Adventure in Normandie

My first taste of the Paralympics was the orientation day where I met the paid staff and fellow volunteers and learned about the site and my role.

On the way in the metro, fellow volunteers grouped together as we are easily identifiable in our uniform. I sat with a man and a woman who had also volunteered at the Olympics. She has been at the gymnastics and he at the football and they had lots of stories to share. It was quite exciting going through the security checks to be seated for the first presentation in the Eiffel Tower stadium!

The beach volleyball ground has been replaced by a court sized soccer pitch with artificial grass ready for the blind football, in French Cecifoot.

We moved to the VIP lounge where we had a detailed presentation of our roles. We are called the protocol team and all up we are about 70 people for the whole site which includes the two stadiums. We will be working at different times so there will be about 25-30 of us at any time and 4 paid staff.

We will be looking after the people in the Paralympic Family. This includes members of the International Paralympic Committee, National Paralympic Committees, Official delegations such as Prime Ministers or Ministers and heads of Federations of the sports. Basically the VIPs of the games but they don’t use that word. I will be helping them find their way in site and getting to their seats to watch the events. We also manage the VIP seating in the stadiums and prepare the medal ceremonies.

We then went on a big walk around the site to familiarise ourselves with the key locations and access points.

The Champ de Mars stadium is for the wheelchair rugby and then judo. You may have seen the TV documentary about the Australian wheelchair rugby team called Forged in Steel on channel 9. I am hoping I might get to be around that stadium when they play.

In the afternoon we were lucky enough to get the chance to try out both blind football and wheelchair rugby! The idea was to help us better understand the sports and appreciate the efforts of the Athletes.

I was very lucky to get to hold an Olympic torch!

Today was supposed to be the warmest day all week (24) so we thought we’d better go to the beach!

On the way we stopped at Pont Audemer. This is a village off the freeway that I have wanted to stop at for ages. Self described as Venice of the north, it has some lovely little canals and waterways through the village. (Side note: I wondered how many places use ‘Venice of the north’ as I have heard it before. Turns out almost every country north of Italy has at least one! Bruge, Amsterdam, Lofoten, Stockholm). There were lots of half timbered houses and the obligatory cathedral. It was previously a town with a tanning and leather industry. The famous Thierry Hermes was an apprentice here in 1821.

The village is famous for a little pastry called a Mirliton and a special kind of baguette called a Parisse. The Mirliton is a biscuit with a praline mousse inside and each end stopped up with chocolate. It was designed by a chef to the kings in 1340. The Parisse uses a special recipe that only artisan bakers can use to make the bread, which has extra crunch on the outside. We can vouch for both 😊

We continued on towards the coast at Honfleur. Honfleur is a very cute old town that has retained its character. It sits on the estuary where the Seine meets the English Channel. It was once an important trading port with North America and one local man left Honfleur to establish Quebec! Interestingly, there was also a project underway to reconstruct a boat like William the Conqueror used to conquer England. Perhaps we can visit it next time.

Another special part of Honfleur is the Église of St Catherine as it is one of the rare churches in France built of wood. (Catherine is the patron saint of students, philosophers and genealogists, amongst other things!)

The Town was pretty full of tourists and it is very small so it was crowded and so, we had to stop for lunch.

Honfleur was one of the rare Normande towns that was not bombed to destruction during the Second World War and this is why we get to see today how looked in the 16th century. There was however a huge concrete blockhaus left right near the town centre that seems to have been turned into a museum.

We finally made it to the beach after driving along the coast to try to get away from the crowds. We found a tiny little laneway with barely enough room to park the car and walked along a lush green scenery until we reached the beach. The beach actually had sand instead of pebbles although with lots of flint rocks that you see everywhere in Normandie. It was a very pleasant 25 degrees. It couldn’t feel more different from going to the beach in Australia!

It is lovely to come back to the farmhouse and rediscover the old walls and the peaceful sounds. It’s holding up pretty well under the rigours of Airbnb usage.

It needs a deep clean and the garden needs some love, and they are both things I can do.

I think the apple tree has died 🙁. It wasn’t looking good two years ago and no leaves now despite it being summer.

I will need to trim the fruit trees that I planted several years ago. I found a single pear on the tree!

It has apparently been a funny summer, quite cool and rainy but with a recent heatwave. The plants look a bit unhappy. The roses did not get a decent prune when they should have and are a bit overgrown. We wanted to make the most of the sunshine and so we did a lot of gardening today.

Lavinia was quite concerned about the ponies next door. We have always loved them as a feature of the place. There only seems to be one now on her own. Lavinia noticed she didn’t seem to have any water so she filled up her water bucket.

Lavinia got the hang of the big trimmer.

The council is not keeping up with the mowing of the public path to the Seine which is such a shame as it’s a lovely path. I did my bit after wrangling the whipper snipper. A nice change from wrangling Teams meetings 😁.

At the end of the day we walked down to the Seine along the path, which we both agreed is quite magical. It has been a lovely peaceful day. Perhaps one vehicle went past, a few boats on the river and some families going for a walk. It’s definitely a restful place for the soul.

It has been two years since my last visit to France which is sooner than the gap before. Hopefully the next trip will be sooner than two years.

The purpose for this trip is that I am volunteering at the Paris Paralympics!

