The return of a dear freind

*Singing* I got my computer back, I got my computer back *Singing*

Finally after over a month I have my little computer back. It has a brand new 80GB hard drive in it, windows re-installed and my old hard drive (my little 15GB) installed as a second drive meaning that I still have access to everything that was on the machine before. so I spent last night copying files across from drive to drive to make sure that programs I had before will work again. Unfortuanetly I found that they didn't install a DVD driver (which I thought they would) so I'm going to have to do that. Also I need to change the audio driver. Although I can play all of my music the sampling speed is all wrong so everything sounds like it is sung by chipmonks. This isn't too bad for songs that I don't know very well but for well known songs it is just not possible to listen to them. (Phil collins as a chipmonk is highly amusing but doesn't make for a very good song). But the main thing is that I have it, even though my bank balance is wincing slightly.

As well as getting my computer back I also found out that there is another English girl staying at the foyer. I haven't met her yet but Brigitte came up to me at dinner to say that she had just arrived. Her name is Gemma and that's all I know. But I also know which room she is staying in so I think this evening I might pop round and say hi.

BRIGHT PINK!!!!!

Ok I know, 10 minutes ago I was feeling completely and utterly rubbish and totally bummed out- basically I was in big need of a pick me up. Well all I can say is that God is watching and when I so badly needed something to cheer me up, I got one. My program (for the first time ever) has managed to change the apperance of the output image (I'm working with a little test board with a camera and small LCD display screen that is hooked up to a computer. My program is supposed to manipulate what the camera sees and display the new image on the LCD screen). It's not perfect as the image was supposed to be in Sepia (the old fashioned style brown and white) but instead my image is bright pink! However it is a start so I'm back in happy mode :)

Rubbishness

Ok I officially fell completely rubbish. I got an e-mail today from a guy at church asking why I was laughing at him yesterday- sounding really hurt. The thing is (as it turns out) I completely miss understood what he was talking about. So what I thought was funny ended up making me look really rude. We have had a bit of a joke going about him talking in spanish to me and he started with a little 'hola' so I though 'ha ha here we go again'. Before he has told me that I should learn spanish and I thought he was carrying on in that vein of thought. However he told me that he was actually saying "I'm not going to speak in spanish- I have something I actually want to say". So now I feel terrible. I managed to cobble together a reply e-mail which I hope explains this. However I have very little confidence in my ability to really express what I mean in french. I could possibly do it face to face, but on paper- that's much harder. It makes it worse that he was trying to thank me for the copy of a photo that I had sent him last week! Oh smelly smelly smelly. I really hope I find some french lessons now. Then prehaps I can avoid insulting any more of my freinds!

Suprises

Don't you love it when you find you are capable of surprising yourself?

For many years I have been secretly jealous of my younger brother's ability to just pick up any instrument and just play it. Trumpet, guitar, piano and recently rather bizarrely some strange wooden two tubed recorder type penny whistle thing! But newho. I had piano lessons for... oh year 4 till 6th form, but always rather struggled. I don't find reading music easy- I can do it but not always with the speed needed to play from it. As a result I play a fair bit from ear and try to listen out if I get a note wrong. This is fairly obviously not a smart move because I only pick up mistakes after I make them. But non-the-less that is how I have worked for many years using the written music as a starting point and a guide as to roughly where the music is going. It makes playing anything with black notes quite hard as well. Now don't get me wrong I did quite well at piano (I hold grade 5!) but it used to take me ages to learn the pieces (because I tended to end up doing them by heart) and sight reading- now just don't get me started on that. I have always wanted to be able to play by chords, as Jonathan can (by this I mean not having a full stave but just the letter names of the chords). But always figured that I didn't know my scales well enough to be able to do it- I also had no idea where to start.

