The Long Goodbye

This wasn't supposed to be my blip. This was just a quick snap, to be followed by a nice walk with lots of blip opportunities. But the day took over, as days do at the moment, and there was no time for a walk. Or any better shots.

A morning of baking for the school fair on Saturday, until I ran out of unsalted butter. I bet all small villages in France have unsalted butter for sale*. But not here. Here all butter (and there were six different brands on offer in various shops) was salted. Not so good for baking.

So I moved on to the garden, to pot up some of my overgrown seedlings for the school fair. Turns out that out of the "average contents 100 seeds" packet of tomatoes, I have 86 plants. Wouldn't mind so much if I liked tomatoes.

Then off to school for the Parent Council meeting - my last. Everyone was terribly nice about how great I'd been as Chair - even though I don't really think I've done much at all. I suppose at least my being Chair meant they didn't have to do it, which is something! We had a local Councillor there tonight, which helped the dynamic of the meeting I think: it can sometimes feel a bit like everyone against the Head Teacher. The real problem of course is with funding - which is not the Head's fault, but everyone needs a villain and as she works for the Council she ends up on the receiving end of a lot of unmerited criticism.

But at least this year we seem to have a better working relationship between Parent Council and school. No-one has taken over as Chair so I'm stuck with the job until we leave.

I'll miss this community, but not the admin that goes with it!


*Obviously that's not true: most small villages in France don't have shops any more, just visiting vans, but in my idyllic idea of the French village - the kind I'm going to move to - you can barely move for tripping over authentic shops selling wonderful local unsalted butter. Unless you want to buy it between 12noon and 3pm. When they'll be closed for lunch.