Class excursion to Spain!

Today we are all going on an excursion to the very south of France on the border with Spain.  We are travelling to Biarritz and St Jean de Luz to stay the night then tomorrow to Bilbao in Spain to go to the Guggenheim museum.  I will get some photos of you all there!!
Thanks for the posts Sam and Amber, I miss you all as well! It's so good to hear fom you and all about what you're doing too.  And yes Amber I will send you a postcard :)
Sam the house is not really big inside,it has a large kitchen with a table, a lounge room and toilet downstairs then some really really old stairs up to a bathroom and two big bedrooms upstairs.  The floors are either timber or tiles, no carpet.  It's very old but it's quite pretty, I will take some inside photos next time.
Have to get going now, time for breakfast, which is baguettes, croissant( if we are lucky), jam, Nutella, salted butter, hot chocolate, and juice. Yummm then off to Spain!!

Saint Emilion

Saint Emilion is a town near where we are staying, it is one of the best winemaking regions in France, it is also a very beautiful little town.  My dad took these photos o the church tower, and from the bottom of the tower down across the town and out towards where we are staying.  It was a really hot day when we went and the cafe had fans which blew a fine mist of cold water out over the people eating there!!! It was quite cool, I stood in from of one and it was great.  We had pineapple slushies, ice cream and some really good Macarons which are the local speciality.

The Maskeret

We went to see a thing called the Maskeret in a nearby town. It is a natural phenomena on the Dordogne River, it only happens a couple of times a year when the moons and the tides are right.  The river is normally flat and when the Maskeret happens it sends a tide up the river like large waves which the locals surf.  The river is muddy and the water is brown and dirty looking, I don't think I would want to surf it, but when the surfers appear on the river which was really flat a few minutes before, it looks really cool.  They were on surf boards, stand up boards and in canoes and kayaks.

new vans, excursion to Bordeaux and local markets

 This is the corn field next to our house being harvested today, the wine grapes will start soon.

 We went to the local market at Branne on the other side of the Dordogne River and bought fresh mussels and mum cooked them for lunch with fresh baguette and salted butter, yumm!

 My new Vans and leggings I bought in Bordeaux - aren't they cool??

 We went on an 'excursion' to Bordeaux, its a port city which is really old and very pretty, we went on a Carousel, did some shopping, and saw the 'Miroir d'leau' which means water mirror and is a water feature down near the river.  Mum made us a worksheet which we had to fill in while mum and dad had a coffee.  I'm sorry I forgot to take the class with me to Bordeaux, but we are going to Spain next week to the Bilbao museum and I will make sure I take you all then.

More of the class at our house

We have a fig tree growing near the house which we make fig jam from.  There is also a walnut tree, apple trees and lots of grape vines.  Harvesting of the grapes will start in Bordeaux in the next week or two.  The vines around our house are all red wine grapes, they are very sweet and small and we have been eating them.  The grape vine fields are surrounded by corn crops which protect the grapes, the corn will be harvested and used for animal feed and to make corn flour.  we had a big storm 2 nights ago and were able to see the next day how the corn fields were badly damaged by the storm but generally the grapes were protected.  I have photographed the class in the fig tree and the grape vines. The photo of the house is taken from the grape vines through the walnut tree and shows our outside eating area and coal barbecues, we eat outside a lot while the weather is warm.

The class at our house near Bordeaux

This is the house we are living in until the middle of October.  It has 2 bedrooms upstairs and a kitchen and lounge room downstairs.  It is very old and made of stone.  We shut the shutters on the windows at night, there are no curtains.

The house is next to the Dordogne River and surrounded by vineyards and corn fields.  There are squirrels and wild boars in the area around the house. This is also our car while we are in France