Time flies while you're having fun

Can't believe it's been another 2 weeks since I last wrote and that I'm nearly 2 months in. The holidays flew by, as they always do. So I spent the first part in York which was just great, really great. I shan't go into much detail but I will share some advice with you that I learnt en route. Ryanair only permit one item of hand luggage, and that includes anything bought in duty free. I didn't realise this, so bought a couple of bottles of wine as presents plus some lunch while waiting for my flight to the UK. I then read the sign. Eeeek, my suitcase was already jam packed full, what to do? There was no way I was leaving the wine behind. So I headed to the baby changing room (a practical choice, it had a table and I could lock the door so no-one would see the contents of my suitcase!). There I took out various items of clothing and put them on, thus creating more space, although making me rather hot and much larger! There still wasn't quite enough space, so I started stuffing my coat pockets with all manner of things, wash bag, phone charger...! Success! Although I must have looked an absolute picture especially when I removed everything into a plastic bag as soon as I'd boarded!

I missed York massively for my first few days back here, especially as most people here were either working or also on holiday elsewhere. But then I made contact with the Spanish assistants and we met up to play afternoons of poker and a German dice game (Knoeffel?!). I've been hanging out with them lots ever since and we've been having great fun. It's not doing my French any good, but my Spanish is coming along a treat! I've also recently met a collection of interesting Americans, a couple of whom also live in La Roche so we've also met up for a night of card games, I taught them Irish snap which went down a treat, although Marta believes she may have broken her finger in doing so!

I also spent a lot of the holiday hiring films and books from the "mediatheque" (sorry for lack of accents, blog won't permit them!). A mediatheque is basically a glorified library, where you can hire almost anything: books (more comic books than I've ever seen in my life!), films, cds, magazines, newspapers, and even paintings and sculptures, all for free! The staff there are starting to get to know me rather too well (as are those in the post office and tourist information centre!) and are extremely lax about when things must be brought back, they don't renew items, rather wave their hands and say next week will be fine!

As you may have gathered I've hardly been at school recently, I had 12 days off, then 2 days back, and then another 5 days off for Armistice, they created a long weekend out of it! So in 3 weeks I'll have been at school for 4 days, and always Thursdays and Fridays, I won't have had my Tuesday classes for a month. Crazy! This is the life, and it'll be even better when the strike starts! Talking of Armistice, I've had a poppy on this past week and I keep being complimented on my pretty brooch, the French don't wear the poppy as a symbol so think it's a new fashion accessory of mine!

My days back at school have been fine, in my European class they've been doing restaurant roleplays and we had one 14 year old boy dressed up in a pinny as the English waitress, extremely funny! And in my IDD class, where they're doing profiles of traditions of English speaking countries, I showed 2 girls a video of some maypole and Morris dancing on the internet. They found it absolutely hilarious and before I knew it half the class were watching and laughing! Admittedly the video was rather funny, jolly accordion music; lots of women wearing outrageous dresses made out of curtain material, smiling a little too much; men waving hankies with jangly bells on socks..., but I was surprised at the popularity of it amongst my pupils none the less. I suppose taken out of context it does look like a rather eccentric British custom! Thank goodness there's no video of me in my "Merry Maid" days, I think my pupils would lose all the respect they have for me! Another pair were studying Scottish food, apparently the "deep friend man bar" is popular in Glasgow, an absolutely brilliant mistake I thought!

Just an additional note, as a follow up to the entry where I mentioned funny names my pupils have, I have met a Muriel, a Margot a Pauline and an Ingrid this week at school!

Lessons apart, I'm still filling the other hours in the library, now that European week is over we've now moved on to Science week, which is at the end of this month, so I'm trying to think of fun displays on energy and transport. The European week was a great success, it even had a write up in the paper, and I got a mention! I'll be keeping a copy of that one. Plus the deputy has asked us to leave up all the displays for next week as we have inspectors coming and he wants to impress them!

Out of school, I've finally started playing handball! I returned to the leisure club and have joined in the training sessions, the men have all been really nice and I even went for a beer with them all in the club house after last week's session! I was still the only female, out numbered 12:1! However, I also went to the women's last week for the first time, they were really nice, a bit like a rowdy hockey club! Interestingly at least 50% of them wear knee supports, so I fit in well, even if it does mean that it's probably a high risk sport for knees, then again I don't think I'm quite at the level where I will be scoring goals by jumping into the air and sliding across the floor just yet! They've also taken to shouting random words at me in English whenever possible, for example when we stop for a water break someone will shout "DRINK LAURA DRINK" at me across the room even though I understand perfectly well what's going on! Very funny! They're all very good, I think it will take a long time for me to get up to a decent level but it's something to do, and of course I need to exercise to burn off all the delicious French food I'm still enjoying!

Talking of food, I sampled both snails and frogs' legs for supper last week! After the conversation class with Quentin, his mum (Marie, the science teacher from school) served them up, it's been a long standing joke that I must try them while in France, so now I have. And they actually weren't that bad! Well the snails weren't, I didn't take so well to the frogs' legs, particularly as we'd got onto the topic of all the dissections she'd had to do while training to be a science teacher! I polished off about 15 snails as my starter, they were in their shells and she'd filled the top with a sort of garlic butter, and I then had to use a cocktail stick to spike them out. It was rather fun, I just didn't think too much about what I was eating! I was a lot more squeamish with the frogs' legs; for starters there wasn't much meat so I had to nibble around the bones and quite often snap them at the knee joint, which I didn't like at all! They too were covered in garlic and I absolutely stank afterwards, and still the next day, I certainally know why the French have a reputation of eating garlic! Ah well, another thing ticked off my "Things to do in France" list! She took some photos and so hopefully she'll give them to me soon and I can put them up.

Charlotte and I had fun the other night, we made 31 crepes, the volume of pancakes reminded me distinctly of one of my favourite children's books, "There's no such thing as a dragon!". It was Yooshy's birthday so we had a mini party in the kitchen with plenty of French food and wine. After making so many I think I can declare that I now know how to make the perfect French crepe, Pancake Day round mine next year!

On Sunday I went with the Spaniards and Americans to Vendee Globe, which is the round the world boat race that leaves from here, it's the one that Ellen MacArthur is famous for doing. It is probably the biggest event of the year here, there were over half a million people expected, and my goodness, it was mad! There were people standing on cars, post boxes, telephone boxes and goodness knows what else in order to get a good view of the boats leaving the port. This year (it runs every 4 years) there are only 2 women entering the race and both of them are British. After the departure we went round the American's apartment and ended up staying the night too, as it was a Sunday trains back (as ever in Frnace) were next to impossible, plus there was a good party in swing! We somehow convinced one of the American's that I am Spanish, I do not know how we pulled that one off, maybe it was my pale skin and West Country accent that really convinced him...! So from now on I am officially known as the honorary Spaniard by everyone here! Incidentally, as a follow up to a previous comment on the carpeted walls found throughout France, his apartment was infuriating, the floor on which we slept was wooden, while the walls were covered in some luxury, thick carpet. I wanted to sleep standing up leaning on it, it would have been more comfortable!

So all is excellent here, so much so that I'm beginning to wish I was able to take two years abroad, or maybe I'll just spend my life flittering around Europe pretending to be Spanish! I now know why you're only allowed to take part in the Comenius programme once in your life, if not we'd all be doing it every year. I would recommend it to absolutely anyone and everyone, it's just simply brilliant, more than brilliant :) I've never met so many interesting and fun people from all over the globe nor had so much time to enjoy life. It's just great.