Adventure in Normandie

Now we can go back to calling soccer football! Life would not be complete without some football, so I have found a local club for the kids to be foreign imports 😁.

The club is FCLTD, Football club Le Trait & Duclair. At the moment they don’t have enough girls for a team of Lavinia’s age so they are just training with a mix from 10 yrs to 16 yrs, but it was a nice atmosphere.

There are two boys teams u12/u13 for Louis. He has been to training and today had a friendly match in the hot sun.

Louis’ age group play on a small pitch which is a change from Australia as he has already graduated to the full size pitch. It all seems pretty crowded.

We travelled to another village about 15min from Duclair for the game. it was nice to drive through the countryside and we saw a big horse stable. One to follow up for potential horse riding later!

I didn’t know much about the history of football until I started reading a book I have Sebastian for Christmas. I find it quite amazing how the game has spread across the world. It came to France first in the west of the country, via Normandie! It was introduced through schools but not by the sports teachers, it was the English teachers! The oldest club in France is credited to Le Havre, which is only 30min down the road. Have we landed in the birthplace of French football?

After all this effort we visited the boulangerie.

So much deliciousness.

There are so many wonderful quotes about Paris. It is a city I love dearly and feel privileged to know well. I will just stick to this quote:

Rather spur of the moment we decide to drive to Paris this Sunday and have lunch with friends. It was a beautiful summery day, hot even! Paris was looking beautiful and busy. The tourists have returned, except for the Chinese and the Russians!

We took a metro to a very traditional restaurant which was so popular we queued up.

The prices were very reasonable and their unique touch is they write the bill on the paper tablecloth as they go and present to you at the end!

We walked back past Invalides, then past the kids primary school and our former apartment! Lots of memories ❤️

There is a new trend in Paris of decorating the outsides of cafes with large floral arrangements. We saw many in the space of our short walk.

It wouldn’t be a visit to Paris without at least one picture of la grande dame!

Driving back to Normandie on the freeway (doing the speed limit of 130) I was listening to the radio which had a show talking about the upcoming trial of the accused in the 2016 Nice attacks. It reminded me of other difficult times we lived through, pre-Covid, first the Charlie Hebdo attacks which caused a huge outpouring of support of freedom of speech. Then there were the 13 November Paris attacks at the Bataclan and elsewhere that really shook us all and caused a lot of introspection. The Nice attack occurred on the evening of the national celebration, 14 July, when a truck drove down the famous Boulevard des Anglais in Nice, killing 86 people. This horrific event in 2016 was 5 days before the first of two centenary commemorations that we had organised where thousands of French and Australians would be gathered together. This caused a lot of concern but the French authorities were amazing in their dedication to ensure it could go ahead safely. Thinking about this reminded me that there are different challenges at various times that can influence the course of history. I will be interested to see what lessons have been drawn from this event six years ago for French society and the challenges of radicalisation.

It’s a pretty big experience to start at a new school, let alone in a different country. Three years away is long enough to have forgotten how French school works. I was proud of the kids for giving it a go. Who likes to stand by yourself not knowing anyone? At least they had each other, even though usually that is not cool!

There are quite a few rules at school, no phones at all during the day. Lunch in the canteen or you go home to eat. The first day at home always involves endless paperwork for parents to complete. Nothing seems to have gone online in three years! I also have to get school insurance for the kids, it’s cheap but still!

I had a win today in organising their bus passes. Sometimes you have to take on the french bureaucracy. Anyway we ended up with two bus passes that means they can catch the bus about 100m from the house each day, at 7.30am! 😬

We received their schedule and there are some late starts for Lavinia but not Louis and a couple of days with 5pm finishes! 😳 They are both starting Spanish!

Here is a sample of the text books they brought home.

I asked Louis about his experiences of the first day.

We had a big morning of painting at the house today. The kids did a lot and things are starting to take on a fresher feel. The half-timbered outside walls need to be painted as it not only looks good but protects the wood. It has been a while since I was up and down a ladder!

This afternoon we dropped into the massive hardware store nearby called Leroy Merlin (king Merlin). We picked up a few things including a new letter box so we can receive mail!

