Project 366 : Photo diary week 42

 Our final week at school before heading into our two-week half-term holiday - literally counting down the days ! Next week, I plan on chilling out, catching up on sleep and unwinding. Oh, I have a rather large to-do list to work through too ... but that can wait for a few days !

Sunday - At the kids' request, we had raclette for dinner - it's a French cheese that melts into a smooth almost-liquid texture and you melt it in a little dish on a special machine, then pour it over boiled potatoes and cured meats (ham, salami, etc). Delicious - and it also helped warm up the house, as we still have no heating ! Spent the rest of the day as usual, catching up on the weekly wash, phoning my parents and doing my marking.

Monday - My half-day at school. In the afternoon, I went back to the town hall to pick up Pierre's new ID card. Headed back home and worked on my write-up for the Norway project - I'd done a few lessons in class and had to write all my answers on a worksheet about how the lessons were planned, improvements I'd make, skills that were used, etc. Finished off with more marking. Who said it was supposed to be a half-day?! *sigh* 

Tuesday - A usual day at work, then it was Pierre's parent-teacher evening. This year, due to Covid-restrictions, we had one appointment to see his form teacher (who is his French teacher) and one extra teacher (his physics/chemistry teacher). It all went OK. We talked about a test in the first week where he got 0/10 because he was caught with identical responses to his friend's answers. After talking to Pierre when we got home, he admitted that it wasn't him who was cheating, as he had originally told me. He'd agreed to take the blame for his friend (who was cheating off of Pierre) because his friend promised to give him some sweets ! In his own words, he had no regrets ! Apart from shaking my head at him and telling him not to do it again, I couldn't help but laugh when I explained it all to Juliette. What a blooming idiot ! Juliette made pancakes for tea while we were at the school so I didn't even have to cook when we got back :)

Wednesday - A morning at work, then an afternoon at home, where I finally finished off my Norway report and sent it off by email. Done ! Thank goodness for that ! I decided to go and do battle with the boiler again, as it was feeling decidedly chilly. I turned it on again, the same way I have numerous times in the last ten days, and it burst into life - we have heating ! But still no hot water !?! I really don't get it ! Still, the house is warm so it's better than it was. I hope it stays on this time. We celebrated by warming up endless kettles and pans of water and filling up the bath - it reminded me of when I was a kid and we must have had similar problems with the boiler !

Thursday - A long day at work, but it was lovely to come home to a warm house. I still have no idea what the problem was last week or how I managed to fix it this time, but who cares? We have heat ! Took the dog out for his usual walk after dinner - it's decidedly dark when we get back home now. The sky looked so menacing, I was sure we'd have a storm before we made it home, but we didn't luckily.

Friday - The final day at school before the holidays - I was nice and finished off the lessons with the younger kids with Halloween wordsearches ! At the end of the day, I had to hang around for half an hour, then walk down to meet Juliette at her school, before heading off for her orthodontist's appointment. All OK, next appointment in February, all done in ten minutes, waiting time included ! Back home to the lovely smells of dinner wafting from the slow cooker - it's such a fabulous invention !

Saturday - The weekend is pretty full-on usually, but as I'm on holiday next week, I put everything back a few days - trip to the cemetery? shopping? washing? That can all wait until next week ! After a lazy morning, we headed into town, ate at McDonald's (they've reduced the number of seats/tables and you now have to leave your details/phone number so you can be contacted if there are COVID cases) then went to look for a new coat for Pierre. There are very few shops that cater to teenage boys but he eventually found one that he loved in Redskins. It's an expensive shop - adult coats were all about €300 so I was expecting the worst, but for a kids' coat, it was about €50-60. Still expensive but it's good quality and I know that, even if the shop has nothing to do with the Washington Redskins, it reminds Pierre of his dad's favourite American football team, so I gave in and bought it. We saw this big dragonfly on the ground - not quite dead but definitely on the way out. Poor thing - it's probably way too cold for it to survive now.

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