On Goodbyes and Airport Amusments

I have spent this last week feeling very happy and very sad at the same time... tis a strange feeling. Very heavy is the only word I can use to describe it... I can't wait to see folk again but everytime I say a goodbye, I'm aware of the heaviness which accompanies the parting. I do like the french. No falseness and saying things you don't mean in goodbyes... so many phrases that can be used "bonne continuation, bonne retour, bon courage" are a few of my favourites. No commitment attached :) But whether there is any commitment there or not, I still feel the heaviness! :(

Oh and I have something to keep me occupied on the plane on Wednesday afternoon...
Tongue twisters...

en français

Les chaussettes de l'Archiduchesse sont-elles sèches, archi-sèches? - Are the socks of the Archduchess dry, really dry?
Un chasseur sachant chasser sait chasser sans son chien de chasse. - A hunter who knows how to hunt knows how to hunt without his hunting dog.

Dutch

De knappe kapper kapt heel knap - (something to do with a barber cutting pretty hair but his employee cutting it better)
maar de knecht van de knappe kapper kapt nog
knapper ken de knappe kapper kappen ken

German

Fischer's fritz fischt frusche fische (something to do with a fisherman called Fritz who fishes fresh fish)
frusche fische fischt fischer's fritz

Swedish

sex laxar i en laxask - (6 salmon in a box)

If you see me muttering to myself on the plane, it is all for a good cause!

a glass of water

I'd been feeling kinda empty, then started looking through this famous psalm and really thinking through each line... this is basically want went through my head as I was reading it.

"Praise the Lord O my soul, all my inmost being, praise his holy name." - yeah that would be good... get a move on soul!

"forget not all his benefits, who forgives your sins" - That's right... I have been forgiven! What does that song say "ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven" and it's by grace not by works... I've done nothing to deserve forgiveness, I believe and He does all the work, and it's more than just forgiveness, I have a fresh start every time, I'm being made new each day, like Him over time and He sacrificed so much to make this possible! Woow!

"who heals all your diseases" I've never been seriously physically ill but I've definitely been healed of some past emotional hurts in recent years.

"who redeems your life from the pit" hmmm... I don't think my life has never been "the pit" but I have definitely come close to rock bottom at times this year and He rescued me. Like when I was feeling lonely and frustrated through feeling kinda purposeless and lacking "meaningful" friendships in France, He brought the meaningful conversations and friendships when I needed them the most, He spoke when I needed to hear Him :)

"who crowns you with love and compassion" - yeeeaah... I'm starting to see the evidence of that now :)

"who satisfies your desires with good things" - when I felt purposeless and desired purpose, He gave me opportunities, He gave me people to love and He made me useful!

"so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's" - just thinking about all this stuff, remembering His goodness to me and that I am loved by a God who crowns me with such love and compassion is so refreshing and redonnes mine energy and refills me with spirit... ran out of words around here... and that was just the first four verses!

Try it

Provence

Spent 5 nackering days with 2 lovely french girls...

Day 1 - a nice medium long trek and then one night ocamp in the alpilles (after the alps they really do seem tiny)


Day 2 - A rather much longer trek from town to town near to Miramas where we stayed the other 3 nights (done on v little sleep and in very dry 30degree heat= not so helpful) NB The nearest town is almost always further away than you imagine.


Follow that, the next day, with a loooong (by my standards anyway) bike ride, all 3 or us on matching red bikes complete with neon green helmet (isn't it beautiful!), handy handlebar bags which we crammed full with all sorts of goodies such as biscuits (yes Quinn I hear you :P) and strawberries mmmmm and yellow plastic-tasting water bottles which we got to keep...


Then riding and wading waist high in the sea in the Camaragues (Day 4)



Finished off by a tourist stop accompanied by self-downloaded audioguide (a million times better than those museum ones) in Arles

Recommended activity for any trip - get those card games out, anywhere, when or how :)


Add on the no space to breathe and think english, ever... and this made Dish a very very tired girl indeed... Thank goodness for bandes dessinées... I think I might have exploded otherwise. :)

A highly recommended experience... looovely memories made :)

Things I've enjoyed the most here...

French cuisine - Tis no myth, French food really does beat British food by a long way!

Le feu - a church-funded, fulltimeworker-supported, building-equipped christian organisation for student ages and up which I stumbled across just a couple of months back, just when I really needed it, despite living just a short walk away. After spending 8 months in a foreign country, being able to hang out with, eat, pray and study the bible in french and my native language with folk in a similar situation as me is such a gift, even if it has only been for the last couple of months.


