparently it was about 7pm, closing time, when the robbery occurred. Obviously someone was very desperate for money, and they knew what time closing time was; a single male, who left on foot, after threatening Veronique and her father, plus a customer who happened to be in there at the time. Luckily Veronique was calm and collected and handed the man the money from her till and a couple of cartons of cigarettes and nobody was hurt.
And we thought this was a peaceful little village...

Still I give thanks for our daily bread; and for Veronique, who is a bit of a hero.

Confessions of a Scrabble Addict

2008-11-12T12:54:00.006+01:00

I have got into the habit of spending too much time playing, instead of working, on the computer. At night after the kids are in bed I will sit down to write on my blog, but will open up the Internet Scrabble Club scrabble program too. Just for one game. But I like the quick games, so maybe just another one, and then I'll shut it down... Maybe.
Facebook is addictive too. I had requests from people to join Facebook at the beginning of the year, so I did. And now I feel the need to check up every day to see what everyone on my list is doing. It is great! My mother called the other day with some exciting news. My cousin Jane is engaged? Yes I know already - I read it on her Facebook!! I get to see all the latest pictures of Michael and Anna's kids (whom I have never seen in real life) as well as their videos posted on You Tube. And I know that Charmiane is pregnant with her fifth (and last) child, and that it is a boy. When he is born I'll get to see the baby pictures on her Facebook. I know which horse Dave backed in the Melbourne cup, what time Dana got home from the 40th birthday party, that Ronice drank too much "cat piss wine", that the weather has been grey on the cote d'azur, and that Philippa is moving to Perth at the end of the year. Alison's interview went well, Jacquie has a new pool (and wants a pool boy), Kathy wants to go on a cruise, Guillaume was salesman of the month, Benoit has been to the USA and Ulla is starting at a new school. None of which I would have known if it were not for Facebook.
So now it must be time for another game of Scrabble I think. I might be able to improve my ranking...

And now you know why I don't do as much as I should on the blog!

Girls Games

2008-11-09T22:41:00.004+01:00

The girls love having their friend Laurine come over to play, or going to her house to play. Laurine has real life-sized baby dolls, that can fit real baby clothes, and she has prams and all the accessories. They have heaps of fun playing mothers and babies, and even took their babies for a walk when we went out last weekend.

Odette with her baby, last weekend.

A walk with the babies.

And we all know where babies come from, don't we? That's right: in their mother's tummy. One of the teachers at Sophie's and Laurine's school is extremely pregnant, and another left at the end of last school year to have a baby.
It seems that Sophie and Laurine aren't content with just one baby - they have another one on the way!!

Sophie and Laurine - what are they expecting?
(One was an air-filled balloon, and the other a soft toy!)

Roger will have enough worries when his daughters reach their teenage years, but pregnancy at age ten???

Trick or Treat

2008-10-31T23:08:00.004+01:00

We have never celebrated Halloween at home in Australia, so it was a novelty for the kids to get dressed up and go out door-knocking for lollies. We didn't have any real Halloween costumes like some of the others, but we managed to find enough black clothes to go around and we put a bit of dark eye make-up on their faces. We also put some dark red lipstick on for blood, and it wasn't until they tried to take it off that that we realised how well the stay-on lipstick stays on, and I have run out of waterproof make-up remover. So the girls will still have "blood" stained faces when they wake up in the morning.

Only one house had Halloween decorations .

The group of girls who went trick or treating together.

Bonnie showing her make-up (a bit washed out with the flash).

Roger, Esther and me, getting into the spirit of Halloween.

Odette, with a handful of lollies.

We headed out at just before 6:00pm, but as you can see it was already quite dark. That made it all the more exciting for the kids. They collected quite a bounty, which is just as well, because then we had plenty of lollies to give to the teenagers who came along to our house later in the evening.

Jeux Pour Tous

2008-10-31T14:23:00.007+01:00

The Mairie has organised lots of school holiday activities for children. We missed the Halloween themed scary stories at the library, and the giant Cluedo too, because some of the kids were sick. But yesterday everyone was well and we went to the games afternoon down at the salle des fêtes. There was "Puissance Quatre" (Connect Four), les "Dames Chinoises" (Chinese Checkers), toys for little kids, dolls, and lots of fun things to do on a cold and rainy afternoon.
Here are some photos so you can see for yourself.

Bonnie and Hugh playing with a little farm set.

Hugh enjoying the tunnel.

Sophie playing a game that slides tokens using an elastic launcher.

Watching Odette play against Amandine.

The girls looking a little bit intimidated by all the cake and soft drinks.

But wouldn't you just know what was the best fun?? After all the toys and games were packed away, the beautiful shiny slippery floor was great for sliding on! And doing handstands and cartwheels.

Bonnie doing a cartwheel after Odette has done one.

Hugh being dragged along by his friend Gabriel.

Woo-hoo! Everyone slide...

There were a dozen happy screaming children running around having a ball while the adults took the things back to the mairie. And once again, one very BIG kid!

Nice performance, Eric!!

French Translation

2008-10-30T23:01:00.002+01:00

I have, for some time, had a link to the AltaVista Babel Fish translation service on this blog. Today I discovered the Google equivalent, which seems to work differently and did a very good job with a French to English translation. The English to French seems readable too, so maybe all you French readers would like to bookmark this link to the GOOGLE TRANSLATION of our blog.
One major benefit of this tool is that you can see the original text at the same time as the translation, which helps sometimes with context.
Any feedback on the usefulness of this (or any other) translation tool is welcome...

Odette and Hugh at School

2008-10-29T23:01:00.004+01:00

Roger walking Hugh into school.

During the term (we now have holidays for a week and a half) I took some photos one morning when Roger and I both took Hugh and Odette to school. Usually I don't have time to handle a camera at that time of the morning...
Odette showed me the escargots (snails) that were in her classroom. They were the type of snails (bourgogne) - the type you can eat. They laid eggs and the eggs hatched into baby snails. Now we have three baby snails in a clear container on our kitchen bench. We have to keep them moist and feed them with fruit and vegetables.
Odette had done lots of work on the theme of autumn, and some lovely big pictures were displayed on the walls. The teacher cleverly managed to work the spiral shape of the snails into the pictures too.

Odette with containers of snails.

Odette (and her friend Amandine) with some portraits in ink.

A lovely autumn coloured picture with spirals.

Hugh showing Daddy his class book - parents can have a look
at the book to see what the children have been doing in class.

The colour of the term was "vert" (green).

Sunday Walk

2008-10-29T19:20:00.004+01:00

Roger and kids at a lavoir in Montalieu
(Odette chose the setting for the photo.)

This photo looks a bit the same,
but I'm not sure what Roger's face is doing!

Last Sunday the weather was absolutely glorious. We made the most of the fine weather by going for a walk in the woods, despite the gunshots of the hunters sounding quite near. We walked from the vieille église at Saint Vincent de Mercuze along to Montalieu and then down to our house at Saint Marie d'Alloix. It is not a very long or difficult walk, but I was so happy because it is the first time that we have had a family walk where no-one has needed to be carried because they got tired. (Roger carried Hugh for a while when we were on a road.) We had planned to do a little walk in the woods and go back to the car, but because everyone was happy and walking well we walked home, and then drove back to get the car (it would have been a nice walk back for me and Rog, but we couldn't leave the kids at home by themselves and it was getting late).
Here are some pictures of our walk.

Bonnie helping Hugh to get a stone out of his boot.

Roger and Odette enjoying the view.

Hugh.

Sophie.

Odette.

Bonnie.

Odette and Sophie.

Le Courseton

2008-10-24T18:50:00.003+02:00

Bonnie's school at La Buissiere held what would be the equivalent of Australian cross-country running this week. Sophie's school took part as well, but because she was sick Sophie couldn't compete (not such a bad thing as she hadn't been able to train due to her sprained ankle.) Bonnie has always loved long distance running - on the farm she sometimes asks me if she can go for a run to the middle gate by herself, and I always say "have one for me while you're at it" because I hate running.

Bonnie running in the "courseton".

The course was 200 metres; around the soccer field and over to the church and back. Bonnie's class had a total of fifteen minutes to run, and they had their laps counted. A piece of paper on their back had squares to be crossed off by parent helpers as they rounded the corner.

Another lap down, and crossed off on the paper on her back.

Bonnie ran 15 laps, which is 3,000 metres, or 3kms, by my calculations. Which I thought was a pretty good performance. As I was taking photos during the race I didn't follow her progress, and because everyone was running laps, it was hard to tell who was in front. It didn't look like Bonnie was winning because the field was well spread out, but some of the people in front of her would have been people that she had lapped a couple of times already.
Hence the surprise when Bonnie arrived home from school today with a medal around her neck!!! She beat all the other girls in her class to be the number one girl. Which was great for Bonnie. I am so proud of her.

Bonnie with her medal for winning the courseton.

And Bonnie obviously enjoyed the running too - this morning at breakfast she said that she wished she could do it again!

Kinésithérapie

2008-10-23T22:44:00.003+02:00

Healing hands...

To help clear his lungs after his illness Hugh had some kinesitharapy. There is a lady who lives just in the next street who works from home and is a kinesitherapist, so she came up and gave him his massage. Hugh liked it so much that he went to sleep each time!

