Tuesday 22 January 2013

Il pleut toujours

I'm very jealous that whilst England and northern France have been covered by a layer of snow in the past few days, here in south west France we've had nothing but rain, rain and more rain, and it looks like its going to carry on like that for the rest of the week.

Other than the rain, things are good here, the weekend went by so fast as usual, we had a night out Saturday as Harriet's last night before she moves to Spain. It was good fun, except getting drenched when walking to the bar, and as it was very windy too my umbrella is now broken :(.

Me and Jess also went to an aquarium with a sealion show, which was great! And then we met the others at the cinema to see django unchained, which was really good.

Monday at work went quite well, and today I'm going to try and sort CAF out once and for all by taking in all the new documents they've asked for. I'm not holding out for much though, I'll have left by the time they actually decide to give me any money.

We're going skiing again this weekend, woo! And next weekend I'm going to meet Adam n Bordeaux, can't wait to see him!

It's weird to think this is only my third week back, it seems to have been forever. What's even more weird is that individual days go so fast, yet the weeks seem to last forever!

I'm not wishing my time away or anything, but I've got so much to look forward to in February and march that January is seeming to take forever. Everyone knows that January is a rubbish month anyway! In February I've got a weekend with Adam, my sister and her boyfriend visiting for 5 days and hopefully a trip to Toulouse with the girls. March is school holidays, which will be another visit from Adam and Milan with the girls. So much to look forward to, woooo!

Missing everyone back home, see you all soon

Kirsty :) xxx

Sunday 13 January 2013

Faire le ski

Just thought I'd update to let you know I went skiing yesterday and had an amazing time!!!
It was the first time I'd been proper skiing, as I've had a couple of lessons at an indoor snow slope in England but never been on the real slopes before! So needless to say I wasn't amazing at it and fell over many times, resulting in many bruises and aches muscles this morning, but I can't wait to do it all over again! I think (or hope) that in time I will improve, I don't think I did too bad to say it was my first time!

There was one particularly scary fall where my friends had gone a little ahead and I fell down a small banking. It took me ages to get back up and sort my skis out, and I was panicking because I couldn't see them. They were waiting for me of course, but just round the corner out of my vision! I'm thankful they were so patient with me as most of them are pretty good at skiing already!

We plan to go skiing as often as we can while we're here, it's only just over am hour away to the Gourette resort by coach, so we might as well make the most of it!

Last night I was feeling ill, as a cold mixed with a day spent in the snow is not so good! So I had an early night while the others went to a party. Today I felt a lot better but I'm still suffering with a bad cough! We went round to Anna's and watched she's the man, a great film! It always reminds me of when I used to play football and its so true that the boys always used to think girls could never be food at it. Definitely a subject I can relate with! Also makes me wish I still played, maybe ill join a team when I get back to England, I definitely think I could get back in to it with a bit of practice!

Xx

Tuesday 8 January 2013

Back to Pau and back to work...

I realise it's been a while since I posted here, but I've been really busy over the Christmas holidays!

I travelled home with Anna on the 21st December, and I have to say, there were some points when I wasn't sure if we'd make it home, and no, not because of the world ending, but because of a few mishaps with public transport! Firstly, Anna tried to get on the wrong train, then we thought our train was delayed by 40 minutes and we would miss our flight (luckily we had misheard and it was the later Toulouse train that was delayed - phew!) and finally we had an hour delay when we eventually arrived at the airport. To make matters worse, when we finally arrived in Gatwick, we had to wait at least half an hour for the bags!! But, by then, I think we were so happy to be back in England that we weren't too bothered about this (didn't stop me moaning about it though!).

Adam was there to meet me at the airport, it was so good to see him :), and after saying bye to Anna we went to find his car. Half an hour later, we found it, after looking on just about every floor as Adam had forgotten the colour, floor and letter of the car park where he'd parked, silly him! We then stayed in a hotel near the airport and travelled back up north the following day, calling to do some stressful last minute xmas shopping on the way!

I spent the next few days catching up with family and friends, spent the majority of Christmas eve baking with Lizzie which was great fun, and the chocolate fudge cake was delicious!! I then spent Christmas day with family and part of it with Adam's family too. I got lots of lovely gifts ( thanks everyone!), alot of which I tried to fit in my suitcase back to France, which resulted in me returning with a bigger case than I came home with (oops!). 

I spent a couple of days in Manchester with Adam between Christmas and new year, which was good, I went ice skating again (3 times in 3 weeks I think I have an obsession!), and tried to do some sale shopping, but it was way too busy! I also went to Leeds and had a good catch up with my friend Justine, which was lovely. New years eve we went for a lovely Indian meal, and then to a gathering at one of Adam's friend's. I taught everyone the flip cup drinking game that the American assistants taught us, and it went down rather well :D.

After new year, it was getting closer and closer to the day I had to return to France.  By the time saturday came and I had to travel back down to London for my flight the next morning, I had really mixed emotions about coming back. I was really sad to leave, but I guess this was to be expected, but I was looking forward to seeing my friends in France too. Leaving Adam at the airport wasn't too bad as I had Beth and Anna waiting for me at the airport. If I'd have been flying back alone I think it would have been much worse.
After a long day travelling we finally arrived back in Pau.

Yesterday was my first day back at work, and I have to say, it went better than I thought it would. Except for nearly being left stranded in Artiguelouton, the tiny village where I teach, as the bus drove straight past me. Now, the buses are only every hour, and I'd been waiting 40 minutes for this one, so I went into panic mode when I saw it drive past, and started running, waving my arms and shouting "Attendez!!" at the top of my voice! Luckily, it stopped just down the road and it turns out the driver needed the loo and so stopped outside a building where she could use the toilet. So I was left feeling very silly but glad I wouldn;t be stuck in the cold for another hour! That's another thing - it's freezing here now! Colder than England! Typical that I went home when the weather was warm (20 degrees Xmas day according to my teacher!) and return to the freezing temperatures!

There's 8 weeks of teaching until the next holidays, which seems like ages, but I'm sure it'll fly by, and I'm going to try and make the most of my time here, as before I know it it'll be time to go home.
I'll try and update my blog more often so that I don't have to do long rambling ones like this!

xxx