The Germans are coming

.....was written on the white board in the Vie Scolaire office. A signal to our kids to be on extra good behaviour as ambassadors of Lavelanet, the Ariège, Occitanie and France in general

And they were.

A curse on Brexit that the young of Britain no longer have this opportunity.

The corridors were full of the sound of English which had quickly been established as the common lingo. Hearts had even started fluttering.  There was a lot of laughter. 

I left them be and set up my classroom and thought about New year's eve 1992 when I was 20 and full of the Call of the Continent.  That night at around 11.30, Cécile and her Turkish boyfriend who was a gast arbeiter in Germany, Chris Green and I climbed the Eiffel Tower with a bottle of cheap Cava.  At the very top we found Spanish, Portuguese, Italians, Germans all our age and similarly equipped.  The bells struck midnight across the city and we popped the corks into the Parisian night and drank from the bottle to a golden future.  We watched fireworks across the city.  A 360° view of the furthest flung suburbs to the north/ south/east/west.  Everything shone and the future was ours without borders.


Oh well.