We have had more rain this month so far than we see all year in the UK! We are getting used to the grey skies and indoor life, but it is taking far longer to dry our clothes. I have also noticed that whether or not it was raining previously, it will without fail begin to pour down torrentially as soon as it is time to pick up LissaLou! My research shows that September is the worst month for rain (so don't visit the Caribbean during that month!) and on the plus side, it is soo much cooler. I have even enjoyed a couple of cups of tea and been forced to turn off the ventilator and put a sheet on my bed! I am told that December is downright cool (23 degrees or so?!) so I am looking forward to that.
The change in temperature has brought most people out in colds, we could hear them coughing around LissaLou's school, Papy has a huge new box of medicines to add to his ENORMOUS existing collection, and the children have all been coughing and spluttering away. Poor Baby JoJo has been very pathetic, even to the point of throwing up his food from so much coughing. It reminds me of his first months when he was snoring and snuffling constantly. I see what they mean about babies with siblings at nursery getting more colds! They are all on the mend now though.
In the pouring rain yesterday, Bertie took a shower, cousin Steeven skidded and breakdanced on the floor and CassCass managed three changes of clothing as she played in the water, not to mention wandering out in a towel, presumably in an effort to keep dry!
Not really rain-related but Mamie brought home some new chickens for her flock? brood? and they are very cute. One managed to escape its box and headed upstairs to visit us. The others laughed at me as I tried in vain to catch it - in my defence, I didn't want to hurt it, or vice versa, and after all I am a Londoner born and bred and have never held a chicken before! Bertie did the honours in the end and now they are waiting in their box to go to Pika. The chickens there do produce eggs, but these are often eaten by mongoose (mongeese?). So many linguistic queries this morning, Bertie and I will be discussing them for hours!
Our current old banger belonging to Bertie's brother Richard who is working in St Martin has a small leak and needs a pipe replacing so we are borrowing another one and getting ready for our weekly beach trip. So many beaches to choose from, which one shall it be...?!
Wednesday, 24 September 2008
Tuesday, 23 September 2008
Our First Parents' Evening
Well, it was a 45 minute meeting after school on Friday for all the parents in LissaLou's classroom. Her teacher seems pleasant enough, though she (like most here from all I can see!) has a tendency to shout at or tap misbehaving children. She was supposed to talk for 20 minutes but got very passionate about her subject and went on for double that! Her main point was...
La Maternelle is NOT a creche, it is a SCHOOL.
They no longer want children behaving like bebecadoms - isn't that a great word? It means cryababy I think.
She then told off the parents for sending kids to school who didn't know how to put their shoes on, ask for things, put litter in the bin... I felt reasonably smug during this, until I mentioned it later to LissaLou and she admitted that she doesn't always put things in the bin! The shame of it!
The most important job they have is of training the children to be good citizens in the future. She made many good points about the importance of teaching children now and the impact they will have on society in the future. Unfortunately, she didn't actually say much on what they actually do all day.
We got to look at their work - LissaLou had some great pictures of the family complete with eyelashes and ears! I love seeing how her drawing progresses! There are 26, soon to be 27 in the class, and they are seated according to ability. LissaLou is on the green table right by the door, so I reckon we could see her with binoculars from our bedroom window! Her friends are mainly on her table, but she has made friends with the neighbour's daughter (he was Bertie's friend at school!). I asked how she knew they were friends and she told me that the other girl had said "tu es ma copine". I just love hearing her speak french! Every now and then she will sing some of the songs they learn too.
Finally, the maitresse thinks it scandalous that these island children can't swim, so she would like to take them to lessons on a Friday morning. I am trying to convince Bertie to volunteer to go along with them.
La Maternelle is NOT a creche, it is a SCHOOL.
They no longer want children behaving like bebecadoms - isn't that a great word? It means cryababy I think.
She then told off the parents for sending kids to school who didn't know how to put their shoes on, ask for things, put litter in the bin... I felt reasonably smug during this, until I mentioned it later to LissaLou and she admitted that she doesn't always put things in the bin! The shame of it!
The most important job they have is of training the children to be good citizens in the future. She made many good points about the importance of teaching children now and the impact they will have on society in the future. Unfortunately, she didn't actually say much on what they actually do all day.
We got to look at their work - LissaLou had some great pictures of the family complete with eyelashes and ears! I love seeing how her drawing progresses! There are 26, soon to be 27 in the class, and they are seated according to ability. LissaLou is on the green table right by the door, so I reckon we could see her with binoculars from our bedroom window! Her friends are mainly on her table, but she has made friends with the neighbour's daughter (he was Bertie's friend at school!). I asked how she knew they were friends and she told me that the other girl had said "tu es ma copine". I just love hearing her speak french! Every now and then she will sing some of the songs they learn too.
Finally, the maitresse thinks it scandalous that these island children can't swim, so she would like to take them to lessons on a Friday morning. I am trying to convince Bertie to volunteer to go along with them.
