France, Friday 15 June- Sun 17 June

Friday Night is Music Night !! Concert held in the Foyer Rural
Saturday Night is Neighbours' Night at Concha & Hubert's Home
(Thulani gets to play a Vieille ~ an ancient French folk instrument)
Sunday morning doing some gardening and Thulani has fallen in love with a Lapin ( is a lady rabbit in France called a Lapine ??!

If you look carefully, you can see Thulani sitting on the edge of the stage on the right. The concert went extremely well and Paula was very proud of her pupils. Highlights of the concert have even been put up on YouTube.

Here in the country because people do not live on top of each other (as they do in a town) so they need to travel a bit further to be sociable, and once a year a "Voisinade" is organised where local families, friends and neighbours get together to talk, eat, drink, make music and have a thoroughly good time. This photo shows Hubert & Concha with Thulani. They are our delightful neighbours who hosted Saturday night's Voisinade event. They knew he was heading off to England for the next stage of his world tour, so they organised a Union Jack flag with the French bread ..... He wonders what he is going to do when he gets to England ?!!

Thulani discovered a Folk Instrument tonight called a Veille, but Paula told him that in England it's called a "Hurdy Gurdy" Paula put some Wikipedia information about the history of this instrument into Thulani's log book. It is very strange and you can see Thulani with the instrument, A clarinettist came to the Voisinade too and that is not such an unusual instrument. Sadly he didn't give a rendition of Acker Bilk's "Stranger on the Shore !"

Oh, and in case you were wondering if your eyes were playing tricks with you .... if you think you see a rabbit with Thulani in some of these photos, I have to let you know that Thulani and Madamoiselle Lapin seem to have fallen in love ..... He met her at the concert and they have, so far, not been separated ..... It may mean that the Mlle Lapin might have to travel to England with him, because at this stage it seems to be getting serious .... Paula told him not to rush into anything, but I wanted to show them sitting among the pansies .....

Sunday morning 17th June was bright and sunny. Paula took some photos with Thulani and Gabriel & Florian and their father Eric, who came for a nice morning session of music. You must admire the rose bush which grows around a pergolas in our Garden! It is such a big garden, we have to have a sit-on tractor mower !! Thulani was a bit too small to drive it :(

In the last photo you see Thulani with Dylan and a white cat. Dylan is an Australian boy whose mother is working with the Trakehner Horses at Cussay for 3 months. That will be Thulani's last official visit this week before he is packed off to England ..... I'm waiting with baited breath to find out whether this Bear/Rabbit relationship is going to to blossom and become reality ?? .... More soon .....