Hugh in Hospital

2008-10-22T23:43:00.000+02:00

Sorry I don't have any photos for this post. Despite my motto of "don't go anywhere without a camera" I rushed off to the doctor's surgery on Saturday morning with Hugh, but without my camera. Hugh had been coughing on Thursday night/Friday, then had a fever on Friday night. By Saturday morning his pulse was racing, and he was breathing rapidly and sucking in his belly and throat trying to get more air. We knew this was not good, so administered some ventolin, which had little effect. So while Roger took the girls with him to deliver Nanna and Granddad to the airport at Lyon, I took Hugh to the doctor. The doctor got Hugh's shirt off to listen to his chest, measured his temperature quickly with a forehead sensor, and then lay him down for an examination. The doctor was quick to say what I didn't want to hear: that it was serious and that Hugh should go immediately to the hospital. He suspected pneumonia, so ordered a pulmonary x-ray.
Didn't I say one time before that we should find the hospital so that we know where it is in an emergency?? Luckily Roger hadn't left yet for Lyon so I called him and asked him to bring TomTom, our GPS, so I could find the way. Despite what everyone said about it being easy to find I am glad I had TomTom or I would have become extremely flustered trying to get there. So I took the autoroute all the way and made the most of the 130km/hour speed limit, and kept glancing back at Hugh to make sure he wasn't going bluer around the mouth.
Once at the paediatric emergency section of the hospital I just had to give details to fill in some paperwork before we were shown in to a consulting room. Hugh lay on the examination bed with his tummy pumping in and out. Being a teaching hospital (CHU) there were plenty of medical students, interns, externs, and doctors coming and going. The x-ray showed something in the top of one lung, and he had a blood sample taken to confirm the infection. The doctors also said that asthma was causing Hugh's breathing difficulties. He was treated with ventolin and another drug I can't remember the name of (something like avent) and had oxygen. For the pneumonia he had intravenous antibiotics, and something else to control the fever.
In the hospital we shared a room with a lovely little girl called Chaima and her mother. Chaima and Hugh would have their nebuliser masks at the same time, and we would watch their blood oxygen saturation monitors flash up at 100% for a few minutes. Then when the 02 got down to 91% the machine would start beeping.
For the night there were fold down beds for the mothers to sleep on, which made the room extremely squashy (nurses probably have to have a slimness test to see if they can squeeze through small spaces and reach long distances in order to work in rooms like that.) So I lay on my bed in my clothes and watched Hugh's breathing on the graph on the monitor. There wasn't much sleep to be had, but in the early hours I must have slept heavily, as I didn't hear the machine beeping when Hugh's 02 saturation dropped and the nurses put the oxygen mask on him.
By late Sunday morning Hugh had discovered that the playroom down the hallway had not only books, but a ball and some ride-on toys. He was feeling much better thank you, and his biggest problem was that he was running around too much. The nurses kept telling me that he was to rest and stay calm, but I don't think they told Hugh...

Le Chemin d'Autrefois

2008-10-16T15:46:00.007+02:00

Autumn in the forest.

On Wednesday my parents offered to look after the children so that Roger and I could go out together. (Which was just what we needed.) We went and had lunch at our favourite restaurant, the Auberge de Saint Vincent de Mercuze.

The Auberge de Saint Vincent de Mercuze - our favourite restaurant.

We had a long lunch and a good discussion without any child-induced interruptions. It is time to start thinking about our next step after so much time over the last few years has been concerned with getting our exchange experience happening. Now it is nearly finished!! Well there are three months left, but that doesn't sound like much to me...

After our long lovely lunch we set out to walk the chemin d'autrefois up to the cascade (waterfall).
The autumn weather was perfect for an afternoon walk, and the colours of autumn were at their best. Roger took a little backpack with a snack and some water, and I took my SLR camera.

The beauty was mesmerising. No wonder it took so long to walk up...
I had to keep stopping to take photographs!

The stream cascading through mossy rocks.

The colours of autumn leaves in the stream.

An interesting rock formation?? No, some metal debris...

The path criss-crossed back and forth across the stream, and it was very well maintained with hand-rails, steps, and cables in place.

Roger ascending with the help of a metal hand rail.

Another, more natural handrail.

A path being held up with wire netting.

A plastic-covered metal cable for protection,
lest one should fall to the stream below.

I am glad we did the walk while the weather was good, and before it rained, because I don't think I would enjoy it so much if it was slippery and muddy. And I am definitely glad that we didn't try to take the children. Odette would not have the stamina for such a walk, Hugh would be a danger and too slow. Sophie and could probably make it, but not with her foot still unfit after the sprain, and Bonnie would want to know where we would be going next (she has that much energy.)

If I had read this sign first I doubt that I would have considered walking...

Roger walking down the easy way.
There was an alternative route back to our starting point.

The village at Montalieu; we drive through often
but had never explored the narrow back streets before.

Apart from the day we went to Grenoble to change our airline tickets and have a medical check complete with chest x-rays, this was the first day we had had someone else look after the children so that we could go out. It was much appreciated, and Nanna and Granddad got to spend some quality(!) time with the children.

The Princess Party

2008-10-11T21:44:00.008+02:00

There is no doubting that Odette enjoyed her birthday party.

We have had a lovely afternoon and evening celebrating Odette's birthday with friends. Her beautiful princess dress and shoes, which I had bought on e-bay, arrived in the mail in the nick of time. They weren't here in time for her to open her present on her birthday morning yesterday, but they arrived in time for her to wear them to the party today. And wow didn't she look like an absolutely stunning princess!!

Odette and some happy friends
(I don't know what Eric was doing behind my back,
but I might have to hire him to work in the studio.)

Does this pose remind you of another more famous Princess?

We had lovely birthday food, like cornflake crackles, fairy bread and lamingtons. Yes the party had an Australian flavour... The birthday cake was a dolly vardon style - hardly as magnificent as I had imagined it, but effective none-the-less.

Lighting the candles

Eating the cake.

Cornflake crackles

Lamingtons

Fairy bread

Sophie organised games, as she does very well. The children played pass the parcel, musical chairs, pin the crown on the princess, and a treasure hunt (although the treasure hunt was somewhat spoiled when Odette took a shortcut straight to the treasure instead of following the clues.)

Pin the crown on the princess (a variation on a theme...)

After a couple of hours for the children exclusively the parents and other brothers and sisters were invited to join with us to continue into the evening with drinks and food.

Once the boys arrived the tone of the party changed.

But it wasn't only the boys who enjoyed the "red carpet" (paper tablecloth) slide.

And it wasn't only the children either!!

My Mum and Dad had prepared some finger food, and Roger made pizzas and a zucchini slice. There was also cheese and a fruit platter. And more cake. And wine and beer.

Roger in the kitchen

School Cantine

2008-10-11T11:15:00.004+02:00

Sophie at the school canteen (cantine).

Every Tuesday and Friday the children stay at school all day, instead of coming home for lunch. This means that they eat at the school canteen, as there is no such thing as a packed lunch in French schools. Unlike the good old days when there was a cook at each canteen serving up delicious French food to the children, today there is a central kitchen in a large centre (Pontcharra in our case) that delivers the food to the canteens at smaller schools. Our children regularly complain about the food they have to eat, and I am regularly told by the canteen supervisors that my children don't eat the food they are given.
On Tuesday I had the pleasure of photographing the canteen in Sainte Marie d'Alloix, where Sophie eats. The menu was potato salad, followed by crumbed fish with green (well greyish green) beans, a cheese, then an orange.

Mmmm... delicious!

After the meal the children play in the canteen or an adjacent room with games and puzzles, before going out into the playing fields for an hour before the afternoon session of school starts at 1:50pm.

Sophie setting up a game of Hangman.

Green Beard?

2008-10-10T22:49:00.005+02:00

I have heard of "Blue Beard" before, but never Green Beard. La Barbe Verte...
This is how Hugh came home from school yesterday.

Hugh painted green.

The teacher said that there is always one kid who will experiment with paint in this way. But why did it have to be my kid?

Joyeuse Anniversaire

2008-10-10T22:31:00.004+02:00

Odette cutting her cake this evening

Today Odette celebrated her birthday. She had an early morning, up while it was still dark, to open presents and celebrate being six.
Here is a picture of her tonight, when she was cutting her birthday cake. We had to sing both "Joyeuse Anniversaire" and "Happy Birthday" before she blew out the candles. Tomorrow she will be dressed like a real princess in her new princess dress and shoes to host her princess party with half a dozen of her princess friends coming around in the afternoon.

Odette's umbilical cord knot.

This is how Odette looked when she was born six years ago. Her umbilical cord had a double knot in it. We are extremely lucky that she was born quickly and that the knot had not tightened previously.
Since that day I have been fascinated by knots, and I have photographed hundreds of them in many different locations. Here are just three of them below...

Wednesday

2008-10-10T15:24:00.007+02:00

At the back: Georges Marcoux, Wendy Solly, Caro, Gaby Marcoux, Ken Solly, Hugh, Roger Front: Sophie, Odette, Bonnie.

Because there is no school on Wednesdays, we were free to do some other things. Georges and Gaby Marcoux invited us to lunch at their home near Grenoble. In May Gaby had been to Australia to stay with Steph and Mariedo and kids in Dalyellup, and had visited my parents at Hope Farm guest house in York. Now was their turn to visit Gaby's home and to meet her husband Georges. As Georges speaks no English and my father speaks no French a conversation between them was always going to be difficult. But Sophie stepped in as translator and she accompanied them around the garden translating. She said there were only a couple of words that she didn't know, and they were names of plants or trees. Now that she has learn a bit of French she is keen to learn German and other languages. Gaby's german friend Renata also had lunch with us, so we were a multilingual lot.

Georges with a bundle of mushrooms.

George had been in the mountains (he loves walking in the mountains) and picked some mushrooms. At this time of year there are hundreds of people gathering fungi in the mountains, and I have seen posters with photos and descriptions of all the varieties of mushrooms, and warnings about which are the poisonous ones. Georges had broken his mushrooms up and laid them out on newspaper to dry. That way they can last all year, and just be hydrated when needed for making a sauce or adding to a dish. Gaby didn't think they would last all year though, because Georges was likely to eat them all quite soon.

Georges' mushrooms drying on newspaper.

The meal we ate was delicious, and as good French lunches do, it lasted quite some time. After a nice lunch I usually feel like a good siesta, but unfortunately we couldn't linger because we had promised the children that they could go to the puppet show (Theatre Guignol) in Sainte Marie d'Alloix at five o'clock.
The Theatre Guignol was developed in Lyon 200 years ago, and the main character is a funny man called Guignol. There was only one puppeteer who played all the different characters and he did a brilliant job. All the children, especially those aged about 4 or 5 years, got right into the spirit of the show and we shouting out when necessary.

Children watching the puppet show. Bonnie, Sophie and Odette in the middle.

Hugh and this little girl were more interested in
what was happening behind the scenes.

The parents enjoyed seeing the children having so much fun. Well, those parents who were still awake... (I guess Roger had an excuse because he couldn't follow the dialogue, and the lights were turned down low.)

ZZZZzzzz...

