It will be a long day and a big day for Callum tomorrow. We have to leave home at 0630 and deliver Callum to his rugby club so that he can travel on the team bus to Besancon for the final rugby tournament of the season. 'Les Petits Tangos" (because they wear bright orange kit) are reigning champions and much rides on their performance tomorrow.
The bus trip will be entertaining. Click on the link below to hear one of the team songs...
http://ecolederugbyusg.blog4ever.com/blog/lire-article-302588-2314229-une_belle_chanson_pour_le_bus____.html
... I never thought I would be encouraging Callum to sing a Sacha Distel song.
http://ecolederugbyusg.blog4ever.com/blog/index-302588.html
Dan and I will travel in peace to the tournament and cheer from the sidelines. (note to self : research appropriate french phrases of encouragement)
Callum will be returned by bus to Genlis by 1930 and we will pick him up and carry him home - exhausted no doubt.
Saturday, 18 June 2011
Monday, 13 June 2011
Brilliant Bilingual Soundbites
The little girl who lives on the boat next door is a sweetie. She is the same age as Callum. She is in Callum's class. She is Callum's great friend and sometimes his arch enemy. I take her to school most afternoons and I listen as she and Callum bicker like an old married couple. But this week he dropped the French momentarily and calmly turned to her and said in English, "If I was an Aztec then I would have sacrificed you by now!" Not your average comment from a 7 year old....
Wednesday, 8 June 2011
Blog Stats
It has taken me a whole year to notice the button labelled "Stats" which hovers above the box where I type our blog entries. I don't know why I did it, but today I clicked on that button and I was amazed to learn that
- the blog has had nearly 7000 page views
- blog visitors from Australia, Russia, China, Canada, the USA, Indonesia, Germany, Belgium, France, India, Chile, the Netherlands and the UK
Friday, 3 June 2011
One Year On
Today marks the first anniversary of our departure from UK waters. And it has been quite a year. I know that it is only France and that it is just a hop, a skip and a handful of Tesco's vouchers from the UK. But this trip and this year have been a voyage in the true sense : a long journey of discovery by sea or water.
We have discovered and continue to discover ourselves as individuals and as a family. We have our home with us, but not our friends. We are accepted members of the European community - yet we are foreigners. However we are surrounded by fellow boaters who are literally "in the same boat" and that has created a comfortable community and an excellent support network.
This wonderful home bobbed across the Channel and kept us and our worldly possessions safe and dry; it tested our abilities at every opportunity and rewarded us with the enviable ability to moor up for free in the centre of beautiful towns and cities. And until October we tested the boat to the max.
We moored up in Saint Jean de Losne and did not think that we would be moored up so long. But the truth is that we will not be setting off from this mooring until July when school breaks up and Andy's contract in the UK has finished. It has been a very fruitful stopping point and the boys have thrived. They have impressed their teachers and are growing in confidence with their french. In a complete reversal of roles Callum now sits with me and drills me on my french phonetics and he is a tough teacher! He berates me in French and I promise to do better.
This summer we are heading south : continuing down the Saone to Lyon where we join the mighty Rhone which will take us south towards Avignon, Montpellier and finally Sete on the Mediterranean coast. However, we plan to return to Saint Jean de Losne for the winter. Plenty to see, do, eat and drink en route.
And we will keep you posted of all that happens via this blog.
We have discovered and continue to discover ourselves as individuals and as a family. We have our home with us, but not our friends. We are accepted members of the European community - yet we are foreigners. However we are surrounded by fellow boaters who are literally "in the same boat" and that has created a comfortable community and an excellent support network.
This wonderful home bobbed across the Channel and kept us and our worldly possessions safe and dry; it tested our abilities at every opportunity and rewarded us with the enviable ability to moor up for free in the centre of beautiful towns and cities. And until October we tested the boat to the max.
We moored up in Saint Jean de Losne and did not think that we would be moored up so long. But the truth is that we will not be setting off from this mooring until July when school breaks up and Andy's contract in the UK has finished. It has been a very fruitful stopping point and the boys have thrived. They have impressed their teachers and are growing in confidence with their french. In a complete reversal of roles Callum now sits with me and drills me on my french phonetics and he is a tough teacher! He berates me in French and I promise to do better.
