La tasse à moitié plein...

...plutôt qu'à moitié vide

Always see a glass half-full!

So today was Andy and I's one year anniversary. Hence the rather strange photograph in honour of this...to be honest; I couldn't have used anything else! Both of us kept our evenings free for a long a Skype session as possible (time difference and early starts mean I go to bed a lot earlier that he does!). This is not at all how we spent the evening.

So in honour of this I feel like I should do some things I've learnt about being in a relationship while abroad:-
- You cannot be a part of their home life, no matter how well you know it, in the same manner that they can't join in your own. The best thing to do is to accept this fact and don't fight it...unless fighting it involves making a teleporter (which would be rather useful!).
- Just because you're however many miles away from each other doesn't stop you loving them.
- You miss them, a lot. And sometimes they just can't be there for you at the right time.
- Contrarily, they will always listen to you, even when it's just another moan about your day or something really funny and interesting. - Sometimes even the most mundane things to them become so interesting for you, just because you can't do them abroad!
- Sometimes the anticipation of seeing them, whether it is in the flesh or simply on Skype, makes you expect too much...but adversely, sometimes just seeing them makes your whole day brighter.
- When you have less time together, you cherish the time you have more...and in turn cherish that person more too.
- Knowing that they've made the effort to find the time to text you/talk to you/visit you is something that you can never really appreciate until you are apart.

The rest of my day involved a quick hour spent in school with the cinquième INTER and I took half the class to write their letters to their Danish (?!) penfriends. Words needed included:-
- Mashed potato - la purée de pomme de terre
- Footballer - footballeur
- Christmas - Noël
- Penfriend - correspondant

Don't even ask! I felt very sorry for one of the students, who took their letter home to read it and discovered that their penfriend was not the nicest of people. In fact, they sent a letter to them saying that they didn't want to be their friend and never would. Let's keep in mind here that the cinquième are aged 11 and 12. Poor kid. They wrote a letter like they were meant to, but we're not going to post it as they don't want to communicate with the other student anymore. No surprise really!

After meeting Becky for a coffee at Café Latin, we carried on to Thomas' house where he had made us quiche Lorraine (quiche!! What an amazing man!) and bought some cider for us to share. Absolute gem. We spent the afternoon watching...well, Disney films. In French, therefore it totally was work for me! We watched La Belle et la Bête and Aladdin...so interesting to hear the different songs and dialogues when you're so used to an English version! Thomas also noticed that the French subtitles that were aiding me were actually a direct translation of the English version rather than the French version. Crazy!
Should skies be like this approaching the depths of winter? Only in Normandy I guess.
Also managed to catch up with mum, although we keep in touch via email most days, it's always fab to be able to just talk normally and speak as we always do at home just via the medium of Skype.

Amazing day, and a massive thank you to my friends for distracting me during the day and of course to my lovely boyfriend for putting up with my bad days here as well as enjoying the good!