Savouring french eccentricities like little kids carrying baguettes as long as themselves, bereted old men playing ptonk, music rehearsals where more time is spent in discussion than in playing, listen to very interesting political rants from some v intelligent french people about how Sarkozy is the new Blair/Hitler/just generally a fascist and seeing giant fish heads in the supermarket



The international banter here, especially with the other assistants... cooking for each other, slagging off each other's accents, the odd bit o dancing...


Baebar, this lovely chap beside me ------------->
Have had a bit of a lovehate relationship with him over the past year, but I have made some great friends because of him and he's helped me integrate into french society... it will be sad to say goodbye.

No-Man's Land

The first time I ever went to France at the age of 14 I walked through these... No-man's land by the Somme: the expansive empty tranquil fields divided by several trenches that used to be the battlegrounds in the first world war. No one wanted to go out into them because the likelihood of your coming back was so minimal...
I feel as though I'm in no-man's land right now though my situation doesn't quite look like that. It looks more like a busy month of what will be more countless goodbyes, celloings, bits and pieces of travelling than much else... part of me just wants to skip the goodbyes, to skip this long drawn out end to what has been an experience of a year and get on with the next part... or at least be in either one camp or the other... not in between the two... hrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrumph (an elephant sigh)

But I know God has a purpose for me being here, and even though I'm finding it hard to do what I love best i.e invest in people, because either they're leaving or I am, I've to make the most of it, and live, because that's what he's called me to do, for better or for worse...
Whether I like it or not this is no man's land season... so no reason to be de-motivated by it. Rather, quite the opposite: ...give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. 1 Thess 5:18

God please make me joyful.

the funny moments

Had my last 8am start today... got a lovely card and some chocolate from the english lunch club which was immensely touching... one student wrote this

"Good bye. It was very funny the moments with you in the club.
GOOD BYE!!!"

Sums up the year of teaching pretty well really...

only 4 hours to go...

On BBQs and Being tired.

Trying to organise a surprise barbecue in France I discovered this weekend, is both a tricky and delicate process.

- Firstly there is the surprise element... The surprise victim was Canadian party organiser Court. Unfortunately it is rather difficult to keep a serial party organiser from organising a party when you're trying to organise one for him. I think he smelled a rat or two when I very tactfully asked him to meet me outside a shop at 6pm (about 4 hours earlier than our usual rendevous) and wouldn't tell him why... When I did actually meet him, he then went on to tell me exactly what he suspected we were doing this evening, and hit the nail on the head. He had every detail right, right down to the exact location. Impressive considering...

- we had a few problems getting everyone together at the same place at the same time. Especially when 3 people are doing the main inviting, and all of them tell folk to invite whoever they want. The set barbecue place was at the Bastille (for those of you who do not know Grenoble that is on top of a big hill in the middle of Grenoble). Now there are a lot of possible BBQ spots on top of a hill thus it was decided that meeting on the bottom before getting the cable car up would be a better idea otherwise we would just get lost and waste credit trying to find one another again. Now trying to get people turn up on time was always going to be a problem. People don't eat in France on average till at least 8. In fact restaurants aren't even open until 7 in the evening. But we were wanting to start while it was still daylight. And then there's the face that in France when you tell people to meet you at a certain place you have to add another half an hour on in your head. The Germans were the only people to arrive at the arranged rendevous on time... :)

- Then there was the getting hold of a BBQ and getting it in a tiny cable car up to the top of a mountain. Unfortunately disposable BBQs don't seem to be too common here, so after a lot of ringing around we thought we'd got hold of 2, and then lost them half an hour before expected rendevous. Our fortune turned when we stepped out of the tram in front of Monoprix (the Marks and Sparks of France) and decided to go in "just to check" since we had 5 minute till rendevous time.

- Now the weather in Grenoble has gotten ridiculously warm of late. Yesterday in the afternoon the temperature was over 30 degrees celsius. A little too much for a Scot like me (even one with Sri Lankan genes). We were expected good weather for the BBQ but climbing up the mountains as the sun began to set, winds began to pick up in both directions, which meterology expert Hannah informed us was normal due to hot air from the valley coming in contact with cold air from above (or something along those lines :P) I had to hold my couscous down with my fork to stop it flying off my plate.

- Oh and just so you know, there are no lights in the mountains.

