Vélo Citoyen

Sophie's class heading off on their bike ride

Sophie's class today had their "vélo citoyen" excursion to Theys.
The class has had several afternoons of practice with their bikes at school, as well as a couple of "sorties" (excursions outside the school) since the beginning of May. Parent volunteers have helped with the training, and accompanied the children on their ride today.
The idea of the Vélo Citoyen program is to encourage good citizenship along with safe cycling. It is held on a regional basis, and is meant to be a chain, where one class visits another, then the visited class visits another, sending a message along right around the region.
Because the village of Theys is more than 10km away, and the last leg is up the mountain (and the kids aren't training for the Tour de France) they rode only 10km, which took them to Lake Terasse, and then they took a bus for the last leg of the trip. The class at Theys presented some of the work they had been doing, and then they had a game of handball after lunch. (Well that's as much as I can gather from Sophie!) Next week a class from another school will visit Sophie's class.
The ride back from Theys was made more interesting because instead of taking the cycle bridge they rode their bikes through the little river!
And less than an hour after they returned the skies opened up with a thunderstorm, ruining one of the few fine days we have had lately. So they were blessed with the weather.
Lets hope the weather is fine tomorrow too, because it is Sophie's athletics carnival, which was postponed from last week.

Help! Thief!

This little old lady was robbed of her purse in Chambéry on Monday. The thief nearly ran into me as he darted out of the dark arched entry and raced across the road before disappearing down an alleyway. Roger and I were spending the day in Chambéry, so that we could discover the centre of the old city, where the pedestrian streets are narrow and charming old dwellings crowd into winding lanes. We expected to experience the ambience of the old town in a far more pleasant way than what we did.
We hardly caught a glimpse of the thief as he skipped to avoid us and darted away. I recall thinking at the time that it would be the sort of thing a thief would do, but it was not until we saw the lady searching through her shopping bag and then look up with such a distressed look, wailing "Oh! No!No!N0!" that we realised he actually was a thief. He had knocked her against the wall before running off with her purse, which must have been visible in her shopping bag - it was so full that the zip wouldn't close.
I couldn't understand much of what she was saying. I think she started speaking in Italian, or maybe French with such a strong Italian accent that most of the time I couldn't understand anything. But in some situations you don't need words...
Roger helped her to look for her purse, in case it had been discarded down the alley as the thief fled. Then, finding nothing, we accompanied her back to the building where she lived. Her keys had been in the stolen purse, so she couldn't get in. She tried ringing a neighbour's doorbell but there was no answer. Soon after a young lady who lived in the same building opened the door so she could get in, but still she would not be able to get into her own apartment. We explained what had happened, and the young lady was happy to invite the poor old lady in and to take over.
So what did the thief look like? Roger thinks he was young and fast. I noticed he had dark hair and a shirt with vertical stripes in a light colour. And I wonder how many other people he robbed that day...

Chez Françoise

Hugh has started going to a home-based day-care each Monday. He goes to the home of our neighbour Françoise, along with two or three other little boys. He loves to go off with his back-pack in the morning, and he looks forward to it each Monday. I think he would like to go every day if he was allowed to!
When he comes home he starts to speak in a funny imitation of French. I try to speak French to him as much as I can, so i hope he will learn a little bit by the time he starts at Maternelle (kindy) in September.

Odette at School

I took some photos at Odette's school the other day, when I drove her back after lunch.

Odette standing under her butterfly picture in the corridor

Odette's class has been studying butterflies (hence the butterfly picture above). They started with some caterpillars, which spun themselves cocoons and then, wow! Out came some butterflies! One day recently they went on a little excursion to release the butterflies into a nearby garden. Roger went along, as parents had been invited. They walked around and found flowers and bugs and looked at Nature alive in Spring. They each had a special container with a magnifying lid to catch bugs and look at them.

The classroom

Odette is in the class below what she would really be in, but it suited the school best for her to be in the four-year old group (les moyens), and the teacher has been to Australia and speaks some English.

All the slippers on the shelf above, and boots under the bench.

In school the children have to change their boots or shoes for slippers when they are in the classroom. We had to buy school slippers for the kids as soon as they started school. School bags and coats are hung on the wall to the left, just out of the picture in the photo above.

Still Raining

I try to remain positive on this blog, and I have been quite philosophical about the rain. After all, we are farmers and we know how valuable the rain is. But I am sure that all the dams in the country must now be full and every paddock waterlogged. There is no need for more rain at present. So why is it still raining???
Last Friday night was meant to be the grand opening of the Sports et Jeux en famille on Friday nights, with a BBQ and speech from the Mayor. But it rained so it was postponed until next week. There is no sports and games this Friday either because guess what? It's raining!
Sophie has been training for athletics since the beginning of May and the meeting was meant to be on Wednesday. But guess what? It was postponed because somebody thought it might rain! It didn't rain and would have been a great day for an athletics carnival - no rain, no sun, not too hot. Instead it will be on next Wednesday - unless it rains - so we have our fingers crossed!
Bonnie has started doing swimming with her class on Thursday afternoons, for the four Thursdays in June. Can you guess what happened on Thursday afternoon? Well not exactly rain, but the threat of a bit of drizzle, and the sun wasn't shining, so swimming was cancelled...

