View from afar

Well, from the veg garden anyway.

TallGirl's first day at College (high school) today. I think I was more stressed than her - mainly because of the (seemingly compulsory) 30 minutes of milling about in the playground before the kids went off with their form teachers and we went off to meet the rest of the team. I'm cowardly enough about these things in English, but in a language I've barely had to speak for two months, it's almost a form of torture. Actually it was ok. And Mr B pointed out that a fair number of dads had showed up too - some in suits ("and some of them have even shaved" I couldn't resist adding). Still it was good that he could be there for the hour of chat from the teachers - very little of which he understood. Foolishly we sat at the front, so I couldn't even do my usual muttered simultaneous(ish) translation(ish). Coffee then in the playground with TallGirl bounding over (in a cool 'I'm at high school now' sort of way) to tell us how brilliant everything was.

After a fairly tedious afternoon of battling with company VAT stuff, we then had to do battle over TallGirl's timetable. 4 hours of English a week. I mean that's brilliant for the French kids, of course, how fabulous to have such a lot of time devoted to a foreign language, especially given that most of them (TallGirl included) will have 3 Spanish lessons a week too. But I fear TallGirl might be a little bored, and I think after only 2 years here her priority should be consolidating her grasp of French given that the mollycoddling of primary school is over now. So, we will find a way for her to use her time more constructively. Once I can figure out the system for requesting an appointment with the teacher (and indeed work out which teacher I need to see). If we get the system wrong, TallGirl will lose a point which, bizarrely, will affect her end of year grade which stays on her education record For Ever. Sigh. So much to learn for all of us.

Meanwhile, CarbBoy is down. I know having all the neighbourhood kids piling on top of him and hurting him tonight hasn't helped, but he was down before that. Some time with each of us may be the answer, and with TallGirl at school tomorrow morning, there will be time to spoil him a bit.

In other news, Mendel is still alive and showing a marked preference for swing music over Radio 4.