All in all a quality experience, a good meal, 10 nationalities represented, awesome view... doesn't take much to make me smile :)

Surprisingly all that organising (followed by silly dancing till silly hours) seemed to have little effect on my level of awakeness at church the next morning, managed to maintain wakeful cheeriness in fact until that awful post-lunch period. Unfortunately I spent several hours lunching with three generations of an Italian french family and thus was very very very well fed! Weighed down by the contents of my stomach I struggled to maintain adequate communication levels in conversation on this hot Sunday afternoon, acutely aware of the rapid deterioration of my french linguistic skills, and trying as hard as I could to concentrate on adult conversation whilst being highly in demand as chosen playmate for the only member of the third generation (age 3).

If there's a lesson in any of this ramble it's this... When you organise a BBQ in Grenoble, tell everyone to come an hour earlier than when you actually want them to come (everyone that is except Germans), don't have it in a mountain and if you make it a surprise for someone, don't pick the habitual party-organiser. There is a time to be silly and a time to be sensible (re:bedtime).

Certainty

My Appamma (dad's mum) died yesterday, she was 92 years old and has had dementia for longer than I can remember. She's no longer trapped in her body or mind and although I don't know exactly what she's doing right now, I know for certain she's now with Jesus :)
Ironically yesterday was also Good Friday... The day we remember the cross... the price Jesus paid for us. It brings it home really... it was for this that He died, it was for this He rose again. I can be certain of Appamma's future, of my future because of what He endured.

"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going." (Jesus, not long before the cross, John 14:1-4)

We can trust Him, we can trust His words because He did come back. He did rise again on the third day just as He has promised! And so I can and will trust Him in His promise of eternal life with him. It is because of His death that I know I am forgiven, it is because of His resurrection that I have hope. And life starts now!

Thankyou :)

one month...

Goodness me... this has to be a non-blogging record! What excuses do I have...?
Well in the last month I've had several highs and lows, 3 lots of visitors, 3 Glasgowers (none of whom got to see les Belledonnes due to mist!) and the family... that makes 2 bastille trips, several café and restaurant stops, various mountain trips, a ridiculous amount of tea received, far too much musicing (I'm learning to say no), stolen bags, police station visits, concerts, many communal meals, the odd spillage...
Throw in there the usual record-long phone convos, some jamming at church, cooing over toddlers in the street, discovering a Christian community I didn't know existed and finally having some proper deep chat in french has made for an interesting and educational month of March.

And this week...
- A fruitless trek to find an open functioning swimming pool (ok so waterslide may have been on the specification list but it honestly wasn't me that made it!) with 2 near giants in which we found a random tower unmarked, unlabelled and ungoogable apparently and this ----------->
...apparently one of the 7 wonders of the Dauphiné region! hmm


- Saying the second of what will be many sad au revoirs to a lovely allemande in Lyon (à mon avis quite possibly the loveliest city in the country!)

- Being a visitor myself, to a little town of Tournus, NOT Toulouse, but Tournus, a little town in the region of Burgundy.
- Spending time there with fellow Glasgower and assistante Rebecca, sitting in sunshine, drinking tea and laughing at her being toilet-papered by her terminale students on muck-up day! :)

The days are swimming by, the temperature steadily rising... Il reste une semaine des hols, deux de school, un mois de randonmness et puis... c'est tout, fini, le fin, the end! Crazy!

I will blog/flickr related photos soon... just when I remember to bring my cable to the internet café!

Remember what you have seen with your own eyes

Anyone else get frustrated by their memory sometimes? I remember silly things like car number plates, phonenumbers, childhood memories from the waybackdistantpast, birthdays of people I've lost touch with, people's names who I meet once and never see again... but then I forget many other things that I should remember, like to fill in important forms, deadlines, vocabulary in french, that I was meant to clean the bathroom the other day, names of people I see everyday... my dad always called it my "selective memory"...

I wonder if we really do choose to forget or remember or not... I don't find that to always be the case.

Hermann Ebbinghaus, a psychologist (or scientist if you prefer ;) ) discovered this ... the forgetting curve.

He discovered, or rather (as most psychologists seems to do), put into a theory, that forgetting; memory decline, is exponential in nature, as illustrated in the graph. A person learns a piece of material, and as time goes on, slowly their retention of the information declines. Obviously there is some variation in this, some people coughBreakeycoughPottercough have unusual memories allowing them to view material and retain more information for longer periods of time and others can sometimes view something and seem to instantly forget it yet this curve seems to generally be the case quand-même. According to the studies and curve we never completely forget everything we learned, but we don't retain very much of it.

