Gites South Brittany

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 ........

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.