This morning I joined Maddy’s nursery school class for a trip to the [tag-tec]Le Casset[/tag-tec] lakes.  The class had been split into two halves and I was there primarily to keep Maddy amused whilst Sue gave this group of 3 year olds a painting lesson!  She chose a scene of sky, mountains, trees and lake, and colours and how to mix them were discussed along with her method of painting.  I thought she was very brave to draw and then paint in front of a group and all in French.  Christine, the leader was quite scary and kept the children all in their places – there was obviously no messing with her!  As children this age only have an attention span of 15 minutes, they were then allowed to let off steam and it was time for drinks and biscuits. 

The other group had been having a [tag-tec]fishing[/tag-tec] lesson so then it was our turn to fish.  This was demonstrated by Stephan who spoke such good English, that I thought at first he was from the UK but his French accent was also so good that I was rather confused!  He was fishing for minnows using balls of damp bread for bait.  Each child was able to have a turn holding the rod and reeling in a fish which they were able to drop into a bucket of water after Stephan had removed the hook.  I am glad to report that all the fish were returned to the lake at the end of the morning.

As Rick had been there recording the whole of the process for posterity, the 3 of them came back to ours for lunch and we spent a pleasant afternoon sitting on the patio chatting, in-between playing with Maddy who finds the garden (and Chelsea) an amusing distraction.  After they had gone, I decided to dig down into my “canal” further as water is still seeping out onto the ground either side attracting flies and the like.  Chris suggested making a pond, and altho’ we have seen pond making equipment at the jardinerie, I have not actually seen one in anybody’s garden.  It may be too cold here in winter for such a venture.