This however is dramatically changed when the learned material is repeatedly reviewed. Sadly not being the Glasgow uni library right now means I cannot access the Web of Knowledge which I relied on so heavily in first and second year of psychology, and thus cannot illustrate the significant effect it has with with another beautiful graph. But I'm sure you would probably agree, it seems like common sense to me...

Now I have been experiencing uncharacteristic bouts of anxiety of late. Anxiety about the future more than anything else, both near and far-off... and I blame this on the forgetting curve.

Because I know God has been faithful to me throughout my life! When I look back, I see so evidently how He has taken care of me... The Lord's my Shepherd, I shall not be in want. Even when I've least expected it, that has been the case! Oh I was nervous before I came to France all right, and yet He has taken care of my every need and exceeded them in countless ways! So why can't I trust Him with the unknown this time?!

Because I forget who He is and what He has done for me... Check out the number of times the word "Remember" features in the book Deuteronomy! Clearly the Israelites needed to remember these things, and yet the history told in the bible tells us the Israelites forgot them all the time. I'd like to think I'm different... but life and silly anxiety and the Bible and even the science of psychology all seem to suggest that I'm really not... not really at all...

So I'm blogging this as a general reminder, not least to myself, to look at the past, at our own lives, at each others lives, at the bible, and to remember who God is and what He has done... what we have seen with our own eyes...

la ville d'amour

The contributing factors to delightful entertainment on a 5 day séjour in paris...

- Meeting randoms, french and english speaking (even if most of them are medics! :P )
- Staying with randoms, french and english speaking. You may find yourself in some interesting places...
- Eating out in random quartiers... from the posh Jewish area to Parisian bohemian to what ressembled mini India.
- Finding pockets of free decent live music... in bars, churches and flea markets
- Give a couple of gorgeous french children piggybacks round the Notre Dame
- Waiting for the Metro

-



















Staring contests on the metro









- Taking cheesy tourist photos by famous landmarks (and inviting pfffts and snorts of disapproval from your french friends)

- Taking silly photos by famous landmarks (and laugh at your french friends who are keeping themselves at a distance and pretending not to be with you)

- Taking photos of silly things such as enormously fat pigeons and thematic traffic lights

Activities which I've found to be not so entertaining in Paris (or anywhere else in France for that matter except Grenoble)

- Trying to find the Tourist office

A tour of the audioguided tour

In the space of 3 days I was guided by these little phonelike devices no less than 5 times, round 1 art gallery, 2 museums, 1 palace and 1 Roman theatre. These experiences have sprouted some fairly strong opinions in me which I would like to air.

But first of all, just to give you some background and for the benefit those of you who may have yet to experience the delights of an audioguided tour... let me walk you through one.

You enter your historical sit/museum/art gallery of choice, past the beeping ticket barriers and are presented with an object somewhat similar in form and style to a mobile phone from the mid 1990s or "bricks" as they were affectionately known. Some galleries ask you what language you desire, some assume you want french, some assume you want english... this often presents quite some dilemna for the year abroader in France.
Do you... a. Pick french and listen avidly to every word trying to soak in all the new vocabulary and thus improving my listening skills (why else are we in France after all)? (Plus french people speak quicker so you get round the site in less time)
b. Pick english which requires less brain effort so you are actually able to look around rather than simply squinting in concentration, and really take in the visual as well as the audio.
c. Pick another language entirely, German for example, because you've been desperate to learn a third language ever since you got here, and hope that you might be able to get my ears accustomed to the phonetics of the language, and perhaps even understand/guess the meaning of at least one of two things.

I realise this might not be everyone's dilemna... all I can say is I pity those of you who truly are multilingual...

You move to the first exhibit, and see a metal plate beside it with a number beside it. There appears to be no logic to these numbers, the first one could say anything from 6.1 to 123... but you punch it into your audioguide keypad and listen avidly to the ensuing monologue in your language of choice. (I chose a. once, was given a. once without being asked, and chose b. the other 4 times) You do the same for the next couple of exhibits... but by the third your concentration begins to fade, you walk around looking blankly at exhibits, only half listening to the audioguide. By the time you've punched in the 5th number, you're wondering why on earth you need to know silly facts like the year in which the 17th Pope of Avignon died. By the 7th you're thinking option c. would have been a more educational and enjoyable experience. By the 9th you can't be bothered listening at all. You exchange a meaningful glance with your tour buddy, punch in a number and run past all the numbered exhibits whilst holding the guide to your ear and nodding and frowning in concentration. You finally arrive at the exit where you accidently try to leave without handing your guide in. The devices then start beeping loudly in burglar-alarm point the finger style, till you shamefacedly hand them in at the entrance; often a good 5 minute walk away.