This friday though I handed over a copy of 'Before the throne of God above' with just the chords to Philippe at choir practice. He managed with a practiced ease to produce a fab accompaniment that just made the song. Afterwards he was showing Armelle how to do it. Pick out the tune with the right hand and simply hit the base note of the chord with the left hand at the right time. To her this seemed still very impressive, but to me- it all became a bit clearer. I have a good ear for picking out tune on the piano so I thought I could try this. So later (when there was no-one around) I had a go. Well you certainly got the idea of what I was playing!.

Sunday afternoon Nina, Josine and I stayed behind to have a play on the piano after choir practice. I wasn't in a great mood. Philippe wasn't there and hearing 'Before the throne of God above' sung without piano reminded me of why I had tried to suggest we didn't sing that one. But then I tried my hand at playing by chords on a few other songs. I love how simple most christian songs are (as long as I don't try to play any tim huges!) and by the end was rather proud of how good it was sounded. This 'good' is of course compared with what I was expecting to be able to do, so don't assume that I am now a fab pianist. Though the others did seem to like it. I was happy.

Sunday evening the youth went round to Jamel's again, and this time I remembered to indulge in some 'pill popping' before hand so had no reaction to the cat :)

It was a wonderfully international group with me, the african's (several of the youth are originally from french speaking areas of africa and america), american (Jamel's wife is the daughter of the original american missionary couple who set up the church) and a visiting German guy. It was quite nice in a way to have the common language be something other than english. I love that english is so widely used but allot of the time over here I end up feeling a bit guilty that it is everyone else that is making the effort to learn and speak another language. And this time when chatting with this german guy (Dominic) we were both making the same effort. It was interesting to hear his accent as well. He spoke in the clipped efficiency that german seems to present. It made me wonder again what my accent sounds like to french people. Oh well that will be one of the questions without answers that I ponder on every now and then.

Eating in the vineyard

When, walking past the canteen this morning, I saw the canteen manager moving bails of straw from his car into the back door I was understandably confused. Do they secretly feed us straw? Are they keeping some kind of animal in there? Oh I had all sorts of theories. I didn't hit on the real reason though. It all became clear however when we went in for lunch. The whole place was decorated like a farmyard/vineyard/countryside random mix. There were straw bails, model geese and rabbits, and humongous fake grapes scattered all over the place. The other rather bizarre feature was recordings of bird song playing! It was quite fun if a little bizarre. Also they had a performance by the 'Philips choir'. No I had heard the choir before when they sang on the day of the music festival. I'm sorry to say IU heard nothing new- literally. Nathalie used to be in it but for some reason or other didn't get on with it and left. She was telling how they actually just do the same songs over and over all the time. We had 'The lion sleep tonight' complete with the "Woooohooohoo ummmbammbammbaway" and a rendition of Amazing grace in french. It was possibly because Nathalie was complaining about them and I was looking for faults, but I didn't like them much. Don't get me wrong they could all sing, but the parts chosen made each song sound samey and also I don't think a canteen is a good place for a choir. Also in amazing grace they had so many parts that you lost the tune. (Now that one I was of course comparing to my own dear choirs performance). I did get to tell the guys that it was John Newton who wrote it. I nearly went off into Newton's life history (which incedently I learnt from Psalty the singing songbook) but decided they probably wouldn't be that interested. But anyway it made lunch that bit more interesting

What day is it?

I have discovered that when you wake up the first thoughts that come into your head can be the most random (and impossible) things. This morning I woke up somehow convinced that I had slept all the way through Thursday and that today was Friday. How I would have slept through a whole day, especially with two alarms set each day, I have no idea but there you go.

So yesterday I did manage to pluck up the courage to go and ask about french lessons. I went, found a selection of leaflets about language course available- was french one of them? Of course not! I could learn Chinese, English, Spanish plus a good many more but there was no french course advertised. So I had a word with the lady behind the desk, got her to understand that I didn't want to join the university, I just wanted a course. She then directed me to the language department to make further enquiries. Now of course the reception for the language department shuts at 5 (rather than the 6 o'clock of the main reception). So If I want to ask there I'm going to have to leave work even earlier!!! Smellies.

