News from the Front

So, routines are starting to appear and I like it. As Frog and I agreed this evening on our way back from Carrefour, newly acquired loyalty card in hand, routines are there so you can have the fun of breaking them. And we've needed a routine for a while.

I think this week is how things are supposed to be. I will have taken the train Tuesday & Thursday to Paris and worked from home Monday, Wednesday & Friday.

I'm surprising myself with how self disciplined I am working from home. Maybe it's because I simply have too much to do but I sit down and start about 9am (unless I'm checking out doubleglazing samples* like today) stop for lunch (an hour on a sunny café terrace for a soup with Frog if he's around or a bowl of home cooked pasta in front of the BBC news) and then back to the 'desk' until 5:30pm. Oh and a quick shoe shopping trip squeezed in the middle. Honestly, the shoe shopping took less time than the daily average that my French colleagues spend by the coffee machine.

On other news, Frog has finally proved to me that he had childhood friends. I have been teasing him about being a Billy No Mates since we haven't seen any old school friends in Reims. Then today he spotted two of 'em. Unfortunately, one was stood outside a church next to his mother greeting mourners to a funeral (we're guessing his father's since Frog decided this wasn't the time to renew acquaintance) and the other he bumped into a couple of hours later in the street outside said friend's family shop. Actually I saw neither of them so I'm still taking Frog's word for it that they exist.

However, Frog was a little shocked about how much weight one of his friend's had gained. "He's turned into a real fatty" as he eloquently put it. So, Frog is now checking himself in the mirror and wondering what his friends will think of him fourteen years on since the summer when as 18 year olds they shared their celebratory post-exams holiday in the sunny south.

* a frequent and unpopular discussion at the moment. The things I could tell you about the benefits of PVC...