Foreign despatches
I find myself in a strange and foreign land - Yorkshire!
Getting here: The flight reminded me how rude people can be, as a group of elderly passengers shoved their way past us, ranting about ‘prority boading’ as we helped the children pick themselves back up off the floor. Seemed the old folk had missed the announcement and were, apart from us, last to board the plane. If you are reading this I hope all your baggage got lost en-route.
Our hire car was upgraded to a flashy Audi A6, so it took about half an hour to escape from the airport - I’ve never driven an automatic and couldn’t get things started, then took ages to turn the headlights on. I then spent most of the journey slamming my left foot, which was searching for the clutch, on to the brake and lurching the family at the windscreen A good time was had by all, despite the swearing and abuse.
We also have a French girl (a friend of my daughter) travelling with us, who keeps telling us how ‘bizarre’ everthing is, especially the quaint English houses. But England has something that is missing in much of France - shopping centres!
The children have never seen so many shops, and this is just Harrogate. Even Bordeaux pales in comparison to the tens of ‘fashion shops’ here, and Bergerac doesn’t even deserve to mentioned in the same breath. Given that, the children were unimpressed to see all the children on there way to school in a traditional school uniform. Can you imagine the torture of being surrounded by so much high fashion and only being able to wear it two days a week? It doesn’t bear thinking about.
Unfortunately we have a strict Ryanair baggage allowance of 15kg each, and we arrived with bags weighing about 14kg each, so the opportunities for buying much except socks and underwear are quite limited - excess baggage costs 8 euros per kilogramme.
Anyway that’s our excitement so far, and since I am using a QWERTY keyboard for the first time in six years this is taking an eternity to write. So I’ll stop.
Would you believe it - they are debating whether to bring in school uniforms at our girls’ college (here in Bedarieux, France). And surprisingly there is more support than you would think from the students!
My eldest daughter, who could not wait to strip off her uniform and wear casual everyday in class, goes in some days in her old school shirt, tie and blazer - as a fashion statement!
And I am sure you could fit a visit in to M&S for some socks?!
No! Don’t stop. You’ve only just begun and I’ve been looking forward to hearing what you make of ‘the old country’ for the past couple of weeks. How long are you over here for? I bet you’re missing that lovely cafe next to the Halle already but hope, nonetheless, that you all have a wonderful holiday.
I’ve seen a couple of my old ties used for school as well, can’t see the appeal myself. I will have plenty of time to buy socks because the others are off on a shopping-fest again today!
I’ll keep you informed, but so far I haven’t had an irresistible urge to move back to England…