September was sometimes a bit of a sad time of year, as a person who loves the summer I always felt in September like I didn't get enough sun to go into autumn yet. But this year is different because my love for the sun has taken me to a place with much more of it. So now it's like some kind of sun inflation has taken place, where the sun has no value now. I could stay inside and play board games on a sunny saturday without feeling like I'm wasting the day. It's 34 degrees today, I think the temperature will stay in the low 30s or high 20s this month. Going down to very variable in October before it's finally cold by November. but by then it's only 4 months until it's sunny beach weather again.
The kids started back on 1st September, they were more than ready to go back by then, Percy said "7 weeks off is fine but 8 weeks off is too long." It was a very long summer especially given the fact I saw hardly any other people in that time I had 3 play dates in 8 weeks. I normally have 3 a week!
In the UK the boys would be going back into year 1 and year 3, but the french school system is different. In England Percy is one of the oldest kids in his year with a birthday in October and Eric is on the younger side with a birthday in May. But here everyone born in the same calendar year is in a class together. So in England Percy's class would all be 7 in September and turn 8 that year, but here most of his class are already 8 and they will be turning 9 from January. So he's sort of skipped a year and if we stay in France he would start secondary school a year early, I feel like I've lost a year of his life! Eric on the other hand is still kind of in nursery here. He doesn't legally have to be in school until next September. Even though the building he goes to is part of the school Percy is in, and they share a playground and play with each other at break time. Also this is all free, not like nursery in the U.K which is really expensive.
Percy had a good first day, it was very cute taking him back after lunch and seeing him play tag with his classmates pointing at himself and saying "moi" to show he was on. Eric was extremely tired after his first day and had a tantrum about the positioning of his ketchup at tea, they take away naps now he's in the "La grande section de maternelle" (big class of nursery) last year he had his own tiny bed in school!
At the moment they still come back home for lunch but they will be staying in for lunch soon. The first morning at drop off it was really nice, it's so relaxed compared to their old school (it's about a quarter of the size) They were playing music in the playground including john Lenon's Imagine, it's like they were trying to make parents cry. I also think the teachers seem happier. I'm a big fan of the no uniform thing for kids and teachers . The reason schools always give for uniform is "it prevents bullying" this is massively undermined by the 2 or 3 times a year you have to pay a pound to wear your own clothes. My mum also clearly wanted me to get bullied in primary school because even though 95% of people had the school sweatshirt with the school logo, you were allowed to just wear a red jumper. Or a red cardigan your mum knitted. I remember a dinner lady commenting on how lovely it was and just thinking "you are the last person in the world I want to impress"
Dan went to chat to the headteacher about how we sign up for lunches, and asked how she was, and she said something like "I'm great, I'm in my element" I just don't think a British head teacher would be that happy on the first day back. but when you get to wear shorts, have a 1 hour 45 for lunch, Wednesday's off and an 8 week summer holiday I bet teaching is not that bad. I don't think the teachers have to do lunch duties either, I think they go home for lunch too. There's a different organisation that's in charge of lunch times, after school clubs, Wednesday club and holiday clubs. So now that we have just signed the kids up for lunch club we can apparently just email on the day and say can my kid attend after school club today, or we need them to go in for one random Wednesday.
At the end of the day Percy's teacher gave us a big list of things he needed that we should have seen in July:
That's a lot of stuff right? if you don't speak french here are some of the things we had to buy:
I actually think this is a good thing because I worked in school and school never have glue sticks in the summer term. I've asked to borrow some before and I had to use the office staff's secret stash of 3 good ones for a group of 20. But if every kid has to bring two sticks in in September that does get rid of that issue, and probably kids will look after them a bit better. French kids get given about 300 euros in August to buy all this with. Unfortunately we didn't know about this until a few days too late so didn't receive anything.
One of the things on the list was a calculator, Dan was packing Percy's stuff this evening and wrote "boobs" on it you know 58008 upside down, that classic. It made me wonder what do the french write on their calculators upside down? Any suggestions? Tell me!
In Britain in September freshers fairs will soon be taking place for students, in France the whole nation has a fresher's fair in September. What I mean by this is every Marie (town hall place) has a list of clubs they do, our local one doesn't have much I'm interested in, they have a walking club, a knitting/sewing one, petanque (a french ball game) and a few others. but you aren't limited you your local one. One in a bigger village near us has loads more great ones to choose from including horse ridding and rhythmic gymnastics! They almost all have an open day some time in September where you can see a demonstration of the club and meet people and sign up, just like you would join a society at freshers fair. Then you have to pay for a year's membership in September. It's going to be an expensive month because we're going to all try and join clubs so that we can get to know people and integrate, Dan is going to do a Marshall art, Percy has in the last few months got super into basket ball and wants to do that. Eric wants to do rugby and I'm going to do french lessons and thinking of joining a gospel choir as well.
I would say Dan is pretty integrated into french society now though, he went for a haircut last week and the hairdresser started complaining about foreigners to him. That's when you know you've truly integrated. I wonder if I will ever reach that level of french. I was at selling art and an art festival at the weekend and a woman said "C'est Jolie" about by work. I replied "Merci" and she just said "English"
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| my lino prints (let me know if you want one £10-£15 and easy to post without the frame) |
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| Acrylic Paintings |
It was a fun festival to be part of, in a really lovely random town called Amelie-les-bains. I didn't want the kids to be bored so I go them to do portraits of people and they totally stole the show. They might have been the only people there that made any money. They made 8 euros between then but they felt like they were millionaires. Erics already spent half his takings on chocolate yoghurts.
Thanks for reading.
p.s I've started an instagram for my all art stuff since I moved here, plus a you can see more of the boy's portraits. @artisthannahjones
