Nicola’s giving up fags today with a little help from a little prick. It’s not Baptiste, its acupuncture. Michel le grand would have to sit on me to get me to comply with this sort of needlework but Nicola seems to have enjoyed it and her anaesthetist tells her she was a very receptive client. So while I’m going through Earth Song and Unfaithful with my pupils Nicola is lying back with pins and needles in her nose, neck, wrists and ankles.
It’s a miserable morning weather-wise and midday isn’t much better only for the fact that we’re drying off in La Croisière. The ladies and Alex acknowledge us today. We feast away on the mains until the flan coco comes wibble-wobbling on the plate. We briefly pop into J.P and leave our heavy bags with him until we return from our snapping and shopping spree for a drink with himself and Thomas. Nicola found out some startling things about J.P last night when she was in the company of Christian. It’s not something to be repeated – by any party concerned.
If it wasn’t Nic’s last day – and if I didn’t have to be there to slap her wrists every time she whimpered for a fag, then I’d probably be in school correcting copybooks. As it happens I’m saved because there’s a survey being done on student’s writing/copying skills and so they need the entire copybook collection for each subject to analyse this. It sounds tedious – though probably no more so than my job would have been; I’d probably puke at the sight of red pen after correcting thousands of scrawled, incorrectly copied cursive sentences.
We eventually depart from town. It’s time for food again so we stop off at Le Malibu for omelette and chips. The fish woman from Antwerp is roaming around. We don’t want fish and we don’t eat bananas but we give her a few coppers and she promises us fresh mango tomorrow. Nic’s jaws ache. She has a headache and a face like she’s eating ice. She’s itching for a fag. She toys with the idea of menthol cigarettes but I tell her that it’s just like giving up chocolate for Lent but concluding that it’s ok to eat white chocolate – I should know. However, after beating the puff for four hours there’s no stopping her as she pops off to buy some cigars – supposedly they’re not as addictive. They look and smell like vanilla infused flakes. She has one which lasts an eternity.
Back at home it’s all engines go as Nic starts to pack her bags. She takes a break to do a mini-interview with me about our time here in Martinique. It’s soon Take III as Benoit keeps popping his head out the window. Eventually he goes off to eat his pizza. I know Nic is making a DVD compilation of some sort. She has been trying to keep it a secret but I just know…
I settle down to make Shamrock Certificates for all my younger pupils. I was going to stick them on to a ready made certificate but I’ve enough to do with cutting out a hundred shamrocks before dozing off…
No comments:
Post a Comment