Mercredi 25.04.07 Boom boom boum boum
I feel like I’ve only had the bare minimum of sleep in the past while and I’ve been really looking forward to today’s 8 o’clock lie-in. Needless to say, I’m quite annoyed to be woken up by Elizabeth who is on the blower an hour before my allocated hour of consciousness. She spins off some story about wanting to talk about the Semaine des Langues. I tell her I’m busy today and just about to have my breakfast (well I am now) but she proceeds to try and engage me in conversation about Danny the Dragon and Frizzy the Frog who are visiting Plymouth next month. I can’t even pinpoint Plymouth and I certainly don’t want to spend any longer discussing it. I curtly tell her we’ll talk on Friday and I hang up before I can get guilted into helping her with her work at Chateauboeuf B.
Thankfully formalities of most sorts are set aside for breakfast too. There’s a full place setting for me but there’s no daintiness or extreme politeness and I contently make use of the assortment of jams; strawberry, raspberry, orange and goyave jam are all tried with my pain grillé. The cleaner is in the house today. I can’t see her – and not for the dust, because there’s none, but because she’s so short. I’m meeting a lot of munchcins in Martinique lately. I also bump into Marie-Louise’s renter, Julian, as I’m heading out the door for my private with Morgane in Tivoli. At the bus-stop Aurore passes by and we chat until the No.22 coasts up beside us.
I’m over half an hour early for my lesson. I give a few raps on the door but there doesn’t seem to be a mouse in the house. I sit on the terrace until a frizzy haired Maria appears and beckons me in. Morgane presents me with another present – it’s a colourful alphabet card. After the lesson Maria kindly drops me back to Cluny. As I’m getting out I remember she hasn’t paid me. She doesn’t have much cash on her but I don’t insist on the full price – after all education should be free.
Martinique may be an expensive place to live but thankfully the beaches here are free. That’s where we’re headed this afternoon. Well we will be once we get out of Fort-de-France. It takes an unmentionable amount of time to get to the beach at Tartane but the little time we spend there is much appreciated. J.V takes to the sea and the seaweed. Lionel kips in my hammock. Alex applies more fake bake oil and I lie-back and take in the fresh air and roasting rays.
Since Marie-Louise and Christian won’t take any money off us for their hospitality Nicola and I have decided to take them out for dinner. No farewell, according to Marie-Louise, would be complete without an aperitif. Not just one mind. We have Jameson, lemon Daiquiri and champagne with Julian and his girlfriend before we hit the road. There’s a big fuss made about what champagne glass everyone would like. Umm. You’ve sometimes just got to grin and bear and play along with such frivolities. Anyway, this is probably how I’d act too if I lived in a collector’s display cabinet. I pick a multi-coloured star flute and a rose-motif one which looks similar to some glasses my grandmother had. The drinks may be first rate but I can’t say the same for the dinner. We end up at the Madinia restaurant as the duo prefer to err on the side of caution when parking their car. Nicola goes for the entrecote but I don’t want something so filling. Marie-Louise, Christian and I opt for the choucroute. Potato, cabbage and sausage. The sausages are so synthetic. The cabbage is plentiful but so, so salty and the most disappointing part has to be the solitary little spud – I put him out of his misery almost instantly.
Once we’re done dining and finished pushing mounds of cabbage around our plates we make a move back home. Bertrand is having a party tonight at his house in Lamentin so Lionel picks me up and brings me over to join in on the joviality. This isn’t a party. There was more action between my fork and my salty cabbage mounds than there is Chez Bertrand. Everyone is working tomorrow but our host is tired and wants to kip so he’s trying to get people going. I haven’t had dessert yet so I help myself to the remainder of the apple pie before helping Cecile with the rest of the Tequila. Cecile, Alex, Lionel, Benoit, J.V and I are the last to be kicked out. We have a good rant about the non-event. It won’t be hard to make the lads weekend here more memorable. Bring it on!
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