"Mais, il n'y a rien ici..."

Recently, it seems as though I have had an inordinate number of conversations/situations which have caused me to start really thinking about life in the country as opposed to my ‘former’ life which has largely been spent in major cities.

It all came to a head the week before half term when I went to Badminton as usual (it’s ‘cause I’m serious about sport, yeah) and ended up staying late after being roped into a final match. As we were leaving - sweaty, disgusting and defeated - there was a little gathering in the reception of the sports hall as it had been Caroline’s birthday (the youngest looking 30-year old I have ever seen) the week before. Very kindly, and in tune with the French tradition of giving people things when it is YOUR birthday (so weird), she had brought along some juice, wine, tarte aux pommes for a wee post-badders celebration. Not only was it a welcome change to chat to people I usually just flail about the court beside, the evening actually revealed a lot about life in Sarlat, and the great variation in opinion about notre belle ville. For once, the ‘life in Sarlat’ conversation wasn’t actually directed at me, but at one of the other girls (phew). Originally from Pau (about 4 hours drive South of the Dordogne), she is now a EPS teacher (Education Physique et Sportive) at College la Boitie, Sarlat. Forced to complete a year of training here, she revealed that she absolutely detests life here. Although Pau is no metropolis, with 85 000 inhabitants it is still 8 times more populated than Sarlat. She expressed her astonishment at how ‘little there is to do’ here; how she has found that it is near impossible to even go out for a meal between the months of November and February; how even the roads reflect the state of affairs – no sooner do you pass the ‘Bienvenue en Dordogne’ sign that the white lines disappear, the potholes start appearing, and you are more often than not held up by a stray herd of cows on the road.

Soon everyone was involved, and it ended up with the hors-Dordogne ‘foreigners’ (me included) against the born and bred Sarladais. Most amusing was hearing the postcode wars; 64 (Pau/Pyrenees-Atlantiques) vs. 24 (Dordogne) with 33 (Bordeaux) and 65 (Hautes-Pyrenees) thrown in for good measure. It was all in extremely good taste and humour and not a dark word was passed between the two ‘sides’, but it was very interesting to hear everyone’s opinion, and to see the large divergence between ‘town’ and ‘countryside’ attitude. Although we didn’t reach a conclusion as such, it was generally agreed that if you are raised here, you will undoubtedly have relationships, links and in short, a life here, which is absolutely essential if you wish to avoid a seriously depressing séjour. I completely understand what they mean – having had an extremely difficult time au début with living alone, struggling with the language, struggling to find friends slash human contact as the town all but shut down in the winter, and being miles away from friends and family. The girl from Pau (definitely don’t know her name... shame on me) was right in one way, there really is nothing to do here in divertissiments, but that reflects one (superficial) level of life. Yes there may be a dearth of restaurants, bars, nightclubs, concerts... but there is certainly no shortage of a huge community feeling, relations and (excuse the cliché) general goodwill, humour, and helpfulness between the Sarladais. And here, as in life anywhere, it is these things that actually matter.

Escaping into the night with my head swimming with thoughts of friends, family, home, priorities, town, and countryside, the subsequent journey home seems remarkably fitting. The centre is a good 15 minutes drive from La Croix d’Allon, yet the roads were so deserted that I didn’t once have to turn my full beam off having encountered no other cars. Arriving home, I switched the engine off and got out the car to complete silence and a bath of inky blackness around me. This is a kind of pitch-black darkness that I don’t think I have ever experienced before; far from the pseudo-dark orange glow that I am so used to in Edinburgh or Manchester. Looking up, the sky was plastered with thousands of stars, each startlingly bright against the jet-black sky. I must admit, I had to stop for a moment to revel in the darkness, silence and the seeming remote isolation of the place. Sure Sarlat might not have a Subway on every corner, nor are Plump DJ’s scheduling a quick visit in their next tour, but occasionally, it does manage to arouse genuine feelings of appreciation and awe... definitely not a bad thing. 

