Day 22. (Thursday)

Huw came into Nice with me to go to the office and the weather was perfect this morning, the little storm yesterday has blown the humidity away – hooray. Michael is not in class today as he’s gone to Morocco for work so it was just the girls. Annick asked if I’d bought my shoes in Morocco, they are Moroccan but I bought them in Villefranche’s Saturday market!

She then talked about how colourful I am saying I lifted her mood – how lovely – the girls all agreed. She asked me how I coordinate so well and in my best French I said ‘it’s easy I only have a few colours, orange is the main one then I also have cerise pink, some purple and red. I occasionally wear black and white, but not often. I worked in a design college in London for more years than I care to remember and if I went in wearing something dull or black I was told off because everybody expected colour, I felt under pressure on some days thinking ‘I’m not colourful enough today’ and now I think it’s going to happen all over again!

I spoke to William about private student and he came up with the idea of working with her in exchange for paying for my course, as soon as it’s paid for I will actually be earning euros  – hooray! She wants to study until September when she’s going to a language school in London so the timing is perfect. Now that I have a private student so soon I feel unsure about signing a 9-month contract at ABC if there’s a possibility of getting more privates at a much higher rate and working with adults instead of children.

I tried speaking a whole sentence to William in French to which he replied bravo! I met Huw after class and we walked to tram stop, then the number 81 bus, I got off at ABC and Huw carried on home. I saw Mary and she wasn’t in the best of moods, she’s had enough and just wants to leave now. A lot of the children chorused ‘Tracy’ when I walked into the very noisy canteen; all smiling broadly, one little girl came up to me and laid her head on my arm. Not being used to working with kids I thought she was trying to get past me and I stepped back, thankfully I realised fast enough what she was doing and let her lay her head on my arm, it was really sweet. I had a list of questions to ask Mary about National Insurance numbers, checking that I’d be paid when I had time off (they work six weeks on two weeks off at this school) all the answers were favourable and the best news was that the contract is breakable by both parties. Both parties just have to give two weeks notice this makes the decision much easier and she told me not to tell madam that I know about this. I suddenly thought that maybe Mary could be my new friend to go to see Dirty Dancing in Monaco but she absolutely hates it!

When Huw bought our 10-trip bus pass he learned that it can be used on all buses and the tram and you only pay for one journey in the space of 74 minutes (odd number) and today I caught the tram and bus to ABC and then home in less that 74 minutes so I only paid €1 for all three journeys – another bargain.

The wind really picked up around 1.30 causing white horses on the Med, which is pretty rare and from the bus I could see the colour of the sea around the old port of Nice was amazing. A port is masculine and a town is feminine so the old port of Nice is le vieux port and the old town is vieille ville, I do believe I’m starting to get to grips with this masculine, feminine nonsense. Another interesting thing learned today is that ‘nee’ is to be born so I was born Thomas, nee Thomas and when I married I became Jenkins.

I did my homework then sat in the sun for an hour or two working on my tan, which is coming along nicely. There is still no box, just a pack of more lies but at least people are starting to actually apologise and feel slightly bad for us!

After dinner Huw wanted to do some French and we went over some of the exercises and homework I’ve done and he’s picking it up really well. Huw talked about something being a dream and I knew the word – rever, je reve – I was so excited about this -something must be finally sinking in. Hooray! No box.