First Week at School

The day before school started, Carmen (the school secretary), called to ask me to collect the girls books from the chairman of the parents committee. Simon and the girls set off and I watched them return laden with all the text books, exercise books, pens and paper they need for the whole year.
Yve and Madeleine were surprisingly calm on their first morning before school, in fact I think Simon and I were more apprehensive. We watched all the children walk past our house on the way to school with their parents and grandparents carrying the vast amounts of school equipment. The girls were swept away with various teachers at 9.00am and we left to go to a local hippy market with Simon’s sister Gigi and brother in law Chris to while away the time until 2.00pm.
I returned to pick up the girls and was met by a very happy Madeleine and a very grumpy Yve. Firstly she was cross that I had come to pick her up as none of the other parents did, secondly she hated it and thirdly everyone had Serrano ham sandwiches for their snack and I had given them pain au chocolat!
Lunch at Jose’s restaurant seemed to brighten things up a bit, particularly when the ice cream came out. It evidently wasn’t that bad in hindsight and both of them happily went off to school today.

Walking home from school