Two Days Til I Go Homey Home

The rain has not, has of yet, appeared to stop since le premier decembre. Pathetic fallacy perhaps, in an early chapter of my romain de vie. But, instead of moaning about that, in what is a very British tradition, I'd like to grumble just for a moment about letting people down, which inevitably, is much worse than the weather.
In everyone, there lies a certain element of expectation - that life will not surprise you too much, that you can trust the people you call friends, that you can rely on your own behaviour - the image you have of yourself. In my opinion, no one else can understand this personal expectation; or; indeed, the way in which we all praise or punish ourselves when we make decisions that move beyond this expectation.
I'm sure everyone has, at least once, experienced that moment when a parent has been, for whatever reason, so mad at you that they couldn't even express anger, and they only managed to painfully and simply sigh, "I'm so disappointed". In that sigh, that breath, there lies an element of understanding as to how we tend to punish ourselves. And that heavy sigh of dissapointment weighs down on us, like these oppressive thick grey clouds; like this rain, that seems as if it will not cease for the foreseeable future.
My point sort of vaguely being that, when we make mistakes, or wrong decisions, and others may get hurt or become disappointed, they should find a little solace in the fact that we will all probably be punishing ourselves in a manner far worse than another could ever manage.
Unless, of course, you have no soul (perhaps more common than you might think).
I'd like now, to turn my moans and groans into something a little less encrypted, as on Sunday morning, I awoke and readied myself to leave the house to meet some friends to experience a real French nativity at the cathedral, after the morning service. My excitement was centred around the memory of having once been handed the responsibility of being chief sheep herder in my own nativity at our local church. I recalled agonising for weeks over which bed sheet to wrap myself up in, which tea towel had the best pattern to be fashioned into an elegant and chic shepherdess hat-thingy, and which of my (several) toy sheep would be given the honour of accompanying me in this prestigious role. So, I arrived with the expectation (and thus the theme is carried through) of seeing scenes from my childhood reflected in this strange, cheese-eating culture.
We followed the sound of children's voices, but to no avail - no tiny, terrifying Jesus doll, no Angel Gabriel smothered in tinsel from head to toe, nothing. The bravest of our gang was convinced to ask someone for help and we were led to the Nativity - a small group of perhaps 6 elderly people gazing intently at the wall with a small torch. . . one of those strange, unexpected moments again. . . We spent the next 15 minutes or so being told about some 16th century wood carvings and a piece of 20th century stained glass that showed various scenes from the Nativity. That theme of being let down seems to have continued through as well. . . I understood most of what the leader of the pack was saying, and it was quite interesting - at least when people visit me now, I can seem more wordly and cultured when I show them the cathedral.
In the evening yesterday, my friends that live just beyond the train station, threw a little soiree de noel. I wore a Christmassy, sparkly outfit, for those who are interested (ie: my Number 1 fan - Char Char, The Sister) and everyone had to turn up with a small, wrapped gift. Our petits cadeaux were placed in a pile on arrival and a game ensued - something about a white elephant. Everyone was given a number and each person, in order, had a chance to either choose a new, unknown present, or steal an unwrapped one that someone had already chosen. Having picked out No. 15 at random, I thought I was in the perfect position to get what I wanted, and that my chance to steal the large, chocolate Santa was secure. But, alas, a ripple effect of thievery lost me my Santa but left me not too bad off with a sausage. Needless to say, I soon hurried home to munch on said sausagey prize, and with my Dad's late night Skyped advice, made the decision to rent the flat that I had viewed earlier in the day, and leave my little studio in Le Flore behind! I sign on the dotted line on Wednesday :)
Much love and whatnot, H x

