Day 511 (Wednesday)

Happy Halloween.

It was 18 degrees this morning, not cold enough for jeans but not warm enough for a dress; the sky was blue again so all was well with the world again.

I had an email from an old student called Roger from Bolivia saying that he’s coming to France in November – I am very excited about seeing him again. He was in my class in London before I met Huw and he’s such a lovely, lovely man. He went back to Bolivia before Huw and I got engaged but we’ve always stayed in touch. We had our engagement party in 2005 in the 100 club on Oxford Street and quite a few of my students came along. While Roger was in London his best friend was Gustavo from Venezuela and he was invited. You could have knocked me down with a feather when Gustavo arrived with Roger in tow. He had planned a return trip and kept it from me to give me a surprise – it had to be one of the best surprises of my life. Two years ago Huw and I went to Bolivia and we planned to meet Roger during our stay. We’d been emailing and were both very excited about seeing each other again and I was mystified when, when we arrived in Bolivia all contact was broken. I emailed him, sent messages on Facebook, sent texts and nothing. A few weeks after we got back to London I finally heard from him and he explained what had happened. He had been to Guatemala on business and had caught an infectious disease and was hospitalised. I instantly forgave him and we planned on meeting again one day in Europe or South America and it looks like we will finally meet again next month – hooray!

Back to today, Huw kindly took me to Beaulieu to see Sabrina and he had a very pleasant two hours and even managed to complete a grammar lesson we started three weeks ago. To celebrate this little victory she jumped up on the sofa and bounced around saying ‘I can do English grammar!’ she really is a star. As I was leaving she told me that my outfit today made me look like a teenager – I adore this woman.

I didn’t have long to wait for the bus to Nice but it was long enough to get this photo of classic French parking.

As you can see the white van is parked on a zebra crossing and the small green car has just stopped next to a parked car in order to pop into the shops – only in France (and maybe Spain and Italy too.)

I also noticed that they have started to put the Christmas decorations up – it’s only October 31^st – that’s even worse than in the UK.

I arrived in Nice early so I sat on one of the flowerpots outside school and ate my lunch of store-bought quiche in the sun.

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw that the posh household items shop next door was also ready for Christmas.

There were a lot of children around dressed up for Halloween and also a lot of adults and many of the shops and bars were decorated very nicely. The white stuff over the windows is spider webs.

I had a wonderful surprise when I saw Guillaume this afternoon; I asked him if he had heard about my return to the Marriott and he admitted that he hadn’t but added that he has a new contract with the Marriott’s Nice branch and as soon as it is organised it’ll be mine. Working with the lovely Marriott people but without the nightmare 100 bus to Cap d’Ail – result! I was really chuffed.

I had a lovely two hours with Eric; he is such a diligent learner but he’s also ready for a good laugh.

Jeannine and I had a very good grammar lesson and she was pleased with the progress she is making and told me that she loves our classes. I was pretty tired when we finished at 6.30pm, I had to lock up the school again, a responsibility I don’t like bit appreciate the trust Guillaume puts in me.

I caught the tram to Garibaldi and suddenly realised that it was dark. This is the first time I’ve finished work in the dark because the clocks have gone back – I hate the thought of winter. I keep panicking (well, not really panicking but...) when the weather isn’t perfect and I must get over this because I know deep down that we will have many, many perfect blue skies over the coming months. This week is just a blip because of two major storms over Europe.