Water Pistols

Four girls in a bath

Bonnie's friend Fanny came for a sleep-over last night. The girls stayed up VERY late, but as there is no school today we didn't mind. Then this morning they got into a gun-fight with some boys in the street. The boys are a year or two older and their weapons were superior. Their tactics were more sophisticated too. When they took Fanny hostage and demanded that she squirt the other girls or she would get hurt it was time to call in reinforcements. So Mum was called out of the shower and marched down the road wrapped in a towel to rescue the hostage and repatriate the water-soaked girls to a warm bath.
No-one had the camera out to catch me in my towel (it scared the boys off though), but I got it out to take a snap of the girls in the bath.

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Fun for the Kids

After a day of touring the kids were happy to be back to their temporary home. As a treat for being so well behaved I took them to the fun part of the holiday park while Roger cooked dinner. Our kids wouldn't get to see this type of thing more than once in a year back home, but it was the second time in two weeks that they got a ride. What lucky children!

Hugh on a pink motor scooter on the carousel

The kids, with their friend Luca, on the bouncy castle

Bonnie - the closest she has come to riding a pony in France...

Aussie Rules

We brought a football to France with us. Sophie is very keen to teach the French kids how to play Australian football, but usually they think it is a rugby ball. The Viennet family got the hang of kicking and marking pretty easily, and Stephan has a pretty good boot on him. (I don't suppose that will translate very well for those using the Babel Fish translation service.)

We stopped for lunch near the river at a pretty village called Pesmes on the river Ognon (yes it means onion). Annick had packed a substantial lunch of bread, cheese, ham, juice, wine, yoghurt, and fruit. It was quite chilly in the wind but once everyone started to play football they warmed up. As you can see in the photos most have shed their thick jackets.

We were already in the Australian spirit playing footy, so why was I surprised when I saw an emu?? Yes, a real emu, walking back and forth trying to get out of its little pen, in the village of Pesmes. Apparently there is an emu farm somewhere near the Grenoble airport too.

Circus Training

Bonnie went to her first day of circus training today, just to see if she liked it. And do you know what? She LOVED it! The worst thing is that we now have school holidays and then the next two Thursdays are holidays so she has to wait until the 15th of May to have her next session.
Today she tried out heaps of things including balancing on a ball, tightrope walking, juggling, rolla bolla (balancing on a board balancing on a cylinder) and fun wheels - the cycle thing that has pedals like platforms and two wheels on the outside.
Here are some pictures to show some of the things she did:

Le Cirque

This afternoon we went to the circus "le Nouveau Cirque Triomphe" at Pontcharra, which is 7kms from Sainte Marie d'Alloix. Of course the lions (lionesses actually) came out first and we didn't get off to a good start when one of them sat dutifully on the platform in front of us - and did a poo. Sophie didn't like the smell of that too much...
Hugh sat on my lap for the lions, but joined his sisters in the front row for the rest of the show. He liked the animals, and there were plenty of them - apart from the dog that performed with the lions there were horses, snakes, a camel, llama, and donkey. All the usual circus tricks were there with juggling, balancing, hula hoops, and an aerial hoop with a pretty girl dangling. Probably the part we enjoyed the most was the clown. And maybe that was because he didn't speak, but used a whistle to communicate. He chose two people from the audience to act out his commands which made it even funnier. All the usual circus talk was unintelligible for us, although I now know how long the pythons live for, which temperatures they favour, and how often they shed their skins.

Les Bougies Magiques

Today was Sophie's 10th birthday so I made a cake and decorated it with ready-made icing decorations. It looked very pretty. Then when the girls came home at lunch time they put the candles on it. I looked at the packet which said "Bougies Magiques" which means "Magic Candles". I did momentarily wonder at the name, thinking that it gave the candles an air of mystery, but I didn't read the small print on the back of the packet.
So it wasn't until Sophie blew the candles out that we found out what "Magic Candles" actually are... They are candles that magically light again when you blow them out!! That is why there is so much smoke in the photo. We ended up having to dip them in a cup of water to make sure they were properly extinguished, but gee it was fun. With little kids you usually have to light the candles several times so that everyone gets a turn at blowing them out. But magic candles save you the trouble, by lighting themselves!