Rachel being here means I actually have something to write about. The last time we were in the same room was in summer 2006, and all witnesses are still recovering. For you poor, deprived souls who have not met her, Rachel is a bubbly Boltonian with a gift for languages first discovered by my dad in St James's CofE Secondary School, when she was eleven. We met two years later, both of us part of the chorus in the school production of "Oliver!". I'm two years older than her, but given that my mental age tends to drag four years behind the physical one, this wasn't a barrier. She came to visit me a year after we moved to France (2003) and I have since had the immense honour of being her best friend. She's spending this year in the south-west of France, in the Pyrenees, where she's an English assistant in a high school and college. I find her very brave, given how mean I was to some of the English teachers I had in college...
Anyway, she's been here since last Monday. On Wednesday it was her 21st birthday, and I'm quite proud of how I organized it - her mum wanted it to be a surprise, and although it was all very last-minute, it was a success anyway. Here's how I did it:
8:00 - got up to bake cake. I'd thought of buying one - there's no lack of bakeries in the area - but she has simpler tastes than the locals would allow. French patisserie is nice at first, but very complex.
10:00 - Took cake out of oven and tried to decorate it. Note to self: do not put buttercream on a hot cake. It will melt.
10:30 - Ordered Nans to wake Rach up. I think he jumped on her. Finally managed to apply buttercream, then coconut, after cake went in the fridge for half an hour.
11:00 - Picked up my mum and little sister Alanna at the train station. My dad was working, so he couldn't come, and my other sister Alicia has too many friends of her own to bother with mine.
After that my notion of what time it was becomes blurry. I haven't worn a watch in years. We walked to the cable cars and tried to pay. They said they didn't take credit cards, only cash or cheques. We cursed and went off to find a cashpoint across the park, then came back, grumbling.
The cable cars were round things made of red-painted metal and very old, dirty plexiglass. Rachel tried to take a photo of the view from it, but it looks like Grenoble is covered in smog. Which it is, but you couldn't see it much that day. When we arrived at the top, to La Bastille, we wandered around a bit, being tourists.
Then we went to the restaurant. Since Nans was the only one who didn't enjoy the restaurant, I'll gloss over his experience - let's just say that he still believes they put grass on his pork ribs, and won't accept that chives are a herb. The rest of us liked it, because although the service was pretty crap, the food was good enough, and the view was amazing.
After more sight-seeing, taking of photos and exploration of the tiny, atrociously expensive gift shop, we took the cable cars back down. This turned out to be dangerous as the door wouldn't close properly and Nans had to pull it closed. I'm waiting for a tragic accident to appear in the local news.
We went home. We put the kettle on and watched Equilibrium. At around 4p.m., I got the cake out and lit 21 candles on it, and we sang happy birthday. I gave her her birthday present, and christmas presents from this christmas and last, which I'd never gotten round to sending. The cake was badly presented but nice and very, very filling. We still have several slices of it in the fridge.
Then Rachel and I decided to go back to my parents' house on the train with my mum and Alanna, because they'd forgotten to bring her present. I'll stop there because aside from lots of reminiscing and catching up, nothing much happened, because my parents live in the middle of nowhere. It's a nice place to go and get away from the city. We came back the next day.
Shopping yesterday and today - I didn't actually buy much, sight-seeing and browsing were the main activities. Yesterday all I bought was a spatula. That gives you an idea of my priorities right now.
Alas, Rachel will soon be going and as soon as she does, I'll be applying for a job in a shop somewhere, preferably working at the till - at least then I'll be sat down all day. In my spare time I'll be back to writing stories, but hopefully once we have some money our social lives will pick up... I haven't been a good friend recently!
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