Le Tunnel de Mont Blanc

2008-10-06T22:04:00.003+02:00

After travelling through the Mont Blanc tunnel between France and Italy, we have researched the history of the tunnel and learned about the disaster in 1999 in which about 40 people died.
A truck carrying 20 tonnes of margarine and flour caught fire and spread to other vehicles. The resulting toxic fumes and thick black smoke trapped dozens of people inside the tunnel. A lack of coordination between the two companies managing the tunnel (Italians managing the Italian side and French managing the French side) made the rescue effort even harder. The tunnel acted as a huge chimney, drawing oxygen from the south and funnelling the smoke through the tunnel at an alarming rate. The fire burned for over 50 hours and melted the vehicles which were caught at the centre. It was three years before the tunnel was re-opend.
Thankfully my mother was not aware of this history before we travelled through the tunnel! She was nervous enough as it was. But how could we not remember such a disaster?? It happened the day before Sophie had her first birthday, on the 24th March 1999. Surely the Australian media reported what was happening on the other side of the world? Maybe it just seemed so far away that it didn't sink in, and probably there were no Australian victims which minimised the media coverage. If you want to learn the sad facts of the event, an internet search will provide plenty of facts. But the horror is unimaginable.

Travelling through the Mont Blanc Tunnel.

Happily the safety mechanisms in place now are much improved since 1999. There is a separate escape/service tunnel, and new surveillance technology means the response to an emergency would be much quicker. After paying our toll of 32 euros we were made to wait for five minutes before we entered the tunnel, and our car radio was tuned to a special channel to receive any information or warnings. We were given a leaflet outlining closing times for tunnel safety inspections and emergency drills. All trucks must now stop at a special inspection point before entering the tunnel.
Despite the terrible history of the tunnel I felt quite safe driving through it, and even comfortable compared to the alternative, which is a winding mountain pass.

A weekend Road Trip

2008-10-06T20:59:00.005+02:00

The kids with Nanna and Granddad at our first snow stop.

We hired a 9-seater van to take us all comfortably away for the weekend. Roger was the driver, and did a very good job (we got all the bond money back from the hire company!) We set off on Saturday morning, with our picnic packed and some warm clothes because we could see that new snow had fallen on the mountains overnight. We planned our route to take us into Italy via the tunnel under Mont Blanc (at ~4,808 metres the highest peak in Europe) and then to spend Saturday night at Aosta before returning over the Alps the next day.
Nanna was a bit nervous about going through the eleven-kilometre tunnel, but after experiencing the mountain roads on the way back she thought maybe the tunnel was not that bad. That was before she had heard about the 1999 disaster that claimed dozens of lives in an inferno in the tunnel.
Everyone was excited when we saw the first snow. First we saw snow on cars that were coming down the mountain, and it was a challenge to be the first one to see snow right at the edge of the road. But higher up there was snow everywhere.

Nanna and Granddad preparing their picnic.
Note the trendy picnic basket!

We stopped for lunch at an information bay and once again we were reminded of the lack of public toilets in France. (It is not uncommon to see travellers squatting at the side of the road, or for parents to supervise their children doing their business in gardens or car parks.)

Although the snow was quickly melting, children soon got into the spirit of winter and made a little "bonhomme de neige", even pinching one of the carrots and some cucumber from the picnic to decorate it. Nanna thought that it was too cold for her, and Hugh got very wet in the snow.

Odette with the little snowman that the girls made.

Sophie aiming a snowball...

I guess she hit the target!

School Meetings

2008-09-30T22:48:00.003+02:00

On Friday I went to the last of the three school meetings, one for each school that the kids attend. The first, during the first week of school, was Odette and Hugh's school meeting for the start of the year. The parents met the teachers and cantine staff in the gym room for a general overview of the school, and then went to individual classrooms to meet with the class teachers. I couldn't be at both Hugh's and Odette's classrooms (and no point in sending Roger as he wouldn't understand what was said) so I went to Odette's classroom and had information relayed from Hugh's teacher via other parents. Over the ensuing weeks I have realised that I have probably missed some of the information which would have been useful.
On the second Friday evening of the new school year Sophie's school meeting was held. After the general whole school meeting I went into Sophie's classroom and sat at Sophie's desk, next to the mother of the girl who sits next to Sophie. Each parent sat at the desk of their child, and we learnt interesting things about the curriculum, the organisation of the school day and week, about excursions, teaching methods and resources.
Last Friday was the meeting at Bonnie's school, and it started off outside with parents sitting on the small school chairs in the under-cover area, shivering in the cold evening air. Once inside the classroom the temperature warmed up, and the discussion was mainly about discipline and the behaviour of students. I was sorry to hear that the teacher had resorted to handing out whole-of-class punishment when things get out of hand; but I was pretty sure that it wouldn't be Bonnie who was talking in class. There seemed to be much more emphasis on punishment for bad behaviour than encouragement for good behaviour, although some parents had some good ideas for helping to keep the class under control. I hope that some improvement is made and some of the ideas are implemented which could bring some harmony to the class.

Grandparents Arrive

2008-09-25T22:00:00.006+02:00

Eating at the cantine is not one of the favourite school activities for my girls, so when I booked them in for an extra day this week they were not happy. But in order for both Roger (the driver) and me (the daughter) to go to the airport to pick up my parents it seemed the best solution. Hugh went with us, as two full days at school each week is enough for him - the other two days he goes mornings only. Besides we needed one grandchild to meet the grandparents at the airport.

The children took Nana and Granddad for a walk in the village.

Granddad taking a photo of everyone.

Mum and Dad had spent two nights in Singapore on the way to Lyon via Paris. I expect they will have jet lag for a few days, but hope they will be fine on Saturday night because we have invited some friends for dinner (I made sure I chose some who can speak English well.)
Sophie had organised for some "good" clothes to be left out so that when the girls got home from school they could change into something nice before surprising Nana and Granddad. She felt the sense of occasion, which the arrival of grandparents from so far away brings.

Hugh showed Nana and Granddad the drinking fountain,
and how to use it...

There were plenty of little fun gifts to amuse the children, acquired during the Singapore stop. And some chocolates to have after dinner which had been bought duty free in Paris. And my new Canon G9 was delivered so I now have a camera in my handbag again.

Where Does The Time Go?

2008-09-24T22:12:00.006+02:00

I can't believe it is over a week since I last posted to this blog.
Where does the time go??
Well the first explanation is that for a few nights I slept downstairs with Sophie so that she could be near the bathroom (no stairs in the dark with her crutches). That meant I didn't have my computer begging me to play with it until nearly midnight.
The second is that I have started doing an online course through Education To Go, so I have been spending some of my computer time doing that. It is not very heavy - just a refresher really, as I haven't made any new web pages for a while. For those who are interested, the course is "Introduction to CSS and XHTML". If you don't know what that means you are probably not interested!!
The third is that I bought some new magazines and have been reading stuff on real paper.
The fourth is that my computer's external hard drive is nearly (very nearly) full and I had to buy a new one. I ended up buying one online, in France, and I hope it will be here tomorrow (PLEASE!! So I can download some more photos.) Interestingly after making the online purchase with a French company we had an urgent message from our Australian bank about a security issue with our credit card. They had flagged the purchase as suspicious and wanted it confirmed. They had blocked our credit card until we rang them, in case it was fraudulent. Thank you bank...
The fifth excuse is that my Mum and Dad are coming tomorrow (!) so I have been frantically trying to make it look like my house is spotlessly clean. (Why do I do that?? So I can be a perfect daughter?)
DO you want a sixth?? OK then... let me think. Oh yes... every day this term I have tried to have something ready for the kids to eat when they get home from school, so all except a couple of days I have baked a cake, some biscuits, scones, or pikelets or something in the afternoon so that I can be more like a perfect mother.

The Best Laid Plans...

2008-09-16T21:14:00.007+02:00

Today Roger had organised to help his mate Fred do some building type work. He has already helped him do some concreting and putting some tin on a roof. Today they were doing decking, and rendering a wall. I hope he gets to build a swimming pool and a rock wall, because those are skills that he could really use when he gets back home!

Fred, who does marvellous transformations of house yards.

Roger, rendering a wall.

Hugh had a full day at school and all the kids were having lunch at the school cantine today. So I had a free day and was looking forward to reading some more of the book I started this week (La Rage au Cœur by Ingrid Betancourt), and then going out and taking some photos. First I dropped Hugh at school (it takes ages because he always has to "fait pi-pi" at the tiny little toilettes at school.)

Child-sized toilets at the maternelle (pre-school).

I wanted to take a photo of Hugh, but he was more interested
in me getting a photo of his backpack.

Then I bought a baguette and the local newspaper from the kiosque, before coming home and reading the paper over a cup of coffee. Haaaaa. Relax. That felt good...
Then the phone rang and it was Sophie's school. Sophie had fallen in the playground and hurt her foot. The teacher had put ice on it but she thought I should come and get Sophie and take her to the doctor. So I jumped in the car and found Sophie in tears in the office at school. We went straight to the doctor's surgery, and had a fair wait before we saw the doctor. But there was a nice man who was in the queue in front of us who let us go before him. Maybe Sophie's whimpering had got to him...
The doctor didn't think the ankle was broken, but he booked Sophie in for an x-ray to rule out any fractures. Then it was a trip to the pharmacy to get some crutches and a plastic and velcro cast. We had time to come back to the house for lunch before going to the radiologist for the x-ray. As predicted there was no fracture, but an ultra-sound showed the ligament was partially torn. So I learnt a new French word "une entorse", which means a sprain.

Sophie on her crutches.

We got back about twenty minutes before Hugh and Odette's school finished at 4pm, so we called in to where Roger was working and filled him in on the news. Then it was time to pick up the kids, and that was the end of my day to myself!