This summer we are heading south : continuing down the Saone to Lyon where we join the mighty Rhone which will take us south towards Avignon, Montpellier and finally Sete on the Mediterranean coast. However, we plan to return to Saint Jean de Losne for the winter. Plenty to see, do, eat and drink en route.
And we will keep you posted of all that happens via this blog.
Wednesday, 1 June 2011
A long silence
Apologies for staying quiet for so long.
April went by in an expensive flash. Term came to an end and the boys and I set off on a return trip to the UK in our automotive "shed". Unfortunately the shed decided it didn't want to go to the UK and opted for an expensive rescue from the peage/motorway. We spent several hours on a tow truck exploring the rural roads somewhere north of Dijon and finally ended up at the Volvo dealership in Dijon itself.
The Volvo dealership was vey flashy, very big and shared its forecourt with Jaguars and Aston Martins. The arrival of the shed with its natty yellow electrical tape stripes holding the wing mirror together (done in Andy's absence) was unwelcome, as were we! The following hour was farcical as more and more customers complained about the way in which we were being treated. And the French do not hold back when they argue : it is quite a spectator sport and, at times, quite terrifying.
Anyway a few days later, and much sooner than anticipated, I was reunited with my car. It was still not fighting fit but I decided to make another attempt at the journey to the UK. Nine hours later we were with Andy at Pinewood Studios where he chivalrously swapped the old shed for a much newer, more reliable and decidedly less smelly family car. The shed is dead - long live the conservatory!
We spent a very relaxed week with family in Devon and Somerset, stocked the car with good old English cheddar and red leicester and decent dark chocolate digestives, and then all four of us drove back to France.
Sadly, Andy could only stay for a few days and returned to the UK on his motorbike to continue working on Midsomer Murders.
At the beginning of May the boys went back to school where they continue to thrive. Their teachers are very pleased with the progress they are making. Dan has quite a sizeable part in a play which he knows inside out and has been ad-libbing in French with great success during rehearsals. The boys have had lots of opportunities to try out new activities too. Dan is on a kayaking course and Callum has fallen in love with Judo.
And every Wednesday we drive to Genlis, just south of Dijon, where Callum plays rugby and Dan plays football. Andy and I are so proud of them. It is not easy when you are a newcomer at a club, but it is even harder when it is a different language too. The boys do not have any of their school friends at these clubs but have worked hard to make new friends and do very well following the instructions that their coaches bark at them.
I am getting to grips with wire brushing, priming and painting the boat - again.
April went by in an expensive flash. Term came to an end and the boys and I set off on a return trip to the UK in our automotive "shed". Unfortunately the shed decided it didn't want to go to the UK and opted for an expensive rescue from the peage/motorway. We spent several hours on a tow truck exploring the rural roads somewhere north of Dijon and finally ended up at the Volvo dealership in Dijon itself.
The Volvo dealership was vey flashy, very big and shared its forecourt with Jaguars and Aston Martins. The arrival of the shed with its natty yellow electrical tape stripes holding the wing mirror together (done in Andy's absence) was unwelcome, as were we! The following hour was farcical as more and more customers complained about the way in which we were being treated. And the French do not hold back when they argue : it is quite a spectator sport and, at times, quite terrifying.
Anyway a few days later, and much sooner than anticipated, I was reunited with my car. It was still not fighting fit but I decided to make another attempt at the journey to the UK. Nine hours later we were with Andy at Pinewood Studios where he chivalrously swapped the old shed for a much newer, more reliable and decidedly less smelly family car. The shed is dead - long live the conservatory!
We spent a very relaxed week with family in Devon and Somerset, stocked the car with good old English cheddar and red leicester and decent dark chocolate digestives, and then all four of us drove back to France.
Sadly, Andy could only stay for a few days and returned to the UK on his motorbike to continue working on Midsomer Murders.
