Toussaints and a visit from an Aussie

This week the entire region (and some of the other regions) is on the Toussaints vacation, so it has been all soirées here, mostly at the apartment on Vauban instead of at the maison blanche, which is not at all logical, except that the kitchen and the dining room are so much larger at Vauban, and all my spices are there. We tend to get in trouble, though. It's not as if they're loud parties, usually just me cooking dinner and someone opening a bottle of wine or cheap cider. The people in the apartment below are fussy, though, and so we should change venues. At the tiny maison blanche, we have no neighbors! No one to keep us from playing Go Fish until all hours! And you only think I'm kidding about that. We really do play Go Fish (and other card games with less polite names). Such is the night life in Cambrai.

Julia is here! Julia from Australia whom I met on the internet four years ago, that is, and I should clarify given how many Julias I know. It's been nice to meet her. Yesterday we made a huge pot of soup with the leftover broth from the stuffed mushrooms I made the other night, and we watched The X-Files in French. Today we're going on a walk around Cambrai, though really we've already been around Cambrai, and we may go down to the canal and go fishing with Steffen. Tomorrow we're going to Lille to check out the Bollywood/Bombay festival (http://lille3000.com) and look around. I was planning to go to Brittany with Anna later in the break, but we haven't been paid yet and I'm fairly broke. So it goes. Europe is expensive. At least I finally have the last of the paperwork so that I can get my carte de sejour, which means that when I do get paid, I can go to Belgium.

School is good. I had most of my classes this week, although there are a few problems with people not coming because they don't know they ought to. One of the English teachers is sick and so her classes aren't getting any information. My little locker at school is stocked with tea and biscuits and a little box of chocolate bars for the days I work late (Tuesdays my day starts at eight a.m. and doesn't end until six p.m., which means I have to catch a bus at 6.55, and it's so dark here then that it feels like 4 a.m.). The students are mostly shy, but some of them will talk, which is not always a good thing, but usually. I have some very sassy boys who think they're a lot more clever than they are. But never fear: I will lay down some good old-fashioned American discipline and talk loud and fast and sarcastic until they get confused and shut up. Plenty of plans for great justice here, let me tell you.

They've started decorating for Christmas, putting up the frames for lights everywhere. There will be stars on the lampposts and scrollwork strung across the narrow streets. I suppose when you can skip Halloween and Thanksgiving, you get to start early, since there aren't any decorations for Toussaints. Well, they don't quite skip Halloween, but there aren't many decorations. There was a special meal at the school and I laughed so much in the teacher's room, because they tried so hard, and they served pumpkin. Just mashed pumpkin in a lump on the plate, which was somewhat tasty. Then there were all sorts of foods that were supposed to be spooky and just managed to be entertaining, and all the cantine workers were wearing witches' hats. Quite amusing.

Today I woke up expecting church bells, but it was Daylight Saving. Now I'm on Romance Standard Time, which I think is GMT, or what GMT was yesterday. So the bells rang as I was halfway through this, rang and rang, and the clouds are clearing up, and I think it will be a lovely Sunday.