Yesterday evening I decided that rather than bumming around in my room (as I normally do) I would go for a stroll in the evening air. I had forgotten how early sunset has got and so it was a walk in the night air rather than the evening air, but it was still very nice. I wandered up to the castle which is permanently open. From up there I could see the ends of the sunset as it lit up the sky behind the Abbaye des Hommes.

After taking a couple more photos I headed back to my room and tested out my latest buy. My room is just about big enough to use it, though it can fit in my back pocket, I haven't really used one since I was in primary school but it is very good exercise, they are available in plastic or more old fashioned rope. Can you guess what it was? A skipping rope! A good old fashioned skipping rope complete with wooden handles. I have one of those plastic versions somewhere at home but never really liked them. So when I saw this in the monoprix I thought 'why not'. Like I said my room is just big enough for a good old skip so I had a bit of a go when I got back from my wander. I had forgotten how exhausting it is!!! I'm sure when I was younger I managed to skip for ages but last night I kept loosing the rhythm after about 5 jumps. I did make it up to about 30 before collapsing on my bed. Looks like I have let my fitness slip just a bit. I'm going to have to keep working at it.

Oh and btw, if anyone actually did notice (I'm very impressed, or maybe slightly worried if you did), I just got bored of bouncing back and forwards between the colours so I decided to cycle through the colours for a bit instead.

Chicken

Why is it that after all I have managed to do in the last four months I'm still putting off going to the university to ask about french lessons cos I'm scared! Well I have several people bugging me about it so I will go (I promise). Both monday and tuesday I had the intention of going but just didn't quite manage. In fact yesterday I conveniently left work too late to be able to go! I did however go and find the reception to check opening times. I had seen the signs to the 'Acceuil' before but once on the campus could I find any more? In the end I had to start from this first sign and pretend I was a car going along the road to see if I could see it. Along the way I managed to get chatted up by some random guy. I can't decide weather the "I'm english I don't understand you" is a good line or not. I have used it a few times now, once it failed just coz the guy was very persistent and didn't care and once it failed cos the guy actually spoke fairly good english. This time however after a bit I just stopped speaking french to this guy and only spoke in english and he lost interest. I felt a bit bad because actually I understood everything he said and could have managed to reply in french without much problem, but I wasn't in the mood (I was too busy wondering about the disappearing reception). After a lovely stroll through the campus I finally found the reception and found that as I had guessed it was open until 6 monday to thursday and 5:30 on a friday, so I was too late (it being about half six at this point) What a shame! Maybe I'll actually manage to go this evening- maybe.

Old hair dryers

Well my office smells of old hair dryers, my flip-flops are feeling unloved and I want to kill the plumbing in my room!!! So let me tell you about my weekend.

First let me explain about the hair dryer comment. The office this morning was a freezer when I walked in. Nathalie (who arrived about five minutes after) went straight to the radiator and switched it on. And of course they haven't been used since last winter and have a lovely layer of dust over them- this started burning with a lovely smell as the heat increased!! nice!

Saturday I pottered for most of the morning- tidying up, reading and munching crepe :) And as I had nothing better to do I thought I'd go to the cinema to see Mr and Mrs smith in english. So off I went and bought my ticket. I then started to get very confused because there appeared to be a film going on and it was time for my film to start. So I went towards the door to check "No no madame your film isn't until 18:45" I was told". hmmm but I had it down for 17:15!! So what had happened? I of course had gone and read next weeks time and then when I bought the ticket hadn't bothered to translate the time I was told (I just assumed that the guy said what I was expecting). OK so I had an hour and a half to kill. I had spotted on an earlier visit that there was a macdonalds not too far away and I figured that I could waste a bit of time over a pack of chips. However I found a nice big hypermarhet and accompanying shopping centre as well. So I ditched the idea of fries and mooched in Claire and Mim (french clothes shop) and various other places. I'm really glad that I found it actually, but the extra walking took it's toll on my feet. I can only walk so far in flip-flops before they start ripping up my feet. So I took 'em off, popped them in my bag and wandered around barefoot. I had on a long par of trousers so I doubt anyone noticed, but I never realised before just how cold the floor by chiller cabinets gets!! lol.

