Pinot, Bretzels, and Cathedrals

Hello from the bus stop on Blvd d’Anver!

I’m standing here waiting for the 2 Bus shivering in my soaked Vans look-alike shoes, my pink umbrella dripping and my khaki trench-coat a variety of motley browns highlighting where the drenching rain has fallen on me.

While it sucks to be wet, I am grateful for this rain. Alsace has been quite dry this spring. Well, we’ve had rain, but not what the province is accustomed to. And today’s rain is falling properly. Gumboots and umbrellas are definitely the requirement du jour.

However, this falling rain has set me thinking. Next week we move out to the quieter suburbs. It’s a 6 kilometer cycle to school for the girls, which may bring somewhat challenging moments. Yes, there is a bus network that I can rely on, and that will too be a little challenge.  There are 2 different routes that I could use, and the only problem will be that it will take 20-30 minutes to arrive at school with the girls.

Friday morning, 2 weeks later.

Hello this time from the snug confines of the Connemara Irish Restaurant and Pub.  It’s just gone 9am, and I am at ‘the office’.  I’m sitting at a table overlooking the shamrock shaped burglar bars the busy street beyond the passers by .  Sigh, none of those sound seductively French but the truth is, is that I have about 30 minutes to kill before I need to get anything done.  Since home is no longer a mere 800meters away, and I cant just pop there for a snack, a coffee, or to collect whatever I need, I can safely say that our lives have been flipped upside down in the last week!

Moving Day last Friday kicked off well enough. We were blessed by clear blue skies, and 30 degrees of heat.  And since I refuse to whine about the summer heat when all I ever do all winter long is complain about the cold, well, we just maar had to sommer suck it up and deal with it.  And be very grateful that it wasn’t raining.

Everything that we had neatly packed away in our 100sq/meter box apartment was safely, if not haphazardly relocated to our new 118sq/meter home.  Boxes and packets and packets and boxes seemed to materialize out of nowhere, such was the efficiency of the talented Italian girl friend and Frenchman friend who completed the task of finding space for all the random things that I had not packed, and quite honestly, should have been discarded already.  As you must know by now, neither Anton nor I have been intrepid nomads in our lives, so moving house is not a skill we consider in our repertoire.  (And I have to be honest, I cannot tell you how often I thought of my Mum in the last week reflecting on her efforts to move out of Netherby, and the time it took to settle in Godolphin.).

It’s been a week, a week where I have been back at work, and Anton has been working, so we still have boxes that need to be unpacked, curtains that haven’t yet seen the washing machine before we hang them, 2 weeks worth of ironing that was inspected last night, Lego pieces that need to be homed, and the girls bedrooms need to be sorted out properly (before I can sign them over: new house- new set of rules, in which they will become more personally responsible for their stuff).  But for the most part, its livable.  And we’ve eaten out on the terrace every night so far, indulging in 3 braais already so far!

So what else has changed then?  Well, we’ve all adapted to the new route to school, and the girls need to be especially noted here with their endurance and perseverance.  I think I need to consider increasing their pocket money allocation on their skills to cycle 12 km’s a day.  It’s 6km’s in one direction, one particularly bumpy stretch of road that could very easily be the D617; another stretch of suburban roads where we share space with cars, although generally cars that are all going in the same direction, so nobody is in major conflict for space, but it takes around 25 minutes to do the distance.  Anywhere else in the first world, travelling for this amount of time to arrive at school is virtually unheard of, but if I was living in Boston and taking the girls to school in Howick, not only would it be more than 25 minute car trip, but it would happen at cock’s crow- a thought that leaves me quite cold in horror.  (We could leave the apartment at 8h00, if I was sure nothing would go wrong).

Once I’ve dropped the girls off, I head to work, and then at the end of the day, I return along the same route.  So on a normal day, I now cover 20 km’s on my bike.  Yay for exercise I guess!  Also, a very big ‘yay’ is that I am gaining confidence on the roads.  I’ve always been very timid to cycle on the main roads- I guess I’m weary of breaking the road rules- the rules that apply to cars generally apply to bikes using those roads, which makes sense, so caution should prevail.  What this means, is that I’m getting accustomed to the traffic and roads and maybe in time I will reconsider trying to get my licence.

