28/12/2007
Friday 28th December 2007
Well that's another Christmas over and done with! Both gîtes full with satisfied customers and bookings beginning to come in for 2008. Our latest acquisition (a Christmas present for our daughter) is a moth trap, which will enable her to run moth identification events for our gîte customers. The vast majority of our visitors are keen wildlife enthusiasts and will greatly-appreciate such an opportunity. Wildlife has always been close to her heart - she even had articles published in the RSPB magazines and was a Junior Leader of the local RSPB Wildlife Explorers group - and she is now enjoying sharing her hobby with Renaud and learning the French names for birds and insects.
We were invited to the local school's Christmas show (as I am their English teacher), which was held in the "Forum" in Nivillac. The Forum is a Community Centre which boasts a very modern theatre. The children did well - the star of the show being a tiny 3-year-old boy who very happily followed the older children around on-stage whilst managing to look completely bewildered at the same time! All the parents were videoing or taking photos - I don't know if it is still the same in the UK, but I remember years ago at Cheryl's school being banned from doing this, for fear of misuse of the images! I remember thinking that the world had finally gone mad - thank goodness that, for the moment at least, such hysteria hasn't hit France.
In fact a lot of the "Nanny State-isms" do not trouble us here. Schools can still collect the insides of toilet rolls for Blue Peteresque art projects and playgrounds are full of children charging about on scooters, trikes and space hoppers. Children share headphones without a sign of a box of sterilising wipes. Parents adopt a let-them-find-out-for-themselves attitude generally towards their offspring and, even though this seems a bit dangerous to my English mind, they very quickly seem to develop good sense. There doesn't seem to be an increase in the amount of children on crutches or in plaster compared with my years of teaching in schools in England - so maybe they are right! When you visit a doctor there is no accompanying nurse - even for the most intimate of examinations! I have never undergone any sort of check, police or otherwise, in order to be able to teach - just needed to pass teaching exams! Again, past experience in the UK has led to such measures being put in place - but, let's face it, the vast majority of folk are good and honest.
But then again, in the UK you do not need a doctor's note until you have been off ill for a few days - here you have to obtain one for even a half-day! You also have to visit the "Medecin Travail" every 2 years, or when you begin a new job, to be certified "apte". Oh well, you win some ........
19:30 Posted in Travel | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: self catering, holiday, accomodation, gites, south, brittany, France
16/12/2007
Sunday 16th December, 2007
With my shoulder and arm very much improved - nearly 8 months after my accident and I am, at last, mainly pain-free. I still only have limited use of my arm - I cannot get my hand up behind my back or raise my hand high enough to write above half-way on the black/whiteboards in class, but otherwise I'm using it almost normally. I still see the physio (kiné) twice a week, which has to somehow be fitted into my busy schedule.
Talking of work - I am now officially qualified to teach English in French primary schools. Yippeee! What a relief!Months of hard work paid off when, on 3rd December, I had my final inspection. This is akin to the OFFSTED inspections in the UK. Two officials from the Education Authority sat-in on a 45 min. lesson and looked over my planning for the year (including detailed lesson plans, overview of the progression for the year and evaluations of both the lessons themselves and individual pupils). Taking into consideration the number of different year groups I teach (although they were only interested in the year-groups where a foreign language is compulsary - CE1, CE2, CM1 and CM2) this represented a huge amount of work .... and all in French! The main thing is that I passed with flying colours, receiving a lot of very positive feedback from the Inspectors. Obviously, I have to continue to work within the curriculum ("textes officiales"), but there is no longer any question over my suitability for the job! Not that there ever was, but the qualification is obligatory - even Headteachers who wish to teach English here have to go through the same process to qualify ("être habilité").
I have also recently learnt a new skill - creating interactive teaching games in Powerpoint. Thanks to my younger sister's help - she teaches computing in colleges in the UK. My teaching colleagues have taken a keen interest in this idea and I am organising a half-day "workshop" for them at home during the Christmas holidays. It will be useful to exchange ideas and also to pool our resources. All the games I and my colleagues create will be translated into French and made available to children visiting our gîtes - French or English. The children here in all the scchools were enthralled with the games this week and behaved impeccably in order to win the right to participate!
Cheryl and I are continuing to train the dogs to do Agility and also Dancing. We are building quite a repertoire - spins, rolls, weaving between legs whilst walking, looking left and right, giving left and right paws, high 5, walking on hind legs, bowing ...... and the dogs can do quite a lot too! We now need to choreograph it all to music. We have a more professional set of 12 weave poles and Gracie and Ficelle are beginning to develop a really good technique through them.
Harry continues to be the best cat ever (I'm not biased!). He's the first cat we've ever had and he has won all our hearts. He and the dogs still adore each other and play together. He even joins in the agility sessions - today he did the walk over and the seesaw, but his favourite is the tunnel. We have begun feeding the birds again - placing the feeder in the middle of the garden away from hiding places so that Harry cannot surprise them.
19:30 Posted in Travel | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: self catering, holiday, accomodation, gites, south, brittany, France
05/10/2007
Friday 5th October 2007
Well I survived my first full week back at work since April! Je suis claquée! Any road up, it would appear that the children are all very happy to have their favourite English teacher back - as one Head Teacher told me today "Apparament, l'anglais c'est rigolo!" (Apparently, English is fun!).
