Worlds Collide

Apologies to any loyal fans who are still following this blog - it's been a busy couple of weeks! To the extent that I haven't had a minute to myself to update!

Visitors!!!

The first very exciting thing that has happened since my last post is that Khinezar and Ryan came to visit :D
Due to happy coincidence, Helder was going to be in Lyon when they arrived so he agreed to go meet
them in the morning and show them around the city during the day with Pierre-Marie (another friend who lives there) before putting them on a train to Saint-Etienne where I'd meet them later on (as soon as I could after finishing my lessons).
After two nights spent on coaches, they were understandably knackered, but nevertheless we had a lovely first evening over a bottle of wine, trying to catch up the 10 months of news we'd missed.

Saturday, we went to see a juggling show, then a design museum, followed by a short stop over in a cafe to warm up a bit and try out our first game of Dixit. I'd bought it for Khinezar's birthday the following Wednesday but figured it would be more fun to give it to her early. :)
The weather was horrible. But no worse that England apparently so oh well.

It was fantastic to introduce some of my old friends into my present life in France and it'll definitely make telling stories more fun when I go back as they'll be able to put a face to the name. Joining up the dots on my global network. Naturally, they got on fantastically together - seems I have a "type" of friend. But I guess that's normal. :)

On the Sunday we visited Pierre's old museum (Le musée d'art et d'industrie) and popped back to the flat to pick up our stuff where Dominique picked us up to head back to Monistrol. Home time!

Back at home we gorged on cheese and more wine but had to keep things reasonably sensible as I had lessons in the morning.

It was a rainy, grey morning but fortunately as soon as I'd got school over and done with, the sky cleared and it suddenly felt like spring time! After lunch, we grabbed the bikes (courtesy of Dominique) and went off into the countryside. I had to give Ryan my regular bike which left me with one slightly too small but hey, it was worth the struggle for the amazing afternoon we had. We set off to visit the  chateau de Rochebaron, just up from Bas-en-Basset but only after making the trek to the castle did we discover that it's shut on Mondays...

But not to be discouraged we continued on with the bikes along the Loire to Aurec and back the other side to complete the circuit.
A beautiful afternoon in beautiful company.

The evening saw once again, a lot more cheese, another bottle of wine and Dixit. I see a theme emerging here....


They came into school with me on Tuesday to participate in group discussions on the notion of power, unfortunately Tuesday was a bit of a repeat of Monday in terms of weather - great for the afternoon but it also meant they got fairly wet on the way home!! I met them again for lunch, going for the first time to "L'entracte" where we had some delicious food and I got a surprise phone call from school to tell me that I'd been let off my afternoon lesson meaning I was free for the rest of the day!

Having done bikes already, I thought a little wander might be in order - there really isn't a lot to do in
Monistrol aside from the countryside. We were definitely very lucky with the weather! We'd decided to celebrate Khinezar's birthday early since they would be travelling all day Wednesday so before going home we went to find some cake at the bakery where the baker must have decided we looked like lovely people - he gave us a free bag of little Easter eggs with our tarts!

I'd really missed discussions with Ryan and Khinezar, they're often deep and fairly intense but I always feel like I've learned something by the end, a definite intellectual activity. I'm looking forward to being able to spend more time with them again next year, even if I won't  be abroad any more that's definitely an upside.
Ryan cooked us a creamy mussel-pasta dish for dinner and considering it was their last night and I didn't have lessons the next day reaching the end of the first bottle of wine, we decided another was in order. Time? 19:57. Bugger. All shops shut at 8! But where there's a will there's a way - we went for a wander back to the restaurant where we'd had lunch and asked very politely if she would sell us a bottle of wine. Win! Such a lovely lady. :)

Their visit couldn't have gone better and now I'm just as excited for my next visitors in the holidays...