Now I have nothing against the concept of these informative devices. I mean, surely the museum experience should in theory be heightened by that wonderful combination of visual with audio? But tourist authorities of the south-east of France... surely you could have...
- made descriptions concise and relevant in order to hold our attention.
- been selective about the information you wish to communicate... taking into the account the intellectual level of the likely listener (not high)
- used perhaps more of that hierarchical structure you unsuccesfully attempted to put to use on occasion e.g Press 1. for a few lines on why there is a sword in that casket, 1.1 If you wish to know more information about the person who used it, 1.1.1 if you want minute detail on the way in which these types of swords were fabricated, including all materials used and methods involved 1.1.1.1 for the family history, complete with birth and death dates of the person who used the sword.
- at least have picked a less montonous BBC-esque voice.

Here ends the rant

On the plus side, the audioguides in art galleries we went to seem to be actually interesting, concise and informative.
You can always just switch if off when you can't be bothered listening anymore.

NB: If your purpose in visiting a tourist site is just so you can cross it off the haveseenlist, just pick option c. You'll probably learn more.

Lent Blog

Just thought I would take this opportunity to plug this year's Lent Blog... read it, blog on it... I feel like there should be a third point there but I can't think of one... never mind... you get the message anyway ;)

Les virrages

They haven't been the only people skiing lately... I finally tried my hand at the truc this weekend here though unlike them I didn't have to travel far. An hour an a half in the bus was all it took to get me and my fellow assistant buddies aka les trois graces, qui savent faire la luge to our slopes of choice! There was certainly no shortage of laughs, nor falls... Free accomodation and lessons were swapped for home cooked food... a wonderful exchange à mon avis! Our teachers were 2 middle-aged french divorcees who worked at the school we all teach at, one silent, one not so silent, both good teachers, both with a million stories to tell. I now know all the ski jargon in french but not in english!

My skiing highlights

- I had red skis! I think that's pretty cool don't you?! :P
- la vitesse! This was however was a cause for a recurring problem, I couldn't quite work out how to regulate it. I would just accelerate and accelerate and had to throw myself to the ground because I couldn't stop.
- Finally at the end of our second and last morning, learning how to stop!
- Becoming an expert at picking myself up again after falling

Observations:

And I suddenly realised that Grenoble has become, without my realising, a home. Home number 3 perhaps, but a home nonetheless! We found ourselves walking along the road one day, chatting in french, remarking on the number of étrangères, especially anglophones at the station de ski... before remembering that we are étrangères... because we lived in Grenoble and were speaking french, we'd forgotten that we were.

The French really know how to enjoy the simple pleasures, i.e eating! 2 hours spent over 3/4 course meals always finished off with a café (tea pour moi) is most definitely the way forward! And they even manage to do it during the working week! Most banks, shops and offic es are closed from 12 till 2 so people can go home eat with their families and head back into the work again! Once you get used to the strange opening hours, adjust your eating patterns to it, and stop turning up at banks and finding them to be most annoyingly closed, you can't help but love it!

Essentially it seems people are no different no matter where they're from.

Oh and did I mention that mountains are beautiful?!

Das Leben der Anderen

I saw this on Friday with french subtitles and wanted to blog about it, to encourage you all to see it because it was such an interesting, moving and well-made film based in the same era as this film which I also love but which is of an utterly different genre, but was distressed to find that google yields no results of the film showing in Britain... yet (though I might be wrong, let me know)! What I was particuarly struck by was the development of the very vivid, very real characters. I was made to like, dislike, empathise, understand, grow to like without even realising... So I'm encouraging you in advance... when "The Life of Others" is released in some manner or form in the UK, go and see it!

Bullet Points are Beautiful!

