Thursday, May 27, 2004
Ice Skating
Saint Augustin de C.
Caroline was one of the parent helpers for another school trip today. Elizabeth's class and two others (63 children) all went to Rennes for the day. The primary reason was ice skating, but they also travelled on the Metro (underground, subway) and some buses and saw various sights around Rennes, including a cow poster exhibition. Caroline was very impressed with the Metro, which was only built a year ago, but then she had the London Underground to compare it against. Amusingly they got overtaken by a bus load of kids from Hugh's school on their way to a museum in Rennes. French school kids go on loads of excursions, which is fantastic for their education.
I've been catching up at home after spending a couple of days helping someone else. Spent two hours mowing, and most of the rest of the day laying stones for the new fireplace, after buying cement, doing the recycling run, checking out the local Internet Cafe in Evran, buying more petrol for the mower, and eating. There is a Cyber Commune around Evran with the Internet Cafe moving each evening to all the local villages, Saint Juvat, Saint Judoce, Tréfumel, Le Quiou, Les Champs Géraux and back to Evran. Quite a handy system, bit like the old fish and chip van we got in our village back in England.
I'm trying to build my stone wall using sand and cement mortar but not using any towards the front of the stones. Once it's dry I'll point it with traditional lime and sand mortar to match the rest of the house. The trouble with lime & sand is it goes off very very slowly, hence the cement. I watched a stone mason renovate an old house using stone and he made a temporary outer skin of plywood, placed the face of the stones against the plywood then back filled with mortar. I'm trying the same technique but with an old door. All will be revealed tomorrow.
| 7:35:07 PM
Ice Skating
