Lundi 1er août

Righty ho, did a fair bit this weekend :)

Friday night was youth group. What with so many people being on holiday and various people not being able to make it this week it was quite a small group, but good non the less. It is quite strange going from Lewin where the youth group is mainly girls to coming here where each week the guys have outnumbered the girls!

Saturday I had a stupidly lazy morning (as in I didn't see any of it!!). Work coupled with a late friday night finished me off very effecttively. Apart from the one week where I set up my bank account I don't think I've actually managed to get up before mid-day. Then I did a load of washing, left it in a soggy pile in my room and went out for a wander. I bought my self a new puzzle :D and I still haven't managed to do it!

Saturday evening I went and had dinner at Claire's house. Claire is the pianist for the choir, and her mum was the first person to come and talk to me when I arrived at the church. It was really nice to have a family dinner. I now have a huge simpathy with exchange students. It is really hard sitting there and not knowing what to say to the people around you, or if you can think of anything not knowing how to say it. I think If I'm ever home and the boys have an exchange person to stay I will try allot harder to make conversation. Dinner was quite to start with but once Claire's brother and sister had gotten used to me being there it was much like dinner at home. Both parents speak a bit of english so if I got really stuck they could help out, but both spoke french to me the entire time.

I did discover that decribing my hobbies in french is actually quite hard. Trampolining is not as common (I've even found some people who have never even heard of it!) and it is also not classes as a sport. I have managed to get some very funny looks from people when they ask what sports I do and I tell them trampolining. But the really hard one is St John Ambulance. There is nothing like it over here, the closest is the red cross. First aid laws are very different over here so there is not the need for the mass first aid traning that goes on in england. And there are many little phrases that I so often use in english I just can't even begin to translate- like 'going on duty'... even if I translated the words I doubt it would help. But anyway it was a good evening.

Sunday morning was church, then back home for some pasta. The wandered back to church for choir practice. There was a tiny problem though- no one had thought to get the church key before the guy who normally brings it went on holiday- oops. So we all went to Laurent's house to... actually I have no idea why we went there but we sat chatted had a drink and then went home for some more pasta!

Sunday evening I went for a seaside stroll with Beinvenu and Boris. After the last 'walk' I told them that I much prefer gental walks along the beach, so they said they would take me next time they went up to the coast. So we drove to Ouistreham and set off for a walk along the sand. It decided to start raining pretty much as soon as the sea was in veiw. However we continued on regardless and had a fab time. The two of them are real jokers and lots of fun. They can laugh at really silly things and just generally have fun. It is also the type of humor that is not bound by language- i.e. silly walks and mimes of chrlie chaplin style swiming. So needless to say I had a good laugh with them.

Was completely bushed when I got home (at about 11:30) so I slept like a log ZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzz