May Day

May Day in France is celebrated with municipal ceremonies and most places of work are closed. We arrived in time for the ceremony and the beginning of the parade.
That's Jean-Ives with the drum and the music teacher with the trumpet.

As we climbed in the car to leave Douvrin for the last time, I grabbed a croissant as breakfast...there hadn't been any time for food or coffee at the house. As it was, Francis had had to knock on my door to wake me up at 9 AM. We were supposed leave for the parade by 9:45 and then travel home from there. I had scrambled to get my shower and get packed!  

Once we were on the road I said goodbye to the mountains of bad coal...some of them are disappearing as the material is used in construction, but I doubt they can ever all be gone.

I missed the best pictures of yellow fields so what I can show here just doesn't do them justice.That yellow is absolutely magnificent!

By the time I got my camera to agree not to use the flash, I missed the trees that were loaded, but I did manage to catch this tree with its one globe of mistletoe.

Here are two houses that sort of typify their areas...the more modern brick house of the north and the old stone house with a dove cote from the Burgundy area.
The center of most rotaries are original plantings or something that relates to the area. I haven't seen two alike yet. Most are really beautiful or quite clever. This evening we were invited to have dinner with Sylvie, another teacher I meet through the student exchange program many years ago. She lives in Macon and just before we got to her house this was the rotary we passed. I just had to get a picture!