Paperwork, first impressions and a cat called Captain Nemo.

Hell, the French love their paperwork. No sooner have I filled out one form, then I'm presented with another- usually in triplicate, with a demand to sign 'here, here and here'. I've now lost count of how many times my passport has been photocopied. I feel like I've maybe signed my soul away somewhere along the line. At the moment, I'm still to fill in forms to make sure I get paid properly by my schools and tittering away at the choice of 'concubinage' under 'family status'.


On another note, I arrived in Issoudun at 2am- having spent all day travelling from Orkney (I had a 6am start), meaning I didn't really get to see my surroundings. In fact, for the first day all I did was sleep, which led to the French couple (who I stayed with the first few nights) to call me "our little doormouse". For the first few days, they went to work, leaving me without a key and therefore no way to come and go as I pleased, which meant I was very late in exploring my surroundings and getting things like bank accounts sorted. However, I'm now moved into my flat, getting semi-organised, and I've been lucky enough to find 4 other language assistants- 2 Brits, one German and one Spaniard, in this small town, so I'm actually far from lonely here.

Oh, and I've made a friend who hangs around my flat- Captian Nemo, he talks NON-STOP! I swear even French cats sound nasally.

He's quite fond of chasing the squirrels- there's tonnes of red ones here, naturally they're a protected species but Nemo doesn't seem to realise that.