Vendredi Soir

Now that the weather has fined up Friday evenings are taken up with socialising. Families meet behind the mairie where there are tennis courts, a soccer field, children's playground and a pitch for petanque (boules) for "le sport en famille". Last night was the first time we had been, as we were away last week. The men and boys seemed to be playing quite an energetic game of football (soccer) judging from the amount of sweat on t-shirts. Roger said he might have a game next time, so that will be interesting...
Each family takes their dinner - a pique-nique - and it is a very social time. We met some new people, and the second half of some couples.
Next time I will have to take my camera!!

Is it Christmas?

The trees in the background of this photo had decorations on them that looked like Christmas decorations. We're not sure if they are left there from last Christmas or getting ready for next Christmas...
This is in the Etap hotel near Aix-les-bains where we stayed on Saturday night. We got a really cheap room - only 61 euros for the room and breakfast for all of us. The room had a double bed with a single bunk above and another very skinny little bed beside it (2'6" bed). Hugh slept in the big bed with Roger and me, Sophie and Odette shared the bunk and Bonnie had the little bed. We thought it was great and started checking out where all the other Etap hotels are around France. At this price it is even cheaper than youth hostels (auberges de jeunesse) AND it had its own bathroom with shower over the bath. And a TV.
When something seems too good to be true it probably is...
In the morning when we went to breakfast there was a different woman at reception from when we checked in. She asked our room number, then counted us and asked if we had all stayed in the same room. "Yes" we replied, "It was great!" She didn't look happy and told us that the room was only allowed to have 4 people in it. If there was a fire they could be in big trouble and the young lady who booked us in could lose her job. Did she know there was six of us? I said that maybe she hadn't seen all of us when we booked in, because I didn't want her to lose her job, but in fact she had taken all six of us upstairs to see the room. Next time, we were told, we would have to have two rooms.

Our spacious and comfortable room at Etap hotel

Saturday Shopping

Roger reckons that the supermarket carparks around here have better views than any he has seen before. So we thought it might be fun to take a photo in the carpark of any supermarket we go to.
Here is Roger with the kids in the carpark at Carrefour near Grenoble.
We had been told Saturday was not a good day to go shopping. But with the kids having lunch at home every day we hadn't had another time to go to Grenoble to the bigger shops. We needed to go to the supermarket, and Sophie kept reminding us that it would be the last shopping day before her birthday (hint, hint...).

Roger packing the shopping at the Carrefour checkout

We started at the big Carrefour store, where you can buy almost anything.
There is even a McDonald's restaurant there, so the kids could have a play. But wait, where was the playground?? It was a corner upstairs with playstations and magnadoodle boards. Not exactly the sort of playing we're used to!!

Our next stop was Decathlon, the sports shop. And wasn't that fun? Hugh wanted to ride on the little bikes and scooters, and Bonnie wanted to try on all the snow boots. Then the kids discovered the walking and stepping machines, and Hugh discovered some balls. We needed to buy some "apres-ski" warm boots for both me and Hugh (the others all found ones in the Marcoux house to fit them). It happened to be the last day of "Trocathlon", which was sort of like a clearance sale and used goods sale in a marquee next to the shop. In there I found a warm waterproof jacket that I could zip up, and Roger bought some gloves (last time he tried to have a bike ride in the morning he nearly froze his fingers off). Sophie found some used roller blades that fitted her (with plenty of room for growth) so we agreed to buy them too, as they were only 5 euros.
Sophie tried out the rollerblades on the school hardcourt just down from our house today. As neither Roger nor I have ever had roller blades we couldn't give her any tips on how to use them. And we can only hope that she gets better with practice!

School times

Now that all three girls are going to school we are battling to juggle their comings and goings.
Their schools all have different times for arriving and leaving and the timetable looks a bit like this:

8:30 Bonnie starts school
8:35 Sophie starts school
8:50 Odette starts school
11:45 Odette comes home for lunch
11:45 Bonnie comes home for lunch
11:50 Sophie comes home for lunch
13:05 Odette returns to school
13:45 Bonnie returns to school
13:50 Sophie returns to school
16:10 Odette finishes school
16:30 Bonnie finishes school
16:35 Sophie finishes school

But now Odette can go to school in the morning and come home again in the afternoon on the bus, so we only have to drive to her school at lunch times. BUT it means we have to remember the bus times which are 8:40 and 16:17. Bonnie will be able to take the bus when she has approval, and that will make it easier too. But Odette's lunch break is fairly short, and doesn't give much time to get home, have lunch and return to school. So she will eat at the school "cantine" as soon as we can arrange it. Then to be fair we will probably have the other girls eat at the cantine too, at least a couple of days each week.

On Wednesdays there is no school, but on Saturdays there is school in the morning. But the Saturday mornings have different times from the weekday mornings so we have to remember another set of times:

SATURDAY
8:30 Bonnie starts school
8:35 Sophie starts school
9:00 Odette starts school
11:30 Bonnie finishes school
11:35 Sophie finishes school
12:00 Odette finishes school

























Odette at L'Ecole Maternelle at La Flachere on Saturday morning