Breakfast in bed

I was woken up this morning by Thibault. Thibault had made me breakfast in bed with two slices of bread; one with nutella, one with honey, he then took pride in showing me the little mug that sat on the side of the tray...'Capri-sonne', he said. There was a little cocktail fan decoration stuck into one of the slices of bread and a 'joyeaux anniversaire' confetti piece in the other. Thibault is Nathalie's 5 year old son and he did this all by himself this morning for me, presented on a locally made Reunionnaise tray.

Think my day has just been made, and it has hardly even started!

Last night, we went to Saint Suzanne, to the north of the island to drop off one of Julie's (7 yr old daughter) friends who had been staying with us for a few days. Her mum works in a wine shop so 'apero' consisted of Bollinger which - we were all glad to read - was "by appointment of her majesty the queen"! She had made Confit de canard for dinner, washed down with another very nice bottle of Red. Not to mention the home made profiteroles for dessert...Her husband is a professional chef and 2 months ago they sold up their restaurant in the Pyrenees to live a life in the sun here.

Seem to have had a week of lovely food, as I was also invited to Marie-Francoise, my other 'responsable' for lunch on Thursday. Punch coco, Greek salad, Coq au vin and Poisson Carri (Reunionnaise fish curry) topped off with her English Husband's Trifle and cakes brought from a local patisserie made for a lovely lunch on the veranda.

Housing news...I have hopefully found somewhere to stay until the Christmas holidays. My routine every morning is to search 'leboncoin', ie. French Gumtree, and check out the most recent offers of rental properties. More people searching than houses available makes it a very competitive business, and apparently I haven't been quick enough off the mark up until now. However, after about 2 weeks of searching with nearly no results, yesterday 2 fell on my lap! One of Nathalie's friends is selling his house, apparently it takes 3 months between the signing of the contract and the actual move, so his house is lying empty just over the road from Nathalie's! He was more than happy for me to move in and occupy it, as long as I didn't mind prospective buyers having a look around every now and then! He then rang back and said that he knows of a primary school teacher who lives in a 3 bedroom house in Saint Joseph (where I'm teaching), who's on his own...so that's option two! Will arrange to go and have a nose around and then make a decision.

Sunday today, which means more big meals! We're going to Thierry's (Nathalie's husband) sister's house for lunch....

...you'll be glad to hear that nothing's changed with me and my eating habits.