Nine months on the Loue. 5. March 1963.

 

Champagne-sur-Loue, Sunday, 3 [March] 1963.

Yesterday we had rabbit for dinner and Françoise gave me the heads, hearts, livers, lungs and kidneys to dissect. I felt a little queasy but kept telling myself that a practical lesson in biology was worth all the theory in the world. I had three hearts, livers, heads, and pairs of lungs plus six kidneys and lots of extra bits and pieces like urethras, tracheas, oesophagus', and such like. I cut up a couple of hearts and kidneys and was able to recognise the various parts. Then I examined the teeth, throat and nasal organs of the poor deceased bunnies. We then broke open a head and found the brain but it was partly damaged and the Medula Oblongata was missing. It was the first time I've ever actually seen a brain and I was pleased that I was able to recognise all the parts but very annoyed when the convent dog, Gitan, came in and ate it up before I'd finished my investigations! I discovered that if I put the trachea or breathing tube into my mouth and blew down it the air filled the lungs on the other end and they inflated to an enormous size changing colour from red to almost white. Françoise found this delightful and kept blowing them up but after a couple of goes I felt too sick to continue. 

Françoise then cooked the remaining heads and fed them to Gitan who left a jawbone so I was able to rescue that for analysis. The limbs and bodies we all then ate for dinner! I was later informed that they were some of the rabbits from the cages outside I've been helping to feed for weeks! They'd multiplied considerably so it was decided to eat some of them! They also told me how they killed them but it would only make you feel more queasy than you already do to describe it. Everyone here simply laughed at my revulsion, for being brought up to country ways they simply accept it as normal. However, I was the only one who knew the Latin names of all the bits they were eating! I learned more biology yesterday than I ever have and it's the first, and I hope the last, time I've ever had such a practical lesson in the subject.

This afternoon I visited my friend Danielle in Liesle. I spent the afternoon with her at her aunt's house together with her cousin Claude. Today he was hardly recognisable to last time being all dressed up in a check suit of grey and blue with a jazzy blue tie to match, winkle-picker shoes and freshly combed hair. The contrast astounded me. He was also a great deal more talkative than at our last meeting.

While I was there we were privileged to see a funeral procession passing through the village. It was that of an old woman and, typically French, the coffin was drawn by a horse and cart, with a long stream of mourners walking behind and preceded by the priest and choirboys dressed in black. All around were the village children and an assortment of dogs of varying sizes, shapes and colours.

I've mentioned to Françoise to lay in large quantities of solid fuel for the comfort of Julie's feet when she arrives. She then taught me a jolly French song entitled "Les pieds de ma sœur". Briefly it's about this poor lass who looked like a sack of potatoes but was courted by a chap who was quite prepared to marry her provided he didn't have to marry the feet as well. As she was rather attached to them the union never actually took place.

When you next take "poor little Julie" to the doctor for a check-up would you please ask him if it's true that bile is made from broken down red blood cells? I'm sure I read somewhere that it is but I've been taught that it's not, so the doctor would be the most likely person to know for sure.

Fancy you reading Mill on the Floss already, Julie. I was fifteen before I read it. The trouble is there's so much misery in it but George Elliot is so down to earth you really feel you're living through it all. It's so close to nature. I'll never forget the last line, on the tomb, "Even in death they were not parted". Silas Marner, the only other book I've read by her, I didn't enjoy so much as I wasn't able to feel any real sympathy for the hero as I did for Maggie.

Monday.

The English speaking priest arrived here last night and with shrieks of excitement the nuns asked me if I'd like to go to confession in English. So that's what I felt I had to do!

I pictured you all last night. Henri playing his guitar locked in the bathroom, Julie reading by the fire and Mum sitting chewing her pen in front of a big pile of dictionaries wondering how to spell "Gil" or "Gyl" or was it possibly "Jill"?

I've neglected to mention my latest Nero type action. I gave the whole school an English exam on Friday that lasted for an hour. I made them translate some French phrases into English and vice versa and write out a dozen verbs. I had a lovely peaceful lesson but then had to work like mad to get everything corrected for them to take home to show their parents at the weekend.

Champagne-sur-Loue, Monday, 4 March 1963.

