Three Weeks To Go

So another week at school has gone by and today means there are three weeks until I get home for Christmas. Three weeks today I will be settled on the TGV on the way up to Paris and probably barely able to sit still with excitement. But I have Germany next week to be excited about first. 

This week has gone well; the children at school help to make sure I always have a smile on my face when I leave. On Monday, after saying goodbye to Suvi and Piers I trudged to school on a very wet morning in low spirits but left with a smile on my face. I hadn't remembered but the last time I had seen my Year 4 class was before the holidays and when I had Daniel staying with me we bumped into one of the girls and had stopped to say hello. She obviously expected me to be on the same page as her, leaning in to me confidentially and asking, 'Amy, c'était ton copain?' (Amy, was that your boyfriend?) I nodded and her eyes grew wide as saucers. She probably wasn't sure as the custom here between girlfriend and boyfriend is to be permanently glued at the mouth, whatever the circumstances. On my way home I saw the first signs of Christmas, this had been spray painted on a cafe window:

 On Tuesday I set off after lunch to school, in more rain and freezing weather to walk up the hill, running slightly late, and hurrying when a car pulled up and one of the teachers in the school waved to me, and indicated I should get in. 'We'll take you!' She said, 'we eat in Apt every Tuesday, we can take you to school.' She has always been very friendly and I remember her daughter from one of my first classes when I introduced myself and said I liked horses, and her face lit up. When I went past her desk she showed me her pencil case, with horses on it, complete with matching pen, pencil, ruler, rubber and sharpener. My classes went well this Tuesday, and I felt more able to talk and chat, and make a few tentative badly phrased jokes with the teachers which is obviously a sign my French is coming on albeit slowly. When I was finished the last teacher asked me if I would be interested in privately tutoring her son and a couple of other boys after school on Tuesday, some simple English lessons. This is great because not only does it help to stretch the paycheck but also gives me more time to practice my French and less time to watch One Tree Hill! I'm hoping to set up more tutoring but they were careful to warn us at University not to advertise yourself publicly but to ask by word of mouth in case of anything dodgy. 

Wednesday I had Alison here for the day and we wandered round Apt, (freezing and empty), stopped for a coffee and hot chocolate at one of my favourite places and then came back and accidentally booked at impromptu holiday for January, to Morocco. We had both said we wanted to go to Morocco, and January in Provence is meant to be very very cold, so Alison had found flights to Fes for 50€ return. Hostels cost around 12€ a night and living there is very cheap so with two seats left on the flight, we booked it then and there, to give us something to look forward to when we get back to France in January. 

Wednesday night I went to bed freezing cold, and woke to bright light, and snow outside. It was only a little but there is still a child inside me, wondering if school would be cancelled, and wanting immediately to be out in it. 

But I got dressed for work and set off in the cold, where school was on as normal, the rain was starting to wash away the white, and the children were particularly raucous. In my worst behaved class I gave up on the lesson plan and decided if they were all going to talk I may as well get them talking to me. I wrote questions on the board- 'what is your name?', 'where do you live?' and then finished with, 'how many brothers and sisters do you have?'. They were perplexed. I asked them what this meant in french. One boy put his hand up. 'Qu'est-ce que c'est votre numéro télephonique?' (What is your mobile number?) Not quite...

Before my last class I have a thirty minute break and I was sitting with four children who were doing some colouring in the staff room and can't have been much older than five or six when one of the male teachers came in. 'Bonjour Mr Deries,' the little boy said. The teacher turned, and laughed. 'I'm not Mr Deries! I'm Mr Orliac. You can tell I am Mr Orliac because I am the most handsome of all the teachers.'
We laughed. The little boy nodded. 'It's true. It's you, then Mr Rolland, then last is Mr Deries.' The teacher laughed wickedly and then said, 'And out of the women? Who is the most beautiful teacher?' The little girl looked up. 'Mathilde?' He frowned. 'Mathilde? Who is Mathilde?' The girl looked at me and pointed, 'It's her!'

Today I am blogging and going to go to a cafe to do all the bits I need to do with the wifi. Zoe, my friend from uni and living in Montpelier, is possibly coming to stay Saturday night, and tonight is the big Christmas light turn on in Apt. Apt is the place from which the man that does the Christmas lights on the Eiffel Tower, the Champs d'Elysee and Regent Street, Oxford Street and Bond Street in London comes from, so I think they will be quite spectacular here. Photos to come....