Joyeux Anniversaire .. un mois en retard

Although it doesn't seem that long ago that we were dining on mince pies and singing about Père Noel, it is, in fact, half term. Already.

And, as the French manage to do just about everything with full-blooded Gallic enthusiasm, we have a whole two weeks off, a far cry from the meagre two days that most Scottish school kids are treated to. Thus, I have just returned from spending a couple of days at home, nipping up to Perth, briefly flying through Manchester, and partying a little too hard in Wales. As well as being treated to seeing friends and family (wonderful yes yes blah blah)  I am now happily in possession of an enormous number of photos, having hijacked Celyn's (finally fixed) computer.

That was the real reason I went home, obv. So, quickie quickie quickly, here are the missing ones from the past month. You know, there was the rugby in Toulouse...

Dragons - Toulouse scrum

Panoramic view of the stadium

Getting ready for a line out

Place de la Capitole in town

Wine bar - smallest glasses EVER
(you can see one that the guy on the right is holding. Seriously.. so small!)

Having a wee drink with Newport Dragon Nathan Brew. No idea who the guy behind is!

Nathan and his 'fro

Cel and Wayne Evans

Place du Capitol in the daylight. Hippie commune camp behind .. 

Church of the Jacobins

Carousel at Jardin Goudouli

And then my actual birthday...

Au bord de la Dordogne

Cel's mitts

Walking near Les Eyzies

Micoque.. haaaa!

Attempt #5000 with self-timer

Le repas de l'anniversaire

Dining on the Dordogne

It was only because we forgot glasses!

Playing with Cel's camera and the amazing late afternoon sun

Recognise this 'glass of wine' Bomp? (haaa camera trickery!)

"Now I'm 22 I must be mature..."

Una pizza con molto anchooviees..!

Birthday biscuits - thanks Alaina!

 And the rest of the week that Celyn stayed at mine...

Being tourists in Sarlat

That's my front door yo

Behind the cathedral in Sarlat

Poorest excuse for a roundabout EVER

“What do you call a man named Cliff? ... Oh wait, Cliff...!”

Once again, in a stereotypically chronological-confused style, here is a brief word about my weekend spent with my lovely younger sister, Fiona, and her best friend Eliza. It has been a long time coming a) because I was once again waiting for the photos (just a little sly shift of the blame there) and b) because the repercussions of that weekend were pretty fierce re: major fights with my (now former) landlords.

Now that the propriétaire fiasco is but a distant memory, I can once again indulge on what was an extremely funny visit from Fiona and Eliza. Arriving the day after Celyn left (perfect timing!), the girls had only really decided to come out to France the week or so before. Despite being a little lastminute.com it all worked really well.

Train Edinburgh London. Hotel. Flight London Bordeaux. Bus airport train station. Train Bordeaux Le Buisson. Bus Le Buisson Sarlat.

I am eternally grateful to the girls for managing to make it in one piece (just) all the way to Sarlat, a major achievement in itself. It was such a treat to have guests and not have to worry about driving across the country to pick them up. However, their arrival happened to coincide almost exactly with my violin concert, which turned out to be not quite what they were expecting. Instead of a concert hall, audience, programmes and all the other frills one would usually anticipate, it actually took place in Sophie’s house on the outskirts of Sarlat, with a roaring fire, a motley collection of chairs, stools and cushions for the ‘audience’ (average age about 10) to sit on, and a slap-up meal afterwards. It was great fun though, and the ‘violinists’ played extremely well – however, I don’t think I (or the girls for that matter) will really be able to listen to Twinkle-Twinkle in the same way ever again.