Monday 12 June,

I am not sure what happened last week that I couldn’t finish this letter to you.  It’s not like work was super busy, so I could have written at some point but I didn’t, so best I take 30 minutes quickly to try finish it off. The Irishman will probably arrive in soon, which means I won’t be able to finish.  He is somewhat moody, and will either be inclined to chatter, or sulk, but either way, I dont have long!  

I do know that it was a short week- Monday was a public holiday, which was followed by Beth getting pharyngitis which meant a trip to the doctor, Anton kindly taking 2 days to work at home (the office don’t encourage it- its not catered for in their contracts somehow).  He then flew off to Athens on Thursday, and my weekend was a whirlwind of attending the ice skating end of year exhibition and general single-parenting activities.  The ice skating exhibition involved a 3 hour practise on Friday night, and the show on Saturday night.  Unfortunately, because we now live further away from the ice rink, there were no short cuts- I left home on Friday morning with a variety of school bags, togbags and my own work bag, a change of clothes and so on and so forth, and eventually returned at 9pm.  

Sigh.  I am sorely disappointed that I may have to give up the kids ice skating lessons.  By relying on a super public transport system, I have the means to get the girls to the ice rink.  However, it takes an hour to do the trip, 3 different modes of transport, and that is only a mere 9km’s from home.  As it is, Beth has announced she doesnt want to continue with her lessons.  She tells me she wants to do ‘drum’ classes.  Mind you, she also told me that when she’s 18, she will go back to live in South Africa, to live with Bumpy, and Oupie, and show her friends (not sure what friends she will claim as hers in 12 years time) that she pierced her ears… and I’m referring to her desire to have multiple ear piercings, a la mode d’adolescent.  However, I think I may be able to persuade her that swimming lessons down the road will be a better option, and perhaps tennis lessons too.  She’s doing a week of tennis lessons this week, so will see how much she enjoys it.

As for Alex, she has to do her English presentation today.  It’s been a 2 month project, wherein she has to choose an animal to talk about, research it, make notes and prepare a speech as well as a poster.  Is it so terrible of me that I ended up doing most of it?  Firstly, she has the most deplorable handwriting which is hardly surprising considering a variety of factors.  So her attempt to draw a poster was met with my (maybe my Mom’s??) eye of disregard, and took it upon myself to make it more presentable.  This came after her attempt to research Meerkats online was met with failure- there really is too much info for her to absorb and determine which is appropriate.  So I extracted necessary proceeds of info, printed it out for her, and told her how to extract the relevant (to a group of 9 years olds) information and write a 5 minute speech.  Needless to say I’m not a very good teacher, because she was incapable of doing that too.  So I did that, and she rewrote it in card format.  But like I said, her handwriting is horrid, and at the end of long morning, I rewrote those cards too.  

The entire exercise has brought me much thought.  Is there an expectation for 9 year olds to research and write a 5 minute presentation? Surely if so, they should be taught the skills to do it.  And unfortunately their English language class just doesn’t have the time for this.  Added to these thoughts, I know that Alex is not the best public speaker.  Her shyness and possible lack of confidence prevents her from speaking off the cuff so I decided against hammering in the need to speak like a public speaker per se- I have no inclination of trying to force that sort of aspect onto her.  

In the end, I decided that the exercise was aimed at the non-English speakers, hence there is less pressure on Alex because she speaks fluently and just to let it go from there.  (Oh wow- its just dawned on me, that if/when the time comes for her to do this sort of thing in French, we are right and royally screwed…)

I wish I could sit here and talk through the rest of my thoughts, but things need to get done.  Please remind me that one day I must tell you about work.  It’s another long letter, believe me.  Maybe this week I can start it, but for now, I’m going to love you and leave you, and get on with the rest of my day.

Air revoir pour cutter momente, et la procaine foils,

Bis bis,

Moi,

Xxx

PS- Photos taken out and about recently, in case you missed them on social media ;-).  We are doing well.