The film was fab- much better in english and I left very happy ready to go home and give my feet a really good scrubbing!!

Sunday morning was the second performance of the choir- and it went without a hitch :)

Sunday afternoon there was a bit of a picnic at church. A few people brought sandwiches and such things to eat together- very nice.

The evening was the best bit of the day though. I was reminded of two things the first was how much fun stupid games are and the second was just how exhausting allergic reactions are. I have been allergic to cats for many years and know the progressions very well.

1. Go to house with cat in it
   
2. Start sneezing
   
3. feel eyes getting itchy
   
4. eye starts to feel sore and puffy (though it never looks puffy in the mirror)
   
5. tight chest- mild difficulty breathing
   
6. itchy neck
   
7. more severe difficulty breathing becoming a full asthma attack.
   

It is very rare for it to get as bad as no 7 as if I know I'm going to a 'cat house' I take antihistamine and my inhaler. But here's the thing- I didn't know before hand. I'm not sure why it got so bad so quickly (normally even if I stroke the cat I have an hour or so before I get really bad) but I was ready to go home in half an hour. Lucky Jamel (who's house we were at) had some kind of allergy medicine and so I was OK after a bit. It was a bit scary having no idea what I was taking but hey- it worked!

But even with that my breathing didn't entirely easy up and so by the end of the evening I was exhausted. Also the very excitable game we played can't have helped. It's a bit like the animal game (for those that have played that) but with a hand clap and numbers. It's relatively easy and great fun. We all got very noisy and had a hoot. There are some photos from the evening on the caen youth page.

The final explanation for my opening comment is that when I finally got home (at about midnight) the plumbing was being SOOOOO loud. It is a bit noisy at the best of times but this was 'keeping me awake' kind of noisy. I was not impressed. I had to sit a read till it finished! Oh well I took advantage of works flexible hours this morning to snatch an extra hour in bed this morning :)

HP GOF trailer

I have just seen the trailers for the new Harry Potter film (Goblet of fire). I have two words- "OH WOW". It looks fantastic!! There are going to be some fantastic films out this christmas: Harry Potter, Lion the witch and the wardrobe. I can't wait- how fantastically exciting :)

Smile in the rain

Today is a day when I am grateful for my ability to laugh at things. The weather is appauling! I arrived at work absolutely soaked through. My 'rain coat' is really only shower proof so did leak a little bit so my jumper was rather damp underneath. But I have a hilarious line at the top of my trousers that shows exactly where my coat stopped! Truth be told I actually really like walking in the rain, as long as it doesn't mean I am sitting all day in a puddle. So once more I am sitting here slowly drying out.

It's amazing how wet you can get walking to and from the tram, but I did get to use my new tram pass this morning. Yesterday I went into the twisto (bus and tram company) shop and filled in a little form, handed in a photo and got a smart little pass. It is like the oyster cards in london (If anyone know what they are like). They have a clever little chip inside which means that you just swipe them next to the ticket machine to use it- very cool.

Another equally cool thing- no in fact this is even better, Yesterday I got the disks that my parents posted over. So I have now given the computer shop (yes sorry it is another computer story) the english version of Windows and told them exactly what I want them to do. So maybe I'll get it back at some point- maybe :)

WE GOT THE ASHES!!!!

Haha knew we could do it- Well done to the England boys.

Late night cricket

Oh my word how sad is this, it is 6 o'clock and I'm still at work (I got in at about 8:05!!!!). And the reason- The cricket!!! Unfortunately if I want dinner at the Foyer I'm going to have to leave soon, I'm going to have to see if I can get David to txt me the final score.

