On Tuesday I went to school but felt ill. Fortunately so did the children, so in my second class, twelve students were absent, and it made teaching with a thumping headache mildly easier. In my after school lessons I attempted to teach animals but couldn't seem to grip their attention, so we made paper fortune tellers (that thing where you fold the paper up and put 4 numbers on each corner, eight colours inside, and have to fold up the flap to read the message underneath). I hadn't the heart to make them write the messages in English, it was clearly too much fun to think up eight french insults. When they had exhausted 'you're ugly,' 'you smell,' 'you're stupid,' they turned to me for inspiration. 'You could try and write one nice thing? You know... you're my friend, you're nice...' I suggested. It was such a preposterous suggestion, it was hardly given the time of day, and they went back to writing the true comedy, 'you fancy...'. And so when it was my turn, and I dutifully chose my colour and was presented with 'you fancy Antonin', the lesson ended with Antonin going beetroot and sprinting out of the room.
Wednesday's rain turned to snow.
Thursday I woke up feeling terrible and sent an email to work, and went back to bed. It rained heavily all day and by Friday morning the river was raging. We walked out to the supermarket, and I did some French grammar, (another New Years Resolution yet to be tackled), then in the evening I had been invited to a 'repas' with Jean Philippe and Sylviane, and their extended family. It's one thing to hold a french conversation with just Jean Philippe and Sylviane, let alone hold your own in a social situation with eight native french speakers, so I was nervous when Jean Philippe's family arrived. I met Emmanuel and his wife, Emmanuelle (I know), Juliane, Laurence, Luc and Gaelle, and immediately it became clear there was nothing to worry about. They were an extremely kind family, easy going and friendly and asked me about my life in France and my work. They were sympathetic about me having been placed in Apt ('but nothing happens here?'), expressed horror when Sylviane told them about the teachers often leaving me alone infront of a class, encouraged and complimented my french and were amused when I simply said the french and english education systems were 'different'.
After champagne and three glasses of red wine, I became further and further removed from the conversation, and was happy to let it wash over me, when we started to play the 'guess who' game. Contributions such as 'Prince George, Jesus, Victor Hugo and Sherlock Holmes' made it not difficult to play for a non french person, and they went out of their way to make me feel at home and included, even bringing out some mince pies for a post dinner treat. It was a lovely evening, and so nice to be included in a family environment, only slightly overshadowed by the awareness that that feeling of togetherness is a rare thing for me in France, and something when people have it everyday, they take for granted.
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