Friday 29th February

I’ve been in Rouen for a week, can you believe it, and its the last day of February. Where is the year going too. We met Marinna at 10am and had our first experience of a french bus. We all said it was like being on a roller-coaster. So many corners and the bus was split by one of those concertina things with a round bit on the floor - you know what I mean - which I was standing on! The place we were going to was in the hills so we got a good view over the city when we were on the bus. Finally, feeling a bit ill (well I was anyway), we arrived at the centre where they were setting up the exhibition. We found out later it was only going to stay up for one hour. All that work an its only up for an hour. I think i’d scream. Anyway, this place looked like it used to be a school, maybe it was, I don’t know. Marinna took us into the room where she had to hang her work. It was pentagon shaped, with several people milling around and a huge duck made of clay, with a ‘don’t mess with me’ expression, in the centre of the room. We helped (or rather tried to help) Marinna put up her photographs. They were lovely pictures of school children playing, running, jumping and they all had a pink tinge to them and were slightly blurred in place which gave a sense of movement. We put them up using drawing pins and Grace had even helped to paint the pins white, when the director came over and told Marinna that she need to move them about metre to the right. So we had to move them across which was a mission. Marinna had banged the pins in with a hammer so they were really difficult to get out. After everyone had finished displaying their work we had cheese, crackers and cake. We had a lovely chat to one of the teachers - or maybe it was the librarian - about Rouen and Paris, and we talked to Marinna about not pronouncing the ‘h’ in Helen and Hannah and wether it got confusing if there was a Helen and an Ellen. They all call me Annah here. Oh, and there was a cute and very tiny dog which just appeared and who seemed to hypnotise every one with its cute bark. After lunch we watched a piece of performance art. It was a girl who was covered in clay, and she was moulding the clay but not making anything. We don’t know the meaning behind it. And after that it was back on the bus for another fairground ride. We were all so tired we all went our separate ways to go home and relax. I decided not too! First I went and bought a proper french to english dictionary and then I decided to go and check out the mattress place Christine had told me about. God, I must have been walking for about 20 minutes, down the busiest and windiest street i’ve ever walked before I found it. Several times I thought to myself ‘one more street and then i’ll turn back’ but no, I kept going. Conforama is a bit like a Homebase. It had everything from furniture to lighting to tools, but did it have a mattress topper? Not one. The best they could offer me was a proper mattress for 70 euro plus 30 euro for delivery. So I just left it and bought a 10 euro pillow instead for when I have a visitor to stay.
P.S. I counted the steps today. There are 63!