Thursday, July 07, 2011

Grasping the, er, Green Tassel


One of Eleanor's great desires before we leave France was to ride the carousel in the park. She finally got her wish. We usually don't indulge all our kids' carousel wishes, but we've learned that riding a carousel in another country often has unexpected surprises--there was the merry-go-round with real horses in Germany and the one that never stopped moving, even when kids were getting on and off in Holland.

This one was no exception.

For half of the ride, the carousel operator dangled a large green tassel over the young riders. All of them snatched at it, but Eleanor was the one who successfully grabbed it.


She was happy enough with the game, but then it turned out that catching the tassel meant she got a second ride. Free!


Bliss.

So I suppose the carousel at Jardin Lecoq in Clermont-Ferrand can now be added to Wikipedia's select list of fewer than twenty carousels that still have brass rings for snatching. Well, if they'll expand the definition of "brass ring" to include large green yarn tassels.

Ruth heard about our carousel adventures and sent us this great link to the best-ever carousel horse race.

1 comment:

Nathan said...

I didn't know there was a list of brass ring carousels. Ours in Salem isn't in the list, but it has one...