The Good, The Bad and The Passive-Aggressive

So I finally broke my daily run of blog updates! The main reason for this is the fact that I've been fairly busy, and therefore stressed, with work and school-related admin. But what else have I been up to?

Firstly, a couple of the teachers at school have asked me to teach conversational English to their teenagers in the evenings. Since my last update, I've had my first lesson with each family. The temptation to just chat is strong - mainly because they're some of the few people I know here who are around my age - but I've managed to be fairly professional, and get paid for it too! I was also rewarded with a meal at each house; dinner on Monday evening and a lazy French lunch on Tuesday. I was sat round the table with the family on both occasions, chatting and laughing with them, and the welcoming feeling I get here shows no sign of letting up (free wine helps).

There is a cloud for every silver lining however, and that cloud was Tuesday. It was my first "bad" day here - I missed a meeting with one of the teachers due to sheer linguistic confusion, and the response when I apologised was one of barely-concealed cattiness. After returning to the classroom feeling like a scolded child, I found that the kids were just not in a listening mood. There was noise, several thrown chairs and one case of a British flag to the eye, resulting in a huge tantrum which totally disrupted the class and threw my confidence. To make matters worse, my class was subjected to a surprise inspection by the "counsellor," whose job it is to observe your teaching technique and then tear it apart. I tried explaining that I was untrained and had only been teaching for a week, but it didn't seem to make a difference. Sigh.

Wednesday, the weekly day off, couldn't come soon enough. Minda (who has also had a rough start to the week) proposed a trip to a Salon de Thé for a sugary mood-boost. We gorged ourselves on pastries, ganache and hot chocolate, then decided to head to the cinema. We saw "Brave" in French - which is called "Rebelle" here - and though I'd already seen it, a second viewing in a foreign tongue made for an interesting twist on the experience. After the movie, we popped into "Comptoir de Famille," which is like a French version of the Pier (i.e. lots of candles and beautiful, if slightly twee, homewares). I quite liked it, so I thought I'd make that today's picture.

Afterwards, we came home to find that we had been left a whole fish (head and all) by Monsieur Champeyrol, as well as a great deal of tomatoes. My solution? Pan-fried fish accompanied by a tomato and bean stew. It turned out pretty well considering I had neither beheaded nor de-boned a fish before, and Minda was effusive about my skill with "spices" (salt and pepper, for non-Finns). She's in the kitchen now making a fruit salad for dessert, so I'll finish there so I can go and get my daily dose of vitamins and natural sugars.

Normal blogging service resumes tomorrow, hopefully!