La rentrée

There is only one week left before La rentrée, which is a big date here in France. Not only do all the kids and teachers go back to school, but businesses start up properly again after their workers come back from their long holidays. So our plumbers might actually start answering their phone soon for example!

Our summer has been extremely busy with the house move, and not exactly relaxing. I'm looking forward to school being back as I might get a breather! I say "might", because I need to start working again too. I have no lessons prepared whatsoever, I have a very good excuse of course. But I've started dreaming about turning up for my first lessons and having nothing prepared, arrgh!!!

So this last week, we'll be focusing on everything we need to get for school and me preparing as many lessons as possible. I'll also try to fit in a trip to the beach, the merry-go-round in town and maybe even the little tourist train in town I promised them we could go on!

We're pretty lucky that there's no school uniforms to buy, and they're not old enough to need all the stationery for school yet. So our list consists of slippers for inside the classroom and boots for playing outside! Laila wants Hello Kitty for both. I've resisted letting her have characters as much as I can (limiting it to pj's and socks), but it's extremely difficult to find any without their favourite characters unless you're prepared to pay a premium. And seeing how quickly they destroy their slippers and boots I am not! So I think I'll just let her choose Hello Kitty slippers at 5 euros to save on arguments and tantrums in the shop, and as they're for school, I'll never have to see them anyway! You may see I'm not a fan of Hello Kitty!
They'll need new clothes at some point, but I'll wait for the more autumnal weather to arrive. I think this year I'll be shopping around 2nd hand shops too, seeing how much we spent on the house this year!

Other things to think about at this time of year are any sports or extra activities we want to do. Signing up is always at this time of year, and you pay for the year. Normally you have to wait for the "forum des associations" day which is 8th september this year, to go round all the stands and sign up for what you want. But when you've already been in an association or a club, you get to find out about the "pre-inscription" day. Which is when current members get a chance to sign up again in advance.

So I'm already signed up for my Zumba class, I did that in July, and on Saturday I was down at the sports centre at 9am in a long queue of jostling women resembling a Next sale, with all the documents, medical certificates, photos and cheques in hand ready to sign the kids up for "baby gym". I got them both into the Saturday morning classes, which after 2 years of doing Wednesdays, will be a nice change. This will be Laila's 3rd year of gymnastics and Max's first year. I'll stay with him in his class, but Laila does it on her own now. They just ask for a couple of parents to stay each time to help out. Doing this on a Saturday means I can do this and Francois can have Max, or vice versa.

I'm still considering signing myself up to learn Breton, I definitely want to do it, but I'm not sure I'll manage it timewise. I certainly don't want to overload myself. Really this year I need to gradually increase my working hours as Max increases his school hours, so taking on an added pressure might not be a good idea.

And for Francois hopefully he'll be able to sign up for and actually attend a volleyball club! Last year was a complete fiasco, but that's another story.....!

Good luck to all my friends back home who have kids starting school this September, I'm thinking of you all!