Art

I had a whole smart, sassy argument/commentary to go with this. Thought it all up in the car on the way home from blipping this at the edge of the car park. And that despite the kids' constant stream of questions and observations on the world. But it's gone. No idea. Something about art and .... nope. Gone. It'll come back to me another day.

I think it was driven out of my brain by the stress of a 30 minute French conversation on the phone (oh horror of all horrors for a nervous foreign language speaker) with a probable/possible (still hedging) future neighbour. I was lulled into a false sense of security by his suggestion that we could email in English if I liked - this made me think maybe we could chat in English too if I got a bit lost... Anyway. I'm sure my description of the size of a Luton van was so mesmerisingly complicated that his memory of my rubbishing of his beautiful language will have fled from his head as swiftly as did my art thingummy.

Long admin-filled day. The packing and clearing has begun, prompted by me having to spend some time in the garage so I was handy for when the bloke arrived with our boxes for packing. Lovely friendly chap he was too. And I think I've come to realise that I 'get' the French accent here, and can understand folk easier than anywhere else. Inevitable I suppose. So there'll be a few tense months while I try and pick up the new accent where we're headed. I'm better understood here too, though that may just be because in this touristy area people are more used to daft foreigners murdering the lovely French vowels.

Actually, I do have to get something off my chest. I find 'rond-point' almost impossible to say. And I live just off one so have to say it often in directions. Very annoying.

Today also saw the delights of an appointment with an estate agent who wasn't there, and buying a 3D movie for the kids to great whoops of joy from them. We settled down with pizza, 3D glasses... and a movie that only has French and Dutch languages on it..... I was quite unpopular. They did see it as an incentive to learn French though (ha, my cunning plan has worked....)