I'm taking the evening study. My days seem to be very busy just at the moment. I've just finished correcting a huge pile of work the girls did for English and I've got to write an essay in French by Wednesday on banning the Bomb. Actually it's supposed to be on one’s spare-time hobby but as I spend most of my spare time banning the above mentioned bomb that's what I'll be writing about. I've also piles of letters to write, two French plays to read through, the English lessons to prepare, my biology to work on, Jane Eyre to be criticised in French, not to mention such mundane activities as washing, dressmaking and cleaning my room.

Danielle has told me her parents will be away on holiday during our stay at her home in Besançon so we'll be alone there. I think I might ask her whether it would be possible for Julie to join us there for a few days when she arrives. Besançon itself is an ancient and picturesque city built in a great loop of the river Doubs. There is fortified citadel, built by Vauban, very high up on a hilltop in the centre of the city. It's possible to walk around the walls and look down the almost vertical sides onto the city and the great sweep of the river far below. Danielle tells me her house is right by the river and very pretty. She says we'll actually be able to see down onto it from the Citadel.

Everyone is already beginning to get excited about Julie's arrival. Françoise had invited us to spend a weekend at Les Fourgs and Sœur Martine has promised to take us into Switzerland. As for me, we'll be able to go for picnics with the bikes, visit Marie-Thérèse in Arbois and generally see the countryside. I'll be able to loosen my tongue again and have a good old English gossip. Perhaps we could also try fishing on the Loue as it's open to the public now and I've found some old rods and lines in the convent though I've no idea how they work. As you see, there'll be lots for us to do and already the days here seem to be as warm as June in England and I'm fast developing a sun tan!

Tuesday, 5 March 1963.

I've asked Danielle and she's genuinely delighted at the idea of Julie staying with us at her home. She's not yet met Julie of course! She says she'll be terribly welcome and hopes she can come. She's even gone and learned to say "shut the door please darling" because she thinks it will be a useful phrase. Julie will have to be prepared for a lot of unusual remarks!

I've spent the afternoon on the Clos with bare feet and legs and a summer blouse in blazing sunshine. I was there for a couple of hours and when I came back everyone was commenting on how brown I was getting. My face is quite burning! I look as if I've been on a summer holiday already though there's still lots of snow about in the shadow of the hills and under the trees. They've been teasing me, saying that if I go on at this rate within a week I'll look as if I come from the West Indies!

There's an epidemic of German measles running through the school and the girls are being sent home daily. Last night I woke up with a terrible sore throat and a temperature. This morning I was as flushed as a lavatory chain and couldn't even talk until I'd had a warm drink. I've felt a lot better throughout the day but it's getting bad again now and I'm shivery. As I've been administering to the sick for the last couple of weeks and one by one they've all been sent home I suppose I can now anticipate several spotty days in bed. [...] If you don't hear from me for a few days you can picture me lying on my sick bed being spoon-fed with school soup by a spotty-faced kid that jabbers to me in French while the nuns say the rosary for me in the chapel!

Wednesday, 6 March 1963.

Well I'm still more or less, (and the balance sways decidedly to the less) on my feet, though I went on strike this morning and refused to get up to take the morning study because I had a temperature. (It was only 98.4 but that's still a temperature, isn't it? I therefore told everyone I had a temperature!) I couldn't swallow, the skin had all peeled off my face and it was covered in sores. My throat felt enormous. However, as nobody was interested in my being ill and told me that if I'd got German measles they would take me to a room in the Convent so as not to spread it to the remaining girls, and as the sun was shining and I didn't have the radio, I decided to get better. I got up and had a hot bath and landed downstairs in time to be told I'd better go and take a two hour study! Huh! At least I'll get some biology done but my throat really does hurt and I have to rub Nivea into my skin every few minutes. I can hardly speak and I've really got a temperature. Do you think I could be unwell? Not to worry. Hopefully I'll be better in time to give them all an English test tomorrow!

Yesterday the butcher arrived with several strings of his huge prize sausages. I hung a couple on each ear and a string round my middle. A big string dangled round my neck and a smaller one balanced like a halo on my head. I then did a hula dance around the kitchen. The butcher, who'd gone out to his van for another tray of meat, was not amused by the entertainment on his return! I've been smelling fragrantly of salami sausage ever since.

