'See you Nesquik!'

So, four weeks before the end of term, my children and I are beginning to gain an understanding of each other. Monday, I have a new young female teacher who is much friendlier than her predecessor and likes to help in class, interact with me and the children and tout va bien (all goes well). Mostly.... This Monday I decided the best thing to do would be animals. I drew up some flashcards...a dog, a cat, a fish, a cow, a pig, a horse etc. We learnt the words quickly, and they noted down the vocab and then I asked them to write the animals they have at home. And then for an example, I proudly told them, 'I have two dogs and two horses', deciding the chickens and the sheep could confuse matters. They did not seem impressed. As it turned out, nearly three quarters of the class lived on a farm.

We had all sorts of answers, from 'I have ten dogs and three cats..' ('Really? Tu as dix chiens?!') to 'I have three donkeys, five cats, seven cows, two horses, four dogs and ten chickens.' (...in Morocco, he forgot to add). But they liked telling me so they all concentrated well. After I asked them to say their favourite animal. It all started so well, with 'my favourite animal is a dog,', 'my favourite animal is a horse', and then someone had to say, 'my favourite animal is a dog, a cat, a rabbit and a guinea pig,' and then suddenly it became a competition and I had a tough vocabulary test, 'Amy, c'est quoi, un coq? C'est quoi, un lynx? C'est quoi, un taureau?' (A cockerel, a lynx and a bull I discovered). 

And finally my favourite; 'my favourite animal is a snack'.
'A what?!'
'A snack.'
'En français?'
'Un serpent?'
'Ahhhh. Your favourite animal is a snake. A SNAKE.'

Then I said goodbye, and 'see you next week'. Unfortunately the words 'next week' morphed into one and the children picked up 'nesquik' so I left the class to a bunch of ten year olds telling me they'd see me 'nesquik'.

Tuesday I met Sabine to eat with her mother in Apt. They feed me enough at Sabine's, but at her mother's she seemed determined to excel herself, and we had pizza and salad, bread to mop up the gallons of olive oil left on the plate, a huge chunk of lasagne, more bread to mop up the tomato sauce, cheese, more bread to accompany the cheese, ice cream and petit fours, and then the grandmother had made a special cake, from the Bordeaux region, and she asked me if I would try it. I couldn't say no, could I? Fortunately my subsequent food coma made for a very relaxing afternoon at school. Unfortunately I don't think twenty performances of 'head, shoulders, knees and toes' quite burnt off my lunch but the children enjoyed it. We then played a favourite game of theirs- 'draw a monster with two heads and a long neck...' (I couldn't have foreseen how that one was going to turn out, and I lost them in fits of giggles for a good five minutes).

Wednesday and Thursday both went well- I've started all the admin of closing down accounts, and going back through ignored emails (that it turns out shouldn't have been ignored). But there's not much I can do today because tomorrow I'm going to Lille to see Georgia and I can't wait. It's been more than five months since I last saw Georgia here in Apt, and she's now working up in Lille so I took the first opportunity to book my tickets to go up there. I can't wait to explore another French city but more importantly spend some quality time with one of my best friends.

And because I have pictures to illustrate my school days, here are a few of the spring weather in Apt: