It’s rare for me to not teach on Saturday… which made last Saturday all the more special.

Most know that I teach at a couple of French post-secondary schools during the school year, but I also do some online tutoring as well. Most are regular students that I’ve been working with for about a year. Among them, I have a number of Asian students, but don’t have many options for tutoring them, given the 6h time difference… Saturdays & Thursdays are typically my only options.

Last Saturday, I took a rare break.
Let me tell you about it…

It was hard to believe, when I looked back at the blog, that February was the last post!

(It reminds me of writing letters back in the 80s & 90s… How often we began with “Sorry it’s taken me a while to respond to your letter…” – Can anyone relate?)

Ahhh… handwritten letters – a rare thing these days. Let me, however, get to the quick of things and bring you up to speed on a few of the goings on in the interim.

February has slipped by and here we are only a few days away from the culmination of the LEAP YEAR!

I’m currently hiding out at ESSCA’s Angers Campus, waiting for traffic to die down before attempting the drive home. It’s not horrible, but I’ve found that by waiting a while at school, doing a few extra things that need getting done, I can miss the rush hour and shave 15-20mins off my driving time. Truth be told though… it’s as much the aggravation of the traffic more than the time itself that I’m happy to do away with.

So… while the traffic weaves its way s-l-o-w-l-y through the streets of Angers, let me attempt to get you caught up on the month that was February.

I had to add the word “quiet” to the word “upheaval”, which was the first word to come to my mind when I think back over the week.

France has been in the news and, as is frequently the case when France makes news abroad… it’s because of social upheaval… this time, farmers were the ones blocking traffic circles, highways and city centers.

That being said… there were wonderful quiet moments to be found away from the hullabaloo!

Let me tell you about the highlight of my (our) week…

It didn’t… have anything to do with Timo being asked to represent his school at a high-school recruitment event for middle-school aged teens.

It didn’t… have anything to do with the way Dominic has been taking care of Melanie, who has been under the weather for several days.

It didn’t… have anything to do with the way Soph‘s been making progress on her writing and working towards publishing the third book in her Grey Flame series.

It didn’t… even have to do with the fact that we arrived in France 9 years ago yesterday!

It had to with Liz & I…

I ended last week’s post by saying that 2024 was off to a good start and that I’d tell you more about it in this week’s post.

Well… here we are, and from the title of today’s post, you’ll no doubt be able to guess what, in part, leads me to qualify it as a “good start.”

Let me tell you more…

Would it sound a bit crass for me to say “Out with the old, in with the new!” ?

It’s the first thing that came to mind, but admittedly, it risks casting a bit of a shadow on the end of the year that just passed. Rest assured… the sentiment is more noble.

Let me bring you up to speed on a few things that got overlooked in the run up to Christmas and into the New Year… There were some GOOD THINGS!

Whether it’s an attempt to make up for all the posts that I’ve missed in 2023 or just a desire to round out the year… this is it… the last post of 2023.

I won’t be overly dramatic or contemplative (there’ve been a lot of “look back” posts in the past month) but it’s been a relaxing week and I’ll share the last few things of this year as the clock ticks down to 2024.