Later.

I'm now sunbathing on the Clos and have just received a surprise visit from Sœur Jeanne-Catherine who's scared that I've got German measles. She's examined my throat, amidst a lot of laughter, and assures me it's six times redder than it ought to be. She's made me promise to take my temperature when I go back to the school and, if it's up, I've got to spend a couple of days in the Convent until they know whether I've caught the plague and whether or not to order the flowers. Huh, if they think I'm going to spend a couple of days locked up in the Convent with the sun shining out here they are quite mistaken! They'll tell me I need to be kept warm and they'll tuck me up in bed with a hot water bottle, all the windows tight shut and the central heating (one candle) full on! I know this for a fact because there's already been one girl in there since yesterday waiting for her dad to come and collect her. Anyway, I'm not doing that! Gosh! I'd actually be doing something my old headmistress, Mother Mary Cuthbert, would approve of, i.e. entering a convent! If I have got German measles I'm coming out here everyday where the sunshine can do me nothing but good and is far healthier than their smoky old central heating. Anyway, I think it's bronchitis because I've a cough as well now and I spent all last Saturday playing nursemaid to Evelyne, the girl I'm going to the dance with, and she's got bronchitis and kissed me goodbye about six times when she was sent home. I'm sure that's all it is. I'll sit in the huge fridge for a bit before I take my temperature though, just to make sure. If I'm gravely ill Françoise will forward this letter for me and you'll know that flowers should be dispatched forthwith and that my final days were spent in solitary confinement in a convent with prayers being offered up daily for my recovery!

Later.

I didn't need to go into the Convent but they were very puzzled, as no matter how hard they tried, they couldn't get my temperature above 36 degrees and the normal is 37. Don't tell them about the fridge will you? I actually feel a lot better but I've been told to take life easy and given some nasty medicine to gargle.

Thursday.

Nearly all the spots on my face yesterday have gone and my throat's no longer total agony. I'm feeling almost normal again though I'm sure to have more spots tomorrow because of the sun. I said in the first place that I'd got bronchitis and the spots were due to the sun but they insisted it must be German measles. Today I've still got a horrid cough and a bad throat but otherwise I'm heaps better. I've told the nuns that I'm completely recovered because, unable to get me into their clutches in Holy Sanctuary, they decided to give me something to cure my flu. I've never seen such things before. They only expected me to put a stopper in myself as if I was a bottle! That is, push a capsule up my ---! I told them that in England we always took oral cures and I'd prefer to stay faithful to English traditions thank you. So they found me a tablet, literally the size of a bath-plug, and made me swallow it! It nearly choked me but I did it, only to be made to gargle some foul medicine, drink neat lemon juice and chew the peel! They thought it very funny that I should object to these "Sputniks" as they called them, and said if I wasn't completely recovered today I'd have to take them. I said I thought France was daft and that I wasn't happy. Do you know that in France they always take the temperature in the rectum! It's all so strange and horrid when you're ill and away from home.

Champagne-sur-Loue, Monday, 11 March 1963.

Thanks so much for sending the scarf. Françoise presumed I'd forgotten her fête and when she went up to her room at midday she discovered the scarf on her bed. She was so delighted and kept hugging and kissing me for it and has asked me to thank you very much for her. What a lovely present, you found with all of London on it. Where did you get it Mum? Surely you didn't go round London's West End on your own! It's hardly the right place for a helpless little round pig to go trotting off to all alone without a curl in her tail!

Did you listen to Acker Bilk this week? I can't listen here because the girls all go to bed at 10:15pm and the nuns don't like me to stay up too late after everyone else is in bed. If I listen, I won't get to bed until nearly midnight and as, for some reason, I seem to be in one nun’s bad books at the moment I'd better humour her. Honestly, she comes and asks me to take studies and lessons for her in my spare time and has even got me taking two studies at the same time now! Yet if I'm five minutes late arriving she never says a word, just looks at me so that I feel so guilty I want to fall through the floor! I don't like her very much because I find her rather strange and she makes me feel awkward. The strange thing is I think I make her feel equally uncomfortable! However, she does occasionally lose her nervousness, which I'm sure is all it is, and becomes almost sociable.

