That is right I have a rotten stinking cold. That's all it is, a cold, but it's not actually it's man flu. Last time I was ill was when I had swine flu back in January and so this is a shock to the system. I was warned...working with children you'd get all their bugs! Fine well let this be the end of it. I'm immune now as far as I'm concerned!
Thanks to my colleague Michelle for sending me this gem to cheer me up!
So yes I have been doing my 2 mile walk and back every day and sweating my way through the sports lessons (this week my lessons have been about running...so I've been legging it around with the children and of course they get excited about running so it gets noisy and then I have to shout... of all the weeks to be doing this!) but my voice held out for English enrichment lessons, we have been doing colours so it lasted for several rounds of 'I can sing a rainbow' and now I'm somehow halfway through the week so it's all good. Oh and I took this pic today:
At school in French lessons we were always taught about 'l'hotel de ville' (the town hall) well they never said anything about le 'Mairie' which is in the picture. This is like the village hall if you like, every little village round here has one and it looks like Disney commissioned them. Sums up the area perfectly, it's so pretty!
The weekend was lovely well the Saturday was, Sunday was day 1 of 'maybe it's hay fever? Maybe I'm allergic to something in the trees? I shall just rest for a day and then it'll be gone I'm sure'.
As the weather has been threatening rain last couple of days I have been able to use the gym rather than go out on the stade and I have to say I don't think this is too bad a place to spend my day...
Although today was different, today I wasn't teaching sports so much as supervising activities so the afternoon involved me, a microscope and all the little boys tripping over themselves to find stuff to examine under it. I managed to start off well enough with holding their interests by finding acorns, conkers, leaves, a dandelion clock bud, mushroom, flowers.....static stuff that stays exactly where on the Petrie dish you out it so it can be examined accordingly. Then arrived a ladybird, a slug, a grasshopper, a centipede...and please god no.... Oh yes finally they found a spider. Got to love little boys. I was very good natured about it you can't let them know these things aren't in your list of favourites so spider was dealt with the same way I dealt with a slow worm I was once handed. Now I don't have a problem with slow worms, they're beautiful creatures, but I think the boys who gave it me hoped I had.... "oh no look it's playing dead!" (whilst thrusting it in my face) all they got was me gently removing it from them and saying "yes boys probably because it is almost literally scared to death now put it back..."
Cool points won. I wasn't about to lose cool points over the spider :)
Anyway Saturday was l'rentrée!!! Which is the start of the school year welcome picnic where teachers, students and parents all come together. It was 29 degrees and just a perfect day! Everyone bought some contribution, there was food and drink aplenty!
Hungry?
Chilling in the shade
As I've said before the food is wonderfully healthy out here and so the Tavel was filled with cold meats, cheeses, fresh fruit and veg and homemade food using very fresh ingredients. It was amazing!
It was great to meet all the parents and everyone was very enthusiastic to meet the new sports teacher and I was made to feel extremely welcome. Some of the parents spoke some English but a lot didn't so I'm getting proficient at franglais and mime!
After the picnic Michelle, Chris and I decided we weren't ready to head home and so hopped onto a bus outside the school and 10 minutes later hopped off at the Disney Village. We wanted to watch the rugby so the Sports Bar was the best choice and as my friend Shawn (who is my native American guardian angel! Navajo to be more precise...) popped in to say hi before heading off to be chief sitting bull in the wild west show for the evening we were able to get a hefty discount on the round! Thanks chief. Good times indeed.
I love that the beermats in my local pub are these...
It reminds me you should never give up on your dreams, sometimes you may stray off the path a bit, I know I did big time, but I didn't realise I had til I found myself suddenly back surrounded by so much of what I have spent years wanting! It all seemed so easy, to the outside world I look pretty lucky... But the years it has taken, all the tiny steps I had to take which built up and built up until finally I gathered enough speed to leap! So it may look like what I did was easy but trust me it started a long time ago. Never give up, if you want something bad enough, whatever it may be, start today and never lose faith. You will get there.
Before we knew it it was very dark and after 8pm at night and the other two had to be heading back to Paris so I decided to walk home...which ended up taking about N hour as I got lost somewhere cutting across the fields and through the woods, but it was such a beautiful night, well lit by an incredibly bright moon and really hot so it was one of those warm fuzzy nights that feels like you ar,e on holiday and I feel so happy with the way things are at present I may as well be :)
Don't get me wrong I'm very much missing many people who are a big part of my life old and more recent, as every day passes the reality of not being able to see them so much or quite so easily is starting to sink in, but i speak to them all the time, love doesnt feel distance and it's beautiful here and so are the people so when I found myself laughing till my sides hurt Saturday without so much as glancing at my watch or my phone I just know everything really is ok. I also received this from a friend last week and I have to say I love it!
A big thing that helps also is the job. Working with kids is I am so far finding out...awesome! To Spend my week seeing the world the way they do is just life changing and refreshing! Things are so uncomplicated to them. Since the beginning of term there have been new additions to the school and in some cases the new children don't even speak much French if any so have little to talk to the other kids about. However I could not tell you which children were the new ones in the class without having had them pointed out to me. Children just accept. I know they haven't been on the planet long enough to have had the experiences we as adults have which can jade us into not accepting new people quite so readily, but all the same they are all included! They play like they've known each other for years, when pairing up for sports or splitting into groups for dance; the new children were encouraged straight in by all, you'd never have known the day before they weren't even a part of the class and the little boy who doesn't speak a word of French somehow gets by playing with the other children all day, he doesn't seek to join in their games they include him in theirs. Wouldn't it be wonderful if the adult world had this level of trust, acceptance and tolerance without question.
I feel I am going to learn a lot from these little dudes
Karen x
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