My French Life in Melbourne

It's Monday evening; the day after the weekend, another Monday.  C2 left at 6:00 this morning for Perth, J went to school and I worked at Child Wise; pretty sure Murphy spent the day sleeping, without the fleas finally.  It was a good weekend.  J's first week of Year 3 French was pretty intense and he was exhausted and spent much of it catching up on rest.

J and his bestie Jules

My route to work is through a part of South Melbourne called Albert Lake.  Albert Lake is also the Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix track and I get to drive on it to and from Child Wise.  The Grand Prix is in a few weeks so it's been great fun watching the set up during my commute....when I'm not stopping to let black swans cross the road, they have the right of way.

My route to work along Albert Lake...that's not actually me; can you tell?

One of the great joys of living in Melbourne is our continued close attachment to all things French.  I speak French much of the time at J's school, most Melbourne home decorating shops are obsessed with Paris, there are more French bistros than in Paris (a barely minor exaggeration), and we are blessed with a marvelous French creperie "Le Petit Français Crêperie" in Toorak Rd.  Our usual group of mixed Australian-French, all-French expats, Australians-who-speak-French, and the rest of us French-for-a Reasons, about 20 of us in all, went there for a meal on Friday night.  Several crepes completes, crepes aux sucres, good conversation laced liberally with French, lyrical French music, and one $73 parking ticket later, we headed home sated.

Saturday afternoon, J headed out for a sleepover birthday party.  C2 and I cracked open a bottle of champagne, and indulged in a prosciutto and melon apero, followed later by seared tuna with avocado and mango, and a showing of the Australian classic films "The Castle" and "Kenny".  We slept with one eye open all night waiting for the telephone call from our sleepover-phobic son begging to come home; but the little fella toughed it out.  I was proud.

My mum has booked her annual 3-month journey to visit with us.  We're very excited and very blessed.  J is counting the days.  When asked by his English teacher today to write his interests and hobbies , the first item on his list:  Grandma!  Too sweet.