Day 358 (Thursday)

I was very lucky with the bus this morning and only had to wait for about ten minutes and I got a seat – hooray! Thomas was late for his class so I enjoyed sitting outside in the sun while I waited for him. We were in the room called Nice today, which is my favourite because it’s upstairs and has a lovely view of the port and swimming pool.

Sylvie was next and it was lovely to see her, I haven’t seen her for over a month as she’s been on holiday and because of the Grand Prix. She told me that the hotel made over a million euro in six days last week, it’s quite obscene, isn’t it?

After Sylvie I had an hour on my own to try to work out my hours this month as payday is coming up  - hooray! The totting up of my hours is really complicated, so complicated in fact that even Huw can’t get his head around it. Each student has one hour a week private and two hours a week in a group so I have to make note of each session saying whether it’s a private or a group. This is the third time I have put a claim in and I haven’t got it right yet! Last week one of my students in Nice (the one who can talk for France) cancelled at the last minute so Guillaume says she has to sign for it anyway because I had waited an hour for her but instead of getting free money I have to do some work with Guillaume to get the two hours pay. So tomorrow I’m doing two hours with the estate agents then I’m spending time with Guillaume and the task he has set me is to do my signing sheets with him as he tries to teach me how to do it. This is perfect as I could spend hours trying to do it on my own and still get it wrong. And just to make the situation even better, he goes to lunch at 12.30 so I only have to do an hour and a half – nothing comes before a French man’s lunch.

This was my office for the painful hours of trying to do my sums ready to show Guillaume tomorrow.

  

I ended off my day with Sylvie, Ophelie and Alexia and we finished a little earlier than usual because we started a bit earlier. On the way to the bus stop I noticed these flowers on a very small balcony – what a stunning colour.

 

I was lucky again with the bus which arrived just minutes after I had but sadly there were no seats, not even a leaning spot so I bus surfed all the way home.

I’d like to finish today with a small paragraph from Peter Mayle again who makes an observation about the French and food (Guillaume not missing out on his lunch tomorrow reminded me about it)

Is there any other country in the world that has a frog fair or a snail festival? An official celebration of the sausage? A special day dedicated to garlic? Where else but France could you find cheeses, sea urchins, oysters, chestnuts, plums and omelettes honoured by a blaze of local limelight that in other countries would be reserved for victorious football teams or national lottery winners.