Friday 4th April

Went to meet mum and Grace at about 10 and we bought some croissants and baguette and ate breakfast in my room. It is sunny again! After breakfast we moved their bags from Hotel Palais to the L’Europa Hotel where they are spending the rest of their stay. The housekeepers where actually cleaning the room when we arrived and I was the first one up to the room so tried to explain that we wanted to leave the bags. It kind of worked and luckily mum arrived just at the right time. Once the bags were safely in the room, I took Mum and Grace on a little tour of Rouen, around all the little streets (Grace was very excited by the shops) and in the Cathedral. And then went to the art school where we bumped into Liz and Mary (her parents didn’t arrive yesterday, it was today!) and had a chat. Then we walked past the Hotel de Ville and past a school which mum thought might have been where she stayed when she came to Rouen on a school trip. We walked back down to the centre down Graces road where we bumped into Mary and her parents. We arranged to all meet for supper. Then back past the shops and into the mini-mall where Grace tried some Roxy stuff, had a look in the pier and the art shop (we got some decoupage stuff to do - grace a heart and me a cat!). By this point we were getting a little hungry so we went to Cafe Cheri and had croque monsieur and croque madame, which were delicious. While we were sitting there the sky got very dark, so as soon as we finished we rushed back to the car to move it to the car-park near the new hotel. That evening we meet Mary and her parents and went to a lovely Pizza restaurant near the Vieux Marche. All over the walls were old objects such as cameras, bicycles, canoe paddles etc. From the entrance the restaurant looked really small but inside it was massive, and all on split levels, and the pizzas were delicious. I think we all had a lovely evening.

Thursday 3rd April

A beautiful day today. Mary and I decided to have a look around the students white exam work this morning - well tried to. We got half-chased out of one room by a guy rabbiting in french and then couldn’t find the rest of the work. Both our families were arriving today for a visit so I went to tidy my room and go to the internet cafe and Mary went to meet her parents at the train station. At about 7 I received a call from Mum saying they had arrived in Rouen and were near the man on the horse, so I went to meet them and guide them to the car park. Much easier than I thought! Then we went to check into their first hotel - Hotel Palais - very simple but right in the centre by the big clock. Then I showed them my room - Grace went through the hole - and decided to try out the Tarte Tatin, a crepery next door to my building. It was lovely, very busy and had a massive range of different crepes and salads. They came back to my room for coffee before heading back to the hotel.

Wednesday 2nd April

Started the day by visiting the hotel mum is staying in tomorrow to tell them she will be arriving later than 7pm. I took a little while because the man could’t speak english very well and thought I wanted to book a room, not check a reservation. Anyway, once done, I went to the mall to find out how you pay for 4 days of parking. Ha, there was no info desk so couldn’t find out. A good start to the day. While I was there I was bad and got tempted by FNAC and bought 3 more dvds. Well I’d better use the vouchers while they’re still valid! Then I visited a childrens book store which had been recommended to me. I was Ok. Very large with a stone floor but not many books. It was quite empty actually. I wanted to find a book by Gabriella Vincent, but couldn’t find it anywhere. So instead, I bought two Little Miss books in french (only €2.50 each) and spent the afternoon attempting to translate them. I think I did ok! At 5 I wandered over to the art school. Patricia was meant to be taking us to an exhibition at the big university on the edge of town, but we didn’t really know what time. While we waited we spent the time singing childhood songs. At 6 we went and waited outside on the road and Liz received a phone call from Patricia. She was going to be another 20 minutes. Liz and I were getting hungry so we took a wander to the big supermarket and bought some nuts and some coke for Grace and Mary. The queue was so long that as soon as we arrived back, Patricia arrived. The exhibition was in a gallery in a student village which didn’t look to nice. All concrete blocks and tarmac. The exhibition itself was quite interesting, and we spotted some work we had seen in the crits such as Sophies work (pictured). However it was very small, and the students are not very friendly towards us. Only 2 people said hi, so we took and beer each (as they were free) and decided to walk back to Rouen. There was one bit ont he walk where we were on top of a hill and all of Rouen was down below us - it was very beautiful. About 3/4 of the way home, a car pulled up along side us and it was Patricia. She had been worrried about us, and had come to find us (oops) and said it was too far to walk. Thats another difference, the french don’t like walking. Like, Rouen has a metro system with several stops, but it isn’t very far to walk anywhere. Maybe if you’re going from the very north side to the very south side but 5 minutes down the road - no. They find it strange that we walk the distances we do. We would have been quite happy to keep walking but were also happy to receive a lift to. It had started raining. Back in Rouen we met up with Mika (by now it was about 8.30pm) and he took us to a brand new bar, which was all white with purple beams, had a toilet light which stayed on for about 20 seconds, and it was only a minute from my flat. Also there was Charlie, the other friend, and a girl who’s name I also can’t remember - I am very bad a names! After a glass of wine we went to a restaurant in the Vieux Marche, which was very french with lots of fondue. Me and liz had salads thinking it wouldn’t be too heavy - ha, it was like a mountain and full of bread, cheese, meat. Neither of us could finish. Mary had a vegetarian dish which was potato, cheese and veg, and looked a bit like lasagne when first bought out. Grace had a salad of potatoes, sweetcorn and salad and topped it off with some of Mika and Charlies fondue, which had apples and cider in it. After dinner, where we were given some wine by the neighbouring table because we were ‘enggglllishh, girls’ we all went back to Grace’s flat. By now iti was pouring and literally the streets were awash with water. Mika had his car, so we all squashed in (by now we had said bye to the too nameless ones). All 4 of us girls in the back. Luckily, it was a very short ride. At Graces we had another guitar session, drank tea and Mika also bought along his ukulele, which was different. Finally went home at about 2.30am, very tired.