Foire de Beaucroissant

2008-09-15T19:03:00.003+02:00

On Sunday we went for an outing to the Foire de Beaucroissant, not far from Grenoble. We missed out on our local Wagin Woolorama in March this year, so this was our agricultural show visit for the year instead. But whereas the Wagin Woolorama has been going for about 25 years, it was the 789th Show at Beaucroissant! If you can read French you can read about its origins here. Otherwise I will just tell you that the fair had its origins when a religious gathering in 1220 drew stallholders who wanted to take advantage of the crowds to sell their wares.
Unfortunately I don't have lots of (actually I don't have any) photos from the day, because I am still without a little camera (but be warned: I have ordered a new camera which will be coming with my parents in a couple of weeks time.) If I ever find out how to download videos from the video camera and put them on the web I would be able to show some hilarious footage of the girls on the sideshow ride called the "Palace of Laughs". I could hardly hold the camera steady as they got caught out by air bullets, moving walkways that changed speed, ladders that moved, rotating tunnels and all manner of tricks.
The fair at Beaucroissant is HUGE, with fifteen kilometres of alleys over forty hectares. There were about 1800 exhibitors of which 250 are agricultural machinery. A quarter of the stands are market stalls (you know the type? Amazing kitchen gadgets, microfibre cleaning cloths, knife sharpeners, orthopaedic pillows, strange looking massage implements, imported clothing, cheap jewellery, handbags, hats...), food stalls 12%, home and leisure 5% and livestock breeders 4%. There are 100 bars and restaurants, and between 800,000 and 1,000,000 visitors were expected over the three days.
Unfortunately the day that we were there was not the day when the cows and horses were there. After reading the above statistics I know why I got lost in the miles of alleys crowded with people. It was hard to find anything "agricultural" without a map.
The agricultural displays were somewhat different from what we see at the Wagin Woolorama, although there were the same sorts of tractors (well, not so big), combines, telehandlers, electric fencing supplies, prefabricated structures and animal feed troughs. Some of the different things are animal water trailers - no permanent water points in many places, so they use a water tanker with water trough attached in the field. A lot of wood handling equipment as firewood is a big industry. Lots of small tractors, trailers and machines for small landholders. Not many merino sheep.
The weather had been atrocious on the first day of the fair, but on Sunday, although cold, it did not rain. However the mud created from the rain the day before was shocking. We looked like we had spent a day on the farm afterwards, with mud up our trousers. Roger also had mud on his shirt because he ended up putting Hugh on his shoulders to get back to the car. This morning I was glad I got up one hour earlier than normal because it took me nearly that long to clean and polish five pairs of shoes/boots (Roger's are still dirty.)

A Change in the Weather

2008-09-15T15:07:00.003+02:00

I knew we were in for a change of weather when I got up one morning last week and saw this view out the window.

The summer seems to be fading fast. We had a lot of rain at the end of last week, and on Sunday it was cold. When we went out we all wore a jumper or a coat. But my toes were cold in my shoes and I wished I had some gloves on when I was pushing the pram and couldn't put my fingers under my arms for warmth. I've heard there is even fresh snow on the Belledonne mountains that we can see across the valley from our house. Actually I can't see them today, which is why I can't confirm the snow report; but on a clear day we have a beautiful view of the mountains.
Do they have Indian summers here? I don't know. But while I don't like the heat I wouldn't mind a few more weeks of being able to wear sandals.

Visit to Versailles

2008-09-13T16:15:00.004+02:00

The second touristy thing we did in Paris was to visit the château de Versailles. Did somebody mention crowds?? We got to Versailles in time for an early lunch in the carpark and here we had some luck, being able to park (at a price) not far from the entrance, but only after much driving in circles. We had already planned our tactics, which was to split up with me going with Sophie and Bonnie to do some serious French history study, and Roger taking Odette and Hugh who have less stamina. But we didn't get to do any of that in the first two hours. That was spent queuing. First we queued to get tickets. It looked like we would be waiting for two hours, but after one and a half hours of people-watching a message through a megaphone called people who wanted to take a guided tour in English. Yes please!! So we swanned up to the front of the queue and were ushered through to the booking booth, where a lady kindly informed me that small children were not welcome on the guided tour and you couldn't even go to the toilet during the 90-minute tour. However, she said we should buy normal tickets, and we went straight through to get them without queuing further. Of course the first thing we needed to do when we got into the Chateau forecourt was to go to the toilet, and here we encountered another queue. SO twenty minutes later we entered into the actual chateau, and wandered around trying to find the right place to get the audio guides that we had paid for. After queuing for ten minutes we had the audioguide and could start our tour. Whew!
I didn't have my camera with me, deciding that it was not the place for a Canon EOS 5D. But I would have appreciated my little G9 if it hadn't been dead. Luckily Bonnie had her camera, so the photos on this post were taken with Bonnie's camera.

Sophie and Bonnie posing in the room next to the King's bed chamber -
we couldn't actually see the bed through the crowd, but the next room was empty.

Crowds pouring through the rooms at Versailles.

Sophie, Bonnie and I didn't look at every room, because there is only so much of a good thing that one can handle at a time. And the crowds and the stuffiness in the rooms were becoming too much for all of us. The gardens beckoned, and we even found an ice-cream down by the lake. I really wanted to see the domain of Marie-Antoinette, and as I had told the girls what a good thing it would be, they did too. But it is quite a way from the Chateau. We found a place to hire some bikes, and we rode on down to the entrance, to be told that we couldn't enter after 6pm. We were about twenty minutes too late. So we had some freshly squeezed orange juice that was being sold nearby, and took the bikes for a bit of a ride around the perimeter before returning them. What we saw made me want to make sure that I get there earlier next time!

Me with my girls at the Chateau de Versailles.

In the same place but looking the other way, over the gardens.

This is when I am glad of mobile phones. I was able to call Roger to find out where he was with Odette and Hugh. It was a beautiful time of the evening, and we would have liked to have spent more time in the gardens. But when the chateau closed so did the toilets. Yes, there are lots of bushes in a garden, but you only use them in a real emergency!

One Day in Paris

2008-09-13T14:37:00.009+02:00

Look! There it is...

Hugh, Roger and Sophie.

Sophie at the Eiffel tower.

The Eiffel tower from the Seine.

We had to take the children to see the Eiffel tower, as before arriving in France it was the one tourist destination that they knew about in France. We were in Paris on the Saturday of the 15 August long weekend. Roger had been assured that Paris is at its quietest in August (all the Parisiens leave town for their August summer vacation) and that parking in the city is free. So we set our trusty TomTom to "The Eiffel Tower" and headed into the city. With a lot of luck we were able to find a park within 500 metres of the tower. We didn't need to resort to the tactics of some others, who had family members (with mobile phones) on foot finding a parking space and guarding it while they contacted their driver on the mobile phone to direct him to the sacred parking spot.
The most remarkable thing about the Eiffel tower was the crowd, with the queues having signposts with expected waiting times at intervals. We didn't want to wait two hours under the Eiffel tower for the privilege of paying a huge sum of money to ascend in a lift and admire the crowds from a higher point (well those in our group aged over 10 didn't want to.) So we went down to the Seine and took a boat ride, whereby we could see many of the sites without tiring out the little ones too much. The loud speakers on the boat were not quite loud enough so we didn't really hear all the details in three different languages.
Now please excuse me for posting so many pictures of our day in Paris...

Paris Landmarks

Eve

2008-09-13T12:21:00.007+02:00

The kids are always happy to visit places with swing sets.

Two little boys, and lots of toys, to play with.

Visiting Olivier's farm was very interesting, as the agriculture is quite different from at home. Their farm is completely cropping, with no stock (although until recently they were breeders of Haflinger horses). The farm is quite large (for France) and so they have large machinery. The self-propelled sprayer was about to be fitted with a GPS navigation system. They share some things with Oliver's brother who farms nearby.
The wheat harvest was completed the week before we arrived, so the wheat was stored in sheds waiting to be trucked out. All their wheat is grown for seed. Other crops include potatoes and sugar beet.

Record keeping is a big job for farmers in France as in Australia.

Sophie examining the wheat seed.

The wheat stored temporarily in a shed.

A locked container...

Inside the container...

Hugh was impressed with the size of the sprayer.

Olivier showing Roger some sugar beet.

Roger with Olivier and his father.

The farmyard, with church spire in the background.

Their farm is on the edge of the small village of Eve, and Olivier was able to show us into the village church. It was very old - dating from the 12th Century - and some of its features are similar to Notre Dame in Paris. It was built just before Notre Dame, and so the features were tested out on this smaller church before being applied to the cathedral. Inside, the age of the building is apparent. It must be hard for a small community to find the money to maintain such a building. But the history is tangible. Statues, stained glass windows, plaques and dedications from throughout the centuries remind us of the passage of time. All of Olivier's ancestors have been baptised, married and farewelled in this church.

The village church at Eve.

Inside, the ceiling shows its age.

Stained glass windows and statue.

I think someone was buried under here...
If you can read it you might find out when.

Olivier

2008-09-13T12:00:00.003+02:00

Olivier and his friend Guillaume went to Australia in November 1996 after first trying to find some work for harvest. One of Guillaume's cousins had been in Jerramungup on an IAEA exchange and that is how Guillaume got our email address from the IAEA handbook. He had sent out emails asking for a job over harvest, but got no takers. We were not able to offer a job to the two French boys who had just finished their studies at Ag college either, but I told them that they would be welcome to visit our farm and once there I was sure they could find some work. So they arrived in November and helped Roger with some sheep work. We took them to Bunbury where they bought their "Bongo van". It was an old tradesman's van, complete with dents and rust, for which they paid $2,000. After a few days in the workshop they had it fitted out ready for a trip around Australia. A few phone calls got them a job picking strawberries out of Mount Barker (WA), which was the first of their three jobs, followed by picking pears in Victoria and then picking bananas in Queensland. They drove the Bongo van around the continent and once back in Perth they sold it for $3,000 (to another French backpacker.) We can only wonder how much further the old van travelled, and whether it is still going.
So now here we were visiting Olivier on his farm in France. He and his girlfriend made us a lovely dinner at his parent's house (his parents were away visiting their newly-born granddaughter.)

Olivier and Pauline served hors d'œuvres on the terrace.

Hugh was happy to find a toy tractor.

The girls were happy to act like Princesses in a house they thought
was like a château.

Paris Bound

2008-09-10T23:21:00.006+02:00

After our short stay in Vendée we headed towards Paris, but we weren't staying in the city. In 2006/07 two French guys had visited our farm and we wanted to catch up with them and visit their farms in France. Olivier lives only 40 kilometres from Paris, so we found a "chambres d'hôtes" (B&B) not too far away from his farm.
When we arrived at the place we were to stay my heart sank. It was in the main street of a village and looked quite bland from outside. But as they say, you can't judge a book by it's cover.

La Kasine at Fleurines

Once inside the automatic gate we found a lovely group of buildings and beautifully decorated rooms. The room upstairs where the girls stayed was particularly cute with its small door which was just the right size for kids (they didn't have to stoop to go through) and low sloping ceiling built under the pitch of the roof. We discovered that the hosts had three girls about the same age as our girls and so they soon found all manner of toys to play with. There was also a dog which reminded me very much of my old dog (Raffin) and Hugh enjoyed playing with her.

Hugh enjoying the toys.

Austuce, the pet dog.

Not only was the accommodation charming but the hosts were very friendly too. Even down to giving me the nit treatment left over from their girls when I discovered nits in Sophie's and Bonnie's hair (first time ever, so it is pretty traumatic!!)

