Yesterday was a long day… I was out of the house for about 17hours, and oh the things I saw.

On the way up to Angers I got a passing glimpse of the Zavatta Circus, which was set up just outside of the city. A good old fashioned circus tent, surrounded by tractor trailers and camels (of course there were camels).

On the way home last night, under cover of darkness, I saw four deer, a badger, a hedgehog and an owl. I’d never seen a large badger in the wild before, my headlights scared him back off the roadway. The owls, on the other hand, are not entirely uncommon when driving in smaller villages. It’s cool, because you only see them at night or in the early morning; something big & light-coloured, generally ‘swooping’.

I’ve had a thing for owls ever since Owls in the Family, Farley Mowat’s great Canadian classic.

I’m sitting down to write this on Friday night, while I wait for traffic to die down heading out of Angers.

This morning, there must’ve been an accident on the highway into the city. The traffic was backed up on the regional road, about 2.5km before I even arrived at the highway. Thinking I’d be clever, I quickly veered off and took a “short-cut” through the vineyards and into one of the neighbouring villages, figuring I’d come into Angers ‘the back way.’

No luck. Not only did some others have the same idea, but that road tends to be busy at the best of times during peak traffic hours. In the end, I was about an extra 35mins getting to the school.

After 7 contact hours with students, the last thing I want to do is jump right back into the heavy, supper-hour traffic. Sitting in the school library (empty of students who’ve returned home for the weekend), ‘talking to you’ is way better than playing start-stop-leapfrog in traffic. I’ll let things cool down & head back a little later.