Family – A Few Quirkes

Tour de France

While the race is still on, it did pass through the village, but a little bit ago.

So better late than never.

The village was, of course,busy. A good atmosphere and great to see so much going on. We decided to find ourselves a spot on the vallée road in order to give ourselves a long view of the lads as they came through. We arrived in good time and prepared:

Even the ‘gina’ is branded with the Tour:

The more entertaining aspect was the arrival of the caravan- that is the promotional floats that threw out merchandise to spectators. We were avid collectors.

And then the race came through:

So we saw the racers. Others came through in bunches and slowly. We did not appreciate until we watched the tv highlights that there had been a crash just up the road, out of our view, on exiting the village.

We collected our goodies and walked home and watched the rest of the race on the highlights. The finish up the hill just outside Mûr de Bretagne looked impressive. Maybe next time we will go there. See you in three years?

Hiroshima

Not really Hiroshima but the ‘Bullet Train’ works very well ll over. And the drivers wear proper train driver hats!

An unplanned event was a visit to the baseball. Clearly a big sport in Japan and a great family event on the Friday night.

There were a few north Americans playing. I quite quickly reacquainted myself with the rules and appreciated the skills.

As with the US they like to make a little entertainment in the 7th innings.

I am now a ‘Carps’ fan and have the cap to prove it.

Of course we visited the peace memorial and had a guide to help. It was a stimulating experience, with an explanation of the events and then a visit to the museum to explain and recount events and experiences of the local population.

An historic image of a standing building. Plus a lovely meal.

Certificate

Graduation Ceremony

Our trip to New Zealand for Joseph’s big day. Great event with the processional entrance, artistic performances, the filing of thousands of of new graduates with all the interaction from the families in the audience.

Joseph looking good and looking proud when receiving his certificate. Loved it all.

Then to the parade:

Children do travel for Christmas

Children number one and three came to stay- with an apparent trying journey via Edinburgh, Paris and to the pick up on Friday evening at Saint Brieuc.

It was good to see them. EQ’s second visit and IQ’s fifth I think. It was a planned repeat Christmas celebration as number 1 was working for the real event.

So we had lots for food, drink and a total of three films. We walked around the local area but squeezed in a walk along the Brest- Nantes canal. Hot choc, food and the company ‘Barry’ the begging bird.

Jolie

I had to take some pictures for a nice piece of bureaucracy. We are planning to change the windows of the remaining originals. It has come to our notice that we need to do a ‘declaration’- not a ‘permis de contruire’ but it seems like permission to me. Somewhat ridiculous. I could not do the applicaton online as I could not see all that I needed to do. I sent to La Mairie’ and it seems photos are part of the requirements. Already the process is getting on my nerves.

Anyway she said the house looked ‘jolie’. Ans I suppose it does.

Walking and competition

Yesterday we went for a walk – spreading our wings, using information from the Pontivy tourist website again.

This time the walk was centred on Silfiac. A trip of about 11Km. Not as good as the last walk but still has a nice pond.

This weekend was the beginning of the activity competition- traveling from Stuttgart to Glasgow. The young Quirkes, the young Germans and the so-called ‘olds’ of both countries. So there is a momentum now to do more. So the first run in a while this morning: