Happy eve of Christmas Eve

Bonjour

Week 2 nearly done. Lee has put in his first week of finding his way to work (even worked out the local bus system!), getting all his access and passes sorted, working out who’s who and now he’s on a 10 day break. Yay!

Many of the others Australians here are taking the opportunity to get some travel in during the shut down and the few remaining in Cherbourg have planned to catch up on Boxing Day. And we found out this week that there is a partners’ group which is basically a group of partners of guys who have been posted here and get together for social activities and just general support. I met a few of them on Thursday and, while some of them have been here for  a few months, the others are new arrivals like us. So picked up some great tips and info about life here.

We’ve been out and about trying to get to know where things are and this has confirmed what I already knew – my sense of direction is woeful. The old part of the town is mainly pedestrian access only with lots of little lanes and narrow streets and nothing is straight. Here’s what I mean….

But even when I get lost, because the place is so small, it’s not hard to get back on track. And it’s a lovely place to get lost.

Today we went to the open air markets in the main square. The range of produce was quite impressive with lots of root vegetables but surprising amount of more exotic stuff – mangoes, lychees, pineapples. There were also some fresh meat and seafood on offer. The chickens still had their heads attached – would be hard to cook something when they are watching you like that.

And we discovered this shop only about 50 metres around the corner from our apartment. If this means nothing to you, then google “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg”

If there is one thing we know for sure – we need to learn to speak French. It may be possible to survive without it but the entire experience would be so much better if we worked on this. There are several places where we can learn and so in the new year this will be near the top of the list.

A few things that we are missing from home (Yeah I know – “if that’s all they have to complain about”…..)

• wheelie bins. Rubbish collection is a bit of a science. Could write pages on this. No more just putting everything in your own personal bin and just waiting for the magic to happen every Friday morning.
• screw caps in wine bottles. The French like their traditional corks
• pay wave. There may be some shops that do this, but we have yet to find them
• plum pudding. Nothing even close to that here. Pastries and bread things – no problem but dried fruit? what’s that?

We had a knock on the door the other evening – most unusual as this is a secure building. Lee answered the door and it was a local fireman selling their calendars. My Australian brain automatically sees muscly bronzed men with no shirts. Not here. In France they use children’s artwork to decorate their calendars. Here’s the page for October. Our neighbours in the apartment building are all quite elderly. I would love to see the reaction if I tried to sell them some of our calendars next year.

Anyway, that’s the French Feed for now. Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas (we will be thinking of you) and 2018 is happy, healthy and joyeux.

Love L & M.