Last pictures of the tour (I promise)

I think I took so many pictures as it was just such a surreal sight.  Our road that sometimes has more horses than cars in a day, was packed with hundreds of people from all over the world and a  TV camera platform streaming it all live to the world.  The roads around the village that normally have people strolling along them and kids going to school was lined both sides with thousands of people and a massive 2-truck timing station and live satellite feed. Plus I really liked the fact that you can just stand there at the side of the road - as close as you dare-  knowing that a Gendarme on a motorcycle precedes every rider and at least two cars are following each one - and the cars tend to be a bit wider than the bikes - so one best pay attention.

How close does le Tour come?

Andy Schleck rolling past in the Maillot Jaune.

  Yes - I was that close.

 I was crouching on the curb on the inside of the turn.

  He practically leaned into me.

Le Tour de France rolls through our village.

Franck Schleck trying to catch his brother

Me almost getting run over by his team car

La caravane publicitaire

Before the Tour de France riders roll through the course, there is the massive parade of sponsors.  It’s a pretty huge deal - and was a lot more what our kids thought a parade should be (especially compared with some recently disappointing events)


There were floats, lots of music, and tonnes of people throwing out (often rather violently) freebies.

The kids got hats, t-shirts, bottle openers, magnetic book marks, newspapers, small packages of dried sausage, Haribo candy, little packages of biscuits, crackers, more hats, samples of laundry soap, those noisy things you blow up and bang together….and a lot more. 

  Unfortunately it was cool and rainy when the caravane rolled through our town…but it would take more than that to keep us away.

Le Tour Eve.

I drove home at about 10:30 this evening, and man are people packing in around her for le tour tomorrow.

These are just some shots I took driving (don’t tell the Gendarme). 

 I saw people parking their cars on very precarious steep hills and crawling in the back seat to sleep. 

 Some guys who had set up a fairly official Muscat wine tasting tent - (which did attract the attention of both the Gendarme and the Police Municipal as I went past) camping cars everywhere, signs, pylons, giant media trucks, camera towers, giant messages cut into the meadow across the valley, all sorts of things.

 I think tomorrow is going to be a big day around here.

le quatorze julliet

I must admit - living in a country where your birthday is a national holiday is rather nice. It’s quite welcoming of the French to take the day off work, and have parades and fireworks on my birthday. Sure -the day has something to do with the storming of the Bastille prison in Paris in 1789 to free political prisoners and the beginning of the Revolution, but I like to think they do it for me.

Fun Fact: only foreigners/Anglophones refer to it as “Bastille Day” - here it is either just La Fête Nationale or le quatorze juillet

Since Heather and Aaron and their girls are currently here visiting we thought that a parade might be a nice idea. Let’s just say that the local idea of a parade is not the parade that I was raised on.  It was 10 minutes of military, police & firefighting vehicles driving past so people could show their appreciation for their dedicated service to the French Republic.  No floats. No candy thrown. Just hundreds of people lined up behind riot fences, watching the vehicles drive past with their occupants sitting at attention.  Don’t get me wrong - there’s nothing wrong with that - it’s just  a bit of a let down when you have 5 kids with you that you promised a parade, that you parked and rode the tram downtown for, then had to walk (as the parade route was causing preterbations on the tram line) and then wait almost 2 hours for it to start.  When the parade was over an hour and a half late I made some comment to the people next to me about “french military precision” my lovely wife pointed out to me later that perhaps it’s not so polite to openly mock the military of a country in which one is a guest.  I didn’t mean to be insulting - I was just pointing out the obvious -and besides, they laughed too.

Luckily there were some spectacular fireworks in our village the previous evening (done the night before, presumably so that we could head down to Grenoble for the real show on the 14th).  It was a great night -and for a small town - they were pretty impressive.


Plus, cake.

Permis de Conduire

I’m not sure what the strangest part about getting our French drivers licenses was:

• that we could directly exchange them for our Alberta license - without having to prove any comprehension of the French driving rules- or even evidence of an understanding of what all the road signs mean (which is very fortunate)
• that Alberta registries claimed a computer error had lost the actual dates of our first issuance of our drivers license - so they basically made it up
• when they did so - the records now show that I have been driving for 2 years less than Susan - which is off by about 4 years.
• That my license allows me to drive a car here - while my lovely wife can also drive a scooter/small motor bike.
• that it was actually July 1 - Canada Day - that we were standing in a French national office trading in our Canadian licenses for French ones.
• that it’s a lifetime document, with no expiry date - yet it is not even laminated.

A Day in the life of our daughter.

Fin d’année scolaire

Last Friday was the kids last day of school for the year.  It was a good year for them overall  - not always easy, but good. I think sometimes I underestimate what they were put through: moving out of our house, leaving friends & family in Edmonton, moving almost 8000km away, a new house, a new town, an entirely new school system, and in a language that they didn’t know.


They’ve all made great progress in one year-

Here’s what the kids say was their favourite activity from the school year:

Micah: drawing pictures and playing lego

Matéa: field trips, gym (especially rock climbing), math, and anglophone engish class with Miss Cindy.

Jonah: playing with friends, gym (especially roller blading & swimming)

They all had really great teachers, and adjusted surprising well to everything.  I wish that I could have learned as much in my school year as they did.










 So we’ve now had a week of summer vacation - and they are already getting well into summer holiday mode - swimming in the (neighbors) pool, getting out to eat supper outside at 7:30 in their swimsuits….

More chèvre

finding the source

Micah’s class had some more goat activity, although it wasn’t goat cheese like last time, but rather wool.

 Susan was one of the meres-de-helper for the trip. I think she really wanted to go as her penchant for car sickness with its accentuated sensitivity during this pregnancy was a great combination for a bus ride up a narrow winding mountain road

I always thought Dr Seuss invented these

.  Basically they got to see an animal-to-wool life cycle.  Of course everything just seems so much more spectacular when your in a high-alpine meadow (where ‘alpine’ actually means Alp-ine) in the beauty that we are surrounded in here.

dying the wool

the finished product