Blogs from Arras, Nord-Pas de Calais, France, Europe

Avant que l'automne ne nous tombe sur la tête... car nous n'en sommes pas encore à deux saisons sous nos cieux... (changement climatique oblige...), profitons encore de ces très beaux jours pour une petite escapade en Bretagne... C'est ainsi que nous profiterons d'une invitation à Bruxelles, à déjeuner chez Pierre et Véronique (avec d'autres amis du voyage à Oman d'il y a deux ans...), que nous décidons de ne pas nous arrêter là mais bien de continuer la route vers la Bretagne où nous sommes venus la dernière fois en août 2016... Certains se souviendront de ce passage mémorable qui m'a laissé l'expérience d'un pied fracturé... suivi d'une embolie pulmonaire... Ah... que de mauvais souvenirs, heureusement oubliés mais qui m'obligeront à être attentive aux petits trous cachés des chemins... quand je prendrai des photos... Pollux mais ... read more

The weather has improved from yesterday but we will still be in long trousers and jerseys as the temperature is not projected to rise above 20C and if there is any wind it will feel cooler.The rain however has gone although we will still be prepared just in case. We have two cats who visit us although not both at the same time as they are clearly rivals to each other.The black and white one doesn't belong to the household but appears from over the fence while the tabby is the owners cat.Its hard when you are cat lovers not to feed a cat that befriends you tid bids although as Gretchen said we could be creating problems for future guests who are not cat lovers. All that aside they have both been wonderful to have ... read more

Theodore Roosevelt Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing. Just finished off my first two days! So Monday was technically another training day, we shadowed the old guides and learned the ropes from them about how to run the site! I learned so much, and I got to go on two tours with Shaundel and Sao Mai. Both tours were so different so it was great to have two really neat perspectives. We learned the three different positions: Accueil (you're at the front desk of the visitors centre), Entree (Greeting visitors at the entrance), and Caribou (where you watch out for the monument and answer people's questions). It was so great to get the advice from the old guides too about ... read more

Bonjour! Today was the third day of training. We had a presentation in the morning from Claudette, the Director, European Operations for Veteran Affairs Canada. She asked if there was a Theresa here, and there wasn't. So she said that there were a bunch of Canadian teachers who were there in July that (she was giving a conference for them) and one of them knew a guide that was coming and left a note for them. I remembered Eric saying that he told Mr. Saikaley (my grade 10 history teacher at Canterbury High School) I was going over to Vimy Ridge, and Mr. Saikaley said he was visiting over the summer and in the spring, so I asked her if it could be Mr. Saikaley. She couldn't remember, so she ran and got the note, and ... read more

SATURDAY continued..... Suddenly aware of how young the audience at the festival is, so spent 20 mins prior to Fleet Foxes taking pictures of anyone who looked vaguely over 50 so I could convince myself that I am not the oldest groover in Arras. Managed 4 photos. To be fair, they could all have been younger than me...... Fleet Foxes were nice, in an inoffensive, hippyish, Crosby Stills and Nash sort of way. We caught the end of Aloe Blacc's set before FF came on and wished we had seen more. Wandered to the main stage, saw The National who were great but got the biggest cheers when they wheeled out a couple of Arcade Fire members to sing. And then Arcade Fire themselves. Somehow, we managed to get wedged behind the tallest man in the ... read more