Odette and Sophie in the common room where we could cook our own dinner.

We stayed five nights at La Kasine in Fleurines, and then the girls didn't want to leave. While there we went to a few tourist attractions, as well as visiting Olivier's family farm.

A Dead Camera

2008-09-07T23:14:00.004+02:00

Sophie with my Canon G9... before it stopped working.

Unfortunately this is the day that my small camera died. It just stopped working. Click. One photo... point, frame, no click... nothing. It was just dead, a poor lifeless little black box in my hand. It is a Canon G9, a fantastic camera which I carry with me - in my bag or my pocket - at all times. (Well I did when it was working...). Since my little camera has stopped working I have been limited to my SLR camera (a Canon EOS 5D) which I love dearly, but which is too large to be inconspicuous and which has a nasty habit of bashing my children on the head when I bend down to them. It is more suited to a serious photo shoot or a solitary session in the town or country than as an everyday camera.
I rang the Canon service centre in Chambéry as soon as I returned from holidays and was told that my Australian warranty is not valid in Europe. Then I rang the Australian suppliers who said that Canon in France could honour the warranty if they wanted to. This week I will need to do some more telephone work to see if I can get my camera fixed, or decide if I need to buy a new one. Because whatever happens, I don't want to be left without it.

Visiting the Browns

2008-09-06T00:26:00.008+02:00

Family portrait with Alan and Shirley Brown.

We hadn't done much planning for our summer holiday trip. We knew that we wanted to go to Paris, and to catch up with the "French Boys" whom we had contacted beforehand. But as for dates and other destinations, I preferred to leave it until we were on the road. So it wasn't until the day before that I had rung Mr Brown, my old French teacher, to see if he was home and if we could call in and visit. All we had to do was veer a little to the left on our way to Paris, and we arrived in Sainte Cecile, and found his house out of the village in a nice rural setting.

A beautiful rural setting for the Browns.

Alan and Shirley Brown were only in their twenties (with a 12-month-old baby) when they escorted a group of teenage girls to France in 1982. I was part of the group, as were my two younger sisters. We had stayed in La Roche-sur-Yonne, which is not far from where the Browns live today. Alan had a DVD of the video we had taken on that trip, which was very interesting to watch, especially for my kids. It's hard for them to imagine that their mother was once seventeen!
The Browns live in a small stone house which they have completely renovated. Now they also have a little studio where friends can stay. When we rolled up the kids thought we would be staying in this tiny caravan!

Shirley's caravan.

But no. Next door the cottage is owned by some English people who are friends of the Browns, and they let us stay there. It was a lovely little holiday cottage, which I have portrayed in this collage of images below.

Cottage collage...

Walking in the countryside. Roger is talking to Dave, our sharefarmer
on the mobile phone through Skype.

In the afternoon we took a walk in the countryside and wow, what a field of ryegrass we walked past. For a hayfever sufferer it was not a nice discovery, and the kids and I felt very unpleasant and itchy after that.

The offending field.

La Rentrée

2008-09-05T23:12:00.003+02:00

School went back this week. The girls started on Tuesday morning, and Hugh started on Thursday.
Yes, you heard me right - Hugh started school! He doesn't turn three until December, but he has started in the "petite section" of la maternelle at La Flachere (the same school as Odette). The worry is that he is not sufficiently toilet trained to stay at school, but I rejoiced when he returned home from a whole day at school today wearing the same pants as he wore when he left home this morning.
The children will have lunch at school (la cantine) two days a week, and lunch at home two days a week. How good are you at sums? Two days at cantine, two days at home, and that makes four days altogether. And that is the school week. Four days! No school on Wednesdays for pre-school or primary aged children in France.
We have some transport logistics to work out again, now that there is no school transport at lunch time. Last year Bonnie was able to come home for lunch on the bus, but this year we have to pick her up. With her school in one direction and Odette and Hugh in the other it makes it difficult (nay, impossible) to pick them up at the same time. So we are going to try sharing with another family with the same problem - we'll go to one school, they'll go to the other, and we'll meet back in our village to swap children. Otherwise we could just let the kids eat at school every day. We'll see how it works out...

The Robot

2008-09-04T14:13:00.007+02:00

I have seen cows being milked before. I have even milked a cow when I was younger. But I have NEVER seen it done this way before. Usually the farmer milks the cows in the morning and the evening, and you see all the cows file past with udders at bursting point. The highest tech milking I had seen before was a dairy where the cups were automatically removed from the teats when the milking was finished. But the robotic milking machine was something else.

The robotic milking machine.

Laser technology for positioning the cups on the teats.

A group watching the entertaining miking robot.

The office, overlooking the barn and the cows.
The computer shows in red which cows are past their due milking time.

More high technology behind the scenes.

The first thing I noticed was that it was so small. Instead of a rotary dairy or the herringbone style where a number of cows (maybe up to 100) are milked at one time, the robot milks just one cow at a time. It looked a bit like a space-age cattle crush. And the cows wander in at any time of the night or day to relieve their udders of milk. They wear electronic collars which identify them, and the robot supplies a measured amount of food for them to eat while they are being milked. We saw one greedy cow come in to try to get something to eat while we were there, but she was turned away because she had only recently been milked.
The cows end up being milked on average more than twice a day, and the increase in milk produced is about ten percent. The machine keeps detailed records on every cow, and measures the milk from not just each cow but each quarter (teat). I'm not sure if it is individually tested too, but why not? What a marvellous machine! The farmer only needs to carry out regular cleaning and maintenance, and if the machine has a problem it automatically sends a message to his mobile phone.
Now the farmer and his wife have lots of spare time, no more early morning milking, and plenty of time to show visitors around their new-fangled dairy.
You would have to think that this machine was the best thing ever for a dairy farmer. Apart from the 150,000 euro cheque he had to sign it probably is. I thought it would be a good thing for the cows too, being able to be milked when the udder if full instead of walking in from the field with milk streaming from a bursting udder (believe me I know the feeling!) But Bonnie noticed that the cows live in the yard and the shed permanently, and never go out into the field to eat green grass or sit under the shade of a tree chewing their cud. So that is the downside.
Now I am more interested than ever in an automatic shearing robot. It has been in the pipeline for years, but never successfully perfected.

The Old Farm

2008-09-03T14:05:00.012+02:00

The view from the barn at Annie and Thierry's farm.

Our neighbours Thierry and Annie had invited us to visit their inherited family farm in the Aveyron region, in a little village called Galgan. The original house is 300 years old, and the newer house, built for a farm worker, is 100 years old. There are no 300-year-old houses in Western Autralia. We had a look in the attic and the cellar, and there were old things everywhere. I picked up a book out of a box, and it was printed in 1789. When I leafed through the pages I found some old receipts from 1906 which turned out to be from Thierry's great uncle. My mother would have been in her element looking at all the old stuff.

The date is M DCC LXXXIX. (1789)

The first time Roger had driven a tractor in five months.

Unlike the farms we are used to, many farmyards are actually located in the villages, and the fields may or may not be adjoined to the farmyard. In this case the farmyard is adjacent to the village church, so you can see the church in many of the photos. This place was very different from the village of Sainte Marie d'Alloix where we live, because it is basically a village that revolves around agriculture. There was no route nationale running through it, or freeway within coo-ee, so it was very peaceful.

The old house, which will be magnificent when it is renovated!

The old house is pretty basic - it hasn't been renovated over the years because ever since Thierry's grandfather's time it has been a second home. It has no ablution facilities (that's my way of saying "bathroom!) so the family uses it for extra beds when there are lots of visitors. However Annie and Thierry moved out of the more functional house so that we could sleep there while we stayed. That was pretty nice of them, and I felt a bit guilty sleeping in their big comfy bed, but it was certainly more convenient with the children.

Odette sitting on the windowsill of the house where we stayed.

During our stay we met many of Annie's family. We met her parents and three of her brothers (she has six!) and their families and we went to a barbecue at her youngest brother's house one evening. I loved the family feeling.

Thierry with Annie's brother Didier sitting on the huge fireplace,
where the sausage was cooked for lunch.

Annie preparing the table (with Hugh and Odette blurred).

At the farm there were hens and a vegetable garden, which in Annies's absence is tended by her mother and an old man who lives in the retirement home in the village. Next door, old Jean has a huge garden and hutches of rabbits. The kids had fun collecting the eggs and feeding the rabbits with scraps from the garden.

Feeding the rabbits.

Le vieux Jean.

I hope Annie and Thierry can renovate the farm and create a gîte or a chambre d'hôtes (B&B or guest house) there so that more people can experience this beautiful place.

Les Pompiers

2008-09-02T22:08:00.005+02:00

Today I had to call the "Pompiers", which is the French equivalent of the fire brigade. But they do a lot more than just fight fires. I called them because we had found a wasps' nest in the garage (the second garage which we don't use - it is where Stef has stuff stored). I had asked Stef what we should do about it and he suggested buying a product to spray the wasps. But when I sent the photo showing how huge the nest was he got back straight away and said I should dial "18" for the pompiers. The wasps are called "frelon" and can be dangerous if anyone gets several stings, especially children. With such a big nest it was too risky to tackle ourselves.

The huge "nid de guêpe" in situ in the garage.

The nest was large and very beautiful. It seems a pity to destroy all the work of the wasps - they must have been busy while we were away - but we were advised to destroy it to remove the risk of stings.

The pompier was completely covered with protective overalls, helmet and gloves.

The children were inside trying to get a view of the proceedings.

The pompiers were very friendly, and it is just as well because I took heaps of photos. They have asked for one of the photos that they might be able to use in their annual calendar for 2010.

A close up of a dying wasp.

The spray was a neurotoxin which kills the wasps in ten seconds
After the wasps had been sprayed our neighbour Eric turned up - he said that dead wasps had been raining in his backyard. He brought his little boys to have a look at the fire truck, and they ended up staying for a drink.

The kids posing with a friendly pompier

Eric said I needed to watch my French because I had "tutoyé" one of the pompiers. In French there are two forms of the word "you". "Tu" is used for family, children, friends and close acquaintances, while "vous" is used for strangers, those in authority or as the plural from. Anne said she would never say "tu" to the pompiers, and they joked that I was making a pass at him because I had asked him "As-tu an adresse mail?". I was asking for an email address so that I could email a photo.

Foire Artisanale

2008-09-01T16:55:00.008+02:00

We were lucky that our visit to Champs-sur-Tarentaine coincided with the local Craft Fair and Book Festival. That is why we stayed an extra night and enjoyed a day at the Fair.
Hugh and Odette had pony rides, we bought a little book directly from the author, and he painted a picture and signed it for us in the book. I enjoyed browsing the books and talking to the authors. And we all had a look around the village from a carriage pulled by two beautiful horses.

Odette, Sophie, Bonnie and Hugh watching Daniel Bruges decorate our book.

The detail...

Odette riding on a pony.

Hugh, not so confidant on the pony...

The two horses that pulled the carriage.

The view from the carriage...

Odette dressed up at the lace stand

Sophie with handmade lace in the background.

Bonnie with Solange, the talented lace-maker.

Making bobbin lace looks complicated!

In the evening we went to the community centre for a meal of local fare and entertainment. The centre was packed, and we couldn't even find room at a table outside, so we had to eat on the edge of the road. It was hard to order as we had never heard of any of the names of the dishes. Except we knew we would not order the one that included the word "tripes" (surely that must be the same as in English?)

Roger queuing for dinner

The menu

Tourte de pomme de terre...

Coufidis...

Dancing the night away.

Now the only thing I don't have photos of are the delicious artisanale icecreams!

Camping

2008-09-01T15:55:00.005+02:00

Roger, locating us on the map.

Champs-sur-Tarentaine was where we headed for our first night of holiday. Roger had searched the internet for somewhere that looked interesting between home and our destination of Galgan in the Aveyron region. We set our trusty TomTom GPS to Champs-sur-Tarentaine and headed off. We were somewhat surprised when we found ourselves entering the village of Marcilloles, which is where Sophie's penfriend Mathilde lives. We couldn't go by without stopping to say hello (could we?) - so we made another unannounced visit. We had a drink with Pascale and the girls, and it was just when the opening ceremony for the Olympic Games was starting on the TV.
After the unscheduled stop and the slow start we were pushed for time so we followed the autoroutes as much as possible for the rest of the way.
Arriving at the Municipal camping ground at Champs-sur-Tarentaine after closing time for the shops could have been a problem, but the lovely lady at reception just rang the friendly local butcher and asked if he had anything ready to eat. He had some lasagne, which Roger went and fetched while the kids and I explored the camp a bit. We didn't have any cooking implements, so the manager lady heated it for us in her microwave, and we were set for dinner.

Sophie and Bonnie sharing the chores.

The camping ground was lovely, with hedges separating individual campsites. During the night we were lulled to sleep by the sound of running water because we were camped beside a river. There was a community room where the kids liked to watch a bit of the Olympics in the morning, and where at night there was organised entertainment. The first night was line dancing and the second karaoke I believe, but we were too tired to participate. Opposite our tent there was an expanse of mowed grass big enough for Hugh to kick the football. We could walk into the village, and on the way go past a heated swimming pool, mini-golf, and a playground.
The Marcoux's tent we were using is large enough for the whole family, but next time we won't need such a big tent. During the night everyone seems to move closer to Mum, so that by the morning half the tent is unoccupied!

Bonnie getting the air out of a blow-up pillow.

Sophie demonstrating her more inventive way...

Ready, Set, ... Battery.

2008-09-01T11:59:00.004+02:00

The day of our departure was, as usual, a little chaotic. We had intended to pack the rooftop box the night before, but due to a thunderstorm and rain it didn't happen. Bonnie took her fish Rosie down the road for her friend Salome to look after her during the holidays. Roger packed the rooftop box (you wouldn't see me balancing up there!) and we stuffed everything into the car as best we could.

Roger ready to shut the box.

We kept three seats across the middle and took out one rear seat of the "people mover" so that we could fit as much in as possible. Hugh ended up sitting in the back nearly obscured by a doona.

The kids were in the car early.

The kids had been excited about going on our trip so they were in the car more than an hour before we were ready to go. We had all the doors and the back open, so the interior lights automatically went on.

Waiting for the battery to charge...

I guess that is why, when we were finally ready to leave, the car was not. The battery had gone flat! Luckily Stef is well equipped with a battery charger in the garage, so we didn't have to wait too long before we were finally... On The Road!!

Our Tour de France

2008-08-31T22:58:00.003+02:00

I have made a map, with the places we stayed and the route (approximate) that we took during our summer holiday trip. It gives a bit of an idea of the distance and the different areas that we visited. The blue markers are the places where we stopped.

View Larger Map

It was a lot of travelling, and some days were better than others, but overall a very happy trip with lots of interesting things and friendly people. Thanks to all those friends who hosted us. We hope we can return the favour one day when you visit Australia.

A Mountain Picnic

2008-08-31T09:03:00.010+02:00

Yesterday we had a lovely day with Georges and Gaby, our French "grandparents". We drove up to the Alp d'Huez and continued up to a lake where we could have a picnic on the grass near the edge of the lake which was like carpet. The weather was perfect - clear and warm. It would have been hot down in our valley so it was a good day to go up into the mountains to escape the heat.
The mountain views are spectacular, so I had difficulty choosing just a few photos to put on the blog.
We had our traditional picnic fare of egg-and-bacon pie and salad, tarte aux pommes (apple tart), with orange juice and Perrier water.

Lakeside picnic

There was plenty of fishing activity around the lake (permit required), but we didn't actually see anyone reel in a fish. Schools of tiny little fish at the edge of the lake was the closest we got to the beautiful rainbow trout that were pictured on the fishing information signs. We paddled in the water, although one little boy did more paddling than the rest of us and ended up with very wet jeans. With the jeans removed he spent the rest of the day in just a nappy. [Don't get me started on this one! Yes he is still wearing nappies. Yes school starts in three days time. Yes he has to be toilet-trained in order to start school. Any miracle toilet training fairies out there?]

Hugh with Gaby, before the jeans got too wet.

After the picnic we walked around the lake, and saw the two other lakes nearby. The scenery was absolutely amazing, and there were plenty of other people (and their dogs) walking, or riding mountain bikes, but I'm surprised there weren't more people around. Maybe most people like to go to the beach, rather than the mountains, for summer holidays. But I loved it with the walking opportunities, and with all the hotels in Alpe d'Huez I reckon it would be a good choice as a summer honeymoon destination. (Only problem is if I wanted another honeymoon I would need another husband, and I think one is enough!)
On the way home we stopped at the Refuge de Sarenne and had a drink.

Roger and a lot of empty glasses. I love the slab of rock for the table.

We were able to climb a small hill across the road to get a good view of the valley and a glacier on the opposite mountain. We also met a group of Swiss motorcyclists, one of whom kindly let our moto-mad Hugh sit on his big bike!

Hugh - M. Moto!

We're Back

2008-08-27T20:46:00.004+02:00

We're back from our road trip around France. We travelled 3,500kms (Roger did all the driving) and I am thinking of doing a map to show you where we went. Maybe I'll get around to it, but the holiday mode is hard to shake.
We were welcomed by plenty of friends, both old and new, along the way. At every stop we wished we could stay longer.
I will have some busy times in the next week trying to cover all of the things we saw and did. And thousands of photos to sort and resize for the blog.

Can you guess one of the places we visited?

On The Road

2008-08-14T11:52:00.002+02:00

We have travelled quite a few kilometres since my last post.
Now we find ourselves at Sainte Cecile, with Alan and Shirley Brown. Alan was my high school French teacher, and for some of the time I was the only student. He was the teacher who organised the school trip when I first came to France in 1982, and has lived here permanently for over 20 years.
Last night we had a bit of video entertainment when he showed snippets of the video taken back in 1982.
We are going to stay here one more night before heading to Paris.

I will be back in touch when I have internet access again...

A Stitch in Time

2008-08-07T15:29:00.005+02:00

We are packing to go away on our holiday, but we won't leave today. This morning Bonnie had a huge tantrum, and then went to sleep on my bed. When she woke up, somehow she knocked a glass lamp off the shelf above the bed. It landed on her head and caused me to panic. There was lots of blood and I freaked out. But Roger, always calm and a trained ambulance officer, took it in his stride and tried to tell me it was not serious. There is always a lot of blood when you cut your head.
Anyway I insisted on taking Bonnie to the doctor, and Bonnie now has one stitch in her head.
Unfortunately she won't let me take a photo of it to put on the blog!

Coffre de Toit

2008-08-06T16:04:00.006+02:00

Roger's job yesterday afternoon was to mount this box onto the roof of the car. We will need all the space we can get when we set off on our holiday tomorrow (if we're ready by then!)
We are going to take tents and sleeping bags and picnic gear, as we are not really sure what the next two weeks will bring. Our plans are to go first to visit people in the region of Toulouse, and then head towards Paris.
Hugh started to "help" Roger, but he didn't last long...

Hugh, fast asleep on the ground, with his Blue Bear as a pillow.

When I got back from the château visit this is where I found him, just outside the garage door.

Local Château

2008-08-06T15:18:00.007+02:00

Odette and Sophie at the Château du Touvet.

The Château du Touvet.

Yesterday afternoon I took Sophie and Odette to visit the Château du Touvet, which is only a few kilometres from Saint Marie d'Alloix. During Sophie's last week of school she had walked there with her class for a school excursion, so it is not far at all, even though it is in the next village.
The gardens gave me plenty of ideas for upgrading when I get home... If only there was a mountain stream to supply the water. The water features are the highlight of the garden, and the sound of running water was ever present in the garden.

The magnificent stairway waterfall in the garden.

And the tour inside gave me an idea of how much work and expense there is in maintaining an old château like this, although only some of the rooms on the ground floor where included in the guided tour. The family who live there obviously have their private rooms on the upper floors. The guided tour was very informative, and with only one other couple there at the same time as us it was easy to ask questions. If you want to find out more about the chateau you can look at their website.

Other People's Things

2008-08-06T00:04:00.005+02:00

Doing a home exchange means that we are living in someone else's house for the year. Having said that, it has always felt like our home. But when something goes wrong, it is always worse than when it happens in your own place.
Every time I see a chip in some crockery I wonder if it was there before, or if we have done it. Ditto with stains on the sofa, scratches on the wall, and marks on the furniture. What if it is a family heirloom, or part of a matching set that is irreplaceable? Like this plate that said "W.H.Grindley, Staffordshire England" on the bottom. At least when it has IKEA written on the bottom I don't feel so bad.

