"I have to go pi pi"

It's been two short weeks since I got back to France, everything has moved very very quickly. First week I plodded along, saw people and got settled back in to life. Monsieur and I had lunch one Sunday and we drove out to Solignac and Châlucet for a little visit - he seems very determined for me to see as much as possible. Solignac is a little village about 20 mins from Limoges and is what you are imagining in your head is probably justified - very quaint, cobbled streets on steep hills and beautiful stone everywhere. The sun was splitting the sky and it all looked great. He let me know that all the English retirees come here and buy houses or build hideous new buildings. We saw a few of these awful structures that look like they belong in the south of Spain or in Florida.

We walked around the church, which for a village is really quite impressive.



20 minutes away is the ruins of "le Château de Châlucet". This hidden gem is like a big trail through the ruins of a medieval fortress which was scarcely used, until the hundred years war, at which time it was taken over and served pretty much it's opposite purpose.

The ruins are amazing, and the way it is set out makes everything quite accessible, if a little difficult to climb when the mud is wet. There is a big lookout tower which was sadly closed, but great views from everywhere and a great location on the river.



Classes have been good too. A few hiccups, but the main thing has been that one of my teachers is off on an extended basis. Whilst this was great for the first two weeks (less 8AM starts) its starting to cause a few issues, but he's off for a good reason. I've offered to take on whatever other classes are required, and the school (eventually) managed to find a replacement, but only for 3 days a week... Ah, France.

Have spent a lot of time with everyone, John is away for the weekend, but we had a party to say goodbye to Andrea, a Romanian girl we met a while back. Her internship is over, so true to fashion we had a cross dressing party, with messy results. Sad to think that soon we will all be saying "à bientôt"...

Last week we all saw the Martin Scorcesse film "Shutter Island", which was a headfuck but still very well done. Great stylistically, I really appreciated the whole aesthetic of it but just thought it was a little too long and perhaps too hard to follow, surprisingly good lead from Leo Dicaprio.

This weekend didn't forsee too much - had planned to do the big shop like a true housewife with Anaïs and Ansleigh. Did that and went off to Anne's for coffee with two guests from the UK. Was promised one of them was Scottish, but she was in fact ancestrally so. Interesting folk who had sailed the world for 10 years, but I felt somewhat of a cultural philistine compared to them...

Saturday night Alex had invited us for some Ice Cream in the true Limoges party style. Ended up I turned up and was confronted with a (somewhat underwhelming) "SURPRISE!". The real secret to surprising someone is having the party 3 weeks after your birthday.

We stayed around Alex's for a bit and then went off to Limoges' hottest nightspot "Le Speakeasy". It has to be the smallest club I've ever been to, and also one of the worst. In despite of this, we had a great wee night, and I'm really grateful to everyone who organised and attended, thanks guys! Thanks also to Alex for a tasty cake.



So that excitement over, the thrills kept coming. Sunday was Carnival in Limoges, so we headed out for the cultural event of the season.... Turned out to be quite enjoyable, in despite of my cynicism, with a nice wee parade and lots of confetti. The floats might have looked like they were made by an autistic child with a thing for cubism, but nonetheless we had fun. The only drawback was the cold, it was freezing and there was a really strong wind. Fittingly, the theme of the parade was "Limoges dans le vent", fronted by a windmill float. Coffee chez Lacey and Lizandro and back to the homestead. Folk came over to abuse the internet (Anaïs, Ansleigh and John's internet has been out for 2 weeks thanks to French laissez-faire philosophy) and a re-watching of one of my favorite films for the benefit of Goodfellas virgin Anaïs.

What a film.