Adieu

We spent a busy day, starting with picking up Mum and her bookstall and taking her to the sea front early this morning, and another journey to collect the chair that had been forgotten! N is in Saint Malo until tonight, and J played organ at St John's Church, then piano at Castle Cornet.

Alice and I went to see (and hear) the noon-day gun being fired, followed by watching J. We also managed to see and touch the deep-sea diving suit that my grand-father used to wear as a states diver in the harbour. Happily, M delayed lunch so J, Alice and I made it back home in time. I delivered Mum's lunch later this afternoon.

I had intended to blip Alice in her new school uniform today, to represent "looking forward", this being the last blip of our blipfoto year book. However, with so many blipportunites today, I ended up with this one. Mum is in the photo, wearing her Guernsey bonnet and talking to some cruise passengers at her stall outside M&S. I’ll add photos of J and Castle Cornet to my blog.

The holidays are over, and real life is starting over. Alice starts school on Tuesday, and I'll be starting my new job very soon. J will be starting back at his term-time work, and N will be starting her masters degree, and new life, in Bristol next weekend.

While Alice is looking forward to being with her Guernsey friends at school, she still often drops into everyday conversation, her friends and events in Brittany, and we will keep in touch. They go back to school tomorrow, and we hope to receive an email from la maîtresse and the class during the next month.

We've been looking at the French books and CDs we picked up from the library yesterday. Alice watches French television in the morning at breakfast time (just as she did in France), then if the TV goes on during the day, we switch to British, before M and I return to French TV in the evenings. We have to keep up our French.

I will also re-start my Skype language-exchange conversations soon, albeit weekly rather than twice a week. We also hope to meet up with Olga via Skype each week, for general chat (in French) and learning. Then there's the evening class too. I'm still reading only French books, although I certainly don't understand each word, I get the giste. I experimented with looking up each unknown word in a dictionary, but it takes all the pleasure out of reading!

Alice reads a little in both French and English every day. She'll be a little behind her friends when she starts back at school next week, in reading and spelling, and also in maths as it's taught very differently. She'll catch up. Having coped with starting at a completely new school last year, without speaking or understanding the language, without knowing anyone else....she coped. She did much more than cope though. Awesome.

It's been a fab year. We've had our ups and downs, and it was good to end our time there on an up. We had a great summer there. We have no regrets about the emotional and financial sacrifices. It was more than worth it - Alice peux parler français courrament !

Adieu...