SARRAZ'S QB INC

Worms, Wolves and Feudal Castles

I can honestly say I have never seen, nor wanted to see a worm do a poo.  It was Alex who pointed this little moment out to me while we were waiting for Amby at the swimming pool.  This photo is for you, Felix.  All the white clay surrounding the worm is old poo.  Pooh pooh!  There's another photo for you soon (something large and furry).

Alex discovering the worm poo.

 

But then all is well with a (strawberry) flower or two

Today is the fete de maman's or Mother's Day in France and after receiving my very artisitic presents from Amby and Alex over pain a chocolat, we went for a drive to see some châteaux.  I felt on familiar ground with the scenery - more like what I expect from France - flatter, with more fields and fewer houses.

The first we visited was the feudal chateau de Gy, originally owned by the archbishops of nearby Besancon from11the century up to the revolution, and later the bishop of Besancon, so it's a mixture of styles.

(By the way I coudn't find much info on the chateau on the web but I did stumble across this - If you're at all interested in buying a castle take a look at this link http://www.green-acres.com/en/properties/2258a-191s101.htm - its' nearby and an absolute steal at AUD 1,319,136 considering.  I mean each floor is 600m2!!!!  alternatively, this; http://www.green-acres.com/en/prog_show_properties-rf--dp-25+39+70+90-r-franche_comte-cn-fr-rg-franche_comte-type-properties-i-80-p_n-2.html).

Sigh, anyway, back to the real world.

Here's Chateau le Gy, owned by Thibaud de Rougemon Bishop of Besancon certainly during 1406 (recorded in records for the 100 year war). Again, I can find no information on the web so I will have to ask Ange's help in translating.

 

The wardrobes were at least double sized, really awesome in height. Can you imagine how high the ceilings were?

The Bishop would have been escorted to Besancon in this, using serfs to carry him.

The Bedroom - stunning! look at the fireplace below.

Another bedroom.  This is a day bed - According to Ange the person would have slept in a half-sitting position, legs outstretched, which accounts for the shortness of the bed (so it's not a Napolean syndrome then). How uncomfortable.
Notice the mezannine floor above - it contained a writing desk.

 And now for Felix - the animal room.  Felix asked me recently about whether their were wolves in France.  An interesting question as I have always asociated them with Europe but have not really thought about them in depth. It turns out theat they are certainly around Russia and eastern Europe, but are also slowly being reintroduced to southern France after being hunted out completely during the Middle Ages.   From what I could find at short notice (lots on werewolves!) it seems that a fable originates from France called 'Le Petit Chaperon Rouge' which resembles the Little Red Riding Hood so well known from the Brothers Grimm tale, and which may have originally been called 'Little Golden Hood'. This tale was apparently told to youung women to dissuade them from talking to strangers.  There, Felix, I bet you didn't know that!

Anyway, there I was on Mother's Day, walking throught a castle when I see the most enormous wolf skin. Not only that, but there are other animals all throught the main hall - we see sangliers and their young, ferrets, owls, wild cats (the type that Ange ate), huge deer and more.  Amby and Alex were afraid to go in!   Eventually all were pursuaded to go in and see....

The wolf skin.  The closet I have ever been to a real wolf. You can just see my foot in the photo.

This is the trap that would have been used to get the wolf.  Behind it you can see a ferret (I think).

A model of the wolf's head.

This stag's head was huge. Really.

Equally amazing were the boar (sangliers) heads.

 

No! Not the pig...not the pig!!

 

The wild  cat - Ange ate some once!

Foxes

 

Amby - don't touch!

 

Dining room

 

Ange took a helmet and put it on - naughty!

   

Aspect from the stairs of the chateau leading to the village.  WOW!

The village

 

I loved this village, it's about 40 minutes from Besancon and very beautiful,

Off to bed, see you later

A blog for Delphine...images of my garden and Brocante

Alors, I have determined that I am a French listener and sometime French speaker, but to write is still beyond me, hence this post has to be in Anglais.

