Archive Article: 2002/08/23
IT took us three days to drive back from Norway when we went to collect Beth and Pierre after they finished their school year at Bergen University in June. The car was crammed full of their belongings accumulated over 10 months. On the drive down, Beth expressed her desire to redecorate her bedroom. Although I agree it needs it, my heart sank a little thinking of the tidy home we were heading back to and the mess we had been in for weeks last summer when Cherry had the same idea, and we changed our carpet. Well, there was time to think about it. Not so. Despite getting home in the evening very tired, Beth was up like a lark next day with youthful enthusiasm and before I had even opened my eyes she had emptied her room of everything ready to strip the wallpaper.
At the same time, Cherry had finished teaching and she could not wait to leave Paris. She left her flat at the end of June and moved back home while she tries to find a job in Rennes where Frederic is working. The house is beginning to sag under the weight of boxes and the old barn is filling up with futons and kettles.
Luckily Abis situation is far more civilised. Her move has involved carrying all her stuff down from a first floor flat, across the road and back up into a bigger first floor flat in Caen. She has just finished a holiday job in a chateau in the mountains, taking care of people with physical and mental difficulties. Now she, too, is looking for a job.
The decorating is still ongoing as our enterprising youngest daughter very quickly found herself a summer job. She is in Deauville, waitressing in a big hotel, so she and Pierre are painting in their day off.
After having two successful interviews in Rennes, Cherry is now waiting to see if she will be allowed to leave the academy of Versailles, who normally would tell her where she should be working in September. It is a state decision not a personal choice situation for teachers in France, and all very complicated.
She has written to the ministry asking to be released from Versailles so she can be accepted by Rennes and then she would be able to stay there and be guaranteed a job for life. We have our fingers crossed.
Meanwhile, Cherry, Fred and I have had a week in the Pyrenees to relax ourselves, which we did, once we had sorted out the car. The poor thing arrived in the mountains after covering 800km and the battery gave up the ghost.
Never mind, we did not want to go very far because it was raining, while Tim in Normandy was having a heat-wave.
Now back at home, we are hoping that everything and everyone will be all sorted out by the end of the holidays.