It's your own time you're wasting.

Bonjour once again all of my wonderful friends and or/facebook acquaintances. Oh how much has passed since we last spoke. We'll start from the top.

The Boomtown Rats once pondered the age old question regarding peoples' dislike of the first day of the week. Okay, so of course I should count my lucky stars that nobody got shot at school, but Christ alive I came close to doing so. (If any of my employers are reading this, I am obviously totally joking. The only thing I've ever shot is a cow in the leg by a total accident. Pretty much.) I had lovingly and painstakingly prepared what I evidently mistakenly thought was an engaging and fun presentation filled with pictures, interactive activities, references to French rappers and so on and so forth. Oh how wrong I was.

There is only so long I can smile for when faced with a classroom full or recalcitrant delinquents. I tried, Lord knows I tried, but after asking about 20 questions in a row with no answer straying from the apparently obligatory Gallic shrug, I did what I swore I never would. I became my own teachers. "It's your own time you're wasting you know. I don't have to be here doing this - do you think I wanted to spend my free time preparing this for you? Would you rather we went back to the grammar sheets?" Not to be a woman of empty threats, that is exactly what we did. Some mind-numbing, soul-crushing work on the preterite tense. Their sullen faces upon leaving the classroom filled me with a joy that suggested teaching may not be my calling after all.

Fortunately I will not meet these delightful specimens for another week now, as this Monday was a bank holiday (you know, just in case the week for All Saints didn't quite suffice.) There is no minute's silence here in France, but the buses and trams all sported rather jaunty Tricolores. It is a day dedicated less to the military as such, and centered more on the celebration of the history of France and ALL of those who have helped to build it. Except their (ex) royal family. Funnily enough, they don't really get much of a mention. 

So, after a two week holiday, a national holiday and a bank holiday, I was ready for a hard week's work at school. Except Wednesdays which I have off. Oh yeah and the strike on Friday. And the "pre-strike" day off on Thursday, just to ease yourself gently in to a richly deserved four day weekend. Zut alors. I thought this attitude to work was nicely demonstrated by a pharmacy I found in the centre of town. The sign on the door proudly claims to be 24/7. The small print underneath reads "except Sundays, bank holidays, and 12-1 each working day." I'll try really hard not to feel ill during precious lunchtime then.

I am still wrestling with the infamous French bureaucracy. Still. I opened a bank account THREE WEEKS AGO and the card is still "being processed." The employees of BNP Paribas Bellecour (still feels odd and ultimately deeply unpleasant saying I'm with BNP) are becoming familiar faces and ever less welcoming. I do enjoy a good argument in French, or even, as happened the other day, in an intriguing trilingual exchange in which I acted as an interpreter for two bemused young Spanish girls who spoke no French and were desperately trying to explain that they needed to open their bank account immediately or risk being chucked out of their flat. Nothing warms the cockles like a deep sense of self-satisfaction.

Alas, it has not all been high-brow intellectual shrugging and cultivating a hatred of children. I have also been pretending to be a normal person and have friends round for Coline and I's flatwarming. I am glad to report that it was almost identical to any housewarming party I've attended in the UK. Except people brought salad. And quiches. And pies. TO A PARTY. The only useful thing I've ever brought to a party is a bottle of vodka and a set of highly questionable morals. 

It was absolutely brilliant fun though. It really did - lame as it sounds - make our flat feel like our own place. I spoke French all night (or at least some version of it), danced in/on the bath, commandeered the sound system in a way that can only be described as Napoleonic (got my Coolio onnnn) and drank nigh on an entire box of wine. I think we can declare a the party an immense success.

The day after, as is my wont, I leant on my trusty and mercifully international friend Dominos. I ordered the usual, but when it came to the drink choice, I was torn. I was hungover in a way only a hardened Scot can be, but THEY DELIVER WINE. Could I really pass up the opportunity to have alcohol literally brought to me on a platter in my own room? Obviously not. I sucked it up and got that damn Macon Villages. Darn tasty it was too. 

So there we have it my friends - another week (roughly) in my life. A week spent drinking wine, berating the laziness of the French, and hating children. Remind me why I moved all the way to Lyon again?

Bonsoir

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