Sheddair Sheez and Sushi

Evening everyone, 

It's half term already- crazy!

Thursday was the last day of school and I’ve begun to realise just how much happier and more confident I now am. Last term I spent my lunches alone in the corner desperately avoiding awkward French small talk, whereas Thursday I was able to ask teachers about their plans for the holidays and reorganise how some of my classes will be taught next term. A big bonus is that I asked the teacher of my first class of the day if I could start at 9am instead of 8.30 and she said yes – hello lie ins!

For three of my classes I brought in some traditional English food to finish our topic of la nourriture and as a little treat for the last day of term. After each sample they had to tell me if they loved, liked, didn’t like, or hated each thing. Unsurprisingly, cheddar cheese was very popular and I got lots of “I like sheddair sheez”. Sausage rolls however, got more mixed results. I think the concept of meat wrapped in pastry is quite alien to the French (they have no idea what pies are either). I was mostly told multiple times “I ate sauce-aj roll” and that’s not them correctly conjugating the verb ‘to eat’ in the past – it’s how they say ‘hate’. This completely baffles me as my CE2 are constantly saying “I am hate years old”…

Introducing a bunch of little kids to chocolate digestive biscuits was always going to go well. Their little faces lit up at the word ‘chocolat’ and they all clamoured to get the biggest piece. The whole room happily chorused “I love…” then they struggled, we eventually settled on “chock-o-lat digesteef bisquee”. Last but certainly not least were proper scones with strawberry jam and cream. There were various responses some loved them, some didn’t like jam and one memorable response came from little Selma who said “I don’t lick scones”. Bless.

Not only did my offerings of foreign food make me very popular with my students, I also made it into almost all of the teachers’ good books (because of course I had enough food to share around the staff room). It wouldn’t surprise me if they all set of to M&S to stock their fridges with some ‘sheddair sheez’. Someone who wasn't enjoying all of the yummy English food that she bought with her own money was - me! Dairy in everything...darn it.

Thursday night Han arrived (not talking in the third person, Hannah is one of my best friends!) We got sushi takeaway for dinner which was sublime - sushi is surprisingly a massive thing here! There are as many Japanese restaurants as there are boulangeries and I  usually have sushi once a week! Friday we went to Le Marais for some authentic falafel which was delicious and then we went to a very fancy shop called Sabon where we were given a free hand treatment that left our skin ridiculously soft. I ended up buying the mango and kiwi shower oil for 22 euros (yolo) and I think I’ll buy the body scrub when I’m in London next week (yolo again)!

We had a lovely weekend catching up on life and planning out futures and it was quite sad saying goodbye as we probably won’t see each other until I get back from Madagascar in July!

All in all things are definitely looking up and tomorrow I'm going home which I am super excited about, even though I've been kicked out of my room! I have exciting plans while back in England though, so keep your eyes peeled for a new addition to my ink!

Bisous à tous

xxx