Pardon!

Saint Jean de Losne hosts a boat blessing ceremony every June which is called the Pardon (as in forgiveness and not in hard of hearing). 

The town springs to life with a fairground, a market, fireworks and a gathering of boats bedecked with flags.

This year Lobelia went to the party(alas minus Shiv who had gone to Devon to see her parents) and was the belle of the ball. 

She was duly blessed by the local priest. Flowers were thrown and wine awarded.

The Genlis under 9s do the Haka

Callum was asked to play with the Genlis U9s in Chambery this weekend. It meant an early start - we left home at 5am to drive 160 miles for this big tournament. Once again there were over 140 teams attending, spread across the different age groups. And this time it was an international event, attracting teams from Italy and France.

The drive there was long but breathtakingly beautiful :

The rugby ground in Chambery was equally picturesque. Set in a bowl surrounded by cliffs and snow-capped mountains. 

It was a jolly atmosphere with lots of teams in bright kit, gazebos galore and countless  bar-b-qs. I was a little surprised as I walked past an Italian group and heard an English voice shout across to me. Simon of Verona. He was merrily cooking lunch for his Italian team, wine bottle in hand. I complimented the food and he confided that the only way the Italians would come to a French tournament was if they did not have to eat the French food! And yet the French make mockery of the British cuisine and here was an Englishman cooking for the Italians in France. I'm looking forward to dining out on that story the next time my French pals are rude about English food.

The tournament went well, despite the afternoon rain. Genlis made it to the final which was a rain dousing 1-1 against Beaune.  Beaune somehow were declared the winners and this reduced our little team to tears of incredulity. However, after five minutes of confusion, Genlis were declared winners on points. Tears of joy ensued. Followed by the presentation of a cup and a superb French version of the Haka, led by a charismatic lad in the team (as in the video below).

Finally left the rugby ground at 6.30pm and got home, exhausted, before 10pm. 

Diamond Jubilee Celebrations

I have vivid memories of the Silver Jubilee Celebrations and can still picture the sea of red, white and blue cakes which weighed down the trestle tables outside my school. And I remember my brother Seamus at the end of the tea party. He was all alone and ploughing through Mrs Bryant's particularly heavy sponge with inch thick Union Jack icing. Tables were packed away around him as he valiantly ploughed on.
But above all it remains a happy childhood memory with a date which is easy to pinpoint.

Here in France we have escaped all the Diamond Jubilee preparations, but were well aware of street parties and barge pageants. Indeed we had missed the Royal Wedding and would be missing the Olympics as well.
I had nothing planned.  But my strong childhood memories nagged away at me and at 7am this morning I had pangs of parental guilt, knowing that I was with-holding an opportunity for the boys to have a cherished Jubilee memory.

So we set to work, sadly without Andy. Bunting was draped. Deck chairs and tables laid out. We made jelly, cakes, sandwiches and devised games. We nipped around to various friends on boats and invited them to join us for high tea on Lobelia.

Our friends arrived and we ditched the idea of drinking tea in favour of toasting H.M. with bubbles. Several bottles!

Many thanks to John and Sandy, Liz and Alan, Alex, Tim and Tex who came and gamely joined in with the games. It was a baking hot day and the impromptu water pistol fight was very refreshing.
I put the boys to bed knowing that they now had taken part in a proper Jubilee party experience.
Guess it is the Olympics next! Neighbours beware!!!!

Liz attempts Dan's game "Pin the crown on the Queen"

60 second drawing challenge

Strawberry and spoon obstacle race

Who let Callum loose with the squirty cream!

Rule Britannia in France

Jumping back in time

We have a mountain of video clips and I have been technophobic about doing anything with them. However, courtesy of Callum's rugby victory, I had to learn how to handle these film clips and do something with them. In the last few days I have cut together a rugby final DVD and now I am trawling back through the last two years' worth of memories.
Anyway, I thought this little clip was worthy of the blog just as it is - in its pure state.
It is a clip of our bedroom porthole being washed by the English Channel /La Manche as we crossed from the UK to France in June 2010.

Victorious

The French junior rugby season is still going. And there are still more tournaments ahead. But last Sunday we drove to Lons le Saunier for one of the biggest junior tournaments. Callum plays for Genlis under 9s.

It was a superb day and after several resounding wins they made it to the final against the host team. It was a tense match and the stands were full of home supporters who cheered and booed the teams accordingly. A noisy affair but the Genlis team kept their cool and, despite two sendings-off for high tackles, they were victorious.

...though the trophy was a bit odd.

(A clip of Callum scoring a try in one of the group matches earlier in the day)

Printing Museum at Louhans

Another day, another school trip. This time I went with Callum's class to Louhans (in Bresse) to visit the Printing Museum. The tiny street entrance did not look promising, but inside this Aladdin's Cave we discovered the beating heart of the former local daily newspaper and we were rewarded with a busy day spent in the print workshop.
The workshop had it all : linotype machines, rotary presses, typewriters, sounds, looks and smells. Better still, the children were able to take part in the entire process of print. They had written a poem which they composited fastidiously by placing each individual letter in a frame. They watched as the machines' rollers were inked and then took turns to press, stamp and powder their results.
It was an excellent day out. And as far as I know, we even came back with the correct number of little fingers.

(For lovers of machinery and percussion everywhere)

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Birthday and a BBQ

This year, as luck should have it, my birthday coincided with a BBQ get-together for the residents at the Old Lock. Super Dan worked very hard at making it an extra special evening by enlisting the help of our good neighbours John and Sandy. Sandy made a delicious cake which thankfully lacked the full complement of candles. And John duetted with Dan in an accordion/guitar rendition of Happy Birthday. And John, (after a tiny bit of persuasion), graced us with the first ever Old Lock accordion stripp-o-gram. Brave, considering the free range geese meandering about...

Hot dog anyone?