I really don't mean to post every day, but I am finding it is a lovely way to unwind with a glass of wine or two. 

Tonight is rosé night - c/o magazin NOZ, and I am drinking La Croix Jeannel from Languedoc, a Macon Medaille D'or 2009, bought for a mere 4.40 euro.

I don't mean to eat cheese every night either but so far....I'm eating Selles-sur-chere, a smooth goats cheese with a lovely ashy-tasting rind but I feel it needed to age more.   Gosh - I think I'm starting to appreciate the minutia of life.

Anyway, back to the main topic.  The Brocante.  The nearest description I have of this is a car boot sale where you don't have to pay to get in.  It was sponsored by one of the local banks (little did I know, until I went to buy some frites and found my bank manager serving me - only in France eh!).  At first it felt overwhelming, not the least because it happened right outside my house - I mean, see below - these shots were taken between 7-8am in the morning. I know the early bird gets the first worm but really, these cars were literally parked at the bottom of my garden (and up the street and around the corner). 

I staved off the desire to go for some time, finding plenty of 'menage' (cleaning) to do around the house, uploading photos to my blog and generally slobbing around.  I thought, 'the old war alarm will go off in a few minutes and it will be too late to go' - yes, the village next to ours sets of the blizt alarm from WW2 for lunch just in case any happless frenchman forgets to shut shut shop and go home for 2 hours (leaving people like myself breadless for lunch). 
Damn, there goes my chance for a pain au chocolat. 

But a few things happened.  One was I eventually geared myself to go for a walk to get bread and money (just in case).  The nearest boulangerie is about 10 mins walk and the nearest hole in the wall about another 7 minutes.  I went the long way and got caught up in the old style grandueur of my ville.  Next I remembered my friend Delphine and the incredible sense of style she has, and how she would not be afraid of a little Brocante.   I found myself almost running to get to it before midday.  The sky was clear, the day really hot and all I wanted was a glace to cool me down. 

Wow. a jumble of images hit me at once.   There were more cars than ever.  The day was even more hot than I expected. The choice was overwhelming, so many stalls, so little time (so I thought - I later discovered it stayed open all day until 6pm). The sound of vendors and families and cars.  I wrapped my fleece around my waist and started in.  There was mismatched but beautiful crockery, ancient butter presses, spare parts for bikes, clothes, toys - including huge teddy bears, jewellery, salt grinders, old horse furniture (bridles, saddles etc), furniture and loads of pointless seeming bric a brac.  I had no idea what I was doing in this huge place - where to start, what to buy (images of antiques roadshow flashed up in my head alongside that unfortunate incident when we stopped in a cafe in the Jura which seemed to consist of a village that were all of one family ...).  The goods ranged from shabby, to what were you thinking off when you bought that, to genuine treasures and real bargains.

Again I thought of Delphine, and with an air of studied nocholance (i.e. I pretended to be cool and fit in), I surveyed every single stall.  I eventually found some fantastic horse riding boots for Ambre ( 2 pairs for 7 euros) and some jodhpurs (2 pairs for 6 euro).  I rue not buying the wrought iron hangers (for hanging flower baskets from windows) for 1 euro each, damn!  Next time, I promise to buy them all.

 

Boots for horseriding - what a bargain.

Later on that day, after meeting all my neighbours and all of Amby's ex classmates at various stalls (and the rest of the village)  I went home and found this old basin in my cellar.  I was so excited I immediately cleaned it up and planted it with our chille and a thyme plant.  We also have ivy in the garden and I plan to put some in.   Recycling rules and I think part of the thrill of the Brocante is not making the same buyer mistakes and the fact that many of the goods were better quality and cheaper than in the shop.  Thanks again Delphine!  

Delphine also has a stunning garden so I thought I'd take some shots of mine.  They are mainly of the weeds but I love em and I know Delphine will understand! (ps how good is my Nokia N95!) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for a lovely day Delphine, and see you soon!

choc-lut, glory days and horse riding

I had to feature these strawberries again.  Words cannot describe the scent or taste. They now grace the blog as a constant reminder of a perfect day in France, hot and sunny, sitting in the car watching the lush green fields whiz past, eating ripe, warm strawberries.