The girls have been chanting a song at me all morning:

Sur les bords de la Tamise,

Un beau soir d'été,

Un Anglais, en bras d'chemise

S'amusait à répéter :

Bi-di-bi-di-bi, bi-di-bi-di-bi, oh la la

Bi-di-bi-di-bi, bi-di-bi-di-bi, oh la la

Bi-di-bi-di-bi, bi-di-bi-di-bi, oh la la

Bi-di-bi-di-bi, bi-di-bi-di-bi, oh la la

Barbapoux !

Literally translated this means that one summer's evening an Englishman stood in his shirtsleeves on the banks of the Thames singing a rather silly song. The girls changed the words though, to mean that their mad English teacher stood making an exhibition of herself by the riverside. They say that for the rest of my life I'll never be able to look at the Thames without thinking of them and laughing!

That horrid girl who's forever asking me silly questions has just come in, seen me wielding my pen and asked if I'm writing! Then looking around and seeing the room empty, apart from me, she asked if Françoise was here. I felt like telling her I was digging a hole in the floorboards and that Françoise was hiding behind my shovel but I didn't have enough vocabulary! She's now picked up my New musical express, seen the English text, and asked if it's a French newspaper! Why does she always ask such silly things?

The French poste are making complaints. They say I have too many letters. The facteur now brings mine in a separate pile and says that these are for the school and these for Mademoiselle, (he now calls me Miss.) He keeps commenting on the number I receive. Sometimes he presents them to me personally and seems to think it all rather funny. The nun I'm forever inadvertently annoying however is dead jealous because I get more letters than she does. She keeps coming in with another letter she's found for me and saying "Miss Jill", then she sighs, "here's another letter for you. However many people do you write to?" When I say forty she gulps and beats a retreat. At the moment I'm fuming because she's asked me to take another two hours study for her on the afternoon of 23rd. Naturally I said yes, but that's my own time and I wanted to hear the Boat Race. In addition, it's the day I'm supposed to be going to stay with Evelyne and I wanted the time to get ready.

I've told you that I'm going to a dance from 9:00pm until 3:00am, haven't I? I'm not too keen on the 3:00am bit but tant pis. Her brother has told Evelyne he intends showing the young English Mademoiselle what French courtesy is like. Evelyne has imitated my impressions of how English boys invite one to jive and apparently he doesn't think much of their manners and says he intends kissing my feet before inviting me to dance, so I'd better wash them before I go hadn't I?

Tuesday, 12 March 1963.

I received no personal letters today but my fame must be spreading as there was a journal addressed to "Monsieur le Professeur d'Anglais." As it was written in French and concerned American politics I didn't understand much and I've no idea how it came to reach me.

The girls in the second year have got an exam about "Le Ménage" (domestic science) soon and the other day a representative from Singer Sewing Machines came to give them a lecture on the workings of electric machines. I went to the talk and found it very interesting although couldn't understand everything. There were several demonstrations that had me open-mouthed with wonder. A hole was cut in a sheet and darned up on the machine. Honestly, it was almost impossible to see where the hole had been and it took exactly three minutes! It's marvellous too for embroidery and for seams but I found it too fast for me trying to fit a zip. Once you understand them they're basically quite simple and you can do anything with them.

Later.

It's now 3:30pm and I'm sitting in the kitchen with a bowl of British char to hand despite raised eyebrows and murmurings of "La folle Anglaise" In a box in the corner are two week-old chicks who are ill. One's recovered a lot since this morning but the other is in a very sorry state. He's lying on his side with his toes turned up, cheeping pathetically. I'm sure he can't live more than an hour or so. Whenever the cheeping stops I think he's died. Someone's just come in and said that there's nothing to be done and he'll be gone any minute. He does look such a poor pathetic little thing.

