I’m not sure what they were doing on the crane in front of la Sucrière – practising?

La fête des lumières is a yearly light festival in Lyon from 8- 11 December where buildings are lit up with light projections.

It is said to date back to 1852 – on the feast of the Immaculate Conception – for the inauguration of the bronze statue of the Virgin Mary at the top of Notre Dame de Fourvière – built of course to thank Mary for saving the city from a plague in 1643

The story goes that a storm ruled out a fireworks display to mark the inauguration so Lyonnais put candles in their windows instead – and a tradition was born.

So with our Super Voisine Patrizia and her friend we set out to see the rehearsals the day before – when Lyon isn’t quite so full.

The first few installations we went to see weren’t being rehearsed when we were there so instead we went for a drink.

Then we timed it perfectly to see the show in Place de Terreaux.

It featured figures from the world of art singing along to songs from Serge Gainsbourg, Britney Spears, Eminem, AC/DC and others. Watch for yourselves.

Fete des lumières is coming but the Christmas lights in our street are already quite impressive.

So impressive in fact that we decided we should play our part too.

Inside, our flat it is looking a lot more festive too.

Thanks to my friend Has, who came to Lyon for a few days in October with Kristina, for sending me this piece from the Sunday Times about a weekend break in Lyons.

Fortunately when they were here, Has and Kristina experienced the lion’s share (geddit?) of things on this list.

But we now have a few new restaurants and bars to visit – as well as the St Antoine market.

But more importantly I didn’t realise Lyon had an S at the end of it in English! Might change the name of this blog – it would work better.

Lyon’s famous fête des lumières takes place from Thursday. We are very excited about experiencing our first one.

As you can see the preparations are under way.

Now, you might remember this – a beautiful illustration of a kingfisher at l’Ile Barbe that I bought in February last year from a lovely shop in Rue Saint-Polycarpe.

Cath and I went back today with Christmas shopping on our minds and I saw this new design.

It features cattle egrets – the bird I have seen regularly in Parc de la Tête d’Or.

And this time the green cube makes the cut. What a perfect representation of my year in Lyon.

I cannot recommend Diable Petite Manufacture highly enough.

Le cube vert, la maison de Euronews depuis 2015, est à vendre.

Je ne sais pas si l’espace va vendre tres vite ou pas mais j’espere que non – parce que j’aime bien travailler au cube.

Watching the World Cup on French television means I am learning some new words in French like le corner.

But seriously, here are some new words – some of which my French teacher put my way.

• Le hors jeu – offside

• Le but – goal

• L’entraîneur – the manager

• Le coup franc – free kick

• La lucarne – top bins

I remember from my Formation Civique training that there are 101 departments in France. But how to remember them all.

Well how about this? A nice little magnetic map of all of them. With helpful pictures.

Lyon is represented by the puppet Guignol – the symbol of Lyon’s traditional Bouchon restaurants – such as Chez Paul.