The woman we are staying with, Petra, is a scouts leader here in France. She is very passionate about scouting and does a lot of work locally for families. She has her own scouts room and we were looking forward to joining in. Except Caden changed his mind and didn't want to join in. So Miles seized the opportunity and got all the beaver scouts gear on. He felt so 'growed up!'.
Petra's very awesome scouts room. The boys went a bit crazy with excitement so we didn't stay anyway, we cleared off and found something else to do so that Petra had space for her troupe that afternoon. Miles was fine, all he wanted to do was wear the clothes... All the gear and no idea!!
I thought I would share with you this beautiful iron work on the old windows on part of the farm buildings where we are staying.
Caden and his George dog.
Caden, Miles and Marc play on an old plough that is on the farm grounds.
We drove off and found a local man-made beach. They had such a good afternoon. It hit 14 degrees this day and they just mucked about. Here is Miles burying his dinosaurs that he later couldn't find and went running about saying, 'I've lost the dinosaurs I buried.... errrr', it was pretty funny! We found all but one in the end. They were given to him from a friendly English woman at the local lake another day.
The boys harvested ICE from the lake... it was still pretty cold at 14 right, and it had gone up by 15 degrees in one week! Caden and I did a little experiment and watched the ice go from a solid to a liquid in about a minute in the sun! It was pretty cool to watch!
Then they ate the ice, to my disgust.. the lake was a bit gross! They are still alive though!
MILES PADDLED!!!!!!! THE MENTALIST!
More ice to watch melt....
We looked at and talked about the weir at Chabanais on the River Vienne.
It has got so warm that we split Caden's two way coat and he wore just the underneath, light coat. He saw this picture and felt really awesome that the zipper reflected! He really loves this coat!
We sat on a terrace (Caden had asked, what is a terrace) and did what they do on the continent!
Miles sips his hot chocolate with finesse... Caden adds his twelfth sugar cube....
I took them to a Patisserie to choose anything they wanted.... :) I love doing this for them!
Miles chose a lemon meringue tart and Caden a flan... I rather fancied the flan myself.
We went around to the Cathedral to find the local museum and discovered this gorgeous view from the fort wall. Angouleme (we discovered) is an ancient town with loads of history, it was an ancient fortified town on a hill. We all really loved the view, especially since there was a train line with a tunnel right under us and we could see the trains going underneath us.
Complete Tarts!
Enjoyment!
So many streets were wonderful to turn down and just enjoy the architecture of. I personally really enjoyed this. It was beautiful to be in!
Then we visited the museum. There were dinosaurs... relics from the Bronze age, the Stone age and more recent artefacts... Lots of the writing was in French but there were hand held cards with English descriptions on so we read some that were interesting.
Caden pointed out the Rhinoceros teeth, herbivorous!
We marvelled at how Stone age man could chip away stone to such sharp and precise points for spears and cutting tools.
We saw some more wood print on the concrete walls. We thought about how this could have happened. Would the wood patterns be easy to carve or would it be easier to simply press a piece of wood into the concrete to print the pattern on it.
We read a card with information about what dolls and masks mean in Africa (generally).
There were some incredible looking masks.
We guessed that these little baskets might be for catching fish.
Slightly sinister looking masks... used in all sorts of initiation rituals and for making contact with the ethereal apparently.
We went up to the fine arts floor. This was something that I loved so much.... I had to share it.
Caden enjoyed sitting and looking at some (but not all) the works of art. This was of a local River Charente scene.
They thought it was funny to lay down and look at this one. I try to get them to tell me what is happening in each piece of art, where the light is coming from (the sun) by looking at the shadows and the lights. Little things they might miss like what is the season and what is happening behind the big, obvious stuff. Whether they like it or not....
I bought them a token from the shop. Caden chose a fossil, a polished ammonite. It was pretty cheap so I didn't mind. 6 Euros. Miles chose a piece of sparkly quartz rock for 4 Euros. I rarely buy them things from places like this so it was a special treat.
We laughed at the enormous waiter... Caden took a wonky photo of us for his blog too.
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