Frolicking in France

So... the previous series of blogposts is like never to be finished. Pole. There are several reasons for this, but they're not entirely happy so I won't go on about them here. Melinda was also meant to write a bunch, but she never did, so lets shift the blame onto her, but she was being awesome and doing other things so never mind.

So whats happened between then and now?

Well I returned to France, but was extremely poor and could barely afford food, let alone French lessons, and then the French lessons I found were way too advanced, and, so, yes, my French is still only good enough to order beer and pizza.

Over the next few months I skipped between Grenoble and the UK, attempting to restore Pouncy Mc Fast (Large UK based cruiser bike) to its former travel evicerating glory. This was extremely frustrating,  and i'm pretty sure nearly cost me employment multiple times, but thanks to an understanding employer didn't (yey!).

I also met a really awesome girl called Ceallai, who was kind enough to teach me colourful French words and expounded on the joys of being able to swear across multiple languages. She was also all round a very nice person, and made the being stuck in Grenoble thing much more pleasant. Or would have if I hadn't of left about six weeks after meeting her to go back to the UK for what turned out to be two months, to finish off the bike.

Finally did the extremely long and arduous journey from UK to Italy pouncy style. Fixed a tractor, helped reroof a barn and did the extremely long and arduous journey back to the UK. In between the coming and the going there was much zooming along perilous mountain passes, which I have to say, pouncy handled like a veritable mountain goat, given its size and nature. Oh and for those would be continental travellers, those signs on the autoroute are not advertising Free WiFi. Fortunately the long tradition of the French thinking it too much hassle to chase up those english bastards who treat their roads like race tracks still applied, and as of two months later, am still ticketless (despite setting a pouncy speed record of 118 mph).

8 months summed up in four paragraphs, yep, thats about how exciting it was. I hated working in France*, or at least I hated working with that particular team in France. It was an entirely demotivating and depressing experience. The French can do some things well, programming and technology is not one of them (unless you happen to work at Free).

There was also the business with the alcoholic landlord calling the police on house mates, and everyone leaving at the same time to spite him *sigh*. Still owes me 500 euros (grumble). Could have really used an Ambikins** at that point, but she was living it up in the USVI (which incidentally will probably be the subject of the next blog post).

Upon return I started a 3 month contract at BSkyB, which should hopefully fund future travels. Signed up for a couple more Open University courses, and started a Swahili class.

More recently there was camping in the new forrest, where many poneys were petted, despite the signs warning against it.

* Or more commuting to France to work in a French office
** Still she gets my heartfelt thanks for leaving that box of chocolatey marshmellow things. Definitely helped push back the dark thoughts.