Visitors
Saturday evening we were round at a SIL's flat for her son's 2nd birthday. This was the flat Bertie helped to paint a few weeks ago so we were full of admiration for the walls.
Sunday morning Bertie's friend popped by before 8am! That is just not normal! Unfortunately our downstairs neighbours know that we are in and awake so we can't even pretend to be away or asleep and not answer the door!
Sunday afternoon we went to see the future in-laws of Bertie's younger brother who is due to get married in December. In France, grr - we keep missing weddings due to being on the wrong continent! We were invited for 3pm so we arrived around 4pm, then made our excuses around 6pm...only to have them very firmly rejected and to be kept for another hour whilst food food and more food was plied upon us. They even had an electric gate to ensure compliance!
Monday morning a man selling pineapples visited the house and my MIL (belle-mere is so much prettier!) kindly called me down to purchase some. She is always very concerned about how much we get charged for things and that we are not ripped off - I used to never buy anything for fear of her disapproval of the price; now I just buy things and sneak them upstairs without her seeing them or look vacant when she asks me how much it was. Anyway, these pineapples came with her approval and at the stunning price of €1 per kilo, I was delighted to get 5.
Sunday morning Bertie's friend popped by before 8am! That is just not normal! Unfortunately our downstairs neighbours know that we are in and awake so we can't even pretend to be away or asleep and not answer the door!
Sunday afternoon we went to see the future in-laws of Bertie's younger brother who is due to get married in December. In France, grr - we keep missing weddings due to being on the wrong continent! We were invited for 3pm so we arrived around 4pm, then made our excuses around 6pm...only to have them very firmly rejected and to be kept for another hour whilst food food and more food was plied upon us. They even had an electric gate to ensure compliance!
Monday morning a man selling pineapples visited the house and my MIL (belle-mere is so much prettier!) kindly called me down to purchase some. She is always very concerned about how much we get charged for things and that we are not ripped off - I used to never buy anything for fear of her disapproval of the price; now I just buy things and sneak them upstairs without her seeing them or look vacant when she asks me how much it was. Anyway, these pineapples came with her approval and at the stunning price of €1 per kilo, I was delighted to get 5.
Friday, 19 September 2008
Can't Stop Blogging!
I could go on for hours with all the pent up blog entries inside of me but I will try to restrain myself!
All last night and this morning the rain lashed down so there was no house painting for Bertie. Instead we set off the Post Office. I had been warned about the queues there but didn't really take it seriously. However, we did wait about 40 minutes to be served! On the plus side, today was Environment Day and they had a group playing lovely music throughout our wait, plus you were served a croissant and coffee, mmm! The rain meant that it was ever so chilly - a mere 23 degrees according to our town thermometer! I was tempted to put on a cardigan (except I didn't bring any) and I am not surprised we are all down with colds, baby JoJo has it the worst.
All last night and this morning the rain lashed down so there was no house painting for Bertie. Instead we set off the Post Office. I had been warned about the queues there but didn't really take it seriously. However, we did wait about 40 minutes to be served! On the plus side, today was Environment Day and they had a group playing lovely music throughout our wait, plus you were served a croissant and coffee, mmm! The rain meant that it was ever so chilly - a mere 23 degrees according to our town thermometer! I was tempted to put on a cardigan (except I didn't bring any) and I am not surprised we are all down with colds, baby JoJo has it the worst.
This evening I put my new oven to use and made a Banana and Papaya cake from the muffin recipe in this book "An Embarrassment of Mangoes". It is a nice read (an American couple sailing through the Caribbean) but in addition has lots of lovely recipes with local ingredients that I am looking forward to trying out. The cake was delicious in any case, and accompanied by a very refreshing cerise pays fruit juice that Bertie made.
Thanks to the taker of these photos. They are just out at Pika so we are getting to enjoy them lots at the moment. The thing I notice about fruit here, apart from them all being various shades of orange for some reason, is that they all have huge stones or plentiful pips. Definitely not convenience foods, sometimes it takes quite a lot of work to get the bit of fruit and get rid of the rest! These cherries have three stones in them, and I tried a so-called plum the other day which was nothing like its European counterpart, as the stone was about 9 tenths of the fruit!
Thanks to the taker of these photos. They are just out at Pika so we are getting to enjoy them lots at the moment. The thing I notice about fruit here, apart from them all being various shades of orange for some reason, is that they all have huge stones or plentiful pips. Definitely not convenience foods, sometimes it takes quite a lot of work to get the bit of fruit and get rid of the rest! These cherries have three stones in them, and I tried a so-called plum the other day which was nothing like its European counterpart, as the stone was about 9 tenths of the fruit!There are a lot of traditions surrounding plant growing here, and I remember my shock during my first visit to Guadeloupe in 2000 when my FIL told me I couldn't touch the tree if I was having a period! He also believes in planting according to the moon.
On an entirely different note, we have succombed to the television on a few evenings and yesterday had an interesting few hours watching The Blair Decade in french!
