Team work....

My brother sent me this link which was the perfect introduction for my Year 8 assembly on ‘team work’.

The team work is obvious but I like the music too. Tom tells me that the original was big in the USA, but I’d not heard it before.

Or perhaps with these revised lyrics..

From henceforth my class are to be known as Team GB - a great name to follow on from London 2012.

Don’t you think it has a nice ring about it? I’m not sure that I’d like to be Team SS – sorry Shane! Or even Team SH, not too bad in itself but can you imagine being timetabled to teach the  8SH  IT lesson.........

Bargain hunt?

Ever been to NOZ?

NOZ is basically a tat shop selling end of lines. The closest one to Le Pre Vert is near to the SuperU in Loches, although I have seen one in Tours. I think they must buy up the surplus stock left behind after the sales. Some of this has come from the UK as I've seen Debenhams labels on some items.

A lot of what they sell is tat, but I always pop in because in amongst the tat you can usually find a 'must have' at a bargain price. 

Last time it was this 'pop-up' traffic cone which cost around 3 €

However my best ever buy was a pair of croc-a-likes.
At 2€ a pair, these diamond encrusted beauties were a real bargain. They are soooo comfortable that I bought them in three colours!

I suppose that as we have this wonderful new space-saver cone, it’s an ideal time to dump the one that Tim illegally acquired during his days at Loughborough University.

On our next visit to Le Pre Vert I'll pop into NOZ and take some pics of the 'never be seen dead with' variety... 

Gone in a flash ...

It’s not often that Mark Cavendish and Bradley Wiggins ride their bikes within half a mile of your house. Well, last week they did and I wasn’t there to see them! Stage 5 of the Tour of Britain Cycle Race came up Sandon Bank en route from Trentham Gardens.

Mind you, even if I had been there to see them I doubt that I could have picked them out from the peloton. Tim and Tom went to cheer them on and found it hard to identify individual riders.

This rider was getting a helping tow up Sandon Bank!

It wasn’t the Tour de France but it did bring a little bit of excitement to the end of our lane.

I was at work so missed it all …..

My weekend ...

It’s not often that I write a diary entry for a blog post but today is an exception.

The weekend started at 4.15 on Friday with early getaway from school. I stopped off at M&S to buy food for the weekend where I chatted to a couple of friends I haven't seen for ages.

Tim was in Scotland and not due home until late evening so my first treat of the weekend, following some soup and a sandwich, was an early night – 8pm. I watched the television for a while but was asleep by about 8.15!!

We’d decided to spend Saturday catching up on some jobs around the house and garden. Just after lunch we went to Terry’s (Tim’s guitar teacher) allotment to pick damsons. We came home with the damsons but also green beans, Swiss chard, Bramley apples, blackberries and a cabbage! On the way home we popped into the supermarket for some preserving sugar and a nice bunch of flowers.

The flowers, with a chilled bottle of La Renaudie Fines Bulles Rose were for our neighbours Gill and Rory who’d invited us to a BBQ. Rhiannon called in for a chat so there was only just time to get ready - a last minute rush as usual to shower and get ourselves presentable!

The other guests were neighbours Bill, Jane, Chris and Alan. The food was wonderful. Jane had brought a delicious German apple cake, which, with gooseberry ice cream, was absolutely scrumptious! We reminisced and put the world to rights – as you do after a few drinks, however on this occasion I limited myself to a couple of small glasses of bubbles at the beginning of the evening. I needed to keep a clear head …

At 10.30 we thanked our hosts and made the long (about 50 metres) journey home. I had a very important rendezvous to keep.

I changed into my PJ’s, dressing gown, socks and walking boots and at 11pm set off for Stafford where I met with twelve colleagues, all dressed in similar attire, for a 10km midnight charity walk through the streets of Stafford in aid of Katharine House, a local hospice.

After a quick ‘zumba’ warm up session we set off. A big mistake  was to start off at the back of the field of over 500 walkers which meant that we needed to weave our way through the hoards. This proved difficult as we were, for reasons of safety, confined to fairly narrow footpaths. The walk was an all female one, although the marshalls were mostly men. Corrie, Barbara and I formed a splinter group with Lizzie and Jenny, a couple of fantastic ex pupils. In ‘route march’ mode we soon moved through the field and finished in just under two hours, which considering it was dark and our slow start was pretty good.

We were met with cheers, a beautiful flower, hot bacon rolls and a drink. I was back home and in bed by 3am tired and with sore feet!

On Sunday morning I slept until about 8am and then embarked on what I hadn’t reckoned would be a marathon damson jam making session. I followed the recipe but it took until about 4pm to wash, make and bottle just 12 pots of damson and tawny port preserve!

Don’t ask…

Just time to make dinner and settle down to watch the closing ceremony for the Paralympics. Another fantastic experience. I thought the closing speeches were very emotional and a fitting end to our summer of sport

School work? No, none at all!

This was the first weekend of my new 'stepping back from work' regime. I’m exhausted but content …

Turn the other cheek? Not us ...

Last weekend our friends Graham and Tracey came to stay at Le Pre vert. We first met 8 years ago when we moved into our apartments at Thollon-les-Memises, Haute Savoie. Although we were in different buildings we were invited for drinks and found we had a lot in common. They are both teachers, interested in music, skiing and cricket and we discovered that when we first started teaching, in 1979, Graham and I had lived about 500m from each other in a small place close to Cannock called Great Wyrley.

