In which we go to the Fête de la Cité (somewhat abbreviated)

Several weeks ago, as Cherry and I were walking to pick Sapphire and Ezio up from school, Cherry pointed to the sidewalk and wanted to know why there was an "E" painted there. After ascertaining that she had, in fact, misidentified an upside down 3 as an E, I noticed that someone had painted numbered spaces all along the sidewalk, from the parking lot for the Auchan to where we turned to pick Sapphire and Ezio up, and, it appeared, perhaps past there to the next major intersection. I didn't have much time to puzzle over it though, since we were (as usual) running late, and Cherry had moved on to asking about something else.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, we noticed that all of the cars parked along the road had photocopied notices stuck under their wiper blades, and that furthermore, the city had hung enormous cardboard "No Parking" signs from all the light poles along the street. Also, all of the bus stops along the route (and there are a surprisingly large number) had yellow change of route signs hanging from them. Perhaps, I thought, there actually was something going on, though I had no idea what.

Fast forward to last week Monday (a week and a half ago), when Sapphire and Ezio came home from school with yellow cards labelled demi-tarif sur touts les mènages de la fête (half price on all the rides of the fair). Then I was able to put two and two together. I knew that there was supposed to be some sort of city wide festival the last weekend in March, but had assumed that it, like everything else around here, it would be held on the other end of town.

For the rest of the week, we commented on the rides and game stalls going up along the road: a merry-go-round, bumper cars, a little roller coaster, a fun house; and were puzzled by the fact that they all seemed to be going up in a one block stretch. The painted numbers stretched for half a kilometer. What were the rest of the numbers for? Had the economy led to a decrease in the number of carnival rides?

Late Saturday afternoon we headed over to the fair, the kids with their yellow cards clutched tightly in their hands. (We had told them that they likely wouldn't get to ride any rides, since carnival rides tend (even at half price) to be really expensive. Sapphire got it. Ezio sort of got it. Cherry didn't get it, and so we had some tears at the end.) Then we figured out what all of the other numbered slots were for. It appeared that half the population of Fontenay had set of sales tables to get ride of their unwanted stuff. I suspect that if you liked garage sales (I don't) and had gotten their early (we hadn't) it would have been awesome, since there were well over a hundred vendors. In any case, we walked down to the fairway and watched some of the rides, but didn't ride any.

Then I remembered that there was a (free) ice dancing competition at the skating rink, so we walked over there, only to discover that they were between sessions, and that the only thing to watch was the Zamboni. Cherry and Ezio thought that was worth sticking around for, so we did, until Cherry announced that she desperately needed to use the bathroom. So Blaise and the kids went home, and Cherry and I headed to the bathroom in the mall (which was closer) and then went home ourselves.