Soon enough the summer weather will arrive, and I will be complaining about the heat!

The School Bus

Marie-Hélène supervises the young kids on Odette's bus

Bonnie and Odette both go to school on the school bus. "Elles prennent le car". We have to walk down to the Mairie (like the shire office), which is probably not even 300 metres away from our house, and it is all downhill. We have to cross the main road to get to the Mairie, but there are traffic lights and a pedestrian crossing. In the morning one of the shire men stands there and directs the children safely across the road, waiting for the little red light man to turn into a little green light man. When it is safe to cross he says "allez!"
For the pre-school children there is a supervisor on the bus to make sure they are sitting down and that they have their seatbelts on, and also to make sure that there is someone to pick them up when they get off in the afternoon. I think with this system no children would accidentally be locked in the bus all day as happened to our Bonnie when she was in pre-school...
Bonnie catches the bus at about 8:20am, and after the bus has dropped Bonnie at school it comes back to pick up Odette and take her to school, at about 8:45am. In the meantime Sophie has walked to her school at 8:30.

Hugh with his "copains" Noah and Gaspar

Hugh likes to "ride" his bike down to the bus stop. We have to make sure we are holding the handle tightly on the way down, because I would hate to think what would happen if he was let free on the hill.

Our Friendly Neighbours

Eric

Thierry

We are extremely lucky to have some neighbours who are "très gentils". As we say in Australia "they are great blokes!"
Here are two of them!
These photos were taken on Sunday after a lunch lubricated with wine, and after Eric and Thierry had run up to Sainte Marie du Mont from Sainte Marie d'Alloix (notice a theme in the names??). It took over an hour, and up hill all the way. I'm not sure why they didn't invite Roger to join them!!

Montagn'Arts

The herding of the sheep

I think this is going to be a really long post, because Sunday was a really good day.
I have posted lots of photos in a Picasa web album if you want to see more pictures.
Sainte Marie du Mont is one of the villages included in the agglomeration of schools that our girls go to. It is higher up the mountain, at 900 metres, and it was the venue for the festival called Montagn'Arts on Sunday. The rain stayed away while we were there thank goodness, but the clouds kept rolling by and engulfing us so there were periods when it was extremely foggy.
The festival marks the herding of sheep and cattle up onto the mountain pastures for the summer, so everyone was invited to follow the sheep up the mountain. The mob that was taken was not very big, and there might have been more people than sheep in the procession. No cattle went up, as the farmer said there was not enough grass yet, due to the weather we have had lately. Indeed most cattle are nowadays taken by truck.

The shearing demonstration

Roger's own shearing demonstration

We were very keen to watch the shearing demonstration, to compare it to shearing at home. The first sheep shorn looked nothing like our sheep at home, and the wool was more like hair. But there were also some merino sheep, which made us feel more at home. After the official demonstration the shearer continued to shear, and Roger managed to have a chat to him. Roger offered to give him some shearing tips, and told me, when there were two sheep left, that he was going to shear them. Roger had intended that it would just be him and the shearer, but we made sure that there was an audience to cheer him on!

As the event was for fundraising, there was a lunch which we had pre-ordered, and keeping with the theme it was a "shepherd's lunch". We had a salad (of mainly tomatoes and lettuce), ham, pâté, saucisson, three varieties of cheese, fruit salad, and wine. Every meal in France is accompanied by wine.

Our family having our shepherd's lunch

The Three cheeses...

After lunch there were heaps of fun and games for the kids. "La Grande Kermesse" included lots of simple fun activities for the kids, like fishing for a lucky dip, sack races, egg and spoon races, tug-of war, toy tractor driving, and of course pony rides. We bought a lot of sixteen tickets for ten euros, and each game or activity cost one ticket. After each activity the kids got another ticket, which they could exchange for a range of gifts or treats set out on a big table.

Odette and Bonnie enjoying the fun and games for kids

Please have a look at the rest of the photos by clicking here.

Le Serpent

The snake, after being run over on the road.

This is the first snake I have seen in France, and I saw it just before it slid onto the road in front of the car. I ran over it on the way up to Odette's school this afternoon. On the way back I saw it on the road and, being the inquisitive person I am, I stopped to have a closer look. It looked pretty dead to me, with blood coming out of its mouth, and not moving much. I got up nice and close for a photo, and then thought that I should take it home to show Roger, so I threw it into the car.
Roger was down at the school after taking Bonnie and Sophie back after lunch, so I stopped and pulled out the snake. The kids waiting for the school gates to open were all very keen to have a look so I took it over to show them. It was about then that the snake started to move and look around. You should have heard the scream!
I didn't know if snakes in France are poisonous or not, so I asked one of the teachers, who told me that vipers are dangerous, but this particular snake - a couleuvre - is harmless.

Hugh watching me holding the snake

Wet Weather

The clothes line last Wednesday

The clothes line today...

No, I haven't done the same lot of washing twice. These things are STILL on the line, because they haven't been dry in five days. I hung them out on Wednesday when the weather was fine, but it didn't last long enough to get then dry. Since then it has been wet, damp, or humid, for the last week.