What a Week!

My week started with a whopping eighteen out of twenty for a project in "arts plastiques". I was overjoyed, as this was the highest mark in my class. I'm not exactly topping the class in French! For art, we all were given a small book, too old to read. We folded each and every page with the corners pointing inwards. The book then started to resemble a body of an animal. We had to decorate the book further with anything we wanted. I pasted crepe paper 'leaves' as well as real bay leaves from our garden onto the pages of the book. It looked great and looked like an echidna.

Our school lunch times were getting gradually more and more dull as I'm not good at standing around and chatting in French for 2 hours each day. So, I introduced my friends to handball. Now they are amazingly good at it. At some times it feels like the whole school is in the reserve line.

On Tuesday I had the best sport session ever! The teacher announced a free for all gymnastics session. We brought out the trampolines and the high mats. I thought it was a bit crazy but oh well. We did the superman, flips and jumps. We climbed to the roof like monkeys, climbed along the roof and had a push-up competition! The highest number was 35. It was great fun.

After school, I played tennis which was good, followed by Soccer training, at which we played a game against the older boys. Unfortunately, we were beaten. None of us cared as we had learnt some new tricks from them. With another training session on Friday, I am sure getting enough exercise. That night, for dinner, we had stir fried rice. It was a nice change to have an Asian style meal.


On Saturday, Dad and I went for a walk up the mountain with our neighbours' dog, Tristan. Tristan is a Flat Haired Retriever. He is red and shaggy with a large head. We hacked our way through the bush which was fun. It is so quiet high up in the mountains.


That night was a party at Serge and Isabelle's house with Pascal, Christine and his girls and Lugdevine, Giaullemme and their children Valentine, Matthis and Maele. We partied until one o'clock, when the adults decided to go home. We almost fell asleep in front of the PS3. We had a big sleep-in on Sunday morning because of the late night. We sat around all morning and played computer. At twelve o'clock, I ventured outside, to try and find my friends, who are usually out and about in the village. Unfortunately, there was nobody to be found. Sadly the afternoon weather had turned to showers leaving me to watch I-Robot with Dad. It was a fantastic movie starring Will Smith.

See you!

Bonnieux and Pernes les Fontaines

We started Monday with snow! It had snowed the afternoon and night. We got to have a quick play in the powder, but then it was gone. There was however enough snow that the school buses weren't running. This prevented me from going to school. So saaaadddd.. We all stayed inside and tried not to catch a cold. We were surprised as that afternoon the snow had melted so much that I was able to go and play with Paul, the boy across the road! The next day I had to go to school again. Ohhhhh.... On Wednesday we started school with a huge match of handball. I scored a goal! I love handball.

On Friday I stayed home from school again, due to a teachers' strike. I went to visit Bonnieux with Mum and Dad. Bonnieux is a hill top town near Gordes which is ranked as "one of the most beautiful villages in France". The village is in the Luberon Mountains.

In Bonnieux, many homes are very old. They were built from stone many centries ago. We found a delicious boulangerie to warm our noses and fill our stomachs. We then climbed to the very top of Bonnieux, to the old church and surrounding park. The trees were great for climbing, with long branches about a metre apart from each other and perfectly situated up the tree for climbing.

We then drove on to the village of Oppede. Oppede itself is not so special, however the old village of Oppede is scarcely populated and mostly in ruins. It is mysterious and beautiful. As there are very few people who live there now, it's quite eerie. We wondered all around the old village that was taken over by Ivy vines. We climbed to the very top, again where there was an old church and fort as well.

That night I had soccer training. We played a scratch game with the team. I played a great game after being sent up front and hoped I would do as well tomorrow in our real match. Saturday was a big game of soccer and a win to top it off. I was exhausted.


A teacher at my school has an exchange student staying with her and her family, called Thalia. She is Australian as well and is very nice. She came over to our house and hung out with us. That night, an English girl called Rachael from down the road, came to look after us because Mum and Dad went to dinner with some friends. We ate Spaghetti Bolognese with Emmental cheese.

Today, we went to Pernes Les Fontaines. In my first blog, I told you that we went there to the town to stroll through the markets. This time, it was to look at the 40 fountains in the town. The fountains are old and were quite beautiful. There were two sun dials on one of the church's walls. A sun dial relies on the sun's light to make a shadow which represents the hour hand. It is always out by about five to ten minutes.

After seeing the fountains and the old town, we stopped in a Chinese restaurant for lunch. I had squid with lemon grass which was very different. It was good to have some different food.

Au revoir!

Sleep over.

I started my week with studies and soccer in the school yard with my friends. My homework has increased dramatically, with me now also taking French lessons with dad's teacher, here in Mormoiron. I get a lot of homework from my French and Maths teachers at school, also.

On Wednesday I had soccer training with my team. We almost turned into icicles out there! I spent last Friday night at Raphael's house for an impromptu sleep-over, with Elisa, Raphael's sister, and ten more teenagers. It was Elisa's birthday party that night so there was fantastic fun. I played table soccer with Raphael and the other boys. I'm really good at this!

On Saturday night we had aperitifs with mum and dad's French teacher and a group of other English people. There were seven children all up. I was the eldest. We played table tennis and "kill Freddie". The idea was to chase the youngest boy and tackle him. As you can imagine, Ivy and I kept well away from that game. I won't get to play soccer this week because we have too many on the team to play every week. We lost last week, which was a shame.

On Sunday we went to visit Vaison-la-Romaine, together with our friends, Raphael and Elisa and their Mum and Dad. The town was built at the start of the Roman period but was buried when the empire fell. This was then rebuilt again in the middle ages. There is a single arced bridge in the middle which survived the terrible floods of the Ouveze river in '92.

When we arrived into town, we walked with Serge, Isobelle, Elisa and Raphael up the main street to a pirate restaurant! There were a lot of statues in the restaurant of pirates with their parrots. After a meal of steak and chips, we where ready to go outside. Our aim now was to walk up to the chateau of Toulouse. There are three main wings and a formidable tower surrounding a court yard. Unfortunately we didn't make it to the top as the path was covered in ice and it had started to snow very heavily. We played in the snow and laughed and threw snow down each other's coats. Suddenly our toes and fingers became very cold and the parents wanted to go home, as the roads were now getting a fair layer of snow on them. By the time we left, there was already a good 15cm of snow on the road and we drove down the mountain at less than 40km per hour - the whole way! We'll have to go back in the Spring when the weather is less fierce, to see all the stadium and old forts. and maybe to visit the pirate restaurant again...

Au revoir.