Vous avez de la chance!

A cloudy start. Only a little website stuff today, before I set to packing up some stuff....N's piano, my accordion, M's clarinet (one of them), hundreds of books. I want to pack my car up ready for my and Alice's brief return on Saturday.

Then I went out the front to cut back some brambles and bamboos which seem to be taking over again. I chatted with the nice neighbour (of tree and fish incidents) and let her know we will be leaving in 3 weeks. We chatted for 10 minutes or so, and only once did I ask for her to repeat - but I still couldn't understand. It was one word which I suppose was outside the context of our conversation. If we had been talking about seafood, I'm sure I would have recognised the word!

Eventually, she retreated into her garage freezer and produced un homard - a lobster! Remembering I felt bad for refusing last time, and thinking Mum might enjoy a bit of homard (shhh - it can be a surprise!), I gratefully accepted. I tried chasing Alice around with it, and then woke up M with it. It was even better that it was freezing cold of course :-)

I'm definitely more relaxed, confident and more fluent with my French, but I still have some way to go yet. I still stumble now and again. She asked me my job in Guernsey, and I almost made that same terrible mistake - and just in case I didn't pronounce it correctly, I repeated, with great emphasis "peute" so it couldn't be confused with "pute". She gave a sly smile but made no comment :-)

More packing this afternoon while Alice played with all the nearby children (been to 3 houses, playing with 5 different children during the day, although mostly with Nicolas and Théo). I'm getting ready! I managed to fit in some online French study too.

Mid-afternoon, we drove into Paimpol and the touristy train trip on la vapeur du Trieux. It took us to Pontrieux following the river Trieux, where we had an hour to spend. We took the horse-drawn carriage into the town centre, and I understood (not everything obviously) that we could have a little walk around, then we could meet the carriage up the hill and around the corner. We enjoyed an ice-cream, then, just to make sure, I asked in a shop where we met the carriage. She gave me directions, so off we went.

No sign of any horse-drawn carriage. We waited 5 minutes or so, but it was getting late now. M was worried we would miss the train so we started walking. I was concerned about it being too far for him, especially as we would have to walk quickly. I was still fairly convinced the horse-drawn carriage would pass us, and I would be able to wave him down with our 3 green return tickets. No. We just kept walking. I was half dragging Alice, whilst M was trying to keep up. I wasn`t walking at my own speed. We saw the carriage.....coming back the other way, empty. Oh. Faster, faster!! 2 other people desperately ran past us on the final hill, worried they would miss the train.

I kept giving a count-down....10 minutes, 5 minutes, 3 minutes, 2 minutes... we finally got to la gare to find the train....about to leave! It tooted its horn and jerked a little as I ran around the back, panicking now, shouting "Non!" All the doors were closed, I ran up to a door and shook it desperately. People looked on in apparent disinterest. The door opened and a woman in period costume (the train is 100 years old and they dress accordingly) exclaimed "vous avez de la chance!" All I could gasp was "mon mari!" as M came into view, looking not terribly well, but what a good effort! We sank into the nearest spare seat, very hot and sweaty (sunny and 32 degrees by now). Phew. Made it. I was worried about M, but at least it has convinced me that he CAN cope with walking up the hill to school in September!

By the time we got back into Paimpol it was after 6 o'clock, and it seemed very convenient to call into McDo's before returning home! Alice of course went straight out to play with her friends.

The photo was taken at Paimpol station after our return. M says next time I need a blip of the steam train, I could just sit in the car park rather than do all that again.