Port-Louis
Wednesday is consecrated as our Family Day Out and following complaints from a daughter last week that we were going to the beach at Ste Anne again we decided to head for a new beach this week. This time I selected my favourite, Port Louis, on the north part of Grande Terre, and we invited Bertie's SIL and their nephew and niece as well as his Tatie and his sister's friend, so we were quite a good sized party.
Last week we went to Ste Anne and realised on arrival that we had forgotten the sun tan lotion (I suffered for 5 days!) and the water to rinse ourselves afterwards so we paid great attention to our packing this week...and arrived to realise we had forgotten the carefully packed sandwiches! Fortunately Bertie's sister was well supplied!
Here are some web photos to show you how beautiful it is there - I just discovered the beach is called Plage du Souffleur - as ever click on them to find where they originate from.
Last week we went to Ste Anne and realised on arrival that we had forgotten the sun tan lotion (I suffered for 5 days!) and the water to rinse ourselves afterwards so we paid great attention to our packing this week...and arrived to realise we had forgotten the carefully packed sandwiches! Fortunately Bertie's sister was well supplied!
Here are some web photos to show you how beautiful it is there - I just discovered the beach is called Plage du Souffleur - as ever click on them to find where they originate from.
We took Baby JoJo in but between his obsession with drinking the sea water from his floater, and the waves popping over his head, he took in plenty of salt! Then we propped him up in his Bumbo to watch us all and he started leaning over and tilted the whole thing over - luckily Bertie noticed he was upside down!
We also had great fun covering our little nephew in sand up to his neck - perhaps I will get the photo from my SIL.
The beach was absolutely deserted which was very pleasant (the €2 car park fee may have something to do with it?) and they provide huts with tables and benches all along the sand so it is a much more sophisticated way of picknicking! On the down side though there are a lot of mosquitoes and other biting things there.
It was lovely driving through Grande Terre to get there - this is sugar cane countryside and you can see the remaining fields all along the route. Bertie as ever told me of how the island used to be covered in cane and there were five working factories when he was a boy (his grandpa worked for one) now there is only one and all the fields are rapidly turning into construction after construction. I feel his loss, then wonder at islands being dedicated to producing something that rots your teeth...
I'm Having A Break From Teaching...
These were famous last words from Bertie before we left the UK - he decided not to look into any teaching posts and just to have a year doing something entirely different. However, it would appear that he cannot escape from his destiny....
Firstly he was offered some hours teaching in the English School here. Then his friend asked if he could give her private english lessons. Then she put him in contact with several other friends and acquaintances all wanting private lessons for themselves or their children. Now the word of mouth is working well, and we are drawing up little adverts and trying to fit people in here there and everywhere. Learning english is extremely popular, which contrasts strongly with the attitude to language learning in the UK! Regarding his hours, it is the kind of job where everyone is free in the evenings so I shall have to face the dreaded tea and bathtime alone!
Deciding what to charge was quite tricky as we had simply no idea, but Bertie asked around and it seems that €15 an hour is a reasonable price. Seems very cheap to a Londoner (and probably won't get you far here - in fact, it won't even buy you a pack of nappies!!). Now we have to look into how self employment and tax etc work over here.
Firstly he was offered some hours teaching in the English School here. Then his friend asked if he could give her private english lessons. Then she put him in contact with several other friends and acquaintances all wanting private lessons for themselves or their children. Now the word of mouth is working well, and we are drawing up little adverts and trying to fit people in here there and everywhere. Learning english is extremely popular, which contrasts strongly with the attitude to language learning in the UK! Regarding his hours, it is the kind of job where everyone is free in the evenings so I shall have to face the dreaded tea and bathtime alone!
Deciding what to charge was quite tricky as we had simply no idea, but Bertie asked around and it seems that €15 an hour is a reasonable price. Seems very cheap to a Londoner (and probably won't get you far here - in fact, it won't even buy you a pack of nappies!!). Now we have to look into how self employment and tax etc work over here.
Going Wireless
Today is a splendid day...after many weeks of waiting, Bertie finally visited mediaserve and set up an account with them. They said it would take 10 days or so to get our phone and internet connection, but in fact surpassed themselves and did it in 5. Meanwhile, my BIL said that our (dodgey old) computer would not work with the internet - frustration! But lovely man that he is, he offered to put a computer together for us. He has 4 working in his house and the parts for several more under the bed and behind the sofa apparently! This sounded great, but the impatient side of me wondered how long it would actually take and the tidy side of me wondered where we would stick it in our upstairs flat and the practical side of me wondered how we would get a wire from the downstairs to the upstairs without the girls damaging it... Then came wi-fi! We hadn't looked into it before thinking it to be too expensive but it turned out to be a very reasonable €29. So here I am sitting upstairs in my own little flat, tapping away on my faithful little laptop, ready to catch up on many many blogs and other things....Bliss! The only problem now is that I keep typing azerty instead of qwerty!
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