Tonton Ced with the kids - they had just been on the motor bike in the woods behind.  The dog is Alanis.

 

In the woods looking for morailles.

This earth worm was almost twice as big as my foot!  Alex spotted it near the swimming pool (this is his hand in the photo).  We also found a huge patch of the wild strawberries so I stole some for my garden.  Felix and Tim, Alex says this is a monster worm!!!!  (he also thinks there are transformers in the forest).

Plombieres les Bains 22 May 2010

It's been HOT today.  We have done so much that I am relieved to be sitting here in front of my laptop blogging, sans enfants et mari.  I told Ange to take the kids for a sleep over at Memere's and stay there so he could enjoy some big football (soccer) night with his brothers. Last night we had an impromptu dinner invitation at the inlaws and there was a lot of champagne and Ange did fall over backwards in the vege patch so I guess a good night was had by all, but I was unwilling to repeat the experience.

Ange got up early today due to the heat and we all ended up in the garden like busy bees, planting the remaining seedlings and lavender bushes.   It's starting to look like a real garden, I'll try to post a few pictures on my next blog.  Today is the first time I've had to use the hose and I kept looking around furtitively in case one of the neighbours reported me.  The hose needs to be dragged from the little cellar window then across the shared path and then through the wire fence, as the garden is separate from the house.  

Talking about water, we went for a drive later and passed quite a few lavoirs - old fashioned communal laundries some of which used to be fed by natural springs and of which at least one had been made into a fountain.  Some are still used for drinking water.  Franche Comte is know as the greenest part of France - not simply for the rain but also the rich source of underground water.  You might recognise the name Vittel - the actual town is not far from us, although technically in the Vosges department.  Check out this website on lavoirs - they have an English version http://france.lavoirs.free.fr/region/Haute-Saone/Haute-Saone.html  It's truly wonderful, after years in arid Australia to see these springs (sources) in action. ' 

Bless her little cotton socks, Amby went to lotto (bingo) with Memere last Saturday night and won us 50 euros, good girl!  Now I'm a staunch believer of underage gambling. We spent it on seedlings for the garden.  I'm sure Amby was expecting something a little more pink and girly but as I said to her, it's not like we don't share our money with her...

After steady gardening all morning for me (Ange and Alex went to the market with memere, but did help before and after; Amby stayed with her cousins and didn't help!), we had another impromptu luch at memere's (BBQ) and then it was off to Plombieres Les Bains for Amby's first horse riding lesson.

Amby is on the white pony in the middle of the picture.

The lesson started with how to groom your pony, followed by a solid hour of exercises and then a short radonnee (trail ride) in the forests

There is a cute old lady that harvests honey from her bees, who lives in this property across the road from the centre equestre.  Can you spot the bee hives?

The lesson started at 2:30pm and finished near 4pm. Total cost zero (you can have up to 2 trials to see if you like the activity).  From then, there's a fee that covers insurance and membership which I think is less than 60 euros, and then each lesson is about 6.50 euros (I should really start writing 6,50).  It's great to see Amby so happy, and there are lots of little girls and boys her age as more potential friends.

After waking up both Alex and Ange, who had fallen asleep in the car from the heat, we drove the 5 minutes back to the centre town to grab a drink.  Despite it being a betting (on horses sort of thing)  cafe, it was still a rather formal affair of saying bonjour to all and sundry - which is rather embarrasing when it's just one sole seedy old man in the corner - and asking for trois jus d'ananas (3 x pineapple juice) et le coke.  The publican didn't want to give us 'glacons', assuring us that ther juices were already quite cold (as if the ice cubes were like gold).  At that point I not only gave up but gave the gallic shrug 'wotever'  (Little Briton fans will know where this really comes from).  We were almost melting from the heat.  By the way please do not ask for la coke at any bar or you may be arrested. 

