We’re just in from Ruadhri’s last Christmas specatcle (show). (He starts at coll__ège (secondary school) next year so no more seasonal jollity.) This is the sixth one we’ve been to now. Today’s wasn’t too much of an ordeal, a mere two-and-a-half hours. The record stands at a little over four hours! The children gave it their all. It was studiously non-Christmassy apart from a rendition by all the kids of ‘Vive le vent’ which goes to the tune of ‘Jingle Bells’. It’s just not the same though.

The smallest children did dances, the next youngest performed some songs, and Rors’ school did two plays – fairy tales! You know how I feel about fairy tales! First came Little Red Riding Hood, and then Cinderella. Rors was in the former. He was Little Red Riding Hood’s father, who was very grumpy.

That's Rors behind the green pole!

The kids hadn’t rehearsed with the microphone, so they carried on talking very loudly as they’d been doing in rehearsals. Now, amplified, it rattled the window panes and made babies cry. Literally, on both counts.

Rors played his part with great enthusiasm and we were very proud.

Rors is far right

Père Noël staggered in at the end with the pressies. I’ve mentioned before how rickety he appears compared to the Father Christmas of my youth. See? He has a walking stick.

A stick, a wicker basket and white gloves for Pere Noel

He gave Rors a super book about the poles and a nice big bag of sweets. My son was suitably impressed.

Sorry for quality, best my camera could do

We came out into lashing rain. The weather is building up into the first temp__ête (tempest) of the winter. We’re on amber alert with winds up to 110 kph forecast for overnight and tomorrow morning. We’ll have to see whether Rors can get to school tomorrow. Living in the depths of the countryside, between here and Nouzerines where he gets the bus, are narrow tree-lined lanes, and then between Nouzerines and St Marien, where his school is, are slightly wider tree-lined lanes. I’m not convinced all those trees will remain upright and I’m not prepared to take the chance of one of them falling on Youngest Son. We also have to collect Caiti from Le Poteau off the lycée bus. She usually comes home at lunchtimes on Friday, but we’ll have to see whether that’s advisable or not tomorrow. End of terms always seem to be chaotic due to the weather. Usually it’s the snow, but this year it’s the wind. We’ve battened the hatches, tied the llamas down and now all we can do is sit and wait and hope nothing too disastrous happens. We’ll probably lose power so if there’s no new posts from me for a day or two, that’s why!

If you’re in for the bad weather too, then I hope you stay safe. Hunker down like us.

Rors and the programme for the spectacle that he made