French Without Tears

It was a lovely weekend, but busy. Caroline arrived on Friday afternoon, and came to school to collect the boys. Then we had to dash home, as  I had some serious work to do in the kitchen. Our neighbour Sophie, her daughter Selma, and son Luc came round for apéritif in the evening,  to be joined later by Matthew and Lolita, and then in the final wave, our nephew Yves accompanied by his new bride Sophie, arrived from Paris to see his cousin and the children, and to stay with us for the weekend. The children were thrilled to play with 9-year-old Luc, (who came bearing presents of Lego,) and I had the joy of hearing some brave attempts at communication in pidgin French from Louis.

 Sacha's favourite bedtime story at the moment is My Naughty Little Sister at a Party. As I can always get their attention with tales of Matthew's escapades as a child ("Tell us! tell us, Mamie, of more naughty things that Matthew did when he was little!") they were very pleased to hear of how he overdid his sampling of fruit mousse when he was learning to cook, and like the heroine of the story, can no longer face sickly puddings. (We didn't mention that at the time of the mousse incident, Matthew was already at least 17.)  It was a very pleasant evening, and we were able to have our drinks in the garden. Caroline took over and put the boys to bed before (our) dinner, so she was the one who had to cope with the noisy results of this terrible injustice.

It was a special weekend where many museums and monuments are open free to the public, so Yves and Sophie took off for the day to discover Angers. Caroline took the boys to Durtal to play with Virginie's children, and François and I drove to St Giles Croix de Vie in the Vendée to catch a quick look at the last day of my sister Ann Marie's exhibition of paintings. Here is her website:    http://www.am-valencia.fr

Not culture vultures.

On Sunday, we took the boys to meet up with the grown-ups in the Jean Lurçat museum. A gorgeous day,  wonderful museum, but we didn't stay long. They clearly intimated that a little culture goes a long way. After lunch, we had a quick trip to a park with Maman before she had to go and catch her train back to London.