I've just been reading an article on what the French think of the English. According to my understanding of this article, it isn't much! They feel that although we've been allies for a long time, relations have often been strained because of contrast. For example, in France they have decimal coinage and different weights and measures; thermometers are different; they drive on the right; the week starts on a Monday whereas our begins with Sunday; the Church is Roman rather than Anglican, and of course, France is in the Common Market. The article says that Britain has one of the world's largest out-puts of commodities but imports more agricultural and dairy produce than any other European country. Our country is surrounded by water and is only half the size of France yet our capital has twice as many people in as Paris. We have a Queen while France has a "Representative of the Republic." It went on to mock at our childishness in refusing to allow Princess Margaret to visit Paris following the Common Market negotiations, and although generally the article annoyed me, being British, I couldn't help but agree with many of the comments. It's a lamentable fact that Britain, who at one time used to be admired throughout the World, should allow herself to sink to such a state of degradation as to be a source of mockery for other countries. Instead of struggling along to keep up with the armaments race to see who can be the first to blow-up mankind, Britain should become a leader for world peace and be amongst the first to ban the bomb! Switzerland, although not a world leader, is neutral and there's no aggression within the country. I am only surprised that she lets negotiations between belligerent countries take place at Geneva, but I suppose she's hoping to establish peace and arguing against such meetings might indirectly be a step towards war. This is only my own personal opinion but I hold firm to it.

Ugh, my tea's gone cold! That's the worst of banning bombs when you're feeling thirsty. That chick's just died and to my amazement a nun has just come in and put the other one in the oven! She says it's warmer for it in there. I should jolly well think so!

The French swear by Sellotape I know, but I don't think it will help them with the latest problem in the village. We've been having a terrific amount of rain lately and the houses here are all very old and rather dilapidated. Last night the rain was so heavy it actually caused one of the houses to collapse! I mean really tumble down! There's a pile of debris this morning and a space where the house stood last night! Fortunately it was only used for the storage of hay, farm equipment and animals so nobody was hurt, though I believe there are a few chickens somewhere beneath the rubble. […]

I've just returned from looking at the school's eighty baby chicks, at present living beneath a sun-ray lamp in the garage. They were really sweet and fluffy but very noisy. I held several of them, helping to weigh them, but returned them quickly to the warmth of the lamp.

I must away to another study period now, where I intend working on my biology. "What are the chief functions of the blood?"

Thursday, 14 March 1963.

Since I last mentioned them, I've acquired many more cheese labels and you'll soon have enough to decorate the whole house! You'll be the only family in England with not only a cheese bathroom but a cheese coal-shed as well the rate I'm collecting them! Apart from the large ones I've got several hundred from small individual cheeses as well. I had them all out on the table yesterday when Sœur Martine came in and started to play with them.

She was just off oyster hunting and asked if I'd care to go with her. She'd chosen the right weather too, it was bucketing down. We got out the Deux Chevaux and had some terrific fun on the drive to Salins. The road runs parallel to the river Loue and because of the heavy rains and the thawing snow higher up in the mountains the river had risen and flooded the road so that we were several inches deep in water the whole time. It made lovely glugging noises round the wheels and poor Sœur Martine's rosary stood on end with fear. Every now and then we'd go down with a jolt into a rut in the road and the water would bounce up all over the roof of the car and pour down over the sides, giving the impression that we were actually under water. I kept expecting a goggle-eyed golden cutlet to peer through the window at us. Sœur Martine had said we were going to get some oysters but I'd not realised we were to get them this way! I was a little reassured by her insistence that we were actually intending to go oyster hunting and not oyster fishing. There is a difference, you realise.

Arriving at Salins, we made a grand tour of the supermarkets and stores of the town. Sœur Martine made me feel a right nit with all the things she kept buying and making me carry for her. She even insisted that I carry her locked money box which she opened reverently with a little key every time she bought anything, solemnly returning it to my charge before leaving the shop. I felt like a blooming St Bernard dog trotting along in her wake! However, search as we may, oysters were not to be obtained. She trotted into every shop in the town. She would stand on tip-toe to peer over the counter at some huge, burly fellow and say "please Monsieur, have you got any oysters?" [... but without success].

And so we arrived back at Champagne, cold, weary, wet, hungry and - oysterless. My last sight of Sœur Martine was of her weeping about it in a corner. I said it wouldn't hurt her to go without oysters for once and after all there were plenty of other things to eat. Do you know what her reply was? "Oh, I didn't want to eat them, I just thought they'd be fun to put in my projector and make fifteen times bigger on the wall. I've never seen a really big oyster!" Now I know why she couldn't find any oysters. They'd all gone into hiding. That projector of hers makes a terrific noise when it's running and it is said that "any noise annoys an oyster but a noisy noise annoys an oyster most." […]

Friday, 15 March 1963.

