la vie normale

The garden at the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature.

We're settling into a routine now, and life is beginning to resemble that of those who actually live in Paris. I made a huge beef and vegetable stew yesterday which has sustained us through 2 lunches so far and will do so tomorrow as well, Patrick has a gym membership, we've taken our recycling out twice now and this afternoon we did our first load of washing!

French school is arduous but we are relishing it. Our teacher, Mélanie, told us we both have very good accents, which made us smug, although, that said, we don't actually have much competition. We already detest one of our classmates who really shouldn't be there - although he's bright, he doesn't care or try, doesn't bother with the homework (which never takes more than 15 minutes) and just isn't invested at all. We think (hope!) that tomorrow is his last day and we needn't see him or listen to him holding the class up again after that! The others are all nice and eager to learn like us.

This afternoon we treated ourselves to a spot of culture at one of our local museums: Le Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature - a strange little building devoted entirely, as the name suggests, to an exploration of hunting and nature. We were virtually the only people there, and we saw faded tapestries depicting medieval hunting scenes, equipment for falconry, not-very-good still life paintings of game, portraits of Charles XIV's dogs, racks of historic rifles, and dozens of sad-looking stuffed animals. We enjoyed it!

Patrick making friends.

We are really looking forward to the weekend and a lie-in, and of course, we can't wait to see Ellie and Tracy on Saturday!

Phrase of the day:
poser un lapin à quelqu’un
Literally 'to put a rabbit to someone', but it means to stand someone up.