Can you guess who the culprit was this time?

Inflatable Pool

2008-08-05T14:30:00.002+02:00

Bonnie holding Hugh in the inflatable pool.

During a bout of hot weather we decided to buy a paddling pool. I wanted one that was big enough for all of us to get in at once, so chose this one. Unfortunately it is quite deep for Hugh, so we don't fill it very full. It is certainly very refreshing to have a dip on a hot afternoon like today.

Success

2008-08-05T14:21:00.003+02:00

The office at the Mairie.

This morning Roger had to go down to the local Mairie, and use this office for his supervised exam (Isabel is on holiday - isn't everyone - so she wasn't there to keep him company). The exam was a multiple choice exam online, so he got his results straight away, which is good for the nerves.
And although he got a few wrong, he made 94%, which was fantastic. But he won't be doing any more study while we are in France. He said I can do some next, so I'll be searching online for an interesting course...

Study

2008-08-04T11:55:00.004+02:00

Roger studying. And eating, and drinking...

Roger has been fitting in some study whenever he can. It's a bit hard to get a good solid session in during school holidays, but his exam is tomorrow, so he is doing what he can.
He is studying the "Diploma of Financial Services (Financial Planning)" by distance education through a company called Kaplan. This is the first unit he has been doing while we are in France, and I don't know if he would be able to manage another unit while he is working on the farm in Australia. Anyway, we'll see if he passes his exam tomorrow before we worry about doing another unit!

Colour Management

2008-08-04T00:28:00.003+02:00

I have downloaded the new version of my favourite computer program, PhotoShopCS3. And also a trial version of Adobe Lightroom (wow!) which is keeping me busy.
But what has happened to my colour management?? As usual an upgrade takes some getting used to, but it looks like I need to do some learning too, as all my photos look great in Lightroom but go a bit murky when printed or posted on the web. I'll have to look into colour profiles and see what's going on...
So in the previous posts the people weren't sick, the photos just make them look a bit off colour!

Does Bonnie look a bit better here?
Compared to the last time...

Sisters in France

2008-08-04T00:24:00.004+02:00

Check out the new blog that Sophie and Bonnie have made.
Bonnie was very keen to put her photos on my blog, but we decided that it would be better if she had her own.
Sophie has been doing the typing, and she has been very productive with the posts for the first two days - puts me to shame!
Jump to www.frenchsisters08.blogspot.com to have a look at their version of events.
And while you are there, add a comment to let them know that you have had a look.
(Please!)

Happy Birthday Bonnie

2008-08-04T00:10:00.002+02:00

Lots of colouring here...

Bonnie had her 8th birthday yesterday. This is one of the presents we gave her, so we should be seeing some brightly coloured artworks being produced.
I made a chocolate cake for her birthday cake, and as you can see it went down pretty well.

Yum!

Homemade Pasta

2008-08-03T23:42:00.005+02:00

This afternoon we were invited to our neighbours' place for lunch. We called it "Chez Torelli".

Eric: chef extraordinaire!

Eric and Ann are child-free for a week or so, with each of their two boys (the same age as Odette and Hugh) going to a different grandmother for a holiday. Roger thinks it's a pity that we haven't got four grandmothers in France!!
Eric made us some green pasta, from his grandmother's secret recipe (oh yes, the secret is eggs, flour and a little bit of oil, with boiled silverbeet). His grandmother, who passed away last month, was born in Italy, and she taught Eric Italian cooking,and to speak Italian. While we were there his Italian cousin phoned and he chatted away in Italian, then returned to talk to us in English, although his first language is French. I wish I was multilingual...
Eric let Sophie and Bonnie help with making the pasta. That was lots of fun, and we learnt a lot about the process. It was also a good photo opportunity...

Bonnie rolling out pasta

Team work in the kitchen

Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me, as I had left it to download the photos I'd taken this morning. Luckily Bonnie had her camera there - she is keen to take photos now she has her own blog!

The moment we've been waiting for!

Can you tell Hugh enjoyed his pasta?

Thanks Eric and Anne for a nice long relaxed and delicious lunch.

Kapla Block Tower

2008-07-31T13:14:00.007+02:00

This was meant to be an animated image, but something went wrong with the upload. I'll have to try again...

Dreaming of Cordless

2008-07-30T14:04:00.003+02:00

Laptop, external hard drives, and cables, cables, cables...

One day we will probably look back on all these cables and laugh. But until the invention of truly cordless technology I will have to put up with the tangles and the mess. Here is my laptop which I have had to bring down to the dining table because the spot where I usually sit, at the desk in my bedroom, is too hot today. There is air-conditioning in the living room only, and as I walk up the stairs, with each step, I feel the heat increasing. We are lucky that we have had a few weeks of cool weather, but it has warmed up again now.
After all, it is summer!

Return Tickets

2008-07-30T10:01:00.001+02:00

We have booked our return flights for 17 January. Arriving in Perth at 2am on Monday 19 January.

Cave Bears

2008-07-28T11:39:00.004+02:00

Touching cave bear bones (cast in resin from originals)

Annemarie at the Museum

As a holiday outing some of us went to the "Musée de l'Ours des Cavernes" - the museum of the cave bears.
I stayed home with Hugh and Odette.
And apparently I didn't miss out on too much, as anything the others learnt at the museum I could have learnt from the website. All the bones on display are made of resin, and the "cave" is a fake rock substitute inside some sort of shed structure. Maybe the fact that the others didn't read French very well didn't improve their experience.
The whole story of how the museum came about is fascinating as it was only quite recently (as history goes) that the massive cavern full of ancient bones was found by speleologists. The mountains around here are made of limestone, and consequently there are hundreds of caves.
In fact there are caves that run from one mountain range right under the valley and surface in the other mountain range sixty kilometres away. Of course they are not traversable, but many of the more accessible ones are open to the public.

Camping Out

2008-07-28T11:11:00.003+02:00

The tent on the lawn

A midnight snack (at about 10:50pm)

Annemarie left yesterday afternoon, but I still have some photos to post from her stay.
The kids decided to have a camp-out in the garden, and got out the Marcouxs tent. It was a good practise for our summer holiday, and I'm glad we weren't trying to put up the tent for the first time in the dark. I'm all for one of the 2-minute tents now...
It took a long time to erect, but the tent is big enough for the whole family to sleep in. The first night Annemarie and Sophie and Bonnie slept in the tent, and then the next night Roger and I slept there with all four kids. The thing we haven't found yet is any mattresses...

A Fish Called Rosie

2008-07-28T10:57:00.005+02:00

Bonnie looking at Rosie the goldfish

Bonnie not only had a surprise early birthday cake, but she also had a surprise early birthday present last week.
The little goldfish and goldfish bowl are sitting on the cupboard near her bed. Rosie looks quite healthy now, but the second evening when we got home she was not looking so good. She was swimming on her side and upside down and appeared to be sick. Thank goodness for the internet and a quick Google search for "sick goldfish swimming on side" which lead me to learn about goldfish swim bladders and food impaction. The solution was to feed her a green pea. We had a tin of peas in the kitchen, so it was easy enough to crush one up and put it in the bowl, and again the next day. And it worked!
Now we just have to keep Hugh from putting foreign objects into the bowl, and remember not to plug in the mosquito protector. And maybe find someone to look after her while we are away in August...

Happy birthday Bonnie (I hope you didn't want a toothbrush!)

SURPRISE!!

2008-07-27T14:36:00.005+02:00

Happy Birthday Roger!!

Roger's birthday was on Wednesday, but it was a pretty low-key affair. He always says he doesn't want a present because he has everything he needs, so the kids gave him a new toothbrush (because he did need one of those), which was made into a parachuter tied onto a plastic shopping-bag parachute. He had to go outside, while the kids went upstairs on the balcony to throw it off, so he could see it sail down.
Without Roger knowing, we organised for a few friends to come over on Saturday evening for a surprise party. The kids organised a little concert, which didn't arouse suspicion as they often do little concerts, and this one was to be for Annemarie's last night with us. He did think they were going overboard making so many programs and having so many chairs, but they got away with that. He was also surprised to see Bonnie tidying up the living room, saying that he had never seen that happen before!
When the guests arrived he was trying to fix a roller shutter that has stopped rolling (in the down position unfortunately.) It really was a surprise!!
Bonnie had done well to keep the secret from Dad, and everyone else did well to keep a secret from Bonnie: we surprised her with a birthday cake too, as her birthday is next Saturday!

Bonnie's cake, with a few spaces
where some Smarties were within Hugh's reach.

For the catering, Sophie and Annemarie had been shopping with me during the week and had hidden the chips and drinks in Annemarie's room (hey, I just remembered - what happened to the balloons?) The guests brought drinks, and Caroline (neighbour) had kindly made two chocolate cakes for the birthday cakes (if I'd tried to make a cake at home and not let the kids eat it as soon as it came out of the oven that would be suspicious!)
I had made a lasagne for our family dinner, and had some spaghetti and pasta ready to cook up with a couple of quick sauces (one with ham and cheese, the other seafood and tomato.) What is easier than pasta when you need to cook for a crowd in a hurry? I don't think I would have chosen pasta if I'd realised that two of the guest were Italian by background (the names Torelli and Miscioscia should have given me a hint...) but they graciously said that my lasagne was edible.
So we had a lovely little party - and Roger didn't have to stress out beforehand because the house wasn't tidy, there wasn't enough food, or the kids weren't ready.

Faux Amis

2008-07-25T08:43:00.005+02:00

There are lots of words in French that are the same as, or very similar to, English words. You just have to say it with a French accent and you've got it. Words like address, finance, expression, place, fracture, helicopter, village, and tunnel all work like that. But you have to be careful because there are some words that sound the same but have quite a different meaning. These are called false friends or, in French, "faux amis". Occasion is one of these, which means "second-hand" or "rented" in French.
I discovered another faux ami when I was eating a friend's delicious tiramisu recently. I tried to say that home-made is nicer than shop-bought because it doesn't taste like preservatives. I tried the easy way out by saying preservative with a French accent. But by the look on their faces I knew I had made a big mistake. See if you can work out just how big by looking at the clues in the photo below...

A vending machine outside a pharmacy

P.S.
I think the French word I should have used is "conservateurs", but if you try it on Yahoo Babelfish translation service, you will find it makes the same mistake!

