11 November

[Liz]

Lovely sunny ceremony here with the little schoolkids doing the first reading, each one reading a phrase, and later singing the Marseillaise in that awful kiddie out of tune and time way. Cute! That of course brought out more people than usual with proud parents and grandparents coming along.
Good to hear the more recent casualties included in the remembrance.
No masks required as we were outside all the time.
We usually get a good crowd, mixed nationalities French naturally the dominant one. Met several newbies to the village, French and others, and heard about the paperwork burdens and costs of one British couple who couldn't move here until this year so are caught by all the post-Brexit hassles.

[Loup-garou]

In my working life, I had always been involved in the ceremony at the Cenotaph in Whitehall so, once we were here, my wife and I shuffled down to the memorial at the Mairie for 11am 11/11 with our poppies. There was nobody there, nonetheless we continued to do the same in the following years. Then, with the 100 year anniversary of the First World War, the Minster of the Interior sent a letter to mairies and our village began to have gatherings.

Just short of half the village attended yesterday- about half do not attend anything. I was struck that there had been some deaths in the village since the last time so we decided to visit the graveyard rather than take the wine inside the mairie. A regime day for my wife so SHE decided that. In a bizzare way, it was very pleasant in the sunshine amongst all the newly positioned chrysanthemums and other flowers.

There are no other British hereabouts and the two Belgian families did not attend. The one Dutch family is a second home owner here and they were not around. No cornflowers were apparent .............. I have never seen anybody wearing one.

[rabbit]

No masks here as all were outside, at the maree tables were out on the lawns it being so sunny, first time in years not to be frozen, no pass asked for as the mayor knew all attending.

Was it a spring tide?