We have had a wonderful visit to our friends in Bussy-St-Georges. As always, the welcome was tremendous and we have made many new friends whom we hope will some day come over to see us in England.

On this occasion we had 2 youngsters, Amy and Joreen join us, and we would very much like more students from Radcliffe who are interested in the French way of life to participate in our exchanges. If you know a family who might want to get involved - ask them to contact us!

We were treated to a lovely welcome party at a restaurant in the old original part of Bussy itself, followed by a trip the next day to the sumptous palace of Versailles, a visit to the very interesting vineyard in Bussy, an historic tour round the nearby town of Lagny, an evening reception with all our fiends in Bussy complete with gangnam style entertainment! and finally an impromptu match of Boule on the Sunday morning in gentle spring sunshine - which diplomatically we lost.

Many, many thanks to everyone in Bussy for making our visit so memorable - in particualr Odile, Christianne and Dominique, and a special mention for Patrick who helped Graeme get around during the visit.

There are some many photos in the photo section for those interested in seeing what happened!

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Well, we have finally got to the end of a truly exciting and memorable summer.

We have had the special privilege of cheering the Olympic torch through Radcliffe and then enjoying the wonderful "games" that followed.

In the spirit of sharing the event with our "twin" - three members of the French Association came over to help cheer the torch through Radcliffe. They then went on to win their very own "gold" medal in the Olympic Quiz that evening in Ashmores restaurant! Bravo!

Back in Bussy-St-Georges our friends put together an exhibition on the theme of the Olympics and shared some of the excitement on the other side of the channel. There are some picture of the exhibition in the photo galleries.

Following the thrills of the London Olympics we were treated to a visit from a gold medalist from the games! - Richard Whitehead who used to teach at the Dayncourt School in Radcliffe came back to share his success with the school children he used to work with.

Richard won the gold medal in the 200m T42 Athletics event with a world record time of 24.38 seconds.He runs with prosthetic legs ("blades"), as he has a double above-knee congenital amputation. One for us all to reflect on when we consider the challenges we face in our lives.

And... finally, not forgetting this year's Radcliffe Carnival where the Twinning barbecue was once again a great chance to remind everyone in the community of the Twinning Association. This year the "team" dressed in full French Revolution "outfits" as the carnival fell on Bastille day!

Many thanks to everyone who has worked so hard this summer to keep the "flame" of the Twinning burning.

There are some photos in the galleries which I hope you enjoy.

John.

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This year's exchange took place in late October when we welcomed the French to Radcliffe.

Although we didn't have as many guests as in previous years the visit was as always great fun, and new friendships were made and existing ones deepened. We welcomed two brand new twinning visitors from Bussy - Helmut and Adrine - who both seemed to enjoy themselves immensely! Bienvenue.

The visit included sampling the food and beer at an English pub, a cooking contest at the Ashmores restaurant, a day at Warwick castle and the main evening dinner this year was at Radcliffe golf club where the welcome was very warm.

Special thanks go to Estelle for entertaining us with her brilliant singing in the evening at the Golf Club and to Mark Ashmore for a really interesting lesson in "La cuisine anglaise" in the morning.

There are some pictures of the visit in the Photos section - please feel free to have a look.

Finally, many, many thanks to everyone who worked so hard to put together the programme for this year - and to everyone in Bussy - a la prochaine fois!

John.

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