We decided to stroll around the town, which is famous for having hot springs which were discovered by the Romans and later visited by Voltaire and even Napolean.  We actually passed a little fountain in another village earlier that day, that had a sculpture of Napoleon on it to mark when he went through.  I must find out how old the sculpture is.

The town is in the department of the Vosges.  It's very hilly and very, very shabby chic, being past it's hey day, although still visited for it's spa.  It's a gorgeous town and I wish I had realised this the first time I visited it.  Here are a few moments from our day.

Unpainted shutters 

 The balconies of a former hotel

Old stairs. You can't see from this photo but as we went up the stairs we passed an open doorway to the right, with more stairs leading down. The plaques on the walls around the town indicate roman ruins.

 

This could be Paris...

 

This one's for you Bron...CHOC-LAT

I have to admit we couldn't resist this shop and I went in purely to inhale the scent.   We came away 14 Euros poorer, with me clutching an adult's goodie bag. YUM.  Oh my gosh, I just remembered I still have most of the chocolate in my bag so I am busy gobbling it as we speak. DOUBLE YUM.   Don't feel bad - I couldn't bother to cook tonight so gorged on 3 types of goats cheese and bread, and I think I'm really going to feel sick tomorrow.

I'm also reminded that there is a goats cheese only produced from the first shoots of grass of Spring and I need to find some.

I've been following some blogs and a few deserve mention; if you like all things French, please read on.

http://aufonddujardin.canalblog.com/

http://writinghome-suej.blogspot.com/

http://lafermedesourrou.blogspot.com/

I'm signing out for now, due to OTT stomach activity and oversdoesing of CSI - I H (hate) Horatio

a tout a l'heure (see you later)

Before I go, A big well done to Jack and Cheryl for their Million Paws walk.  Jack - I saw this photo and thought of you...

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Timbre-tantrum

Let me explain...

Some years ago there was a bit of a kefuffle with me obtaining a 'timbre'.  Now a timbre simply means stamp, as in postage stamp, but in France you can also get timbres which are used to pay for official documents, and cost a lot of money.

So when I went to enrol for my driving theory and they asked for 5 timbres, I assumed they meant the expensive, official kind and not ordinary stamps. I mean, they had practically asked my life story and for copies of documents containing my maiden name.  

The woman requesting the information was at the end of middle-age, slight and dark haired, with a smokers face and a raspy voice.  Bit of a cliche really.  She sat in her tiny office (the stone work was marvellous by the way, although unintentionally so - sort of shabby chic french style), clasped her hands together and proceeded to interogate the life out of me,  punctuating her requests with rapid firre phone calls to some mystery official. 
By the way, when I had entered the office and given the customary 'bonjour madam' she had kept me waiting some time while she recounted a story to this mystery person; of a student who was close - very close - to Sarkozy, and who specifically wanted to learn to drive in the Haute Saone with her.  Blah blah blah.

I suprised myself by my ability to follow her conversation, enough so that she was encouraged to ask more personal questions of me (it is a small town and knowledge is king here).  We had a bit of a debate about why I couldn't produce an official document showing my maiden name - apparently this is 'tres' important over here.  Eventually I left having promised to pay close to a thousand euros and clutching a list of required documents, and more worryingly, to come in tomorrow to start learning the code.

Enccouraged by my increased ability to speak french (ha!) I went to the bank and asked them how much money I would need to buy the 5 timbres. The clerk kept asking me if that was all I wanted and I couldn't understand why.  She had written the amount down on a piece of paper for me 2,80.  Two hundred and eighty euros.  I asked her if she thought I had sufficient money in the account.  She looked at me rather strangely and said yes.  She then said she would prefer to to round the amount out to three and drew a 3 which I assumed meant 300.  I said ok, a little perplexedly.  The printer rattled out a reciept for me to sign and then she handed me....3 euros. 
I haven't been this embarrased in a long time.  So all the people in the que behind me now thought I might not have had 3 euros to my name when in fact I was thinking it was 300 euros.  The French do a comma instead of a point (.) a fact I had forgotton...

