samedi, septembre 26, 2015

Fall is here

We ordered firewood for our winter. Our neighbour(the last house at the background) told me that this wood supplier provided good, dry wood. So we ordered 5 steres of 40cm wood which would fit nicely into our fireplace.
As the wood were cut smaller in size, thus lighter and easier to transport, everyone in the family helped out. In no time, we had the wood stacked up beside the garden shed waiting for the first cold night for us to start a fire. That shouldn't be long. 
On 19 September, we attended the Singapore 50th birthday event organised by the Singapore Embassy. Seb enjoyed the good wine served by a witty barman. The boys played with other children their age and at one moment, was sitting in front of the laptop which was projecting the National Parade. Somehow my boys loved the Singapore National Parade. When I showed it to them on Youtube on each national day, they could watch the whole program for a good two hours.

As for me, I met up with Singaporean friends and got to know new ones. I also met the new ambassador who was really friendly and approachable.
 Each kid was given a special edition SG50 lego set. My boys were lucky.


After a day in Paris, I joined my girlfriends to catch the night lights in Chartres. This yearly light show is ending in mid Oct. Though the light show was almost the same each year, I still enjoyed the ones at the Chartres Cathedrale.
We had a late dinner at a creperie which was full of humour. Just look at the wall decoration.
In the streets, there were living statues. With the chilling night, they had to be so cold staying so still with so little clothes on. We were hoping they won't catch a cold.
 We ended the night late and I reached home around 1am. It was a long day.

The next day, we had friends over for lunch. As it was the Heritage weekend, most museums and castles were opened for free. We headed to the Rambouillet Castle for a free visit and also walked to Laiterie de la Reine (The Queen's dairy). We understood that over here, milk were kept fresh if ever the Queen would want to come for a drink from Versailles.
We had a good stroll of almost two hours. The boys were complaining but they were good walkers. What a busy weekend. And this weekend was no exception. I shall explain that in the next post.

mardi, septembre 01, 2015

A beautiful day at Valloire

We spent a morning walking two donkeys with the boys on them. We were able to put our bags on the donkeys too. The boys enjoyed the rides a lot. As for us adults, we took turns to pull the donkeys. Most of the time, they walked nicely beside us. That was until they saw some delicious plants or flowers on the side of the path and stubbornly stopped and grazed. We could not make them moved unless they had a few bites of what they want.


We walked through the forest to reach an exposition of sculptured straws and hays. It was interesting what we could do with just some wire and straws.

 We took photos and fed the donkeys carrots as their reward. We then headed back to the stable.
When we were walking towards the uptown, we saw some climbers on the steep rock. That's real rock climbing.

After lunch, we headed to the pools. A1 tried the pool slide as it was for 6 years old and above. We told him to sit down before sliding down while we waited for him at the bottom. We waited a while for him and was starting to be worried not seeing him. Finally he arrived and told us the slide was not slippery at all. He had to use his hands to slide himself down. But he had fun and for the subsequent slides, he lay on his back and slid down faster.
After a few tries, A2 joined his brother. Seb and I took turns swimming. It was wonderful to be swimming out doors with the mountains in sight. What a change.