Rouen is the nearest large town to the farmhouse. I had some business with the bank so Sebastian and I headed in and had a walk around.

The Cathedral of Rouen is famous for being the object of a series of paintings by Monet which I have always loved.

It’s pretty amazing in real life.

The other big thing that Rouen is famous for is that it is where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake. There is a great museum of her life and trial.

The story of Joan has had an interesting change of reception over the years. Nowadays she is considered a true heroine. This plaque is on the wall of a memorial near the old marché.

Another iconic site of Rouen is the gros horloge or big clock.

There are lots of old charming half timbered houses in the old part of town.

I can highly recommend a visit to Rouen! The area down by the river is also very nice with shops and restaurants.

I have been so busy I haven’t been keeping up with the blog! I have been working on the house and garden during the week and having fun on weekends!

My biggest task has been to finish a new path from the road to the front door. Although there is landscaping expertise in the family, it’s not my specialty. However, we have all got stuck in and after digging it out, adding roadbase and sand, now we have a great new path!

I also put in a new letterbox!

When we lived in France before, my job often had me in the former Western Front. Amiens is a town I know very well and I love it! It’s the gateway to the Somme battlefields. Estelle and Lavinia and I made a quick trip to visit friends while the boys hung out in Paris.

Catching the train around is so easy and mostly, more relaxing. We took a train from our nearest station at Oissel to Paris and then Paris to Amiens.

The Amiens Cathedral is actually the biggest in France, bigger than Notre Dame of Paris! It’s other claim to fame is it’s rapid construction. Commencing in 1220, it was almost entirely complete 68 years later. The facade is truely magnifique and you can still see some of the paint on the statues at the front as it all used to be painted in medieval times.

The inside is as amazing as the exterior and it has some beautifully carved stalls. During the First World War it received a few shells and some damage but was largely saved from destruction.

In 2018, we held a joint ceremony (British, French, Canadian & Australian) inside the Cathedral to mark the Battle of Amiens and the last 100 days of the war which ultimately led to allied victory. That was a memorable ceremony. General Monash fans will know of his important role in this battle and how he considered it one of the most important events and he commemorated it every year.

It was nice to walk through the familiar streets of Amiens, stop in a favourite cafe for a drink and have dinner with a very nice group of friends!

I think I have mentioned how we live on one side of the river and the nearest large town and kids’ school is on the other side. So we regularly take the ferry. It’s a fun experience as you line up, drive on, wait the few minutes to cross and then drive off. Sometimes you can wait a while in line and you don’t want to arrive at lunchtime when the ferry has a break!

There are eight ferry crossings near us and ours at Duclair is one of the biggest and can take buses and large trucks. Every year these ferries carry 3 million vehicles across the River. They are an important source of transport in the region and we rely heavily on them.

It was therefore quite surprising and inconvenient that when the school called me today as Louis was unwell, that there happened to be a strike on the ferries. I have not been able to find the reason for the strike or how long it will last. (Apparently the ferry has started again tonight).

France is known as a champion striking country. From revolutions to May 68 to the ‘gilet jaune’period that we lived in, it is a common feature. Already several of Lavinia’s school teachers have been absent on ‘grève’, with her being allowed to go home early. I also heard of some flights being delayed at the airport due to a ‘go-slow’.

France is a very socialist country and some think this is the particular link between protesting and strikes and ensuring elected representatives respond to the people. Protests and strikes are certainly covered and even regulated in law. When a big protest is called, people do come out in large numbers. Strikes in France are often across multiple sectors and can easily become generalized. The gilet jaune movement started out as a protest against fuel prices and ended up including a huge range of complaints, complicating the Government’s ability to respond.

The Figaro said that since 1789 there have been 16 constitutional breakdowns, always following a civil war or military defeat.

Other articles suggest that protesting and striking is more than a right but is a tradition.

I vividly remember my first mass protest in Paris. We flew back from Australia as the Charlie Hebdo attacks occurred in 2015. Days later I attended an enormous free speech rally with my friend Estelle. It was an amazing experience! Literally thousands of people standing and walking together with a feeling of true solidarity. It was very uplifting!

So anyway, today I had to go the long way around and got to experience the grandeur of the Pont de Brotonne! It is pretty high to allow the big ships to go underneath.

With my other labourers returned home or at school I had to import one!

This one is young and pretty fit but prone to socialising so I need to make the most of his muscles before he escapes to Paris!

He was pretty excited to rediscover the house and garden as we had been only four weeks ago! Eeek, we have been here a month! Half way through!

Seb did a lot to help Todd in the early days of the house project and is keen to contribute again during the Australian school holidays (a little bit extended for him 😁).

We took him to see the other kids’ school and soccer ground of course!

My amazing workers have left 😞. It was lovely to have company and Mum and Dad did a huge amount of jobs around the house. Although the house is in surprisingly good condition after 3 years, there are still lots of maintenance tasks to be done. Despite their mature years and various ailments, they often worked through lunch with only a flan or baguette as nourishment!

