"Tout reprit son calme."

Les invités sont partis. C'était génial de les avoir avec nous. L'équipe MPEF est une équipe de rêve ! Mais c'est bien aussi de retrouver le rythme normal de la vie de famille


It's been great to have lots of people coming and going over the last month - really since the day we got back from Britain. But now it's good to get the normal rhythm of family life going.


However it is a tiring rhythm !


Gwilym starts lycée Tuesday to Friday at 8h15, and his day normally goes in till 17h20. His journey to school take almost an hour by bus so he leaves the house at 7am and gets back and about 18h20.


He has Wednesday afternoon off. There was the possibility of staying at school and joining a football team but he decided that he needs that afternoon off. I don't blame him ! he also starts at 10h20 on Mondays, which is a blessing.


Catrin's collège is not far away and she only starts at 8am once a week (Friday).


Meanwhile activities are starting up gradually. I started back doing my weekly lunch-time stint at the collège today. The guys group will start again soon. I'm meeting up with one of the students and hoping to set things up with some others soon, too. FAC meetings won't start till October, but I'm preaching twice on Sunday, French am and English pm. Pat has started back with the French women's group and she's talking to folks about the English women's group.

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

Good news from my sermon buddy

Yesterday we went over my script from August 13. There really wasn't much she had taken exception to. Once or twice she wondered quite what I was getting at (they had the same problem at Deeside, I think...) and I do have difficulties with the word " de ", but then she said "Who doesn't?" So I felt very encouraged. I also took the opportunity to ask her about one or two things: 1) Direct preaching. Like I used to in Britain, I preach saying you - using "vous" when I am talking to the whole wide world and "tu" when I want it to feel as if I am addressing each person individually. French preachers tend to say rather "What will we do, what will one do". So I asked her if she felt my way was too direct, too brutal for the French ear. She said "I think you can get away with it with your English accent". In fact several people have commented on how much they appreciated being spoken to directly in preaching. 2) Liaisons Last...
Read more

A brief sortie to North Wales

 Following the Great Keswick Debacle, when our volunteering at the Keswick café was sabotaged by our assorted indispositions, we had airline tickets to use up. Yes, we had not taken travel insurance, so we paid even more money to change our tickets to fly for a short visit to North Wales. This time we were able to go. We passed extremely slowly through a very crowded Bordeaux airport but in good time to get our plane. All seats in the terminal were taken so we leaned against whatever we could find while waiting to board. Hey, bags need seats, too! though sometimes pointing out to Pat, "No, that's a bag seat", makes the bag find a new refuge on the lap of the person sitting next to it... Once on the plane we quickly found our allocated seats - right at the back on the left hand side - stowed our bags and the flight was smooth and uneventful.  We had 30 minutes in Manchester to disembark, get through immigration , hustle off to the station and board our train for Shotton. I...
Read more