Que du bonheur!

This morning Catrin left for a school trip to Caen to visit the peace museum, the D-day beaches and the war cemeteries. She had to be at Gare Saint-Jean for 6:40. A train from Pessac at 6:33 gets to the station at 6:40, but we booked a Citiz car and I picked it up last night.

5 am found us all bustling about the house and 6 found us hurtling towards the ring road in the car, to find that the slip road was closed.

Quick change of plan, to get to the next slip road would take too long, we headed for Pessac station and got that train.
Catrin hurriedly texted her friends to say that she would not arrive by 6:40.
We caught the train, alighted, found her friends, then Pat and I got on the next train back.

Before leaving we searched the departure boards for a train leaving soon after 6:40 in the direction of Caen, but nothing.

I texted Catrin. So what time's this train, then?
7:23.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

While I had the car I took a load of old worthless treasures to the dump, then Pat wended her way to the bookshop and I got down to my emails.

Cut to lunchtime.

Urgent message from Lycée François-Magendie. Your daughter has been absent from class all morning.

It's no wonder parents go grey. When the kids are sensible the schools are bonkers.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A bit about music exams in UK and France

They're really different. I think I have already mentioned that while in the UK people generally find a private teacher for their instrument, or do it through a school scheme, here there are municipal music school, conservatoires and so on. The situation is a little more complex than I had first understood, because the schools vary in the rigidity of their organisation: the most, the conservatoires, next the municipals, then the associations. Our music school is an association, but it tends to apply the standards of the municipal schools with its programme of cycles, etc. Britain - grade 1 to 8, grade 8 being roughly equivalent to A-level, pre university/conservatoire. France - 3 cycles, each taking about 4 years, with 3ème cycle being roughly equivalent to grade 8. Theory of music - UK to take grade 8 you need theory grade 5. In France you study theory alongside your instrumental studies, very slowly. Catrin's flute music is MUCH more difficult than the stuff she does in theor
Read more

The Kitchen

 Our new apartment will be equipped with toilet and bathroom etc. but not with anything at all in the kitchen. Not even a sink. So we need to purchase a kitchen and engage a kitchen fitter. A friend who knows how to fit kitchens suggested buying an Ikea kitchen. "They're guaranteed twenty years and they honour their guarantee", he said. "I've proved it". Well I don't know any other kitchen laces in France, and I can't imagine there's much that's cheaper than Ikea, so I was happy to accept his advice. So it was that on Monday I booked an appointment with the Ikea Kitchen Planning Service in the centre of Bordeaux. The woman was friendly. "You've already started the process", she said, (have we?) "so that will save us lots of time". "What are you aiming for?" Something not too country, something discreet, something that can adapt to whatever colours we put in the rest of the room. She understood our dislike of
Read more