Don't wanna jinks it or anything but I think we might just do it (have just hit 300 runs).

A real guitar- at last!!!

Ok so my weekend:

Well Friday evening was choir and youthgroup as normal. Except that rather than a wonderfully off-key accapella singsong in youthgroup we actually had a guitar!!! The guitarist is a guy called Philippe who goes to the university and has just got back from hols. It looks like he normally does a bit of strumming for the group. It was fantastic just to hear a guitar but Phillippe is actually really good. As soon as he started playing I got a huge wave a home sickness and had to leave the room for a bit for fear that I would burst into tears (just to explain for those that haven't even been to my house- EVERYONE in my family can play at least a bit of guitar and you can normally here someone playing around the house. I hadn't realised just how much I'd missed it). But five minutes later I was fine again and went back to sing my little heart out.

Saturday afternoon I hopped on a tram to the Cafe des Image to watch War of the worlds. Now Jon (who saw it when it came out in the UK) had warned me that there is alot of blood, but gore doesn't tend to bother me so I was quite happy to see it. However he failed to mention just how carry the film is!! Now if you have seen the film please feel free to call me a whimp but I was sitting there curled up in a little ball wishing I hadn't gone by my self. However it is a really good film and by the end I had got over my fear and ended up really enjoying it.

Now the film was a 4:30 so finished at about 6:30 but my small problem was that I had a party to go to at 7. I knew if I was to be even vaugly on time I would have to go straight from the cinema- what's the problem you ask? Let me explain. Well the theme of the party was the 60's and Armelle (who bithday it was) wanted up all to dress up in 60's clothes. OK so what are the 60's famous for? The mini skirt of course. Yes I had gone out and bought myself a bright green skirt for the occasion. When I finally get some photos up you will probably think that the skirt is not really that short, but for me it was way too short for anything other than a night out or a party. So, I must have looked rediculus but I went off to the cinema with my outfit already on and my sarong wrapped round my waist providing a nice long skirt. And at the end of the film I nipped into the loos to put on a bit of make-up and add the finishing touches before heading to the party (still had the sarong on though- that didn't come off till the very last minute).

As I was walking down the road I was praying that everyone else would be as dressed up as I was. When I got there they weren't! However Armell and her family were all dressed up and as I walked in they all beamed and said "See Sarah understands what we were on about" so I was glad I'd made the effort. The party was a hoot, everyone was dancing and chatting and we all sat down for a nice little mis-matched party meal, then got up and danced a bit more. It was just loads of fun.

Then sunday it was church and then choir practice. Several of us have been thinking that 'Before the throne of God above' is not really the best song for the choir. But for some reason rather than scrap the song Armelle descided to cut down the size of the choir for that particual number. I did point out that there are plenty of nice english songs that the choir could all sing together but she likes that one so it looks like it is staying! Afterwards Josine, Philippe and I stayed behind to sing through some of the songs from the Hungry CD (UK Vineyard). I can only remember like three chords from a couple of the songs but Philippe has a good ear and was soon picking out most of the chords on the piano (oh yes he plays piano as well). So we spent a good hour or so singing our way through the songs before we decided it was probably time to head home.

I have just come back from lunch after seeing my placement tutor off at reception. Today was my first placement tutor visit where we chatted about what I have been up to while on placement, how the logistical side of life out here is going and all kinds of stuff like that. Also Roger (my placement tutor) has a chat with Nathalie about how I've been doing. I have to say that it is very scary sitting in another room while other people talk about you- I didn't like it. But all in all, the visit was fine. I have been instructed to enquire about some french lessons and Nathalie has been told that as of Monday I have to at least try to speak in French before I am aloud to speak any English. I did try to tell him that I speak french whenever I can. However Nathalie had told him just how much I actually managed (which admittedly is not that much) and so I have been commanded to talk more.