I applied a year ago and went through all the steps and was offered a ‘mission’ (role) and then did all the online training.

Today I went to collect my accreditation and uniform. I discovered that my mission has a changed a bit. I will be part of the Protocol team at the Champs de Mars/Eiffel Tower venue. This means looking after VIPs at the competition venue.

There are two temporary stadiums on the Champs de Mars which is directly in front of the Eiffel Tower. The closest to the tower was where the beach volleyball was in the Olympics. This will have cecifoot or visually impaired football.

The second stadium is a huge venue built to house exhibitions while the Grand Palais is being renovated and turned into Olympics venue.

It will have Paralympic Judo and wheelchair rugby. I will have to wait and see exactly what I will be doing but Australia is in the wheelchair rugby!

It was fun going to collect my uniform after a bit of a wait for the accreditation.

The uniform is sponsored by a big sports store called Decathlon which I think has come to Australia. We used to love it when we lived here for cheaper but good quality sports clothes and equipment. The funny thing is they gave me receipt for all the items, even though I didn’t have to pay. I guess so that I know they were sponsored by Decathlon?

Lavinia and I have had fun walking around and visiting some familiar places.

We had a lovely final day in Paris and will hit the plane tomorrow pretty tired!

We started the day at the Musee de chocolat and we did a chocolate workshop!

Its amazing what they can create out of chocolate!

We created out own masterpieces oit of chocolate.

Then we went to have a final lunch with Estelle and I forgot to get a photo! We continued on to the Trocadéro. It was an amazing sunny 23 degrees!

We then took our turn to walk up the Eiffel Tower. We only had to wait about 25 min after getting through security. It was a warm walk up but such beautiful views in the sunshine! I am still always in awe of this amazing structure!

We then dropped by to say goodbye to our friends nearby and share our chocolate treats. Then it was time for a last spot of shopping, but not too much as the bags are already heavy!

We walked along the river before dropping into the Marais for dinner.

We had a super fun day at Parc Astérix. This is theme park just to the north of Paris focused on the stories of Astérix and Obelix and the Gauls and Romans. The park is smaller than Disneyland and we think it’s way better. It was great to share the visit with friends. As it is almost Halloween there were a lot of pumpkins and spiders! The haunted house was quite scary!

After the wet rides, there was a drying room!

Its hard to believe it has come around so fast but our stay in Normandie has come to an end 😔.

We got lots of things done and had some fun and the kids had a great experience at school.

It has been a great break from work for me and I am feeling very refreshed. We are sad to leave but we are hoping it wont be as long between visits as last time.

We made it to Paris where we have a couple of days before taking the plane home.

We had a lovely last weekend in Normandy with some special visitors! The weather was lovely and we were again in T-shirts.

After that we returned to the house to try our walnut wine. We began making this from our local walnuts in 2019, then Estelle and her Mum sieved it and three years later, we tasted it! Amazing and delicious!

We had some help for our final jobs around the house !

We finished up our lovely french food.

We went for a walk along la Seine before the storm.

I had some delicious cèpes (mushrooms) as a gift for dinner!

I have to mention the latest audiobook I have started but not yet finished. It’s the autobiography of Julia Childs called My Life in France. I feel like the stars have aligned as I have her book, this year I visited her kitchen at the Smithsonian and now I am reading about her love of France and French food! Highly recommend it!

I went for a late run and thought I had missed the rain. I found this amazing rainbow which filled me with joy and seemed to be a positive sign 😊.

I then promptly got totally saturated by heavy rain! 😂

The kids had their last day of school today. We returned all the textbooks, gave out little Aussie gifts and had some lolly parties at school. Instagram and Snapchat details have been exchanged and promises to keep in touch. The kids have made some good friends in a short time.

They both got some good test results and have had a good academic term. Back to Australia for the last part of term 4 which includes preparing Louis for High School. He will be a step ahead!

Louis has been invited to fill in for the u15 soccer team tomorrow so we will fit that in, along with welcoming some visitors. I have started to pack our bags as well😣

Another walk along the river and village to enjoy the autumn colours.

I keep buying cheese but starting to doubt I can eat it all! Cheese for breakfast, lunch and dinner!!

The beautiful weather just keeps going! Today was another lovely day. Although I was mainly inside painting and cleaning and preparing for paying guests, I did get out for a late run.

Lavinia had an early finish so I got her to work on the lawn 😁.

In this photo you can see how close we are to the river. Just high enough up the hill to avoid floods.

Final jobs include, paying the cantine bill, for the two months it is 84€ per child for lunch each day. I reckon that’s a bargain. Not just the cost but the effort involved in shopping for lunch supplies and making lunches! Louis wishes we had the same cantine in Australia 😁.

While working around the house I listen to a mix of FranceInfo and audio books. I love a bit of political news so have caught up on my French politics. I was surprised to learn today that the latest shortage is paracetamol! Already I find it strange you have to go into a chemist to buy it and can’t get it at the supermarket and now people are limited to two boxes at a time. Which could be fine except a box is usually only 8 tablets!

On a trip to the airport the only audio book I had loaded was Anna Karenina. So I have been listening to that through all my tasks and I have loved it! It is a remarkable book and covers a huge number of topics and while a totally different period and lifestyle, it’s also very relevant. If you have a spare 35 hours on a task, I recommend it 😁.