St Martony and the long and winding road.

It's Friday afternoon.  It was 5° this morning and now it's 25°.  
I'm sitting in a salle de réunion losing the will to live.  U-shaped lay out, video projector and screen, pie charts, a coffee maker and bowls of bananas.

It took me 2 and a half hours to drive half the length of the mountain chain in order to learn about the latest exam reforms (which will change in any case, along with every ministre de l'éducation).

The mind shouldn't be made to think while the body is digesting.  It's inhuman.

I had  lunch in a Lebanese restaurant with Gail from Enniskillen.  I'd only known her for a couple of hours but her madness attracted me and I'd never met another round peg in the square hole that is l'Education Nationale.

We drank rosé and ate felafels and Gail puffed away on her Maloboros between mouthfuls.

I zoned out of the afternoon stuff and understood why pupils scroll surreptitiously through their phones in lessons.  Gail sat on the other side of the 'U' with an oxygen tank on a trolley beside her and a long plastic bag hanging from her mouth which made her look like a skinny elephant.

They let us out at 4 instead of 5.  Gail whooped with joy and sang Ciao Bella as we left the gates.

St Gaudens has a twelfth century cathedral and a cloistered abbey and would be beautiful but for the multi-chimneyed  paper factory which sends columns of vapour into the sky and the smell of paper pulp into the town.

I'm now a quarter of the way home but feel that a beer is a good recompense for a day spent knee deep in acronyms and education-speak.

It's the weekend and the sun is still warm. I've found the perfect bar and realise, with pride, that I can write and eavesdrop on the old men down the terrace from me who are talking about Ch'tis and Belgians and Zemour .... and there are many miles to go.