Rachel in France

The children had a wonderful time yesterday and were exhausted when they came back! That morning, in Rambouillet forest, they tackled an enormous tree walk, high above the ground in the tree tops, 7 metres above the forest floor! As they walked, they learnt about the trees, insects, birds and animals that live in the forest. The total walk was 359m long (sorry, I still work in miles, but that still sounds really far!)

After lunch they were shown beautiful birds of prey – eagles, vultures, falcons and hawks – in their cages so that they could view them close up and later flying over their heads so that they could feel the power created by their wings as they passed by.

After a much-needed ice-cream (it was another sweltering day and Catherine and Mrs Bonell painted a delightful picture with bright orange scarves draped over their head and shoulders to keep the sun off!) everyone went on the much anticipated “wild boar hunt!” Thankfully the only shooting that took place was in the form of photographs (much to some of the boy’s disappointment!) – but they saw two huge wild boar who ran away from them very quickly (so, clearly, size doesn’t always matter!).

Pedalos in the afternoon were a great success, with 5 in each boat and races taking place. But Catherine felt there was a bit of cheating going on in some quarters, a lot of steering into banks, narrowly avoiding being stung be nettles, and some very risky overtaking (and this was from the adults!!!).

So after such an exciting day, the boys and girls trooped back to the Centre for a dinner by a lengthy game of cricket which the boys won (so one all so far!). Some of the girls decided that cricket wasn’t for them and set about creating and composing a new musical play called Fox Pong (no doubt they will explain the title when they get back to Blighty and give their command performance!)

This morning they woke to another day of beautiful sunshine. Outside the cathedral, they had a superb talk by Mrs. Pickles on the South Portal, looking at the beautiful sculptures depicting the Enthroned Virgin, to whom the Cathedral is dedicated. The children decided that the first thing they wanted to do when they went into the cathedral was to go and each light a candle and say a prayer for someone they knew – their idea, not the teachers, which is so beautiful.

After lunch they were planning to do a bit of shopping and then back to create their own little bit of stained glass, using proper coloured glass, lead and a soldering iron (no tissue paper and black card versions for these girls and boys!) So hopefully, we may get a little memento from Chartres, created by our own budding artists!