Pony riding in the Dordogne

On the 22nd of June, we went to a horse riding place. But we didn't ride on a horse, we went on a pony. My pony was called Oscar. Kian's pony was called Eclair. They were both boys. Mummy and daddy led them. Daddy led Kian, mummy led me.

We did it for one hour. I had to talk to my pony in French when he kept on eating. I had to say "c'est tout" which means "that's it".  My pony did a poo as I was riding him. I learnt how to control the pony. I had to pull back on the reins to make it stop, pull to the left so the pony would turn left, or pull to the right so it would turn to the right. At the end I went for a trot - I loved trotting! After the ride we watched the big girls practice for a show. We also got a certificate.

Oscar - my pony

Eclair - Kian's pony

Mummy's Birthday

We went to a Hotel called La Mas de Rigoulac for Mummy's birthday. We drove two hours to go to a one Michelin star restaurant for lunch. it is the fanciest restaurant that we have been to before.  At Vieux Pont I ate seven courses. My favourite sweet course was a dessert which was puff pastry with strawberries and rhubarb. My favourite savoury one was the Cabillaud (fish), edible flowers, peas, yummy mash potato and a baby honey carrot. I loved it! I liked it because it was so fancy.

After lunch we drove one more hour to get to the Hotel. There was a spa there. Kian and I went in it. Mummy and Daddy and some friends went to a three star Michelin restaurant called Bras. We had a babysitter. She was funny even if we couldn't understand her. At the hotel there was donkeys. Kian and I fed the donkeys. We fed them a carrot and apple scraps too. There was  also a dog. The dog was an Australian sheep dog.

After  we fed the donkeys we had dinner. For dinner we had a steak hash, mash potato and some cherry tomatoes. For dessert I had strawberries and Kian had chocolate mouse. After dinner we watched a movie called Tad and then we went to bed.

We had an awesome night with the babysitter!

Love Kayla

xo

The Grottes we have seen

Kian and I hanging out the side of the cave, which now overlooks the road

We have been to two grottes.

The first grotte we went to was Les Grottes Du Roc De Cazelle.
It was a cave with statues showing what cavemen did in the prehistoric times.
There was an automatic character. Mummy and I didn't like that one because it gave us a fright.
There is more than 100 characters and animals there.
There was a kennel with a sign on it that said: "ATTENTION: CHIEN FÉROCE" which means "Beware - fierce dog". But there wasn't really a dog in it, there was just a bit of material covering the door and a recording of a dog barking coming from inside it. I thought there was dog in there to begin with!

The inside of the cave, where they ate and slept

A model of what the grotte used to look like in the 15th Century

People actually lived in this house carved out of the rock until the 1960's

A big wooly mammoth

The inside of the cave - showing what they wore

Some artwork on the outside of the cave

Kian and I in front of the sorcerer's cave

Man making sharp tools with his rocks

A caveman doing some artwork on the rock by blowing paint at his hand and making a handprint on the rock

The next grotte was La Grotte de Domme. 
We saw stalagmites and stalactites.
The stalagmites come from the ground up and the stalactites come from the roof of the cave and go down.

I liked Les Grotte Du Roc De Cazelle the best because it had more things to see and do.

Thanks for reading my blog post, would love to hear form you!

Love Kayla

xo

Some of the art work that I have done while I've been in France

Mrs  Tkatchenko, my art teacher from Fairfield Primary School, told me that the kids at school had done a picture of the Mona Lisa and divided the back ground into shapes and then using cool colours, (which are: blue, green and purple), or hot colours, (which are: red, orange and yellow) they used different lines to colour in the background. So I did one too. Daddy traced the picture of the Mona Lisa, then I did the background. Do you like it?

We went to the Varzy Museum, called Musée Grasset. They had to turn the lights on for us because we were the only ones there! Kian and I got a kids book that was all in French but there was ants with pink dresses on next to the pieces of art work that were also in the book, so we had to find the ants on the artwork and then find them in the book. Other kids had drawn what they thought the art work looked like, and this was also in the book, so I decided to draw some too.

I chose to draw a mummie and a musical instrument that looked like a swirly trumpet. I chose these things because they were some of my favourite things in the museum.

The other day Kian and I got a Kinder Surprise. Inside there was a toy that is a hexagon, a smily face and an oval with holes and lines in it that made designs when you put your pencil in the hole or line and moved it around the hexagon. Here are some of my pictures.

I love art!!
Thanks Mrs Tkatchenko for my art homework!

Au revoir for now!

Kayla
xo

ZooParc de Beauval

We went to a zoo called ZooParc de Beauval. The zoo has 4600 animals and 360 animals are born each year. The zoo is the biggest zoo in France!

We saw some animals that we have seen before and some that we have never seen before like Flamingos, Pandas, Okapi and Sloths.

The Okapi which is a relative of the Giraffe but looks a bit like a zebra

Panada which was very lazy and they are the only giant Pandas in France

Kian and I as Pandas

Some interesting fact about Flamingos are:

• they can run on the water
• they have a s-shaped neck
• they have webbed feet
• they fly in large flocks, sometimes with as many as hundreds of thousands of them
• they eat shrimp, snails and algae
• they build nests that look like mounds of mud
• they sleep standing up on one foot with their head on their back

The Flamingos. Some are bright pink, almost orange; and others are pale pink depending on where they come from 

We also went to a seal and bird show. The birds flew all over the place. There was three keepers that held up food for the birds and they went from one keeper to another. Once they got to the keeper they could eat the food. The birds included Eagles, Falcons, Condors and Buzzards. After the bird show, it was the seals turn. The seals did all sorts of tricks; they were very cute and funny.

One of the birds in the show

Eagle eating at the bird show

The big seal

A seal with the trainer

Kian and I infront of the seal

 We saw lots of baby animals including some baby white tigers which were very cute. 

Baby tigers

We also saw an Owl that looked like Harry Potters owl, Hedwig.

Harry Potters owl!!!!

We had a great day at the zoo. At the end of the day Kian and I got to buy a toy. I bought a Flamingo and Kian bought a Okapis.

Kian and I in-front of the Penguins

Au voir!

I hope you enjoyed this blog post

Love 

Kayla XOXO

Guédelon- A castle in the making

Me in the Stockade

We went to a place called Guédelon. It's a place where people are rebuilding a 13th century castle. First we went to a man that made rope. The man had four pieces of yarn and twisted it to make the rope. 

Rope maker

Then we went to see people that had to break rocks to make bricks to build the castle. It looked like really hard work.

Quarrtmen

Next we went to a hut that they made tiles in. First they got clay and put it into the moulds. Then they dried the tiles and finally put them into the kiln for firing. More than 25,000 tiles will be needed for the roof of the castles great hall.

Tiler

Tiles drying before going into the Kiln

The Kiln

Finally we went to see the castle being built. It was amazing!!! It started being built in 1998 and will not be finished until after 2025. Hopefully I can come back one day to see it finished. To find out more information click here.

Inside the castle

The kitchen

The wall being built

Daddy, Kian and I in front of the castle

Au revoir!  
Thanks for reading my blog I hope you enjoyed it. 
I would love to get any comments back from you.

Kayla
xo