First Aussie Visitor

Our Australian visitor, Monsieur Jeff.

We had our first Australian visitor this week. Jeff Conrades, from near Bunbury, graced us with his presence from Tuesday until Sunday. He had been travelling through Ireland and western areas of the UK, and then spent some time with friends in Holland before coming to France. During his time in Ireland and the UK he travelled by bicycle, doing about 1,400kms in the five or six weeks that he was there; so needless to say he was pretty fit and trim by the time he arrived at our place.
Jeff marvelled at the mountain views, and we took him for a drive up to where there are some ski stations. Of course there is no snow now, but instead there were cows, spending their summer in the "alpages". He was absolutely astounded by the mountains, the roads, the snow (only high on the peaks at this time of year), the villages, and on and on and on. So is that what we were like when we first got here?? Everything was new and fascinating but now we just take the mountains, and all that they entail, in our stride.

Mummy or Mamie

Hugh with his Mummy, not Mamie

The French word for "Mummy" is "Mamie". When my kids are calling "Mummy" with their Australian accents it sounds extremely like the French Mamie.
Of course I have been mistaken for the kids' grandmother before, after all I am old enough to be their grandmother...
But at least in France strangers could be excused for the mistake.
Hugh is now quite good at saying "Maman" (mummy in French) so it should now be clear that I am his mother.

Le Chapeau

Odette modeling my new hat

French women don't seem to wear hats. Or at least if they do I don't know where they buy them from. I have seen a few basic straw hats in a couple of shops, but not the beautiful kind of hat that I was looking for. I love wearing hats, for both winter and summer, and you'll see that I am wearing one in my profile photo.
When I came to France in winter I didn't want to bring a summer hat, and thought that if I didn't bring one it would give me the chance to buy a very chic French hat. (Any excuse to buy a hat!!) Maybe I haven't looked in the right shops (OK, I haven't been to Paris yet), but even an internet search proved pretty fruitless.
I ended up buying a hat off e-bay. And it is exactly the same as one I had in Australia a couple of summers ago, but a different colour.
So much for French Chic...

Not Suitable For Children??

A neighbour told me he tried to look at my blog, but was blocked by the parental control on his internet browser. He had to turn off the security feature so he could look at the blog.
What have I said that would be picked up by a net nanny?
Has anyone else had a problem with this??
Would it have anything to do that with the fact that he is browsing in French? Does the parental control work across languages?
Who knows?

Bon Fête Papa!

Today was Fathers' Day in France.

I hope your kids were much better behaved than ours were. I don't think they could have been more awful if they had tried.

I guess that's what you get after such a big day yesterday...

Air Strike

Some of the planes in the sky today...

Aeroplanes filled the sky near Sainte Marie d'Alloix today.
And I got shots of some of the pilots, below.

It was a remote-controlled aeroplane competition, with competitors from far and wide descending on our little village. We have often seen the club holding meetings, but have never ventured too close before. This time we were treated to a real spectacle, as we were there at the end of the day when the trickiest sections are flown. It was the "limbo" where competitors get five minutes in which to fly, and they have to swoop under a line which seemed to be strung about 3 to 4 metres off the ground as many times as possible. This lead to quite a few crashes near the limbo line, and probably less than half of the planes in each heat actually flew for the full five minutes.
In a couple of weeks the local club is holding an open day to give kids a chance to fly a plane. Roger is planning to be a kid for the day!!

Losing Odette

After a fun day at Walibi everyone was very tired. We headed back to our bus, but on the way stopped to see a show with the larger-than-life Walibi and several of his creature friends performing for children on a stage. We just caught the end of the show (but we'd missed the sea-lion show completely) and it was already past 4pm, which was our rendez-vous time. Odette and Bonnie wanted to go and see the creatures, but I said that we had better go as we didn't want to hold up the departure of the bus and besides, there were so many little kids in there they wouldn't be able to get near to any of them. Then someone else remembered they had forgotten their back-pack so we waited while she ran back and got it, and then hurried out of the park to the bus, waiting (with at least 20 others) in the car-park. Everyone was having a drink and snack before they got on the bus so I got something out for the kids.
A banana for Odette. Where is Odette? Has anyone seen her? I looked on the bus in case she had already got on. Not there. Had she gone to the toilet with someone else? Unlikely. Was she sitting with another group? Has anyone seen Odette? "ODETTE!"
Panic.
Did she come out of the park with us? Nobody could remember. Think. Can't remember. Surely I was holding her hand? I don't know.
I started hurrying back to the park entrance, hand on my chest. Esther said she would come with me. Then she stopped. What? Somebody else was on their mobile phone... Bérengère has got Odette. She was in the last of our groups coming out of the park, and Odette ran up to her. She had been by herself in the park. Safe, Thank God!
A few tears, a brave face, lots of cuddles with Mum, and Odette was alright.
She fell asleep cuddled up to me in the bus on the way home. I fell asleep too.
What a day.