To make matters worse, I later went back to Mme conduire with my photocopies and stamps and came out with a square of paper with a handwritten number of a 'very good english/french teacher'.

Oh well,  thought, I'll go to the library and get out a book, but when I asked if they perhaps had anything in English, the woman rushed upstairs to get me the only two English books in the library and told me I could keep them!  I've always wanted to speak Spanish (one of the books was to improve your spanish).

J'adore le francais!

Update: Ange has informed me that the official stamp is called a fiscaux timbre, whereas an ordinary stamp in simply a timbre.

L'ecole

How much homework can an 8yr old manage?  Amby's diary (yes, she has a diary), is chock-a-block full of things to do.  Last night we learned a poem by heart (we made it into a song).  Today we did times tables. Then there's the verbs, the history lessons, the reading...Despite all this, Amby is coping.  She accepts the extra work and gets on with it. I am humbled.

Why don't we learn stuff off by heart any more in Australia?  We are so good at innovation, but sometimes you just need to know stuff off the top of your head. You know?

Here's the poem, courtesy of http://www.frenchtoday.com/poem-analysis-reading/le-temps-a-laisse-son-manteau-charles-d-orleans:  Nabil and Amon, we hope you are learning it too!

1 - Poem - français moderne

Le temps a laissé son manteau.
De vent, de froidure et de pluie,
Et s’est vêtu de broderie,
De soleil luisant, clair et beau.

Il n’y a bête, ni oiseau
Qu’en son jargon ne chante ou crie :
Le temps a laissé son manteau.

Rivière, fontaine et ruisseau
Portent en livrée jolie,
Gouttes d’argent d’orfèvrerie,
Chacun s’habille de nouveau :
Le temps a laissé son manteau.

2 - Poem - vieux français

Le temps a laissié son manteau
De vent, de froidure et de pluye,
Et s'est vestu de brouderie,
De soleil luyant, cler et beau.

Il n'y a beste ne oyseau,
Qu'en son jargon ne chante ou crie ;
Le temps a laissié son manteau.

Rivière, fontaine et ruisseau
Portent, en livree jolie,
Gouttes d'argent d'orfaverie,
Chascun s'abille de nouveau :
Le temps a laissié son manteau.

3 - Poem - English

The season removed his coat
Of wind, cold an drain,
And put on embroidery,
Gleaming sunshine, bright and beautiful.

There is neither animal nor bird
That doesn’t tell in it’s own tongue:
The season removed his coat.

Rivers, fountains and brooks
Wear, as handsome garments,
Silver drops of goldsmith’s work;
Everyone puts on new clothing:
The season removed his coat.

 

Snake charmer

Singapore

I seem to be going backwards in my tale.  Did you know we managed to miss our plane out of Australia?  It was scheduled for 00.05 on 14th April and there we were at my brother's house, about to turn up at the airport on the 14th April just before midnight, and if that wasn't bad enough, busy dumping our excess baggage as we foolishly thought we had only 20kgs each.

Amazingly and thanks to my brother and his wife, we got on that night's plane for free. Stupidly we turned up 20kgs UNDER the baggage limit, causing all sort of issues with the stuff we threw into a couple of boxes for Aaron to sort out (big thank you). I really, really need some of that stuff!

Singapore was as expected, we stayed at a low budget B&B near Orchard Rd, and ventured out into the heat to try and fit our planned and partly paid-for itenerary of 3 days into 2.  Universal studios was a highlight, we went there on our last day to tire the kids out for the 13.5 hour flight to Paris. We turned up at the airport at midnight having had no access to internet/phone/tv/newspapers (not to mention being just too busy), only to find our there were no flights going anywhere. Deja vu?  The second missed flight in 3 days.

A highlight of the trip though was our little man taking the fancy of the snake tamer at Sentosa island.  He 'borrowed' Alex for the better part of 20 mins and used him to advertise his services.
GO LIL' JOHNNY

I eventually rescued him fearing he would collapse under the weight of both snake and hat.

