Hello!
This weekend we celebrate Easter.
Pâques (Easter) is celebrated with a plethora of chocolate,
including eggs, bunnies, chickens, ducks, fish and bells.
Hmmm… fish and bells?
Well, apparently, the fish are carried over from the 1 April which often
falls on or around Easter weekend and tradition dictates that mischievous
children stick paper fish on the backs of unsuspecting adults – who reward them
with chocolate fish!
The bells - Cloche volants – Flying Bells have a religious significance,
because on Good Friday all the bells in France fly off to the Vatican in Rome taking
with them the grief of those mourning Christ’s Crucifixion.
The church bells in France are then silent until
Easter Sunday when they return and ring out to celebrate the Resurrection of
Christ.
They also spread chocolate and
decorated eggs over the gardens of France which the children collect when they
hear the bells.
So, chocolate fish and bells – who knew?
Whatever you do in the Gironde and Dordogne regions over the Easter week, fingers crossed for good weather and have a great time.
Best wishes,
Helen
Week 13
It's also the giant Easter fun Fair in Castillon - most notable (to me!) for the fabulous nougat stand that appears for the duration.
31 March - Easter Sunday
1 April - Lundi de Pâques - jour férié
In France, April Fool’s Day is simply known as the ‘1er avril’ but it is
a day when people, mostly children, try to hook paper fish on the back
of unwary victims which will then walk around with a paper fish on their
backs without their knowledge. It is a day for pranks
and jokes. When a prank is discovered, the prankster shouts out ‘poisson d’avril!’
I'll be making fish like these in my pottery workshop on 6th April.
Contact me if you'd like to make one too - 🕿 06 30 89 85 36
Coming up...
And finally...
On top of everything else going on, the clocks change this weekend too (I think the last time this happened at Easter weekend was 2016). So don't forget to set your clocks forward and hour on Saturday night. An hour less in bed in the morning, but those outside apéros can commence... 🍷