Now the girls can't wait to go back to Walibi and take Dad!!

Walibi

The children posing with the park mascot "Walibi"

The girls and I Went to Walibi, a fun park about an hour away, for the day on Saturday. And what a day it was, absolutely packed with fun and excitement. We went with a group of people from Sainte Marie d'Alloix - a bus full of kids and some adult supervisors. It was an outing that the young people had been raising money for for months, and was supported by the Mairie, so it only cost us 10 euros per child.
I was allocated a group of 5 and 6-year-olds to supervise along with the mother of one of the other girls.

A very sedate ride in a fibreglass "wallaby"

We started off on quite sedate rides — a merry-go-round, a little steam train puffing through the park, a boat ride which became less sedate as we got deeper into the created jungle and wild beasts became monsters, a huge spider jumped down in front, and a cascade of water rocked the boat. Our group ended up joining with Sophie's group as some of the younger kids didn't want to be apart from their mothers, who were supervising Sophie's group. That's why the rides got scarier. The roller coaster, which I wouldn't have gone on only Odette is under 120cm tall so needed to be accompanied, was the one that made me lose my appetite. I'm glad we went on that before lunch and not after, although I nearly had to stay on it. The supervisor thought I wanted another turn — but I only stayed on because I couldn't get out! I was stuck and the safety bar wouldn't unlatch. Odette could easily slip out, but not I. The supervisor brought a spanner, but I don't think she knew what to do with it and was no help. Onlookers were very helpful telling me to put this leg out, put both legs out, try going that way, etc etc. in moves reminiscent of a game of Twister. But now is as good a time as any to acknowledge my child-bearing hips (ok then, obesity) as I remained stuck. Then one of my friends got behind the bar and pushed, which moved it just far enough to let me slip out. To a huge round of applause. Talk about embarrassing!!!


After lunch the water park section was open, so we went and pretended it was summer (the weather was cool and there was a slight breeze) and frolic in the "heated" water. The water temperature was meant to be 20 C, which still felt extremely cold to me. The water park had scary looking slides, and I thank Sophie for making me go on the smallest of the four so that I could experience it. I am certainly no dare-devil (yes I'm a wuss) and I can't understand why people pay money to do those rides. There was something for all ages from the very shallow pool with life-like turtles and tiny slides, to the deeper one that was decorated with crocodiles and had slides that we more fun and surprising, to the wave pool that was like a beach and created real waves.

Fun in the wave pool

Watch out for the crocodile...

Sunbathing on a crocodile!

Bathing beauties — Sophie (left), Odette (front), Bonnie (right),
with their friends Noémie and Eloise.

Allez les Bleus!

Roger watching football on TV

Roger played the part of a real French man last night. He went down to the village in the evening and played petanque. Then by 9pm the place was deserted, as everyone had gone home to watch France play the Netherlands in the Euro Cup Football competition (soccer for Aussies). So Roger sat and watched the game too. But he probably didn't suffer as much as a real French man would, watching his team get trounced 4-1. France is now in a desperate situation and must win their next game to remain in the competition.

Athlétisme

Sophie warming up

Running

Throwing

Jumping

The athletics carnival, which had been postponed from last week, was held yesterday. There were five schools from the area competing. Each school was organised into teams of between four and nine children, and they competed in a "triathlon" - jumping (either triple jump or long jump), throwing (vortex) and running (60m) - in the morning and a relay (4 x 60m) in the afternoon.

Click here to see the Picasa Web Album of the athletics carnival at Pontcharra.

Relay (Sophie obscured)

She didn't really win a trophy, but her friends let her pose with it!