Mardi, Mercredi

Tuesday, Wednesday:

My only day of work this week was Tuesday, and I woke up to the first day of frost here. The days are still clear and sunny (mostly) but around 14, 15 degrees which feels much colder. I finally got all my admin done and sent back to uni, did some reading of my French book (Hélène Grémillon: Le Confident) which I'm not far enough into to say whether it is very good yet. I'm trying to do as much reading as possible so it's not a shock to the system when I get back to uni next year (also not much else to do).

 I walked up to school in record time, though I always stop half way and look at the view of Apt. With this class we were doing classroom materials and instructions- a fill in sheet with a game of Bingo at the end to test vocab learnt. They love Bingo so rush through the activity to get to it. It is always impossible to know how the lessons will go and how to prepare for them. For example the first class, CM2 (equivalent of Year 6) didn't know any of the vocabulary and struggled through the sheet, taking the full 45 minutes I had with them. The second class, (Year 5) were finished within 15 minutes, though they didn't know the vocabulary and wouldn't stop pronouncing 'chair' as 'share' and saying 'garbage can' for 'bin'. So that left 30 minutes to play Bingo, which of course they loved. The last class are the smallest (Year 4) and they knew all the vocabulary perfectly, and I even got some presents from the girls...! We finished off the class by doing a gap fill on the awful Halloween song I played them last week: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu_Tpf_yGuo which they loved but there was some very dubious dancing going on. It is also unfortunately quite catchy so only listen if you're prepared to be singing it for the rest of the day!

my presents from the class

So that was Tuesday, and today, Wednesday, I filled up the fridge with a quick supermarket shop- supposedly on a budget but I bought some smoked salmon and blinis for tea tonight so went a bit over budget. Today was freezing (9 degrees) with a very cold wind so we wrapped up and got the bus into Avignon where we were planning to get our new phones. Because the first thing we did when we arrived in France was to both buy a cheap phone and put pay as you go credit on it, we didn't realise this credit only lasts a week so you basically have to top up a minimum of 5€ a week, 20€ a month to have a working phone. Considering I pay that in England already for an iPhone and unlimited texts/calls we looked elsewhere and found a contract with Virgin for 19.99€ a month, with a borrowed smartphone and unlimited calls abroad, plus 10GB of data. Considering the problems we are having with internet this seemed like a perfect deal but this is France, and nothing is ever simple or easy. Before today we had already been twice to get the phone- the first time we went to the Phonehouse shop (according to the address given on the Internet but it didn't exist). The second time we found a Virgin store and went to enquire but he didn't have the phones and said he would order them in. 

So, today, as we got off the bus in Avignon I said to Becca, I'm so excited to be able to call everyone at home tonight and catch up, but I don't want to believe it's going to happen. I am getting wise to this so called French system. And, indeed, when we arrived they told us they had ordered the phones in but had sold one already, so they had one left. Since Becca is in Paris this weekend and not able to come back it made sense for her to have it, but I had worked myself up to finally being able to talk to everyone so I really hope they get another in soon- and don't sell it again before I get there!! 

Anyhow, next we both met Alison in a lovely French cafe, and had much needed hot drinks and a catch up, and she filled us in on her week of teaching (same as mine- nonexistent) and then Becca and I headed off to get the bus. At this point it was VERY cold. Now we are home, and Becca goes to Paris tomorrow, whereas I have very special guests coming for the weekend- Suvi and Piers are coming for a long weekend and I can't wait.