We’ve come to Paris for a weekend and to farewell Seb at the airport on Sunday. Time to be tourists in Paris!

There is a huge worksite going on around the cathedral to fix the fire that occurred in 2019. It’s amazing to see the size of the worksite and the planning that has gone into the repairs.

Louis on the island namesake.

We got some navigo cards for the metro. Paper tickets are being phased out soon so time to get a plastic card for 2€ that you can recharge.

We stopped for an aperitif.

People often ask us what we miss about France. There are many things but food is definitely one of them. Fresh baguettes, lovely patisseries, soft cheeses! So many favourites. Here are a few photos.

I bought some plants to put around the garden. It’s always hard to know what will survive. After 3 years and a fair amount of neglect, only roses, lavender and rosemary survived!

Normandie gets pretty cold, no snow but pretty cold during the day so not all plants survive. During spring people put in a lot of seasonal flowers. I bought a few kinds of flowering heather which look very pretty right now.

Seb and I added a screen to the ceiling of the fireplace. It will keep the warmth in when the fireplace is not in use and also keep the flies out! So many come in search of warmth and die in the house!

I was busy at the end of the day and didn’t get to the bakery. Luckily the baguette machine was stocked and ready to do go in the next village!

Meanwhile, Lavinia and Louis have been going to school. They have been doing very well and learning a lot about many subjects, how to organise themselves and having lots of tests. It has been a particularly big change for Louis going from year 6 and primary school to the second year of a high school ( middle school) set up.

One of the big changes has been getting up about an hour earlier than in Australia and having to catch the bus.

Most nights there is some homework and there is a big focus on revision to ensure you have really taken in the lesson. One of the teachers explained that you learn about 70% in class but at home when you revise you get to 100%.

My observation is that things seem to be more structured and follow a definite pattern. You will get a ‘ note’ if you don’t have the right books or materials or did not do your homework. 5 notes and you get detention.

This is all excellent learning for Louis who is known for being forgetful and not tracking what he needs on a particular day for school.

The kids’ French has been excellent and they have not any problems due to that. They are regularly complemented as not having an accent.

I think the topics and subjects taught are at a similar level to Australia but perhaps there is more breadth. Louis is doing three languages, French, English and Spanish. Lavinia, is doing four with the addition of Greek.

They both have physics and chemistry as a subject that is separate from a kind of biology/ sustainability/ social impact subject.

Louis was proud to finish his scale château for maths homework.

Lavinia has been learning about the First World War and Verdun, a topic close to my heart.

We have been enjoying some lovely weather this week. Cool and foggy mornings but then eventually lovely days of 20 or so.

We went for a little walk to the river last night.

I have been cutting and cutting the overgrown blackberries with many injuries. So sharp! Tonight we had a sneaky bonfire to burn it all 😁.

Yesterday I drove past this field and amazed at the straight lines of cut grass. Today they had been balled up into bales. I am not totally sure but think it might be chaff or silage.

We had a steak haché with camembert baguette to celebrate!

I took a risk and used some precious fuel to drive to Le Havre for a Sunday outing. It was a beautiful sunny day.

Le Havre is a big town and the second biggest port after Marseille, but the biggest for shipping containers.

Le Havre was pretty well destroyed after bombing in 1944 and had to be rebuilt. The rebuilding work was undertaken by Auguste Perret who was a huge fan of, and one of the first to use reinforced concrete in large scale construction. I have already come across Perret because he built a famous tower in Amiens that looks over the town and is called la Tour Perret. Looking over the town of Le Havre it is easy to see Perret’s concrete fascination.

The beach is quite pebbly, but there is some sand at high tide.

The port was pretty enormous and a big ferry came in from the UK.

We had a lovely Sunday lunch.

There are many sculptures and interesting architecture around the town.

This is the volcano.

We visited the ‘hanging gardens’ which is a lovely garden area set in an old fort atop the town. It was quite amazing how they have used the fort as a garden and you can walk up and down and around and it was free entry.

There was an even an ‘Austral’ garden!

A gift from the Belgian people to the French.

On the way home we took the Pont de Normandie, an amazing piece of construction.

It is where the river Seine meets the sea and it spreads out amazingly.

Driving along yesterday I saw several long lines of cars queuing for petrol. I didn’t know what was going on but thought it might be best to get some fuel.

It turns out there is a fuel shortage in France due to a strike of oil refiners.

The effects are being felt particularly in the northern parts of France. Petrol stations are not being refuelled so that is why there are long lines.

Well, I have a full tank now, I paid €1.90 a litre. I am not doing the conversion…

Fingers crossed this is resolved quickly! 😁

Arriving at the end of summer, we experienced some lovely weather and it has gradually become cooler and is quite chilly some mornings.

My morning walk through the village after walking the kids to the bus has given me some lovely scenes.

I am going to miss this view soon!

Our village is called Ambourville and it is part of a two village municipality so often it comes up as ‘Anneville-Ambourville’. They are separated by about 10km. Importantly, there is a boulangerie – patisserie in Anneville!

Our village does not have any shops but it does have a Mairie or Town Hall and a part-time Mayor.

We also have a small church.

There are lots of lovely traditional half-timbered houses and thatched roof houses. A few people like us have bought older places and done them up. There are also some of the new triangular houses you see everywhere.

You can walk through the village in about 10 minutes but then there are little lanes that take you down to the river and you can walk along there.

We don’t exactly have a chateau in the village but we do have the manoir de templiers. An old manor house that may have housed some knights Templar. I haven’t been able to find out much about it.

I was lucky to get to visit this château about an hour from the house.

Built in 1485, it had been remarkably well restored and maintained and is now owned by the state.

It was very well furnished with rooms of different styles over the life of the chateau, with a focus on local Normandie traditions and culture.

And look, an old painting of the Rouen gros horloge!

It’s Normandie so there were lots of apple trees and I couldn’t resist tasting them! They were falling to the ground and just left there.

There are a lot of events occurring in October to support breast cancer awareness in France. They are calling it pink October. I drove past this display of support which is pretty original.