At the beginning of May the boys went back to school where they continue to thrive. Their teachers are very pleased with the progress they are making. Dan has quite a sizeable part in a play which he knows inside out and has been ad-libbing in French with great success during rehearsals. The boys have had lots of opportunities to try out new activities too. Dan is on a kayaking course and Callum has fallen in love with Judo.
And every Wednesday we drive to Genlis, just south of Dijon, where Callum plays rugby and Dan plays football. Andy and I are so proud of them. It is not easy when you are a newcomer at a club, but it is even harder when it is a different language too. The boys do not have any of their school friends at these clubs but have worked hard to make new friends and do very well following the instructions that their coaches bark at them.
I am getting to grips with wire brushing, priming and painting the boat - again.
Friday, 1 April 2011
Fools in France
Luckily (for little boys with a wicked streak) the French observe April Fool's Day. We set the alarm clock for an early start and played our first trick on our neighbours - Mal and Paul. We attached lots of tin cans on string to the back bumper of their car. The death rate for cars on the track to the Old Lock is fairly high and the hideous rattle they heard as they pulled out of their parking space dutifully worried them!
Meanwhile, all the local French schoolchildren were creating hundreds of paper fish.
And why?
Apparently in 1564 King Charles of France decreed that the new Gregorian calendar would replace the old Julian calendar. This meant a change to the order of the months and moved New Year's Day to the now familiar date of January 1st. In the Julian calendar the New Year had been celebrated at the end of March/beginning of April.
France is an enormous country and in 1564 it lacked cohesion and certainly did not have a reliable method of communicating to the masses. So the message about the new calendar did not get through to everybody and for quite some time there were people who still celebrated the New Year on the 1st of April. Those people who had made the change to the new official calendar made fun of those who had not changed and called them "fools". This eventually evolved into "Poisson d'avril" (meaning April fish) because this false New Year celebration coincided with the sun leaving the zodiacal sign of Pisces (which has a fish as its symbol).
Back to downtown St Jean de Losne and two Bailey boys running riot in the school playground along with all their classmates, sticking cartoon fish to teachers' and schoolfriends' backs and yelling "Poisson d'avril" at them.
Meanwhile, all the local French schoolchildren were creating hundreds of paper fish.
And why?
Apparently in 1564 King Charles of France decreed that the new Gregorian calendar would replace the old Julian calendar. This meant a change to the order of the months and moved New Year's Day to the now familiar date of January 1st. In the Julian calendar the New Year had been celebrated at the end of March/beginning of April.
France is an enormous country and in 1564 it lacked cohesion and certainly did not have a reliable method of communicating to the masses. So the message about the new calendar did not get through to everybody and for quite some time there were people who still celebrated the New Year on the 1st of April. Those people who had made the change to the new official calendar made fun of those who had not changed and called them "fools". This eventually evolved into "Poisson d'avril" (meaning April fish) because this false New Year celebration coincided with the sun leaving the zodiacal sign of Pisces (which has a fish as its symbol).
Back to downtown St Jean de Losne and two Bailey boys running riot in the school playground along with all their classmates, sticking cartoon fish to teachers' and schoolfriends' backs and yelling "Poisson d'avril" at them.
Saturday, 12 March 2011
007
Our spy gadget mad boy has reached the magical age of 007 and we had great fun marking the occasion.
Our neighbours, Paul and Mal, had organised a treasure hunt for the boating community that day and had gone out of their way to make it birthday-boy friendly.
We added to it by insisting that all competitors wear a pirate hat. Those that did not wear one would risk a penalty. And so sleepy Burgundy witnessed a procession of UK number-plated cars driven by pirates searching for clues in the oddest of places.
It was great fun and we ended up in a cafe for birthday cake and song at the end of the hunt. Somehow, even though we did not win, the boys came away with plenty of prizes.
Our neighbours, Paul and Mal, had organised a treasure hunt for the boating community that day and had gone out of their way to make it birthday-boy friendly.
 |
| That will teach him to use his knife properly! |
 |
| What happened in here? |
It was great fun and we ended up in a cafe for birthday cake and song at the end of the hunt. Somehow, even though we did not win, the boys came away with plenty of prizes.
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