The Half Way House

Today marks my 3 month anniversary of living in La Roche, which sadly means only three months left, time is whizzing by. However as much as I am enjoying life here, I can't wait to head home for a holiday, and some proper British food. As great as French food may well be, I do miss milk that isn't UHT and many other things: pork pies, real sausages, roast potatoes (in fact all potatoes!), mince pies...all things that are unhealthy or that the French just don't cook as they should be cooked ("mashed" potato springs to mind here!).

The temperatures here have suddenly dropped very dramatically, 2 weekends ago we went to the beach for the afternoon and it was really mild, the boys were just wearing t-shirts, but now it is absolutely freezing. Many people seem to be catching colds and flu, although thankfully I seem to be immune thus far. What is amusing is how the French seem to over react to a simple cold, Marion went to the doctor for hers and came back armed with FIVE prescriptions! A throat spray, a nose inhaler, a liquid medicine and 2 types of tablets, all for a cold. And she's not the only one. I now feel very hard done by that when I went to the doctor about my knee I came out with only two types of pill! The family whose house I went to last night even have a bag, in which they keep their daily medicines, hanging on each member of the family's chair at the kitchen table, they're crammed full!

Last weekend all of us assistants had a meal together as some were leaving this week. We realised that we had lots to celebrate so during the course of the evening we progressed through the traditions of all our countries. We started wth Miguel's birthday (next week), followed by Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve finishing up with the 6th of January. We ate food themed for each event in that order, starting with a birthday cake and finishing with a Spanish "King's cake", which had a small toy hidden inside. The best tradition was probably the Spanish New Year's Eve, where we did a countdown and then had to put a grape in our mouth for each month of the coming year for good luck! Very funny! Apparently it makes the kissing of relatives and friends to bid them a happy new year very difficult!

It is always interesting spending time with the assistants and I have come to notice that I seem to have much more in common with the Spaniards and French than the Americans. Living closer geographically seems to have more of a meaning that sharing the same mother tongue. I feel more European than I have ever felt before! On memorable quote from this week was Kendra (an American) who exclaimed "What on earth do they use these miniature wooden goblets for?" while holding an egg cup! We all collapsed with laughter!

At school it's been more of the same, in my IDD class we're certainly running out of ideas for things which are 100% English (ie. not practiced in another country in the world), we've come up with no sports but this week I had the bright idea of getting them to research wassailing! This is the same group of pupils who thought Morris Men were a bit batty and I think they have finally arrived at the conclusion that the English are mad, hanging toast on trees is pushing it a bit, I suppose! What was also quite amusing is that the pupils tend to forget that I speak French, so quite often talk among one another forgetting that I understand, "I think she's got her French wrong, she can't mean toast!" type comments!

Talking of pupils, I am feeling particularly old at the moment, I have come to realise that some of them were born in 1998. That feels like yesterday, I can't quite believe it!

I only have one day left of school this year, yay! Today we had the school Christmas lunch, and later I have the Christmas supper at the foyer, so I think I will be rolling into school tomorrow, feeling very full after a day of stuffing myself with more delicious French food than usual! The school Christmas lunch was particularly merry, wine was in full flow and we had a full cheese platter rather than our usual small selection (by small I mean 4 or 5!). The only thing missing was crackers and poor jokes!

It won't be a good thing if I am still full tomorrow, as in the afternoon we have a staff vs pupils handball match, preceeded by a mini performance by the members of staff, including me. They have chosen that this year's performance is to be circus and acrobatics, I really don't know why, as none of us are really very capable! (Which to be fair makes it all the more funny, the pupils will love it!). So every lunch time this week we've been rehearsing and now have a full act prepared. I'll have to see if I can get someone to film it tomorrow, I can't quite put into words what we're doing, you'll have to ask me about it in person! But it should be good fun though! The teachers keep saying to me that it's an excellent representation of typical French education, I'm not so convinced!

My assistant friend who are still here have been really lucky this week, they all work in lycees (sort of 6th form colleges) and their pupils are all demonstrating against an education reform, so haven't been going to lessons. They're really quite active with their demonstrations, they've fully blockaded the entrances to the lycees. The barricades are pretty impressive, and utterly impassable, I watched one teacher climb a fence further down to try and get in! They have megaphones, banners and have been marching around. Police have even turned up to keep everyone in order, there really are hundreds of them here. The reaction of the teachers at my college (where we're not demonstrating) seems to be mixed, some who have children who should be going to school are not pleased, while the others seem positively proud to see ex-pupils of ours demonstrating and keeping up French traditions! If you ask me it's just an excuse to not go to school for the last week of term and they all look rather cold sitting on the barricade all day!

School apart, I've been trying to get in a bit of Christmas shopping, but what with the current value of the euro, shopping in France has become much more expensive. However, on the occasion where I have made it to the till, I have been met with extortionately long waits: many of the French still pay for things by cheque and this takes quite some time, they really do need to get the hang of chip and pin. Then there is the extravagant process of gift wrapping, which is free in all the shops, and involves all sorts of papers, ribbons etc etc!

Our Christmas outing with the foyer was on Tuesday and we went to a laser quest, which was really good fun, and something that I turned out to be rather skilled at, surprisingly! My team won all 3 rounds and I was the top scorer overall, even beating the boss of the laser centre! He was not pleased to be beaten by an English girl! Maybe I was only good because I had my black netball hoodie on, with the hood up, no-one could see me at all in the dark!

Yesterday the classroom helper from the UPI class invited me to her apartment for the afternoon to do some French cooking with her and her sons. This was great fun, we made some iced French biscuits and the boys were really sweet. The little one, Victor, was extremely keen to learn English and dragged me to his room where he had a mini blackboard and sat himself down in front of it very expectantly! I thought I had succeeded in teaching him the colours, but as soon as his Dad asked him them he promptly forgot every single one. Probably a good thing I'm not actually a language assistant, judging by that experience I'm probably not very good! The Dad is a policeman here, so they live in the police headquarters, so I can officially say that I've spent the evening in a French police station!

So there you have it, my last entry in France of 2008. One day of school left, and then it's the Christmas holidays, yipeeeeeeee!!!