Half term!

The new cars have arrived. Sacha inspected my car from top to bottom before pronouncing himself satisfied. He is remarkably interested in anything that has wheels. He is learning the parts of the car in French.

On opening Louis' homework book on Thursday evening, I saw his teacher had written the following : 

"This morning, in class, when it was his turn to play in  "the ferret game" (???? I'll have to ask about that one,) Louis said "Soixante-quatre!" (64.) This showed that he had been following the maths lesson, and also that he has understood the rule of adding two by two. Louis is a very attentive pupil. Very good work! "

Great stuff, Louis.

Friday, the last day of half term.  Nick arrived this afternoon, and took us all out to supper in a very nice crêperie.

It's all that dry cider that does it.

They are off to Disneyland tomorrow, and then to England. Happy Half Term Holiday, everyone! I'll be back here on the blog in a few days' time.

Another Watery Wednesday

The day started with a swimming lesson, and I am pleased to report that it went .... swimmingly. Or almost :  they are on the point of swimming without floats but are still not quite there when they are on their fronts. They can both get along unaided on their backs for quite a way. They went down the slide today, and then made their separate ways to the end of the pool before doubling back.

We came home and spent the end of the morning fairly calmly. I gave each of them a music lesson on Caroline's xylophone, which they seemed to enjoy.  No homework today, Louis valiantly got it out of the way last night.




We are selling our cars, and so had to give them some attention today. The children came along to enjoy the car wash, but what I didn't know was that Sacha had opened his window a crack. I was alerted to this by loud screams as I sprayed his window. Oh dear.

 So in the end they got out and helped. Then they repeated the operation for Papy's car.

A trip to the park rounded off the day nicely. I am now able to pinpoint the exact spot where Sacha fell on Sunday.

Transformations

"It'll come out tonight," said Sacha's teacher, "he's been wobbling it all day." 

The tooth had been loose for a while, but a fall face-down in the park on Sunday not only marred his manly beauty but also jarred the tooth and made it very wobbly indeed.
Now he can turn it back-to-front, but it is still hanging on. Watch this space for an update.

Louis has just had a French haircut as his flowing locks were becoming increasingly hard to manage, and  headlice are rife in the schools. I got nervous when I saw children in his class scratching their heads. Of course, if he is going to get them he will, haircut or not .I am looking forward to tomorrow when a good night's sleep will have rumpled  his hair a little. He LOVES having smooth hair and won't let me touch it.



Sacha came as an observer, but spent the session admiring his wobbly tooth in the mirror.

New clothes

Both boys have had a growth spurt since they arrived. So when Caroline arrived she noticed that it was time for new clothes. We had an excursion to a local clothes store to kit them out. Not exactly their idea of a good Friday night out, but they were fairly patient. 

They didn't want to model their new clothes, but didn't notice when I snapped them as they helped me to clear out my car. Note the smart new trousers, and snazzy cardigan.


It was very useful to have willing hands to search out long lost treasures at the back of the boot, or under seats. Including Mamie's robot glasses. Cue for robot dance.

Zoo

We visited the zoo at Doué la Fontaine this weekend. We had an early lunch, and it was only a half-hour drive to get there. We had gone prepared for chilly weather, but the sun was shining for the whole afternoon.

We know the La Flèche zoo very well,  but this zoo was a new experience for us. It was " home to 70 species of animals in an amazing primeval setting, teeming with exotic vegetation ..." We were very impressed.


Louis' teacher had written in his exercise book that he would certainly enjoy a visit to this zoo, so we took the hint.



We were particularly taken with the gigantic aviary for South American exotic birds. We were able to walk among the birds. A condor eyed us with suspicion before flapping just over our heads with a wonderful wooshing noise. Parrots were everywhere, and some gorgeous ibises paraded far above us.




It was a very child-friendly environment. There were a lot of paths to explore, and there were life-sized wooden sculptures of most of the animals, almost as good as the real thing for clambering on.

 We were particularly amazed by the Amazonian fruit bats, with their pretty little faces. The monkeys were a great hit of course, more than the lions, which wisely  kept their distance.

There were occasional tables, showing the various groups of families for each species.

 

French was spoken the whole time : the boys were so intrigued by the animals that they hardly noticed that they were asking and replying to questions in French..