France

Did you know we have welcomed Rhino the Hamster to our family.  He is a black and white hamster and I already fear for his life because we bought a unit complete with integrated exercise wheel and he seems to be a gym junkie, treadling or whatever it's called, all night while we sleep.  I know this because I have caught him at it a couple of times. Perhaps it's because he's French - caution, extreme hamster! 

 

Chanelle, be warned, Amby will be asking your advice on all things hampster.
Felix and Aeryn - can you spot him?

16 May - A picture tells a thousand words

I can't believe it - I'm already behind on posts!  So much is going on at the moment, so I thought I'd post a picture or two instead of writing too much.

France, Luxeuil les Bains: an old door suggested a great backdrop for this photo which I call 'little boy blue' - I love this colour and we are spoilt for choice here for stunning backdrops and light.

And look at the (lack of) clothes, it was such a lovely hot day.

Amby actually skips to school...

Here's a question for Felix - can you spot the snail in this photo?

Something I haven't done yet is to describe the epic journey it took to get us here (and I'm still not yet sure I'm over it enough to do so...). 
We managed to visit four countries in one day - pretty impressive huh!  Here are some moments from half way through the journey, in a
little town called Barcelona.............ok it is a HUGE town. 

 

After spending 3 hours trying to understand how to make a simple payphone work, we hefted our stuff down to left-luggage
and bought cheap bus tickets to the city centre. At some point you just gotta let go and trust things will work out.

By the way, there's so much I left out of the previous statement - we ran around Barcelona airport with 2 massive trolleys full of precariously balanced suitcases for about 5 hours, trying to sort our lives out, and

did I rue the moment I decided to go with the Samoan Samsonites for the kids toys.  But a cheap lunch of spanish beer and tapas really made us (adults) feel human again, though we didn't eat here - I just loved the sign!

We rushed around trying to find all the Gaudi buildings -  here are the unfinished La Sagrada Familia basilica, the Casabattlo with it's skull-like balconies and hundreds and thousands sprinkles, the La Pedrera, reminiscent of a melting icecream cake.

Back in France - take a look at the welcome we got!!!!!

The runny cheese in the last photo is Cancoillotte.  I am going to somehow find the time to dedicate a page of this blog to cheeses from Franche Conte (and nearby), and to the beautiful Jura Vin de Paille a straw coloured wine from the nearby Jura region. I need to send a cheers to the girls at Vic market cheese stall for their dedicated efforts in keeping us cheesed up, and Bernie and Kathy at Red Hill Kitchen for the best Rillettes ever.  You can check them out (Bernie and Kathy) next time you are around Red Hill Markets.  Shameless plug but honestly one of the best experiences we had in Oz.

Red Hill Kitchen (5 mins from Red Hill markets, down a long winding dirt road)
67 Prossors Lane
Red Hill VIC 3937

I want to thank everybody for their kind comments so far.  I know you all have really busy lives so it's encouraging to see you all out some time aside to keep up with us.   You can comment directly on this site, or email us, and by subscribing to this feed, you can be alerted by email when we post.  We love hearing from you all.

First few weeks

Hi everybody

I've been busy discovering how to create a blog.  It feels amazing to think that I'm sitting in France writing one.

This is a private blog for now, designed to keep all our friends updated and may contain personal information so please keep the link private.

I've just pigged out on baguette viennoise - a less rich form of brioche, which is made as an extremely long skinny breadstick - and a bowl of coffee...I feel I've deserved it though, after world war 3 with Amby (did not want to get out of bed) and the walk to the two schools and back again.

Luckily all is now well.  The kids are at home with me having lunch (home made soup - merci Memere!), and all are at peace.  Amby is upstairs reading the tale of the flopsy bunnies to Alex.

Last night we started phase 2 of the garden (le jardin). It may not look much in the photos but it took a while to dig, all to the accompanying comments of our neighbours.  They are a great bunch, all very irreverant and prone to laughter (usually at me). But thats ok because I'm able to give back as much as I get!

 

13th May

I haven't yet shown you the house we live in.

