Ecole.

This morning, we got up bright and early to wave goodbye to our ten year old who was due to catch the bus on a two day, overnight excursion with his class:

Fingers crossed his French comes good. In our typical, fly by the seat of your pants style, we only, accidentally, thought about checking the date of this much dreaded excursion at about 4pm yesterday afternoon. Panic stations when we discovered that it was today. In preparation, we spent most of last night drilling him in how to tell the teacher, in French, 'Stop the bus because I need to vomit'.....'Arret le bus, (s'il vous plait!) parce que je dois vomir'. I'm hoping that he doesn't actually need to use this. However, seeing that he's our chucker, he may. It was the promise of......Lego which may have helped him to get on that bus this morning, yet get on it he did. Phew. I was so proud of him. He's only had two full days in this class, yet already he seems to be reconciled to his fate....he's been entertaining us with stories about how he's been hanging out with....the naughty boys.  Or maybe this is just a tactic to get us to keep him at home, with us.

Old habits die hard and seeing that I was anticipating a run in the garrigue after the drop off, I may have dressed myself in my jogging kit. My husband laughed when he saw me and reminded me that as we were taking our son to FRENCH school, maybe I needed to rethink my outfit. Mercifully I did as there was not another pair of bike pants or trainers.....in sight. 

Three of our children had started school in Uzes last Monday:

Everyone was just a bit nervous. Even our eleven year old, who loves school so much that on weekends she laments that she has to be at home, was admitting that she felt nauseous. In the week since our arrival in the town we'd been walking past the school most days, rallying the troops. This was the foreboding face that it presented to us on the narrow, pedestrian street as it was all locked up due to school holidays:

Once we made it through the front door on Monday, with the swarm of children returning to school, it was revealed as a surprisingly sunny and welcoming place....there is a vast enclosed central courtyard with three storeys of classrooms on two sides. To reach the upper classrooms you wind up a dimly lit, elaborate wrought iron staircase with low ceilings and tromp l'oeil marble clad walls. It reeks of Hogwarts, so appeals to our children's sensibilities as they are big fans of JK Rowling's work. 

The older two, being able to remember going to school in France in 2010, were relatively unphased once it got down to the nitty gritty of being introduced by the headmistress and sitting down at a desk in their new classrooms. Not so the five year old, he howled uncontrollably and big, wet tears rolled down his face. We were hustled out and discouraged from participating in trying to console him. Several strong coffees in the square later and we were just about able to stop berating ourselves. It goes without saying that we spend an inordinate amount of time worrying that perhaps this whole French experiment may result in irreparable psychological damage to our children. Our hope is that this experience will give them a global outlook on life that it is difficult to learn.....at home in Tasmania. Hobart is a wonderful place to live, yet for us, it's important that our children realise that there is a whole wide world beyond Bass Straight and that, if they want to, despite differences in language and culture, they can participate.

It was with some trepidation that we went back to pick them up at 4.30pm....thinking we may be in line for a tirade of accusations. They were smiling. They'd had Spaghetti Bolognaise for lunch in the canteen.....which just so happens to be the five year old's all time favourite food. Lucky. 

At the end of the day, school is school wherever you happen to be...there's even a sign on the kindergarten classroom door warning of an outbreak of headlice (les poux), oh no....not again.

Rx