A la fin d'automne

And so the rain arrives. Thought I’d hit you with a little December update, from the isolation and severe depression of my current situation. So, my sister and her boyfriend braved the grave distance and choppy English channel to come and visit me, and I attempted to provide entertainment for the weekend, which I’m hoping they enjoyed, despite my inevitable constant moaning about children and French people and the rising price of baguettes, etc. Within 4 minutes of meeting them at La Gare Routiere au Mans (after rather a heavy night on the town, I’m not going to lie to you) we bumped into one of the American assistants on the good old reliable tram (I’m a major fan of the trams, not like those crumbly bumbly buses of Leamington Spa). This single event was to colour the entirety of their visit, as over the next two days, it seemed that Charlotte, Tony and myself could not wander down a single French street without bumping into one of my friends. This, of course, made me feel like some sort of local celebrity, with people shouting my name at every corner. I’m hoping it had the desired effect on my sister, and that she reported back to Dadsie that I’m not withering away, spending every minute of my spare time alone, eating huge quantities of cheese and watching endless episodes of ER (as this only describes about 56% of my temps libre, with the other 44% comprising of an equal balance of crying and knitting).

When Charlotte and Tony had strengthened their wobbly little newly born French legs, they flew off to Paris, and my lovely little Robsie arrived (the aforementioned little friend). After walking away victorious from my first real French dispute (the people in my foyer attempting to tell me 47 minutes before his arrival, that we weren’t allowed to have guests in the week, and me simply repeating, “Well, he’s coming” numerous times until they conceded) I went to meet him at the train station. We embraced in an elegant and romantic, Hollywood-esque manner, with him running down the stairs, picking me up and swirling me around while I emitted a sort of high pitched “Eeeeeeeeee!” and then nearly falling over… I very much enjoyed it.

We mainly spent our week cuddling - our favourite past-time. But on Thursday, Rob foolishly agreed to travel into work with me and spend the day in Mamers, as on this blessed day of the week, I have a delicious five hour gap between lessons, and so I was able to plonk him in a café and then go to meet him a little later. He was bitter about this from the moment I poked him awake at 5.30am until we left crazily misty Mamers at 5.30pm. In fact, I think he’s still a little bitter a week later. . .

Last week, Rob was lucky enough to be present at what has been one of the highlights of my Year Abroad so far. Thursday 24^th November was the holiday of Thanksgiving, and as we have befriended so many Americans here, us British were allowed to join in the festivities and celebrate with them. A lovely lady named Liz, offered her apartment for the boum, and no less than TWENTY FIVE of us packed in, bringing food  and alcohol in abundance, to celebrate in a style as traditionally American as we could muster, being that we were undeniably in France…  I happily labelled myself the ROAST POTATOER (although many said this wasn’t really very traditional, I refused childishly to cook the pommes de terre anything other than the GREAT BRITISH WAY). As the chaos of arriving and attempting to correspond the cooking times of each dish died down, we all sat down to eat what turned out to be an UTTERLY IMMENSE repas. Just fab. We all stated mid meal a few things that we were thankful for, one of mine being the discovery of a 10 euro dress in H&M that I had donned for the party! I was also thankful for Rob being there, as well as having met a group of such great people, that make me feel like I really belong somewhere. Je sais, je sais, cheesy, but too late now.

Anyway, on Sunday Robert and myself thought it’d be fun to continue a Leamington tradition of going to feed some ducks (there’s a great lake on campus at Warwick uni where there are ducks, geese and swans in abundance) and so we went in search of ducks and ended up at the Jardin des Plantes, a great park near the centre of Le Mans. The ducks could not have been any less interested. But on Monday, something a little odd happened. I had been writing on the board all day and several times felt a bit of a twinge in my arm. A real muscle ache. It gradually got worse throughout the day, and I started trying to think what on earth I could have done, until at the end of the day, it dawned on me. My arm was aching from having thrown bread at the ducks. I’m genuinely ashamed to be alive and have resolved to overcome this extreme weakness by exercising again! Thus, this morning, I went for a run in the rain, despite my back pain and flu like symptoms. That will probably be the only exercise I do this month, but I felt like I’d made an effort.

I’ll let you know when exciting things happen – which they inevitably will. Pub quiz tomorrow night after work at the British Pub. Score.

Much love and whatnot, H x

Robbie feeding the fish

Rob doing the Paso Doble

Just throwing some leaves =)