The festival celebrates the French connection with Tasmania's East Coast. Four fabulous days of French themed festivites will start today with the launch followed by a concert in the Swansea Town Hall. To see the programme, and learn about the festival, please go the the festival website.

Since Jodie and I moved to Swansea in September 2006, we have been reminded that it was the right decision in a variety of ways. Swansea itself, has provided many of those reminders. What originally attracted us to the town was primarily Schouten House, but also the historical township, the proximity to Freycinet National park and Wineglass Bay, the sound of the waves on Schouten Beach and dive-bombing Australasian Gannets [and for me its ADSL readiness]. We've been fortunate as well with Swansea's development, with two fantastic new restaurants, The Banc and Ebb rounding out Swansea's fine dining end of the cuisine spectrum since we've arrived.

Swansea's achievement in the state and national Tidy Towns competition doesn't come as a surprise to any of the proud locals, but it is yet another reminder for us that we have moved to a wonderful part of the world, and into a fantastic community to boot.

More information about the Tidy Towns competition is available here, and the announcement of Swansea as the 2007 national award winner here.

Swansea Heritage Week, in its first year, was a great success. The events were well attended, and support from local businesses and families made the week work well. The highlights for us were naturally our own events, and even though we were busily preparing for those, we did get out to a couple of others, which were a real delight.

The success of History Week will hopefully ensure that it becomes a bi-annual event, happily co-existing with 'France to Freycinet' in alternate years. We are certainly looking forward to being involved in the future [we'll be planning to sneak out of the house and get to as many things as we can].

As newcomers to Swansea, we are grateful for the support of many people who helped us do our part for the week. Thanks to Elaine for co-ordinating the week. Your modesty is charming, but don't under estimate your role in pulling everything together! Thanks to Miriam Cooper [a fellow B&B owner from Mulbery Cottage in Richmond], who put on a fantastic performance at Schouten House that made our evening event truly special. Thanks to Brenton Weare, who is a font of knowledge and enthusiasm about all things historical in Swansea, for sharing his insight with both us and Miriam, for your history walks and many contibutions to history week. Thanks to Neal and Noel from Meredith House, for your advice, support and assistance including on the night of our event. Thanks to all those who came to our events, a fantastic group of people, who made valiant efforts to sample the great variety of foods. Thanks to the other members of the Heritage Week planning committee, local businesses, guest speakers and all those that worked so hard to make the week a success.

While the week was mainly supported by locals, we had guests from as far away as Hawaii enjoy the week, and leave with a great impression and wonderful memories of Swansea.

Swansea and surrounds are steeped in heritage and will be celebrating with a series of events during the week of 21st - 28th April. Please check the programme for daily activities. As new members of the community, we are excited to be involved in several activities during the week.

• Cameron will be playing bagpipes during the opening ceremony at 2pm on Saturday 21st April at the Jubilee Beach amphitheatre.
• Grannie Rhodes will be performing at Schouten House at 6pm on Anzac Day. Our guests on that night are invited to attend as part of their accommodation package. Drinks and nibbles will be provided.
• On Friday 27th April, a history walk culminates with an afternoon tea at Schouten House.

We look forward to seeing lots of new faces in Swansea and at Schouten House for this special week. If you like history, there is certainly something you will enjoy during the week.

We invite you to spend an evening with Grannie Rhodes as she performs her newly penned "Ballad of Schouten House", about the heart breaking shipwreck of the Resolution in 1850, and other moving pieces.

Grannie Rhodes is an historical character brought to life by talented performing artist and teacher, Miriam Cooper of Richmond, who tells a moving tale of life in colonial Australia. Join us for drinks and a light supper from 6pm and stay for Grannie's candle lit performance in our guest lounge.

Bookings are essential [numbers are limited], phone 03 6257 8564, cost is $15 per person. For more information about Grannie Rhodes, visit Miriam's Mulberry Cottage website.

Schouten House has recently joined Bed & Breakfast and Boutique Accomodation of Tasmania. Jodie has been very keen to join BBBAT from the moment we started to put together a business plan for running a B&B. When Jodie came to Tasmania 5 years ago on holiday, she used the BBBAT brochure to help plan the trip, and stayed in some of the fantastic properties BBBAT represents. We are very excited to get to know the other properties and people involved, and have already enjoyed hospitality and support from several of the members.

For information on BBBAT, and in particular if you'd like to see some of the best quality properties that Tasmania has to offer, check out the BBBAT website.