While Roger and Helen (his partner) were here I took advantage of their knowledge of cricket to learn a bit. With all the hype about the Ashes at the moment I have started to get into it a bit. I haven't actually watched any (not having access to a TV over here) but I have been following the match on BBC sport on-line. Since being away I have become incredibly patriotic and have really got into supporting england in stuff (we won't mention the football though :P). But I am a complete novice a cricket and understand very little. So I have been reading up a bit and asking various people questions. I now understand enough that I can understand the game on paper (as in when I see the match summary I understand what has happened). Doubt I would follow a match yet but I'm getting there. I felt a bit funny giving Roger and Helen an update on the scores and talking like I knew what I was on about- was rather funny really.

Yesterday evening I popped into the computer shop after getting a missed call from them on wednesday. Turns out they were trying to get hold of me to find out my password. Now when I fist came to Philips I was really worried about forgetting my password so I set my home computer to use the same one (just so I was using it that bit more). As a result it is VERY hard to guess. Philips has a strict password policy (as you would expect) Passwords must contain at least one capital letter, one lowercase letter, one number and a punctuation/ 'special' character. They also change them all every couple of months. So not only did I have to write down a password that I only ever type (and yes I did end up pretending to type on an invisible keyboard to try to remember it) but it was also an old password that I haven't used far a good couple of weeks. Oh well hopefully it means they can sort it all out. I did think as soon as I left that I possibly should have warned them that it is set up for an english keyboard as well. Oh well they are just going to have to work that one out for themselves.

Ok I promise I will stop going on about my computer soon. But yesterday I went in to see if it was done and guess what- not yet! Apparently they only had two technicians working last week and they got a bit snowed under, but this week there will be 5 working so cross fingers (actually that didn't seem to work last time so... cross your toes as well) that it will get done this week. They said they would give me a call when it was ready to pick up. I kinda hope I don't hear my phone when they do though- coz that way they can leave a message and I don't need to talk to them :) hee hee.

Apart from that small annoyance the rest of the day was good fun. It was bible study and prayer and then a little meeting for the choir in the evening. Apparently they want to learn another english song! And since the girls already know (ish) Before the throne of God above, it looks like it is going to be that one. Oh well I'm not complaining.

Walking home was a hoot. Nina and I were joking around about English cooking and just got very silly and decided that the english eat sausages, beans and porridge for every meal! (don't ask we were being really silly). Then I had a very nice little chat with Jérome about Spergions college and the Toronto school of ministry.

Then this morning I really couldn't be bothered to get up- so I stayed in bed for another hour! hee hee!! Some how I still managed to get into work at about the same time though! I just shows how much time I normally spend just phaffing around in the morning. I also managed to do silly things this morning like spending 5 minutes putting on my boots only to realise that I hadn't put my trousers on yet!! Been a bit of a brainless chicken really.

No computer yet! Apparently it is next or their to-do list or something, so I'm back there this evening. At least it is not far to go- just over the street so it's not a really inconvenience to just pop over and check if it is ready. But I had got my hope up. It sounds really silly but I was well excited that I was going to get it back. I was like a child before christmas. So I was crushed when they said it wasn't ready :(
So instead I spent the evening threading beads! I brought all my little glass beads and other bits over here. so I sat and made a couple of bracelets and a necklace. Then I had a nice little chat bit my Mum and a very nice chat with my 'little' bro (well the older of the two little brothers)

Today I went to an internal meeting for the first time. I got an official invite by e-mail and everything. One of the girls here (Jeanne) is coming to the end of her time here and was doing a presentation to explain what she has been doing for her project. Although the whole thing was in French I managed to follow most of it due to the fact that Jeanne had explained the project to me a couple of weeks ago. The nice thing was that I also understood the points that other people made as well. I gather than she is to repeat this presentation to some other people so the people here were giving her pointers and asking questions etc. They also asked some questions that I wanted to ask which proves that it wasn't just a bit of french I hadn't understood but actually a missing piece of information. My french speaking at work is still terrible though! Oh well one step at a time.

