A bit bored of saying 'bonne annee' now

I haven't posted in quite some time. Sorry about that (especially to you Maddy, as I had been providing your at-work entertainment up until my hiatus! You will, no doubt, be ecstatic to see something new to read, rather than re-reading old posts in your times of desperation!)

I'm not going to bother bringing you all up to speed. If I'm honest I probably wouldn't remember what's been going on anyway. I also risk boring myself to tears.

The long and short of it is that it has been the Christmas holidays. Now it is not. And I am back in France again.

I managed to miss my first lesson of the new term this morning. Keeping up professional teaching standards as ever. I often wonder why they let me be in charge of a class (I stumbled over a chair earlier and swore at the chalk. Case in point).

To be fair, it wasn't my fault that I missed the lesson. I was up and everything (quite an achievement being as the lesson was at 8am). However I can only assume that the teacher who offered to give me a lift completely forgot about me. So by the time I'd resolved to walk instead, I was late. So instead sat in my classroom reading Heat for half an hour until my next lot of kids turned up.

At the morning break I was somewhat overwhelmed by the 'seeing people again for the first time in the new year' process. Lots of kissing. Too much if you ask me. I was double-kissed by many people who I've never even spoken to before. Particularly uncomfortable as the double-kiss thing (aka 'bisous') is not something I've ever settled into. A good reason for this discomfort was displayed earlier, when I nearly kissed someone on the mouth mid cheek-change. Horrendousness. Well it was all very jolly. I have never seen my colleagues in such good moods.

This leads me on the nicely to another odd new year related ritual I have been told I must attend tomorrow at 5.30pm. Cake eating. Apparently the headteacher will buy a 'new year' cake and we must all have a piece. And this is something that families, colleagues etc will all do tomorrow on January 4th to mark 'Epiphany'. All sounds a bit bizarre to me. But I'm not one to oppose a bit of cake-eating. (Having just carried out a brief bit of google-based research, it would appear this is all supposed to happen on the 6th. I don't really know, I just believe what the frenchies tell me! For anyone whose interest goes beyond my butchering of this cultural tradition, the cake is in fact called 'la galette de rois'. Having googled it, it looks somewhat dry to me. All shall be revealed tomorrow. Or on the 6th).

My final notable moment of the day was being asked the explain the word 'milf' to half the staffroom. Apparently one of the teachers heard the boys talking about milfs, and wanted to know the exact meaning. They all seemed to have agreed on the general meaning of the word, which I clarified for them, but I came a bit unstuck when they wanted to know what the letters actually stood for. I just couldn't bring myself to say 'mum I'd like to fuck' to my colleagues! I told them it was 'un peu vulgaire' but this did not seem to deter them. It was subsequently googled though, putting everyone's minds to rest. And then one of my colleagues asked me if they were a suitable age to be a milf. I feel the British Council has not trained me adequately to deal with such situations if I'm honest.

That is all for now. Many other things on the agenda this evening. None of which are exciting but all are necessary.

Ta for now.