French Fete Days

'Fete' , a little French word with many meanings, and it comes from the verb 'feter' which means to celebrate . It does actually have an accent like so ^ over the first 'e' but I can't find it on the keyboard when I change from English to French!!


It means a religious feast day as in ' la Fete de l'Assomption', a Catholic feast day celebrated all over France on 15 August ; a public holiday as ' la Fete Nationale 'on 14 July ; 'la Fete de Noel' for the celebration of Christmas , and so on.

In France every day of the year is dedicted to a saint, and should you share your christian name with one of those saints, then you also get to share their 'Fete' day , and it is the custom to be wished ' Bonne Fete' on that day. For example, if my name had an 'e' on the end of it, then I would share a Fete Day with St Anne, which is 26 July. In fact 'Bonne Fete' cards are more common in this area than Birthday Cards!


It also means a festival, and we have Fete du Pain (bread ) Fete des Jumeaux (Twins),Fete des Fraises (Strawberries ) etc, etc, and August in particular, because it is the main holiday month in Europe, is a great time for Fete Days !!!


LIZIO

A very pretty village near to us , held a Fete des Artisans (Craftsmen/women) yesterday, and as I had been a good girl and taken all my meds (!) DH agreed to take me there for half an hour. Now this is nowhere near enough time to see everything, but I jumped at it because it was the first time in over 3 weeks I've had that kind of offer - well, to be honest it' s the only offer I've had. (LOL!).


These are just a few of the crafts represented at the show that I managed to see :


There were Spinners


...Artist working with metal....





















and in wood...

.........he made this..

....which stands in front of the church .

Then there were some cushions .........

.....and I don't quite know what this was in aid of, but I certainly hope he hasn't annoyed her !!!!

According to the programme, there were also potters and basket-makers; glass blowers and jewellers; embroiderers and patchworkers ( I couldn't find them close by and my walking was restricted - Shame !!) Painters on canvas, glass, roofing & ceramic tiles ; makers of wind chimes, umbrellas/parasoles and wooden toys. Add to this bread baking in a tradional wood oven, threshing with a steam driven thresher, demos of roofing , face painting and pony rides. Models of everything bar the kitchen sink - there was even a scale model of EuroDisney Paris with all the rides intricately reproduced , put it all together to make a fabulous day out for eveyone in the family !! In fact if you could think of a craft - it was there !! We were only there for just under an hour (well , I had to try for some extra time didn't I ???) and the village was chock-a-block!!!

Finally, there were Breton Folk Dancers !

I have so many lovely photos of these dancers and their costumes that I will put them in a seperate post, tomorrow maybe, but right now its time for the dreaded nebuliser session and DH is already pointing to his watch so I'd best get out of here !!