I have spent most of the week explaining that "L O" is just a list of letters and not "Bonjour en anglais"!! Followed by much hillarity trying to make a piece of tissue fly off the back of the hand whilst saying "Hello!". (I took great care in ensuring that they understood that they should pick up the hundreds of bits of tissue used around the house once they had finished their homework - I wonder how many complaints from parents I'll get next week!!)
Great shock was expressed at the idea that English people don't go around kissing each other all day long and that even shaking hands is usually reserved for a very first "rencontre".
A+ - as they say in French text messages !!
19:50 Posted in Travel | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: self catering, holiday, accomodation, gites, south, brittany, France
29/09/2007
29 Septembre 2007
I've just become a technophobe - but it's not easy at 44 years old and with a keyboard that doesn't play fair!!!! I have just been gobsmacked and am (unusually) lost for words. I have just received my early birthday pressie - a lap top. However, it's got a silly french keyboard - I mean, who decided that it woiuld be a good idea to have to hold down the shift key just to type a ful stop!!!!
Any road up, I will have easy access to all my recordings - sound and visual - for use in schools. (sorry for the delay there - I had to stop to hold down the shift key!!!)
Perhaps it,s a blessing in disguise for "my readers" (who don't exist) because I can't waffle on so easily. (shift key!) I'll leave you with a sentence to decode:
The auick brozn fox ju,ped over the lawy dog;
21:33 Posted in Travel | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: self catering, holiday, accomodation, gites, south, brittany
09/09/2007
Sunday, 9th September, 2007
Injury: The long-awaited recovery has made sufficient progress for me to be able to return to work – after 4 months of being "on holiday", it will seem strange! I still have a very long way to go to regain all my range of movements and am visiting a different physio (kiné) 3 times a week (on the advice of my doctor, who was not at all happy with the original physio's treatment). I had 2 rounds of cortisone injections (infiltrations) into my shoulder and wrist.
I had developed frozen shoulder (épaule gelée or capsulite retractile) and also "algodystrophie" in my hand (I'm using the French here, as I don't know the English medical term). After the injections I had to rest for a month. However, I regained quite a lot of movement just as a result of the cortisone itself.
House and Home: Another exciting event was the arrival of our shed! Well, OK it doesn't seem that exciting to you, but here you need planning permission. We now also have a sit-and-ride mower, which is making Paul's life much easier. He's like a kid with a new toy and is very happy that we had a wet summer, as this meant the grass continued to grow .....!
Gîtes: We have had a good season with our gîtes and our heads have grown bigger thanks to the wonderful, enthusiastic comments we have received from our customers in our Visitors' Book (Livre D'Or). I have, at last, got around to creating some French pages for our website – if you want to give your French a try, click on the French flag on our Front page on www.gitessouthbrittany.com and enjoy!
For wildlife enthusiasts I have improved our "Local Wildlife" page, in order to make it easier to read. Again we have been very encouraged by the reaction of our visitors, who greatly appreciate our "local knowledge" – helping them to access the wildlife they hope to see more easily.
Sailing: Last weekend we sailed out to sea and visited a small island just off the coast of the Loire Atlantique. This was a big adventure, which necessitated passing through the barrage (a lock). Otherwise, we have used our boat a lot less this year – just a few trips along the river – due to both the weather and my injury.
Dogs: Gracie and Ficelle are amazing us with their ability to learn new tricks. We have begun using the "clicker" method and they can now spin, roll, walk backwards on hind legs (front would be a bit too much to ask!!!), give left or right paw, high 5, bark on command, weave between our legs, circle our legs (forwards for the moment) and sit-up-and-beg. Our aim (notre but) is to put all this together to music! Ficelle has proved herself to be a natural. Gracie still has the upper paw when it comes to Agility though and we now have an "A Frame" and a very smartly painted course.
We also took them along to a Border Collie day near Dinan, where we could test their aptitude for herding. I was extremely proud of Gracie, who, faced with a herd of sheep (brebis) (she was off the lead), showed how well brought-up she is and refused to chase around after them. Unfortunately, the organisers saw things differently and instructed their sheep-dogs to herd the sheep towards us and around us to try and encourage her natural instinct – when she steadfastly continued to walk to heel (like a good dog) they gave up on her, shaking their heads! Ficelle? Well Ficelle is Ficelle – enough said! For those of you who don't know her personally, she is "têtue" – headstrong – and although she, at first, remembered her training, her brain worked out that "All the other dogs are having grrrrrreat fun chasing those sheep and no-one has told them off! Yippeeeeee! Here I go!" This pleased the organisers greatly, even when one of the sheep jumped the fence and ran off towards the car park with Ficelle in hot pursuit! Give her her due, she did stop and lay down when I whistled (organisers most annoyed with me for interfering – sorry, but I didn't want my dog or the sheep out on the road!). Another "helpful" chap then carried on the chase with his dog – result a lost sheep (in adjacent field of sweet corn) for 20 minutes!!! Oh well, they did want her to show her natural instincts and that's what they got!
13:25 Posted in Travel | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: self-catering, holiday, cottages, gites, south, Brittany, France