— 22 May 2012, 09:47 by Maison Claire Fontaine
Last October Maison Claire Fontaine started a link between our local primary school in Cussy-les-Forges and Holy Cross Preparatory School in Kingston. Yesterday was very exciting for everyone involved since the young correspondents met face to face for the first time and immediately had to use the language of their pen pal partner to communicate with them !
Christine Secula and her class from Cussy-les-forges were fantastically welcoming and gave everyone a Burgundian French experience that they will fondly remember for years to come. We were hosted at their small village school which serves families in the commune of Magny, including Méluzien where Maison Claire Fontaine is based. Being in rural France, everyone naturally had to have the chance to try some local foods in the form of some Epoisses cheese and pain d’épices as well as sample some delicious homemade gougères washed down with sirop de cassis. We were then introduced to some very lively Morvan dancing accompanied by traditional Morvan instruments played by local musicians. These being the accordéan et cornemuse (accordion and bagpipes).
We are looking now forward to the return meeting on Thursday afternoon when Holy Cross Preparatory School are planning to teach the French pupils how to play rounders and also introdcue them to a typical English tea of crumpets, cucumber sandwiches (with crusts from real English sliced bread removed) and of course scones with jam and cream. (We will try not to confuse them with the different pronunciations for scone.) it’s been lovely to see the children interact and we hope after meeting each other face to face the links they have forged with each other will only become stronger in the future.
