Project 366 : Photo diary week 46

 This week could be summed up in one word : work ! In fact, that pretty much sums up the weekend too. I've been asked to translate all the reports for the Norway project from French to English, so that's 10 times about 6-10 pages to get through - eeek ! I hit it hard this weekend, as I know things will get busier at school in the upcoming weeks near the end of term, so I did one report yesterday, one this morning and one this afternoon. There are only two left to slot in somewhere this week now - thank goodness for that ! I have to admit, when I've been seeing people online moaning about being in confinement, I did think to myself that I quite fancy a quiet few weeks, dealing with everything from the comfort of my own home without heading out into the cold and the dark and the rain and the wind every morning ! Who knows what will happen though? We'll see. This is probably just me feeling sorry for myself as Juliette has been on a week-off this week (in her new week on-week off timetable to reduce numbers in class). It'll be a shock to the system going back to school tomorrow for her ! 

Sunday - I knocked up a beef stew in the slow cooker today, with beef, carrots, onions and ... a tin of cherry tomatoes ! I didn't even know you could buy tinned cherry tomatoes, but they are currently the only tinned tomatoes available. I usually head to Lidl and they haven't had any for the last two weeks, so when I popped to Carrefour, to grab a Sodastream gas cannister, I decided to head to the tinned tomatoes aisle. They were completely out too, except for five tins of cherry tomatoes. Well, I grabbed three of them. They're good enough !

Monday - After a morning at work, I had to dash back home , grab a quick bite to eat, brush my teeth then dash off to the dentist's. I was the only one there - they put one appointment every half an hour so the whole place is empty. The receptionist took my coat, opened the door to let me in the waiting room and then shut it behind me. There was one chair and an empty table - it's usually covered in magazines. It felt very strange, almost like being in prison or in solitary confinement ! Anyway, she replaced my filling that fell out back in the summer - at last ! Back home and the neighbour was busy swapping over the car battery that he'd gone and picked up for me. The next minute, broom ! It was working again ! Looked up the price online and he's going to help me sell it (he's a mechanic and is used to buying up old cars, repairing them then selling them on so he knows what he's doing ... unlike me !). He organised the MOT too so that's next Monday (well, tomorrow, by the time you're reading this !) - it's all go here ! After he'd finished, I cleared some of the translation. It's a totally grey day, raining on and off all day. Yuck !

Tuesday - As tomorrow is a bank holiday, I did a quick dash to Lidl after work for some shopping as I'm not sure if it's open tomorrow or not. They were clearing out pretty much all of the meat/fish section, so I grabbed loads of things that we don't normally buy - prawns, two lots of smoked salmon, veal, stewing beef, ... Juliette wanted the prawns straight away so I cooked them up with some cream, onions and spices and served it with couscous. Ten minutes and dinner was on the table. Can't get quicker than that !

Wednesday - A bank holiday and I had nothing planned - phew ! I cleared some more of the translation and caught up on washing. This is one of the big spiders that lurks in our kitchen. I keep throwing them out of the door but there always seems to be one. Juliette absolutely hates them (well, I can't say I'm overly keen either !). At the end of the afternoon, a plumber (friend of the neighbour) came round to give us a quote for changing the boiler. He suggested going for a "pompe à chaleur", which I think translates as a heat pump. It's a lot more expensive but there are lots of bonuses available from the government so I need to look into it. I asked for a quote for a normal boiler too, to compare.

Thursday - Back to school. I couldn't even head home for lunch with Pierre (and Juliette this week) as I had meetings for the naughty kids, along with their parents, other teachers and the headmaster. Hopefully it'll do some good ! Sophie is looking at coming home for Christmas in a couple of weeks (blimey, I didn't realise it was coming around so quickly !) so I grabbed some advent calendars as our first nod towards Christmas ! It was buy one, get one half price so I had to get one for me too - hee hee hee !

Friday - Friday is my lazy day, when I don't start until 11am ... well, except for today, as I had more meetings with the naughty pupils and their families from 9.30am - boo ! I shoved some meat, potatoes, carrots and leeks in the slow cooker and left it to work its magic while I was at work !

Saturday - A day of working on the translation, clearing a few odd jobs around the house and watching some Netflix - I've just started watching The Crown. I'm only on series one and everyone is talking about series four coming out, so I need to catch up ! This dingy photo of the sun starting to set is about 4.30pm - aaagghhh ! I hate it when it's already dark when I come out of work !

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter