This weekend - dancing, singing and paintings!

Well, the children finished school for 2 weeks Christmas holiday on Friday evening. We have had a pretty busy weekend. Holly goes dancing and on Sunday afternoon was the Christmas Spectacle (french for show). Saturday was dancing practice but also there was a carol service in one of the local villages which was half in french and half in english and I really fancied going as I haven't been to one since living in France. It does make Christmas feel like Christmas - a good sing song. But also Holly goes to music, there is a music school locally and Holly is learning the violin. It's a great opportunity I think and seems far more available here than it was where I used to live in the UK, from what I remember anyway. A lot of the children go to the Music School, usually on Wednesday, because they have no normal school that day. They can learn to play an instrument, read music and sing. Saturday afternoon she had to be at one of the local villages for singing. So we had 2-3pm dancing, 3.30-4.30pm carol service and 5-5.30pm singing. I thought pretty tight schedule but this should work ok and I can just about make them all.

We picked Holly up at 3.10 (always runs over) drove to the village for the carol service, very pretty little church (should have taken some photos but forgot the camera). Gosh it was cold though. We were sitting at the back on a little wooden bench, my other half was there (more because he felt he should rather than a real need to be) and Holly. The church was packed, we listened to the choir, there were a few readings and we had a bit of a sing-song which I enjoyed. I don't know about those around me though, singing was never at the top of my talent list.

Luckily it finished on time at 4.30pm (this is a miracle in France usually it starts late and finishes even later). We thought: "Great, we can now go back to the village hall," which was on our way home, where Holly was to sing. We arrived well in time for 5pm, (as I had been instructed by the music teacher) only to find it had FINISHED. Can you imagine how we felt. I should explain the music thing was on from 3 - 5.30pm with the singing being the last on the programme. However as seems to happen here they had decided to re-arrange the programme and not tell us. As you can imagine Holly was very disappointed and hubby was not best pleased. She did get a chocolate Father Christmas though which helped ease the disappointment slightly.

Holly is fourth from the right in the above photo.

Sunday morning I had to take some pictures into town as the Art Association were having a sale. I thought I'd give it a go, might earn a few much needed pennies before Christmas.

Holly's spectacle was in the afternoon and she had to be there for 3pm for make-up and rehearsal. We dropped her off and stayed in town, had a walk around, saw Father Christmas and had a cup of hot chocolate. The tea shop in town serves the best hot chocolate.

We went to the hall and reserved our seats for the show. First on were the band which had been accompanying Father Christmas in town playing a Christmas selection. Then Father Christmas arrived with his seasonal helpers, Tweety Pie and a Rabbit. Obviously all the Elves were very busy so close to Christmas, we did have to giggle though. They threw sweets into the audience which was great but a lot of them were hard boiled so you had to be careful not to get one in the eye. The man who introduced the dancing and does so for every spectacle in town talks and talks and talks. Even the french don't understand him most of the time. He is in the photo below in the white shirt with Father Christmas and of course Tweety Pie and the 'Christmas' Rabbit

The dancing was great, Holly was happy and I managed to come away without any boiled sweet injuries. I went back to collect my pictures but hadn't sold any unfortunately. I didn't feel too bad though because apparently no-one else had either - maybe next time!