Concert at the Castle

Today I need to tell you about our evening activity. Still in France and to be honest the weather appears to be getting worse. However, yesterday Katie and Danny tell me how they have found on the Net information about one of the local castles. Apparently, there is concert on with music and fireworks. Now you need to be aware that through a few good contacts, last month we manage to get to go to the concerts in Kenwood Park and got to sit in the VIP enclosure. It was brilliant all round and therefore we sort of had the same thing in mind. You take a picnic, maybe some champagne and listen to music, chat and generally chill out. We knew the castle which is quite small as castles go but it�s unique feature is that it is on a lake.
We had a plan. Arrive early with umbrella in case it rained, something to sit on and some alcohol. Katie had even phoned up to check the details. We arrived an hour early so we could get something to eat at the local restaurant. When we arrived it did look very empty but we could see seating in the distance and what can be best described as lawned terraces were freshly mowed. We climbed up the sides of the embankment to the nearest restaurant which over looks the castle. We mentioned to the owners that we were in a rush and did they know what time things kicked off and they told us we had just over an hour. The restaurant was packed and we imagined that people were getting their prime position for the firework spectacular.
We ate our meal and walked back down. The car park still seemed somewhat sparse but we could see some people on the seats. We took our things and paid the 5 euro entrance. Bargain we thought, 5 euros for a night of entertainment. Once seated we noticed that there appeared not to be an orchestra but instead speakers. Oh well we thought, still for 5 euros not a disaster. Then we saw a screen with a laptop connected. Hmm, ok a little bizarre. Then the title �Mars explorer lands� written in French. Then some pictures of stars and a man with a microphone starts to talk in French about the stars and the sky. He has slides. We suddenly realise we are not going to listen to wonderful music and see fireworks but instead listen to scientific facts about our solar system, in the dark, on a Friday night and of course the whole presentation was in French making it near impossible to understand. At this point, the three of us started to laugh. Not just a little but full on giggle fest. The more we tried to control it the worse it got. People started staring which made us laugh even more as we tried to look away. We eventually managed to control ourselves and regain our composure. I was crying with laughter by this time.
The sad thing is we stayed for an hour before we felt we could leave. I have never had hysterics in a French lecture in a castle about stars before and I can say it is surprisingly uplifting. Especially when you have told lots of people about how much you are looking forward to the concert and fireworks and so you start receiving text messages such as �Hope you are enjoying the concert�.
Moral of the Story is: Even though Katie has French A-level it clearly does not mean she can speak French.
Au revior for now and if you want to know about our starry skies I can recommend a castle in France!

Back to the Blog

Well, I am back. Back in the land of the blog. Have to admit to being amazingly slack and have not posted for almost a year. That�s quite a long time. So why have I decided to start blogging again? Well I am currently in France and to be honest the weather is not looking too good. More Preston than Paris. I am staying at Dan�s mum�s house which I have stayed in before and it is such a brilliant house. Dan�s here and Katie�s here and then there are �the others�. More about them in a moment.
So what�s been happening over the last year? Well to be honest so much that that itself would be an epic tale so to highlight. Left old job, started new job, hated new job, left new job and returned to old job. That was an interesting year and at times incredibly stressful. Now am looking happier career wise.
So here I am in France it is almost 11am. Katie and Dan are asleep which is about normal. We were invaded late on Tuesday night by 2 families who are also staying here. Now, I know it sounds harsh but I thought there were probably going to be 5 people staying with us but it turns out to be 10. Four adults and six children ranging in age from 12 weeks to 12 years. I work with kids all year and get on well with them on the whole but in the summer holidays I do try and limit the dosage I am exposed to unless they are a niece or nephew or children of close friends. Well not this week.
We were woken yesterday at 7:30am by loud piano playing from downstairs. Not a popular choice of alarm.
One of them (the oldest) apparently has ADHD. I say apparently which is controversial in itself as I am a believer that sometime this is a convenient label for children who are poorly behaved. I have worked with some genuinely ADHD students at school and they are poorly behaved but there is something else about them that makes it more. Perhaps it�s their frustration or lack of social skills with peers that makes it stand out. Now I have only met the boy for a short while but from what I have seen so far he is just a preteen trying it on with his parents who to be honest seem at the end of their tether. I have seen nothing so far that would suggest ADHD. I am no expert but they we can all play psychologist for a while and that would be my thoughts. This is also strengthened by them telling us that he is fine at school and everywhere else. That makes me think the common factor of when he misbehaves is when he is with his parents. Harsh, but true. Dan, Katie and I had escaped the Maison de Circus earlier yesterday for the sake of our sanity and had discussed this. I had given my thoughts to the others and they had given me theirs. . Was therefore not so impressed when Dan tries to drag me into a conversation over the first proper sit down meal with the parents. I was not happy. It is one thing to play Doctor and quite another to start trying to hand out a diagnosis to parents you have never met. Dan sometimes is not so good at understanding where private conversations need to be kept private. To say it was awkward would not be far from the truth. I really wanted to say �well if you allow your child to stay up to after midnight, leave him to wake up in a house of 3 strangers whilst the rest of you leave to go on a outing, talk about all his issues in front of everyone including him, label him as troublesome and are generally quite unpleasant to him then what do you expect to happen?�. I took the 5th instead and glared quietly at Dan for thinking it appropriate to drag me in. I know he is a difficult situation of seeing a child who he feels he can help but to be honest it is not his place to interfere. On the other hand, the parents have asked him to help. I think that he is now stuck between a rock and a hard place. It is like being a fire fighter (random metaphor alert) and seeing a fire and being told we want it sorting but we don�t want you to put it out. His gut reaction is either to leave well alone which is frustrating as the boy�s behaviour is inappropriate or to dive right in and help the parent�s assert themselves which will probably end in major tears all round. Only time will tell I guess.
On a lighter note, we decided that we would have a day of being nice to each other (that�s me Danny and Katie). We had started to get into the habit of being ultra sarcastic and nasty to each other in a very light hearted way. Seeing who could come up with an insult to top the last. It sounds cruel on paper but in reality it often results in a large number of original insults which makes us all laugh. We decided as we were having visitors to have only nice comments to each other. It was surprisingly difficult with us racking up over 20 insults to each other despite a real effort. Katie lost badly. Insults are now back in play so I will go and see what the morons are up to in a minute.
Just got off the phone to my mechanic. Thought I would be very technical and have my car �serviced�. I have always been sceptical about this as I feel it is a chance to have your car cost you money. Things are always found wrong with it and then you end up paying for repairs. Much better I feel to be blissfully ignorant of any problems. Much cheaper in the short term too. Anyhow, as it had not been serviced since I bought it 3 and a half years ago, I thought I would bite the bullet. Especially as recently it had sounded like more like a tractor than a car. I have a tame mechanic who broke the news by saying he could probably keep repairing it for the next 5 days and at what point did he want to stop paying for repairs. He had done the cam belt, the exhaust and the service. He was considering doing the radiator and other things which to be honest I did not understand but apparently are broken. I made the �ahu�s� in the right places as if I knew exactly what he was talking about but fell short of suggesting that I had noticed the same myself. I have decided to halt the haemorrhaging of money to the car for now. Will have to consider whether it is worth getting a new car instead later in the year.
Right, all has gone very quiet in the house so I had better see where everyone is and try and catch up on some sleep before �they� return from wherever it is they have gone.