Then we went to a big sports store called Decathlon. We got Lavinia some new soccer boots as hers died on her last game before we left Australia. Louis saw some French team jerseys and really wants one! We shall have to see.

As it was the last day of holidays before school tomorrow, we stopped at La Bouille, a very cute little village a bit further up the river, for an afternoon drink and ice cream. There are also some very nice restaurants in La Bouille.

It was pretty hot and steamy today.

The River Seine flows right past the house. The name comes from a Gaul word meaning goddess of the River. The source of the Seine is near Dijon and then it flows past Paris and out to sea near Le Havre.

I like the idea that the water flows past Paris and on to us. It is very wide near us and very peaceful in the mornings. It can get busy though with some big ships passing by on their way to Rouen.

Along our section, are many kilometers of ‘chemin de halage’. These are the towpaths, when horses used to pull or tow the barges up the river. It makes for a very nice walk.

Today we got a personal tour of the College where the kids will be going. School starts on Friday. In France, College is a middle school, in French sixieme to troisième. This equates to about year 6 to year 9. Louis will be in cinquième and Lavinia in troisième. The school is quite modern, built in 2015 and has an amazing gym with its own rock climbing wall. It is also quite focussed on sustainability with lunch clubs in aquaculture, greenhouse and some goats kept at school! We had the full tour of the canteen too which is where the kids eat a proper lunch with three courses. The options for lunch are either eat at school or leave and have lunch at home. You are not allowed to bring lunch. The school sounds pretty great and we felt welcomed. It will be a big change for Louis as it’s essentially a high school in our system with different teachers for each subject.

You might be wondering about the name. Most french schools are named after a famous person. Gustave Flaubert was a famous writer (Madame Bovary) from Rouen which is only 30 min away. Also famous for being the last home of Joan of Arc.

We walked through town after we got our shopping and visited the patisserie 😁!

Duclair is very traditional and has some lovely old half timbered houses and a lovely church. The main square of town is really quite nice. It was market day but we missed it due to our school visit.

We have to take the ferry to Duclair. Mostly this is fine but it has been out of service a lot lately. Also we wanted to take it at lunch hour but instead we had to wait until the ferryman had his lunch. Lunch is sacred.

After a rather epic but not quite Iliad-esque journey, we arrived at our home in Normandie. It was a great feeling to slip into bed after rediscovering the house after three years!

We had to explore every corner of the house and garden. The house is looking good. The foray into AirBnB doesn’t seem to have left too much of a mark. Louis is funny, he said, “I didn’t know our house was so fancy”. He doesn’t seem to remember everything or all the renovations we had done! He was only 8 when we left.

A family of owls decided to move into the last room we have not yet renovated and have left quite a mess. Add that to the list of jobs

The garden is very dry. All the news about the biggest drought in Europe in 500years is true. The fields and gardens are looking almost Australian summer brown. One thing I always liked was how green Normandie is in summer. On our last trip we had prepared a lovely garden in front of the house but it’s all gone now.

The lovely old apple tree is looking very unhappy. It looks dead, no leaves but there are some apples. Is it disease or lack of water? Louis did remember climbing up the tree when we lived here.

We went to the shops to get new SIM cards and groceries. Rediscovering our French favorites was fun! Lavinia got right into speaking French so we didn’t stand out!

We came home to do some gardening and enjoy the warm weather. Louis was very happy to have some saucisson with his aperitif!

Booking return flights to Europe at the moment with all the airline drama seemed a bit of a risk! Aligning leave, school and reasonable ticket prices was a bit of a challenge. The very cheap prices they were around at the start of 2022 evaporated fairly quickly. I was lucky to get some direct flights at a reasonable price but the hitch was an 11 hour stopover in Doha 😩.

Thanks to Harry Styles Lavinia got through take-off and landing with no vomits! Yay.

Louis snuck in a few scary movies and we all got some sleep.

Lavinia, Louis and I are heading to France. I have two months of long service leave and they are going to attend a term of French school. We are going to live in our farmhouse in Normandie and we are pretty excited!