School Cantine

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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...

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!