Fox en France Ep.5: I'm a crêpe, I'm a weirdo

Wednesday 5^th Oct

Enough choice for you?

It strikes me as odd that my day off has been so eventful but clearly I am making a good go at behaving like a local, as an elderly woman stopped me in the supermarket and requested I help her find the organic lemons (?). Unfortunately the poor old thing didn’t know what she was letting herself into – organic lemons were only the beginning of my cluelessness. I had to politely tell her I wasn’t the best person to ask. Frankly, I’m shocked that she hadn’t already clocked me walking in circles around the giant Intermarché, completely lost and unable to find anything I needed. Stick an indecisive person in Leeds’ Sainsbury’s Local and you’ve got a headache and a difficult job, but stick an indecisive person in a colossal French supermarket and that’s half the afternoon gone. And while I didn’t have time to verify it I would estimate that there were roughly seven or eight million varieties of wine, and about the same of cheese. I’d walked in so many circles I was worried I looked like a suspicious shoplifter type. Or perhaps like I was saving on the gym membership and getting my workout up and down the aisles instead.

I was quite the flustered mess once I hit the bakery, and turned round so quickly when leaving that I almost walked into the glass sliding door because it was really clean and I couldn’t tell which part was open. True highlight and will definitely help with my town reputation.  

SO:

Clouds: I lost at least two decades of my life in a supermarket; 40th birthday party invite to come.

Silver linings: Camouflaging with my surroundings well enough to be mistaken for a shop assistant.

Thursday 6^th Oct

"What can you do in Winter?"

The gold moments keep on coming, as this morning saw me briefly get attached to the whiteboard by my dungarees as I corrected a piece of homework. Luck was on my side, though, as they were all staring intently at their books instead of at me.

I particularly enjoyed helping to police a debate about Pokémon Go and Call of Duty (waste of time? Which is better? Is gaming really a sport?) – proving that should you find a subject that the students care about, you’re sorted. The same rule applied in my two seconde classes. Ask them about how many daughters the Wilson family has and you’re not too popular, but carve out some time to ask about music and you’ve got a fair bit of conversation about US rap flowing. …Obviously, I wasn’t a big part of this conversation.

SO:

Clouds: I keep getting attached to parts of the school by my clothing.

Silver linings: Still alive, the students are really nice (so far).

Friday 7^th Oct

Within half an hour of my third official lesson I must have subconsciously become bored of saying “well done” to every student, and so to my surprise I was asked, “Madame, what is ‘nailed it’?” Ha, ha, oh, it means you have done well, but it’s very informal and please don’t use it in your essays. (I can imagine a colleague approaching me in the staffroom: “Nicolas has written that XXX Historical Figure ‘nailed’ that war… You wouldn’t have anything to do with this, would you?”)

I then rushed home like a child to get my apartment ready for my guests. This involved doing precisely nothing except for finding all the glassware I could, and preparing to tell some of them that they were going to have to drink from empty jam jars. Classy. 

Paul Hollywood on a mad one (no, that's just sugar)

No one seemed to mind too much and taking into account some very intense conversations about Trump on the balcony (the conversations were on the balcony, not Donald himself), an impromptu round of crêpe-making in the early hours of the morning and more bottles of wine than I would ever openly reveal, I like to think it was a success. Everyone who came along – thank you for being part of a real-life textbook maths question (if you have eight language assistants and three spare bedrooms, how many single beds are in Bedroom B if three people had to sleep together in Bedroom A?). And no, sorry, I can’t pay for the medical bills of those of you on the floor, who now presumably have severe back problems.

SO:

Clouds: Post-2am-crêpe-situation my kitchen looks like the site of a heated argument between Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood (thanks a bunch, Joel). 

Silver linings: There was a 2am crêpe situation (no but seriously, thank you Joel), my balcony has been christened by heated political conversation (as all good balconies should be, no?), and everyone sneaked their cheese leftovers into my fridge. Angels.