 

Its 3 floors plus a basement, and there are stairs to navigate both from the road and the courtyard.  The land is separated from the house via a communal path that only the neighbour uses. The toilet is downstairs next to the entrance and the shower is on the top floor next to the attic and spare bedroom.  Each 'etage' has 3 room on it plus a landing.  The views in the near are of a laundrette, but further on we can see a lovely old farmhouse nestled between green pastures and dramatic skies.

All in all an odd but charming little house and one I am extremely grateful for.

Food...probably my favourite topic.  I must admit we have been going silly over the bread, although I have only succumbed to croissants twice so far. Cheese deserves it's own topic, but last night we had our first raclette, which was amazing.

With raclette, cheese is sliced into squares and grilled under a raclette griller or mounted to a raclette machine and sliced off in hot melting slices. It's served over potatoes (normally boiled but we had ours roasted) and accompanied by  cornishons (tiny gherkins) and pickled onions, several varieties of cold cooked meats (charcuterie) and tiny portions of raw meat that are cooked on top of the raclette grill - in the past I've been served kangaroo and even horse! Luckily last night it was the more staid duck, beef and  chicken.  What else can I say?  it was all served with the ubiquitous glass or two of champagne...

Here's a selection of less exciting food from my fridge.  I haven't been bold enough to visit a market yet, and have instead kept to supermarkets and boulangeries to acclimatise my shopping skills.

School (l'école)

check out this link for a simple guide to pronunciation http://www.languageguide.org/im/school/fr/   (http://www.languageguide.org/french/)  requires a pc/laptop with sound.

We have had to change schools as I am STILL not driving grrrrrrrrrr.  So the kids attend schools not to far from where we live - within a 15 min walk, instead of in the next village (a 30 min walk). This is not bad unless you have to battle the rain, which is why we were all a little sick this week.  Still I'm amazed to see so much rain and appreciate the help it gives our garden.

Amby's school is like an old fashioned nightmare conjuring teachers ruling the roost with rulers snapping at knuckles and sloping desks with integrated stools in regimented lines, in front of a dusty blackboard.  It's a massive 2 storey building once used as a boarding school for boys.  Despite this it is charming, and even with the curriculum being in french it seems easy enough to understand.

Amby is understandably (? even with attending a French/English school in Australia) behind in her conjugations, her times tables, her history, her additions of thousands, her long multiplication of thousands, her divisions, and this is without the expected lag in comprehesion (both oral and literal) and writing (it's done differently here, being France!).

I've been having tremendous fun in helping her with her homework.  So far we are getting through the present, imperfect and future tenses of the verbs AVOIR and ETRE and applying them to sentences.  We are doing a long multiplication crash course and practicing times tables and additions so she can spit them out at any given instant, rather than the labourious working out she had been doing (with secret finger counting).

Today we learned about making PLURALS of french nouns.

For words ending in OU we would normally add an S to the word, the exceptions being 7 ou words that end in X (e.g. Hibou becomes hiboux, chou becomes choux)

For words ending in AL we would normally convert the AL to AUX, the exceptions being 5 words that simply end in S (e.g. cheval becomes chevaux, however festival becomes festivals)

All other words generally end in S, however if the word ends in S, X or Z it normally does not change at all.

Confused yet?

We still have to learn the AIL, EU, AU, EAU and IRREGULAR PLURALS

if you are interested in learning more, try this site http://www.english-to-french-translation.com/translation-articles/english/translation-article-plural-of-french-nouns.htm or google 'making plurals of french nouns'.

Alex attends Maternelle, where he is in the 'petits'.  Next year he will graduate to 'moyens' and the year after is the 'grands', and after that is the next stage of schooling.  I love the school - it is very small compared to his last school which was part of the bigger school.  Now he only has to contend with up to 5/6 years and it's much less daunting for him and much more like the nursery he attended in OZ.

After a few days he has been able to give me a kiss and a wave and walk in like a big boy. We normally stop in at the boulangeie on the way to get a little something for breakfast first, and I collect both he and Amby at lunchtime, speaking of which, I must dash as it's that time right now.