It is lovely to be able to share the experience of this old house and discovering Normandy with my very first French teacher and my school Principal 😁.

Their skills at cracking open a walnut or cracking open the locked drinks cabinet were unrivaled! They got me started on the big path project and kept us fed, watered and clean clothed.

In French we say, “bon rétablissement”. Good luck on your recovery. No more early morning school starts and working through lunch. ❤️

After leaving Veules today we stopped for lunch in the port of Saint-Valery-en-Caux and a quick trip into an old house, now a museum, that ‘may’ have been visited by Henri IV.

The museum showed a lot about the development of the town, the fishing industry and damage during WWII.

There was also a section about the flax industry which was and still is very important in the region. Apparently Normandie supplies about 50% of the world’s production of flax. We passed many fields where the farmers were rolling the cut flax into bales.

We headed into the charming château of Mesnil- Geoffroy where a current day Prince and Princess live! The gardens were extensive and designed by the nephew of the famous Le Notre. The château was not huge but very well furnished. The guided tour gave us lots of information about life in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Apparently dining tables were only introduced in the 18th century, before that you kind of ate wherever. They were very afraid of being poisoned so most aristocrats visiting each other would take their own servant to serve their drinks. When dining tables were introduced, the French used to lay the cutlery with the ends closest to the table edge not away from us like we do today. Apparently it was when the aristocracy escaped to the UK after the revolution they started to change and lay cutlery like the English and as we do today.

Basically a hen house, but pretty cute!

Along with beauty of the coast, there is the ever present reminder of WWII. The Atlantic wall was an extensive system of fortifications built by the Nazis along the coast of Europe to defend against an Allied invasion. The fortifications include gun placements and reinforced bunkers or blockhaus. These blockhaus are very present in the landscape today. I would have thought you would want to erase the memory of them and the war but the effort to remove these enormous structures simply must not be worth it. The fact that so many are still standing shows how strong they are.

Even with all these defences it didn’t stop the eventual invasion in 1944.

Veules-les-Roses did not escape the war. In 1940, the British and French troops fought one of the last battles of the German 1940 offensive on French soil at Veules. Eight days after the fall of Dunkirk, thousands of soldiers were encircled at Veules. Ships were sent in to rescue them but suffered heavy bombing from artillery and aircraft. One ship was lost during this and there is a memorial on the cliff to it and the battle. While many soldiers were saved, 5000 men were taken prisoner.

A lot of the seafront buildings at Veules were destroyed, including the Casino and about 30 houses.

Scottish troops were the ones who liberated Veules from Nazi occupation in September 1944 and so the main square is called Place des Écossais.

This part of the coast is called the Cote d’Albatre (Alabaster coast) in the Caux region. It is about a 130km stretch from Dieppe towards Le Havre. It has some beautiful white cliffs interspersed with valleys and cute little villages.

The cliffs are quite stunning and the beaches are very rocky. There is some sand when the tide is out.

We stopped in to visit a very old church, the Chapelle de Val, that is in dire need of being restored. We met a delightful group of ladies who are trying to save the church and raise money and they gave us a tour.

The earliest parts of the church date from around the 9th century and then there are Roman, Gothic and Renaissance elements. It was originally the chapel for a leprosy colony and served three villages around it. Louis the XIV decided this was an expensive way to look after lepers and said that they should be attached to hospitals which makes sense. The church was in use in the 1960s but a myth was circulating that there was buried treasure so treasure hunters have ransacked and destroyed a lot of the inside. It was very dark inside so no photos.

To raise money they were selling works of one of the members of the association who is an artist. They also signed me up as a member!

We continued in to Saint-Valery- en- Caux which is a little bigger and has a large port with pleasure boats.

The drawings from the artist that Mum and Dad bought were of local villages. We had already visited one of them so we went to find the other. This picture includes a Colombier ( dove house).

Named as one of the « plus beaux villages « or most beautiful villages of France, Veules-les-rose does not disappoint! We have a weekend away as a birthday present from Mum and Dad! 😊

The town was once full of fishermen and weavers but in the 19th century it became a seaside holiday town for all the Parisians, including one Victor Hugo.

We are staying in a charming rental cottage right in the centre of town. It’s very nice to walk around and then be able to walk back to the house. It is a very popular town and there a lots of people around! It’s even busier in summer. Our house is on the street called Anais Aubert who was an actrice who made Veules famous.

The village is famous for having the shortest river in France. From the source to the sea is 1139 metres long!

Walking around the village was very pleasant and there were many beautiful houses, cute laneways and the river flowing along.

The village was also famous for watercress production and some of it remains in the village.

Originally there were 11 mills on the river doing all sorts of tasks but now only a few remain.

A group of Russian artists liked Veules, as did others, and here is a painting of the same mill. it has hardly changed!

The lovely town church.

Of course the river must meet the sea after its 1km journey.

Victor Hugo was a frequent visitor to Veules and stayed in a lovely mansion by the sea. He also spent a lot of time in a little cave in the cliffs where he would talk to locals and sit and think.