Au Revoir

Seems a rather apt title to be honest, and the picture doesn't really have too much to do with my day...more of an oh-dear-lord-I-don't-have-a-picture, candles.

I have no idea why neither Andy nor I do not have a hangover

After leaving Andy in bed I went into work, to find I didn't have the hour and a half expected...but that one of the teachers had planned a lesson around me and conveniently forgotten to tell me I needed to be there. So normally I would have said that I had worked over my hours and couldn't do it, but as I'm going home next Friday (missing two hours of work) I was almost pushed into doing this extra unplanned hour this week. I must admit, I felt a bit pushed into a corner...but the truth is I did have to make the hours up somewhere. After a rather panicked rush unto Facebook, hoping that Andy would be online (he was), to tell him to come an hour later everything was fine.

So my first hour was with the normal sixième...and boy has their behaviour improved since the beginning of the year! We ended up teaching them a Christmas song...in particular 'The Twelve Days of Christmas'. And they loved it. In fact, they just love everything to do with Christmas! Ended up having the entire class singing along to the karaoke version, and it was absolutely brilliant. Turns out ten year old French children are exactly the same as drunk English people...both love the line 'five golden rings'...every time that line came up there was a definite crescendo!

A very successful solo lesson with the quatrième student, who is still improving in leaps and bounds, as she is now speaking in full sentences both with me and the class! I think she's also becoming more confident with me, and not worrying about making mistakes. This lesson was followed by my unplanned hour, which went fine...but I didn't actually end up doing much at all. Turns out that although one teacher had told my responsable that she had planned a lesson with me in mind...it was actually the other English teacher that needed me. And she told me so in the staffroom just as I was leaving! Quite frustrating, as I am most definitely not a mind-reader...and also, I most definitely cannot be in two places at once.

Anyways, back to nice things. So after meeting Andy and grabbing some lunch in the pouring rain we met up with Becky, Kendra and Meg. I think Andy felt a bit nervous as he didn't know what the girls were going to be like, and whether they would like him or not in his new role as "ex". He had absolutely nothing to worry about, as he had neither done anything wrong nor been anything but lovely...and also, my friends are awesome. I guess it is also really important to say that it is neither of our faults that things weren't working! Kendra was brilliantly on form...as Andy said how he had to buy an XL jumper due to the size of his neck (?!) but would be upset if he had to add another "X" to it...to which Kendra pointed at me and said "well that's two now". The atmosphere was really lovely, and I'm so glad that Andy managed to meet at least some of my friends in France.

I am still so surprised how easy all of this has been.

Heading home for an early dinner was a great end to a lovely day. I think it was definitely time for Andy and I to say goodbye, not forever, but for now. If he stayed any longer I think we would have both started to forget why we decided we weren't right in a relationship.

Even though it was pretty late when Andy left, my night was not over yet, and I ended up at Kendra's flat with the rest of the girls. Cue lots of random conversations, guess the dubbed film, nail polishes, wine, decorating mugs and girl talk. I've missed having everyone together as a group; it somehow feels like we haven't done an evening in like that in a long while. I'm starting to feel the Christmas spirit more and more now, and I don't know whether it's making me want home more, or making me want to stay and soak up the atmosphere. The pull of family is definitely starting to tug more and more now the going home day is in sight.


Époustouflant - breath-taking