I just wrote a beautifully bullet-pointed email and realised that it's been a while since I've blogged using bullet points and feel that I need to up my usage of them once again as...

a. I feel the quality of my presentation in blogposts has diminished as a result of not using them
b. They are just sooo delectible
c. They prevent me from rambling too much
d. If I do succomb, they make my rambles accessible to people with ordinary concentration spans

So here is my last week (and a bit) in bullet points

Orchestra
- 2 concerts down 2 to go
- rehearsals eveeeery night! (one skived)
- one spectactular opera
- many amaaaazing singers
- lots of fatigue (sore back and sore eyes = not good)
- one giant boite of nutella = happy french people and lots of pleasure
- a fair portion of banter (we cellos know how to do banter even when we are naaaackered!)

Teaching
- 2 exceedingly hyperactive classes (had to send 5 kids out of one because I couldn't hear anything I was saying)
- 4 exceedingly wonderful enthusiastic classes with a good sense of humour
- 1 exceedingly bright student with one of those perfect utopian middle class families who are all fluent english speakers, open minded, cook chestnut cakes and never eat at MacDonalds, who I just started teaching privately (a happy easy money earner)

Church
- 1 youth group weekend away = snow and huge open fires and energetic franglais speakers and giant raclettes and peace :)
- lots of getting challenged
- 1 Sunday lunch consumed with a swiss family

Phone calls to Scotland
- Several varying from 10 minutes whilst stuffing food in my mouth to 4 hours

Sleeping
- well

Miscellaneous
- Random communal meals consumed - 2
- Flatmates spoken to - 2 on 2 occasions
- Supermarket trips - 1
- Post office trips - 2
- Internet - time consuming (literally)
- Running around like a headless chicken = a frequent occurence
- Drinking tea - a not too infrequent pleasure
- Laughing - another not too infrequent pleasure

Total hours spent on
- Teaching - 9 hours
- Orchestra - 28 hours (!)

Lessons to be learnt here
- Don't play in a french orchestra for an opera that lasts for 3 hours.
- Bullet Points are Beautiful!

froide

It's oh so cold!
So icicle cold
Still the cheese won't lose it's mould
In Grenoooooble


I feel silly :)

Constants

Was having an interesting chat yesterday about Québéçois and how they still use a lot of lexicon dating back to 17th/18th century french which they don't use here in France anymore. It started me reflecting on how quickly things that seem fairly solid and constant such as language, change, often before we even notice. It seems even more apparent to me looking at the french language because it isn't my mother tongue. Reading Molière last year in uni was tough... almost incomprehensible as the language had changed so much. French people now find Québéçois almost incomprehensible partly because of their use of dated phrases! Crazy!
I look at languages that change with time, mountains that erode, snow that melts, weather systems that are unreliable... I look at my life; how I can never be sure of the future, near or far, how fragile I am, how fragile we all are, being human and all...

And I look at my God, my rock, at His unfailing love and compassion... and I remember that He never changes, even when everything else around me does.

And to think we are able to have peace with this God...!!!

The only response I can think of comes in the form of one of my favourite belter hymns. It may have been written over 2 centuries ago yet it still rings true and relevant today! :)

My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.

When darkness veils His lovely face,
I rest on His unchanging grace;
In every high and stormy gale,
My anchor holds within the veil.

His oath, His covenant, His blood
Support me in the whelming flood;
When all around my soul gives way,
He then is all my hope and stay.

When He shall come with trumpet sound,
Oh, may I then in Him be found;
Dressed in His righteousness alone,
Faultless to stand before the throne.

Refrain:
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand.

Edward Mote (1797-1874)

la luge!

Despite this I finally made it to some snow

An hour and a half on a bus took us to a station de ski in fact


Yes, that's right... "station de ski"



This is what happens when it hasn't snowed for a week and a half and the snow from early January is starting to melt, and into these adverse conditions (snow of the kind that draws blood when you fall on it, beating hot sun) 3 relatively skint, multinational, complete beginners are set on a station de ski for the day...


We were the only people over the age of about 10 sleighing there that day. When I mention age I talk of the physical and measurable kind... not of the mental kind :)

These errors made my day...!

When I explained the word "dinner ladies" one boy chirped up... "Il n'y a pas de dinner manies?"

"When you are popular lots of people come with hit him" (and knock on your door) had to be demonstrated before I understood what was trying to be said

"He is hating fishing" (hates)

"They give lots of things to we" (us)

And this beautiful argument made in a debate "Friends vs Family" made for Family -
I can hit my brother but if I hit my friend he re-hit me!" (hits me back)

Ah the joys of silly hyperactive 13 year olds with good imaginations :) heeheehee