Look who’s back on the Rhône. It must mean it’s time for the Entre Rhône et Saône festival.

I’m afraid I’m going to miss it this year.

Cath bought this book for Alma who we will be seeing this weekend.

I read this a lot to our boys when they were little so I know passages off by heart – like:

My tie is a scarf for a cold giraffe, my shirt’s on a boat as a sail for a goat, my shoe is a house for a little white mouse, one of my socks is a bed for a fox, my belt helped a dog who was crossing a bog, but look me up and down I’m the smartest giant in town.

So what’s that in French?

On our way back to the flat we saw this operation going on inside Aux Merveilleux de Fred.

We have some guests with us this week! Matthew arrived with his friends Ella and Toni on a tour of Europe.

They started in Paris, then a few days with us then off to Aix-en-Provence, Nice and Genoa.

We took them to Aiguebelette to get away from the heat and to swim.

Il fait chaud à Lyon alors on est allé a la piscine.

Ça fait longtemps que je n’ai pas nagé alors je m’en ai profité de la piscine de 50m.

Il y avait beaucoup de monde.

Cath a vu des jeunes filles qui se battaient et on a vu aussi quatre garçons qui sont entrée ilegalement.

Je doix trouver une piscine à Lyon qui est moins bondé.

Now you may remember that le cube vert where I work is for sale. Well now our flat is too!

The landlord is putting it on the market for €800,000. He says it is the street name that means he can ask so much for 100sq metres of flat.

As we don’t want to buy it there are three possibilities.

One – nobody buys it and we stay put til we have a bit more clarity about my job situation.

Two – a business buys it with us in situ and we carry on living here for the foreseeable.

Three – people buy it who want to move in. Then we have six months to get out and find somewhere else.

The landlord seems to think it won’t sell very quickly. I hope he’s right.

The Unbelievable Truth is a Radio 4 comedy show where panellists have to give a lecture on a topic which is entirely false apart from five hidden truths.

One topic on the show this week was the French.

I spotted one of the truths but here are all five.

• Croissants were invented in Austria. (This is the one I knew – hence the name viennoiseries for croissants, pains au chocolat etc
• In Paris it was against the law for women to wear trousers until 2013. Although not enforced, the law was still on the statute book. In theory women needed permission from the local police.
• There are no stop signs in Paris. There are only traffic lights. There was one stop sign at the exit of a construction site but it kept getting stolen for its novelty value.
• There is a word – bouleganisme – to describe violence breaking out during pétanque matches. It was invented by the press in 2007.
• The etch-a-sketch was invented by a Frenchman. Electrical engineer André Cassagne came up with the toy in the 1950s. In French it is l’ardoise magique.

There was a guinguette advertised in a street near our flat. But what is a guinguette?

So I guess une guinguette is a street party.

21 June – longest day of the year, Summer solistice, International Yoga day and also la fete de la musique.

Today was our first one in Lyon – as this time last year we were in Aix-en-Provence.

After a hard day at the office we didn’t venture too far. But we didn’t need to.

We celebrated with a kir in our favourite nearby bar. There was even live music in there.