We'd meet up during most holidays for meals, drinks and the odd days out in the mountains. When we sold in 2009 we vowed to keep in touch and last Christmas we returned to Thollon to ski and this summer, on their way back to the UK, they made the long trek across France to visit us.

We took them to Angles-sur-l’Anglin which in many ways is a miniature Yvoire (a medieval village on the shores of Lac Leman) but without all the souvenir shops and the lake!

A semi-retired Graham helping Tim with a drainage problem.

On our way home we drove through the main street of Preuilly-sur-Claise (where Simon and Susan of Days on the Claise live). The day was hot so the car windows were wide open. Near the boulangerie Tim noticed a lad hiding behind some cars wielding a huge water squirter. As we drove past Graham was soaked by the squirter and although Tracey and Gaynor ‘see the funny side’ neither Graham nor Tim can. We manage a U-turn at the top of the hill and go back. Graham, for once, is speechless but wags a finger or two. Tim manages to tell the lad several times that he isn’t very pretty (in other words, this could mean that he is very UGLY!) Gaynor wonders whether gentil (kind) is the word he’s looking for!

Feeling somewhat better we drive back down the hill, do another U-turn, and back past the lad who is waiting for another unsuspecting motorist. He doesn’t notice us coming back or even Graham with a water bottle at the ready. Graham squeezes, and, with exceptionally good timing  and a squirt of biblical proportions, soaks the lad!

This kept our simple minds amused for the rest of their stay and whenever we thought about the look on the lad’s face as he was soaked we had a little chuckle.

Turn the other cheek? Not us …

S.O.S. Dairy..... join the milk wagon!

In the UK large supermarkets often use milk as a ‘loss leader’. This means that in recent times the large dairies (milk wholesalers) who supply the supermarkets have been ‘squeezed’ to cut the price of milk they supply. If the dairies don’t comply the supermarkets will find cheaper suppliers abroad. In turn the suppliers squeeze the farmers who have nothing to squeeze other than a drop more milk out of the udders - if they're lucky!

The upshot of this has been significant cuts, in the price per litre paid to farmers, resulting in many farmers producing milk at a loss and going out of business. This, at a time when they are already suffering  as a result of the recession and continued financial crises.

I’m a bit out of touch with UK news, but before we came away farmers were blockading large dairies with tractors and other farm machinery. A representative of the NFU (National Union of Farmers) made a couple of points which really put the situation into perspective.

·        In 1960’s a pint of milk cost pennies less than a pint of beer-just think about the differential now!

·        Bottled milk can cost much less per litre than bottled water!

How can this be?

BREEZE and WILSON are a couple local singer songwriters based in the Staffordshire Moorlands (and very interesting people!) They are great supporters of local communities and have a large following in Staffordshire and beyond. We’ve been to a few of their concerts, in local village halls, and are always well entertained by their music and banter. They’ve written a song in support of the farmers…

Toby and Graham have made SOS Dairy available on iTunes to raise money for the Royal Agricultural Benovalent Institution. 

I notice that when I do my weekly shop that most weeks there are deals on milk. In common with most people I like a bargain, although I'd much rather that these deals were coming out of the very deep pockets of the supermarkets than the livelihood of the small producers ... 

Paris pics (part 2) and a missed opportunity ...

 Following a long lunch on the Champs-Élysées (Italian!) we continued our bus tour. The bus provided headphones and commentary in a number of languages. However I’m sure that on occasions the driver took a slightly different route which meant that the words were often out of sync with the location and a bit of guess work was required! It wasn’t a timing issue as in between locations the listener was blasted with traditional French accordion music.

The upshot of all of this meant I got the ‘back end’ of a number of places…

The Rodin Museum.

Just look at those flying buttresses!

The Colonne de Juillet stands in the Place de la Bastille to commemorate the storming of the Bastille correction the July revolution of 1830 (thanks, Susan). The Opera Bastille (below) was opened on July 14th 1989 during the bicentennial celebrations of the French Revolution.

French National Library (François Mitterrand)

This project was the major cultural undertaking of the President Francois Mitterrand. It consists of four towers (that look like open books) around a large garden. Each of the four towers has a theme: Time, Letters, Laws, and Numbers. The library holds the most important collection of books in France, with more than 395 kilometres of aisles. I’d like to visit next time I’m in Paris.

A little bit of the Arc de Triomphe.

We didn’t buy macarons at Laduree,

but we did visit a bar along the Boulevard St Germain.

You’ll no doubt be wondering about the significance of this photograph, which leads me nicely to the missed opportunity!

I was sure I recognised the group sitting on the table next to us in a bar as Jayne and Ian, who moved into their new apartment in Thollon at the same time as us. We met up a few times for meals and drinks and they sold shortly after we did, in 2009. I wasn’t sure enough to approach them but now really wish that I had. I found out later, through mutual friends, that they were in Paris so missed the opportunity to catch up. They obviously didn't recognise me!

 Isn’t it a small world?

Apologies for any errors. Blogger working to rule. Each mistake takes about 5 minutes to correct as Blogger seems to be on a 'go even slower' regime!

 Perhaps it's the canicule...