Tuesday 1st April

Rain, rain go away, come again another day! Went into art school and spent an hour doodling ideas and talking to Mary before deciding to go and do some shopping and get lunch. Passed a group of very posh english kids saying things like, ‘Oh dear, the water is soaking into my trousers’ and, ‘Look, my mood ring matches the colour of my nails.’ After lunch I got a text from Liz saying that Patricia had left a book and a video for me in the studio, so I went back to the studio to collect them. Bumped into Liz while I was there and we went to meet Mary and Grace at Café Cheri. By now it was really sunny and it had become a beautiful day. Back at the flat at about 7pm, I got a call from Mary saying she was at the dvd shop but can’t find anything she wanted to buy so could she come and borrow one from me. 10 minutes later she arrived, and the stupid buzzer wasn’t working. Luckily someone else let her in. She said she had just been on a two hour walk across the bridge, and needed a drink! I actually can’t remember what happened after she left. Probably watched a dvd. Oh yes, I know, I watched Elizabethtown. And then went to bed early with a headache.

Monday 31st March

Ha, didn’t realised the clocks had gone forward till this afternoon. Grace rang to ask if I wanted to come over for wine and cheese and a film and luckily she said in an hour. If she had said a time I would have turned up very late. After we had eaten nearly all the cheese (I bought some Port Salut), bread and grapes, I looked at my watch and said, ‘wow its nearly 4 o’clock’. Turns out it was actually nearly 5. We then watched ‘The Wedding Crashers’ and drank more of the wine which, although we had eating lots of bread, seemed to go to our heads very quickly. I didn’t feel drunk, just very tired when we left Grace’s. The streets on Mondays at this time look really messy. It is rubbish day so all the shops, flats, every building puts their rubbish on the street. Piles of it, its like walking through a dump in some streets, especially if they are narrow. Back at home I washed up my breakfast stuff and managed to drop it on the floor - luckily nothing broke, and then tried to wake up my brain by doing sudoku. At 8.30 I received a text from Liz seeing if I wanted to join her and Mary at the irish pub for a drink, so at 9.30 I trundled down there. There was about 8 people including us in the pub and all three of us decided to drink soft drinks and not alcohol! Then just as I was telling them I might get Mum to bring a guitar to france so I could learn during all my free time, a man walked with a guitar - freaky, and started to play and sing while sitting at the bar, not facing the rest of the pub. A rather strange set-up but he was actually really good, playing Amy Winehouse, Oasis etc. We came up with the conclusion that he was shy. Then at 11pm we all decided we were tired and went home. Ugghhh, my building reeked of fish when I got home. Its really strange because you can always smell what the other flats are cooking. Sometimes it makes you want to go there for supper and other times, like tonight, it definitely does not. Luckily it hasn’t seeped into my room!

Sunday 30th March

I should probably just leave out sundays. Nothing interesting happens and everything in Rouen is closed. I didn’t get up till 11 this morning, thats how tired I was. I never sleep till 11. So did a bit of work this morning read the final chapter of the book and then decided to go for a little wander. Found a launderette near me and it was open - maybe thats what I should do on a sunday, the laundry! On the way back to the flat I stopped at the Tabac (the only shop thats open) to pick up another english newspaper. I also spotted an english OK magazine, so also bought that. I felt like reading a bit of celebrity trash. And that was basically my day. Back at the flat I read Ok, the newspaper, had tea and then did sudoku while watching ‘You’ve Got Mail’ in french. Oh, and all afternoon it was pouring down with rain again. Brilliant.

Saturday 29th March

Poor Liz, the guy in the flat above her plays the drums and she said he seemed to be getting back at her for the noise last night early this morning. We had met at the launderette for wash day. Luckily I asked Mary to bring a book for me to borrow. It takes nearly two hours to do the washing, so I had read more than half by the time we’d left. We then went to Café Chéri (the internet cafe - finally remembered the name!) for an email check. We are definitely well known now by the staff. We are regulars. I must go in one day for more than a drink - the croque monsieurs look really good. Maybe i’ll take mum and Grace next week. Anyway, back to the day. I had invited Mary and Liz round for supper and a film (Grace was meeting Christophs parents) so the next stop was Monoprix for a few ingredients. I decided to make courgette bake, so at home I got it all prepared and ready to cook. I even made little puds from some left over choc crunch, whipped cream and strawberries. At 6pm I received a text from liz saying that she couldn’t get hold of Mary and that maybe she was asleep, could we do it tommorrow. I said yep, that’d be fine, but something made me not have anything to eat, which was lucky. At 8pm Mary rang and said she just hadn’t been near her phone which is why she hadn’t answered and could they come at 9pm. Yep, that’d be fine. So for the next hour I pratically finished the book - ‘Never Let Me Go’ by Kazuo Ishiguro and jumped when Mary and Liz burst through the door. They had rang the bell and Morgane had let them in. So basically we had supper - I think Mary ate most of it (je blaguais!) and then we watched ‘Little Miss Sunshine’. My god I was tired by the end though, so after I said good bye I quickly washed up (Morgane wasn’t at home) and went straight to sleep.