Le Tour de France

2008-07-24T22:39:00.008+02:00

Our view of the cyclists

The Tour de France! The most well-known cycling event in the world. And today we went to be a part of it - well not the race, but the crowd. We spent an hour or so last night on the computer looking at the course details and trying to find a place where we would be able to get a good view of the cyclists. The Google Maps "street view" function was helpful and very interesting. We decided that the climb out of Tullins would be the best, closest spot for us.
This morning we tried to get a fairly early start, at about 8am. We knew we would have to be early to get a really good spot (lots of campervans stay overnight to ensure a good spot), and that the road is closed several hours before the cyclists go through.
We ended up on the roadside at about the 75km mark. There wasn't much room on the roadside, and the hill dropped away quite steeply, so there was no flat space to set up the picnic table we had taken along. The crowd soon built up so that by the time the pre-race "caravane" went through the road was fairly well lined on both sides. The caravane is like a street parade made up of sponsors' floats and support vehicles. About 200 vehicles pass by in about 45 minutes, and they hand out little promotional items like caps, hats, pens, keyrings, sweets, bags, and on and on. The best little thing I got was a cloth for cleaning glasses/lenses from the official opticians of the tour. Sophie's favourite was the water bottle like Cadel Evans has, which came from the team support car during the race (they saw our Australian flag). But we got nowhere near as much stuff as fellow bloggers "French for a while" got when they went! Click Here to see how lucky they got...

C'mon Aussies!

We took our Australian flag to wave, so I hope the Aussie cyclists saw it and appreciated the support. They didn't have much time to look, because they sped by pretty quickly, even though they were going up hill.

The first cyclist we saw was Carlos Barredo

Then came these two - Burghardt on the right was the stage winner

And then the Pelleton...

All of a sudden what we had come for was over!
But I took hundreds of photos - mostly of the caravane - and here are a few of them.

A giant yellow cyclist!

This is the easy way to do it!!

Hot chocolate on wheels!

La Vache qui Rit...

Horse racing...

Reaching out for goodies...

Reading the newspaper...

Lollies... (please)

Princess Odette

2008-07-23T23:29:00.005+02:00

Princess Odette at Annecy

Odette has been acting the Princess lately. She's even had the paparazzi following her around (Sophie and Bonnie with cameras). You may have noticed the gear she's been wearing, and she has a lady in waiting (Sophie) who prepares her for each outing. She is right into fashion accessories like scarves, hats and jewellery. I managed to snap a gorgeous picture of Princess Odette yesterday, just seconds before Hugh tackled her to the ground.

Tackled! Knocked off her pedestal by Hugh.

Annecy

2008-07-23T21:05:00.006+02:00

The canal and the Old Town of Annecy, with pedestrian streets
lined with cafes and ice-cream shops - none of which we entered.

What a romantic location...

We had heard so many great things about Annecy, and it is one town we knew we wanted to visit before we ever came to France. The long awaited day arrived yesterday, and it was only afterwards that I realised that those people who waxed lyrical about wandering through the streets of the old town, or strolling along the shore of the lake, had not done it with four little kids in tow.
So Annecy remains on my list, as one of the places I would like to visit one day "sans enfants".

The Annecy we visited was very much geared towards tourism. Boat rides on the lake, boats for hire, restaurant boats, peddle boats, have your portrait painted, rides for kids and that sort of thing. Also lots of cafes, restaurants, souvenir shops. But the huge grassed area was great for kids to run and play, for picnics, and no doubt for the festival that will be held there on 2 August. There were already big tiered seating things being put together ready for it, and I have heard that the fireworks show is something to see.

We did as good tourists do and took a boat ride on the lake. It was a little windy, and the lake a little choppy, so we had a few splashes of spray, especially once we headed back in. But it looks like the camera handled it :) The kids enjoyed racing the "horsies" which are little pedal horses with sulkies.
Here are some happy-smiley pictures of the day.

Riding the horsies...

Absolutely D-E-L-I-C-IOUS icecream

The best French playground we have seen so far

Sophie at the wheel

Bonnie cruising on the lake

Meeting Penny

2008-07-23T19:00:00.007+02:00

The Telfers with "Soupe du Jour" Penny (holding Jasper) and Lily (in front)

Yesterday we went to Annecy for a day trip, and we met Penny, whose blog I link to at "Soupe du Jour" . (She beat me to blog about our meeting HERE.) Penny comes from Australia too, so I enjoyed listening to the Aussie accent and chatting in a way that I can't in French. I am very impressed by how well her little girl Lily can speak French. They have been here for just over a year and she sounds French already.
We arranged to meet them in the park for a picnic, and the kids didn't take long to start playing together.

The picnic

Odette and Lily push their little brothers, Hugh and Jasper, on the swings
watched by Bonnie.

The climbing tree

Lily, with her local knowledge could show our kids cool spots like this tree that is great for climbing. In fact the wood is shiny in parts where so many little feet have been climbing it over the years.

We have "met" several families through the world of blog, but this is the first time we have met any of them face-to-face. I love the internet for putting me in touch with so many lovely new friends.

Le Dent de Crolle

2008-07-21T21:32:00.004+02:00

On Friday 27^th June Roger accompanied two of his friends from the village (Stephane and Frédéric) to climb to the top of the Dent de Crolle, which is a 2060 metre mountain (nearly as high as Australia’s highest mountain) about 10kms from Sainte Marie d’Alloix. Roger wrote a little bit about the walk, and the rest is in photos (all photos thanks to Frédéric Fasola).

A 6am pickup meant that by 7am we were well and truly on our way up the steep grassed east face of the mountain. Sheep were grazing the slopes and the farmer/shepherd was out early shifting the sheep with his dog. After approximately two-and-a-half to three hours we reached the large cross that marks the summit. When the intermittent cloud gave way we had spectacular views of Grenoble and the villages up the valley towards Chambery. In French style a bottle of white wine was enjoyed at the summit, sitting under the cross. We enjoyed a picnic on the plateau before descending down through the rocky shale. It was a great walk. Thanks to Frédéricand Stephane for taking me along and enlightening me with their local knowledge.

Standing at the large cross which denotes the summit of le dent de Crolle

At higher altitudes they found some snow remaining

The entrance to a cave

A mountain view

A bottle of wine at the summit (always a bottle of wine!)

Wedged in a crevasse...

Taking a break

A rope is installed in difficult sections

Photography Project

2008-07-21T16:47:00.005+02:00

While I have been brooding here with a sore throat and a runny nose, I have been giving a lot of thought to the photography project on which I am about to embark. I am going to put together a collection of photos of the village of Sainte Marie d'Alloix, to make into a little book, like the one I make each year for our family (click here to see a preview of for our last year's album.)
I had been thinking about a theme for the book I wanted to make, and I had shown some people our little book of "The Telfers at Warragal Park 2007", when I was approached by a lady who said she had a proposition for me.
Apparently some people on "la commission culture " (the cultural committee of the council) had been considering a project of photographing the families of Ste Marie d'Alloix. They invited me to their meeting, and I have agreed to supply some photos for an exhibition early next year. They were already organising an exhibition of old photos - they have a collection of photos scanned onto a DVD covering the last 100 years - along with a video project where some of the teenagers are interviewing old people in the village about what life was like in the past. My photos will document the village today, and will provide a comparison of then and now. And I have some areas to cover for the book; being the landscape, the buildings, the people and the events of 2008.
I would really like to photograph people doing things, and my first subject might be the taxidermist. Then the man with his house full of model aeroplanes, then the karate champion...
But I also want to photograph the everyday activities - buying a loaf of bread at the kiosque, kids in the playground, catching the bus, having a family lunch, mowing the lawn, walking the dog...
SO if you live and Ste Marie d'Alloix and wouldn't mind me invading your privacy to take some photos, please let me know. And I hope I will have an "autorisation d'utilisation de photographies", also known as a model release, for you to sign so that I can publish the photos without fear of being sued under French copyright laws!

I have also been working on a series of photos taken at the basketball court. Above are two of them.

Holiday Mode

2008-07-21T16:23:00.003+02:00

Blogging hasn't been the first thing on my mind lately, with school holidays in full swing.
In fact I have been very lazy. We have got into the habit of staying up late at night and sleeping in late in the morning. Breakfast at 10:00am is not unusual. I haven't been out with my camera at all, as it is not really very much fun with four kids bumping your elbow and trying to put their fingers on the lens. Probably the most interesting photo I have taken in the last three weeks (besides the fireworks) was this moth on the bathroom window!

A moth on the bathroom window

Am I boring, or what?

The fact that I have been stuffed up with a cold, along with most of the rest of the household, has not helped me feel like getting out and about much.
I am hoping that these last two weeks have been an incubation period for the rest of the holidays. Maybe we'll spread our wings and fly once we are all well and healthy again.

French Copyright Laws

2008-07-14T23:18:00.003+02:00

In France, it is forbidden to publish a photo of a person on the internet without having signed permission from the person - or in the case of a child, signed permission from both parents or legal guardians.
I'm not sure if it is OK to publish someone's picture if their face is blurred out and covered with a black circle, but that's what I did on the last post. Does anyone recognise him??

I have been searching the internet for information on French copyright laws, and in particular a model release in French (for use when photographing a person). And it seems the laws are quite different from in Australia, and perhaps not all that good for photographers. I'm going to need a model release for taking photos of people soon, in the village, but I'll tell you about that next time.

Unicycle

2008-07-14T23:09:00.005+02:00

If you ask me its hard enough riding a bike with two wheels. But this young fellow had fun with only one wheel, which brought lots of kids out to watch his antics in Sainte Marie d'Alloix last month.

Annemarie

2008-07-14T00:04:00.002+02:00

Annemarie, after being a model for the kids playing hairstylists.

Annemarie was our nanny at the farm when Hugh was born, two and a half years ago. She has come from Germany to visit us in the summer holidays, and the girls are very excited. Hugh of course doesn't remember her, but I have never seen him show off like he did when she arrived on Saturday.

Feu d'Artifice

2008-07-13T23:51:00.003+02:00

Fireworks

We had some of the best seats for the fireworks across the valley at Le Cheylas tonight. I don't know what other entertainment they had, or what it was for (14 juillet?) but we were drawn out to the balcony by the loud bangs. The kids downstairs were actually scared when they heard the noise, and thought it was someone banging on the door! Once they realised what it was and came upstairs they enjoyed the spectacle, although it was well after bedtime.
I have done some PhotoShop work to show three frames together, so it looks really spectacular in the photo below.

Three frames in one: spectacular!