Day 295 (Thursday)

Had a nice lie in this morning before going to work and when I left it was sunny but there is still a nip in the air. As I was waiting for the bus I saw a couple in their 30s walking towards me with their arms linked. As they approached the bus stop the woman broke away from her partner and walked into the bus stop and she was staring at something behind me making very appreciative noises, with a few oh la-las. I was too polite to turn around to see what she was looking at so I waited for her to walk away. I laughed out loud when I saw what she was on la-la-ing, which was this poster for Paco Rabanne.

While I was waiting for Alexia I got my usual warm welcome from the reception staff and I was listening to the general manager switch from English and French with such ease but I couldn’t work out her accent. In the end I asked her where she was from and she said Sweden, so she is tri-lingual, I’m so jealous. Alexia was running late because she was stuck on a train between Nice and Monaco so I sat outside to wait for her. After a quarter of an hour her boss Thierry introduced himself to me and took me to my room for today, which is one of my favourite ones upstairs, Nice. Thierry seemed like another nice person and spoke very good English. Alexia arrived just before 1.30 and we got on with the lesson and she was as entertaining as ever. My next students were Sylvie and Pauline and Sylvie arrived on time and we had a chat while waiting for Pauline. We talked about schools and the subject on ABC school came up (this was the one I almost got a job at) and she told me it was the best in Nice and they charge €800 a month for pre-school hours, a full day in class, lunch and after school hours. And to think they were going to pay me €1,400 a month – cheeky bastards! She also warned me how complicated it was going to be for me to learn how to pay my tax soon. Oh joy, yet more complicated French red tape!

She phoned Pauline to see where she was and she was very apologetic but she was too busy to attend. Sylvie and I did some grammar practice for for, during and while, an issue that almost all French people seem to have. We had a break and then watched the rest of the episode of Hotel Babylon that we started last week. She really enjoyed it and I stopped it every 15 minutes or so to explain some of the language and expressions.

The bus journey was easy again today but I still had to stand all the way home; I’m getting rather good at bus surfing!

I found a new source of wildflowers for the studio on our street which are just lovely.

Huw did an online shop in Super U yesterday and he was chuffed that it worked and all the heavy shopping was delivered today. This was a first because you can’t do online shopping if you don’t have a bank account. We are slowly getting around the frustration that is French red tape.