Wednesday 27th February

Met the girls outside the art school at 9.20 this morning. We had been invited to the 3rd year crit to see some of the work they do. We thought it started at 9.30 but it actually started at 10 so we had half an hour to spare. Decided to go for a hot chocolate at a local cafe. Made all the locals in there laugh with our attempt at french, so they spoke english to us after that! We sat outside. It was strange tasting hot chocolate, quite bitter. Grace said it reminded her of powder paint. Presumably brown. It was nice and warming though. They always give you a chocolate, normally dark, with your hot drink in France instead of biscuits which is annoying. Its nice having something to dunk in your drink. At 10 we headed to the crit. It was in the building that looks more like Norwich inside, in a white room with black curtains. Several pieces of art were displayed on the walls and a screen with flashing images was set up in one corner. The teachers looked as us strangely and so we explained who we were. They seen very friendly and willing to speak english. There were not many chairs so ended up sitting on the very hard and cold floor most of the time. It was weird listening to non-stop french and I only understood the odd word, but i’m sure something must of sunk in by the end. Had a break when I received a text from Verity saying that Norwich had an earthquake - how exciting. We’re missing such exciting things. Back to the crit - the guy who owned the video work mentioned the word espace several times so i’m guessing his work is about the concept of space, Helen talked about her paintings (which are massive) but didn’t get anything she said. Sophie talked about her piece of work which was a giant blue cross made of velvet and had the names of different rooms on it such as salle de bains. She told us in english that it is a plan of her parents house and that the heavy dress material both represents the security and imprisonment of living at home. The last girl, whose name i didn’t catch was going to stick a living room on a ceiling! It was all very interesting but we said only handle it once a week at the moment. After that we went and had lunch, and guess what, it wasn’t at Flunch!! No, we went to a proper cafe bar, with murals on the wall, dark wooded furniture, and old looking tiles on the floor. I had a lovely bowl of salmon tagliatelle. Everything was going well, we chatted and payed the bill, got up to leave and CRASH, Mary had knocked a glass of the table. Oops! After lunch we did a bit of shopping to find Grace a new top - she has a date tonight with a man called Christophe - and then went back to Grace’s flat where we had more cake, a homemade mochaccino and a session on the guitar. Had to all disperse at 6pm for Grace to go on her date so here i am back at the flat, after picking up some essentials such as a peeler on the way. Have just finished watching Elizabethtown while eating a dinner of boiled egg, salad, tomatos, mozzarella, tuna and the hottest tasting mustard I have ever eaten and will never eat again! Morgane came into my room a few minutes ago and said she was having a party next door and would I like to come. I’ll pop in for a bit but i’m a bit scared. Now Mum just phoned. Its Marthas 18th and there’s loads of people at the house having a supper party. It was nice to here some familiar voices. Damn I forgot to buy a dictionary. Ok, now going over to Morganes. Wish me luck. Will let you know how it goes later.
Later (1.45am). Had a really good evening. Morganes friends are lovely especially Liz and Patrick. Only intended to stay for an hour but hey ho. Feel a bit funny now though, they smoke so much I can’t stop coughing and my clothes stink. I’m definitely ready for bed. Learnt quite a bit though about the art school and french. They asked to see my work and so I showed them ‘One Orange Octopus’. They seemed to like it but apparently I have to be careful at the art school because the teachers hate anything to do with children and nice. I learnt how to say I do drawing - je faire le dessin, and I told them the word for corkscrew. Morgane then told me a story about a trip to iceland she went on. The ended up in a remote village with no-one around and so slept in a church for the night. The got very drunk and had candles and one girl put her trousers in the candle and it caught fire. I don’t know what happened next. Liz said she would bring me some french books to read, we did a few group drawings and I brought them the rest of my creme eggs to try - they weren’t sure about the orange fondant! If anyone comes to visit, please please bring some more with you. Until tomorrow, Bonne Nuit.