We made our excuses and peeled off early in order to head back to my [dutty] bedsit for some dinner and perhaps a little too much wine. Sunday, another gorgeous day, was spent wandering the streets of medieval Sarlat and marvelling upon just how difficult it was to find somewhere to have a cup of coffee. Thanks to Dad, we were able to go out for dinner on Sunday night and, in his honour, went to old favourite Les Tulipes for some kir and pannenkoeken. As a matter of fact, much of the weekend revolved around eating and sleeping. As two hard-working (ahem) first-year students, it seemed as though the girls had a little bit of sleep deprivation to rectify, and there is no where better to do it than in a rural French town in the late winter months. Unfortunately, a few disputes with the landlords cast a bit of a shadow over the stay, but as a matter of fact seemed to bother me a lot more than they. As ever, Fiona and Eliza remained completely unfazed by the fact that in two days, we collectively got into more trouble than I had ever experienced in the previous four months. Cheers guys!

Eliza and Fiona (and Jasmeena?) in the sty. Matching jumpers

Our phenomenally abstemious Saturday soiree



Explanation of academia vs school teaching



Getting ready for dinner on Sunday

Les Tulipes

Watching 'The Switch'... agaain

The girls in Sarlat's main square

Anyone for bread? Cheese? Ham? More ham? More cheese?

In total, it was a wonderful weekend of laughing, family guy, protein, wine, really badly told punchline-less jokes, trivial pursuit, Petit Prince biscuits, homemade packs of cards, and sleep. Thanks so much Fiona and Eliza for making the effort and coming out – I absolutely adored it.

“I like to eat, eat, eat...”

Having spent the last couple of weeks on a ‘Buying Fruits’ series of lessons with many of my classes, the past few days have seen the culmination of the module i.e. Role Play ‘Going to the Shops’ including fruits, dialogue, and ohmigosh real live British money.

Despite the role play being carried out by many varying ages and capabilities they have all contained an unbelievably high degree of hilarity. I have had so much fun with the classes in the past few weeks, that I thought I would share some of the best bits.

Some classes treated the ‘shop dialogue’ with amazing enthusiasm, setting up and laying out all the fruits in their ‘shop’, making money to pay with, putting on airs and accents, and giving out bags to customers. It was great to see them so enthusiastic about something, and they really loved the idea of having to actually buy something with money. By the end of the lesson, paper coins and notes of all shapes, sizes and colours were flying around the classroom, along with cheques for extortionate amounts and great wadges of ‘bank’ cards (slash shiny Pokémon cards being used as Visa Carte Bleu). Unfortunately, it was in this class that some groups got a little too excited, and in one case there was a fight over who was going to be the vendeur/vendeuse, culminating in a three-boys-against-one-girl shouting match. In another there was a mini-punch up in the queue to the grocery – obviously although we were speaking in English, British queuing rules did not apply. One group was absolutely exemplary, setting out their fruits, speaking impeccable English, paying with coloured in gold coins and, I discovered at the end, each possessing their own ‘cheque book’ to buy the fruits with.

A little love note from two of my CM1's - now sitting proudly on my fridge

On another occasion, whilst passing round some of my British pecuniary shrapnel (“Yes I do want it back. Yes it is real money.”), an Occitan pupil (and budding violinist!) asked in all seriousness, “When you’re here, do you use pounds instead of Euros? Do they take them at Leclerc?” Not going to lie, to this day he still believes I’m the only person cruising round Sarlat with a bunch of tenners and fifty p’s in my purse.

At Temniac school, I was reprimanded by the CE2/CM1teacher, Annie, as she has been unable to get the irritatingly memorable song ‘I like to eat Apples and Bananas’ out of her head for the past two weekends. Even after a long discussion with all the other teachers in the freezing playground at mid-afternoon break; she still went back to her classroom with that damned tune stuck in her head. In fact, that song has slightly got me into trouble, as one pupil came up and to check whether he could ask for ‘banoonoos’ in the shop. No, that is just in the song – they do not actually exist.

Although each class has actually worked really hard, and there are some very good English speakers amongst them, it is pretty funny sitting back and watching them ‘order their groceries’ in English:

“Can aye aave fife appol, choo oran-je, aay wan grapes.  Plis. How mash ees eet?”

 “Waan Pooo-nds, et five-ty pens.”

....

“Thankoogoodbye” “Thankoogoodbye”.

Not going to correct them mid-flow. I know they’re in character! 

Seriously. So funny.