*Singing* I get my computer back tonight, I get my computer back tonight, I get my computer back tonight *Singing* - well hopefully (cross fingers). It is now the end of the 8 days I was quoted and I haven't had a call to tell me anything different so I'm assuming that it will be all ready for me to pick up after work :) It has been a very different kind of week with out it. The main difference has been music. The vast majority of my music is on my computer and without it I have been reduced to the radio. Now much as I like Europe 2 (the radio station I have been listening to) there is not enough cheesy pop played- and plenty on my comp!!! hee hee.

Well even without my faithful computer this weekend has been rather good.

Friday we had a choir practice and we started learning a little medley of songs that Nina and Armelle had put together. It ended up with us all practically rolling around on the floor in fits of giggles at the various ideas we came up for it (including a line dancing bit!!! LOL). I went home with very sore sides but very happy.

Saturday was sunny (ish) when I woke up but I decided to go with shorts rather than trousers anyway, and how glad I am that I did. The day turned into a scorcher!! Caen has a little trail of information boards taking you across the city so I though I would follow them to see if I took me anywhere I haven't been yet. I managed to find most of them but I got a bit bored halfway through and decided to wander on my own. Having already visited one beautiful church on this trail I decided to head towards the nearest spire and have a look (also old churches are great in the heat coz the stone keeps the building nice and cool). I found a church that made me think of the secret garden. Once my comps back up and running I will download the pics from my camera and post the up so you can see). The fount entrance was almost completely covered in ivy and it just looked like a lost treasure, hidden away. The new wooden door and the obvious building work going on showed that it wasn't forgotten but it just gave that impression. Kind of like Cair Paravel when the kids discover it in Price Caspian (confused? read The Narnia books and you'll know what I mean). Newho from there I discovered a little hidden path winding through some old archways and behind statues. At the end of the trail I realised I might have been on private property but no one saw me so it was all OK. It was soooo much fun. I felt like a little explorer in an Enid Blyton book or something!

After all my adventuring I wandered to the park near the Foyer, spread out in the sun and read my book. I had popped into the fnac (local equivalent to HMV or something) and picked up a couple of Agatha Christie books. It is lovely lying out on the grass until about 8 o'clock in the evening and it still being really warm. Oh I went home for some food at one point but wandered back to the park afterwards.

Sunday I got up a bit early and headed out to the market. Bought a bunch of carrots and some peaches, stashed them back in my room and then headed for church. I have to say that I didn't follow the service much this week so I sat and read Ecclesiastes instead! After the service a few of the youth stayed and had lunch at the church. As it is term time again a number of students have now returned. It's quite nice having only a few new people to meet at a time. They all got very excited and laughed and joked around allot (as friends who haven't seen each other for a while are rather prone to do). It didn't make it much harder to understand anything as they all spoke very quickly and often at the same time as each other. But hey I'm kinda used to that! hee hee.

Sunday afternoon there was no choir practice so I donned my trusty shorts and wandered back to the park. This time however it was not to sunbathe- it was just far too hot for that! So I found a handy bush and settled in the shade of that. Come 7 o'clock though I headed back as there were some ominous looking dark clouds moving in. Good thing I did really as there was a MAHUSIVE thunder and lightning storm about half an hour later. So I curled up with an old copy of Empire read a bit of that and called my Daddy (who is no very well at the mo- has had bronchitis for the past two weeks). Then bed :)

September already!! I've been here over two and a half months now- how bizarre is that!?!

You know in all the excitement of my life *cough* not *cough* I failed in telling you all about what is possibly the most exciting to have happened at work since I arrived. Yes we got new vending machines and.... hot drinks machines. Now please try and clam yourselves, I know this is fantastic news but there is a small problem with it. Although they do tea, in true french fashion it is all without milk!!! What is the point of a drinks machine if not to have a manky over milky tea every five minutes? So I just have hot chocolate instead (yummy).
Pitty the new vending machines are more expensive than the old ones :(