Well, gosh, thanks, everyone!
I've been off the forum for a few days because I'm in love.
As well as the most wonderful wife in the world, to whom I've been married for just under 27 years, I've just acquired a sort of 'lend-lease' teenage daughter, with whom I have also fallen in love (in a rather different way, of course).
She's 18, the daughter of a friend I've known for 35 years, and she's on her gap year (or two) between school and university. She's staying for 2-3 weeks and she's great fun; the enormous advantage, of course, is that we didn't have the trouble and expense of the previous 18 years (or the next 5).
She's about to embark on a Teaching English as a Second Language course, so if anyone knows of any interesting jobs for a qualified (but young) TESL/TEFL teacher and translator in a few months' tine, let me know. She's completely bilingual in French and English (born in the UK, lived in France since she was 9); speaks excellent German (she took her baccalaureate and Abitur simultaneously); and is competent in Russian. By the time she has completed her course she should be able to teach French as easily as English, and German very nearly as well as either.
We sit around talking late into the night, and I remember being 18 years old (which isn't always wonderful). She's exactly 40 years younger than I, born on my 40th birthday, which I spent a quarter-block from the corner of Haight and Ashbury.
So that's why I'd not responded to this wonderfully kind thread before: I'd not seen it.
A merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year to you all (and to all RFF members).
And, of course, Love, Light and Peace!
Cheers,
R (+F) (and probably Aditi, but she's gone to bed so I can't ask her)
PS: We'd love to meet any or all of you for a meal and/or a bottle of wine -- and if you're going to be anywhere near Poitiers, let us know. 'Us' is Frances and me, not Aditi as well unless she happens to be around.