Thank you for your latest letter with all the plans for Julie's visit. It's only a fortnight now. Mum, I do wish you wouldn't keep nagging me when you write. I wait all week for the pleasure of hearing about your escapades at home only to be confronted by reprimands for all the sins I commit. […] Heck, it's as bad as being back at home! I'll soon be scared to open the envelopes for fear of what I'm going to be nagged for next! I'm only joking and no doubt you do think I'm a complete imbecile from the tone of my letters and I suppose you'd be a very unusual Mum if you didn't moan at me when you got the chance. Either that or I'd be the world's most perfect daughter. I always open your letters with feverish haste and immediately start laughing or swearing, and it does so infuriate me if someone comes in and asks me if it's a letter I'm reading and will I tell them what it says. I always feel like saying it's a telephone directory. I don't know why but it seems to be a new craze for people here to make daft remarks. Today I've been told fifteen times that I've got spots on my face. I'm beginning to believe them and by only the tenth time of telling I felt like screaming at them all! I think I'm a bit run-down. I still haven't completely recovered from when I had the bronchitis and I've a tummy-ache hanging around, waiting no doubt for the evening of Evelyne's dance. I did feel quite sick this afternoon and I'm not much better now at 3:45pm. I've just made a cup of tea to keep me going and it's helped a bit. I drink it not only without milk but without sugar as well. I quite enjoy it now but it's an acquired taste.

Just in case you think I'm not working at my biology, a nun commented today that the last six times she's seen me I've had my nose in my text book and have been surrounded by diagrams. I've done so much that it's running out my ears and at least, if I fail, I can console myself that it's not through lack of working. I know more about circulation, respiration and ingestion in a mammal than a blooming doctor! I've been doing three hours a day for the last fourteen days and an hour a day before that. I've completely filled a book with notes and diagrams and I'll show it to Julie when she comes because I'm really proud of it. Honestly there are just not enough hours in the day, what with letter writing, French and Biology. I've got a two hour French exam tomorrow with the girls including a dictation. Oh help! Actually I asked if I could try it too and Sœur Jeanne-Catherine thought I'd be able to manage it okay. I have to give an English lesson tonight on verbs and personal pronouns.

Champagne-sur-Loue, Sunday, 17 March 1963.

I imagine that if the weather is anything like it is here you must have been like Moley and put down your whitewash brush, pushed up and up until you popped out into the sunshine and gone skipping off across the fields, forgetting your spring cleaning! That probably means you won't find time to write to me today.

I've just returned from taking the girls for a long walk and my face is really burning with the heat from the sun. The girls were all in holiday mood and sang French traditional songs the whole time, some of which I'd either learned at school or learned since being here. Then Françoise started them on their song about me on the banks of the Thames again. I found a picture of the Thames in a magazine here and of course there would have to be a picture of a man in his shirt sleeves in it. Françoise worships the picture.

My bedroom now resembles a conservatory because whenever I go out I collect difference species of plants I discover. It's not yet quite bad enough to necessitate my sleeping in the garden but soon will be. It can be very unnerving to roll over in bed and feel a piece of trailing ivy tickling your neck. Or else just as you go to wash you find the basin full of prickly spring flowers placed there because there was nowhere else for them. I'm using all the plants for biological experiments so you see I'm still hard at it! I really am! I drew three diagrams of hearts and made heaps of notes yesterday. I learned an awful lot of new material plus revising what I already know. It was strange, I started working and thought I'd been there about half-an-hour when Françoise came to winkle me out saying I'd been there for over two and a half hours! I'd just not noticed the time, I'd been so involved.

Sœur Martine received your letter yesterday, Henri, and was very pleased with it. She says it was well written. I said I expected you must have spent all day wading through a dictionary and she told me I was a wicked girl to suspect my dad of such underhand behaviour. I told her she didn't know my dad and that he could be extremely underhand at times. Knowing Sœur Martine, she won't bother to answer (she's as bad at letter writing as you) but she told me that she was going to write and tell you what a nasty wicked daughter you had, so be prepared, just in case. What did you say to her by the way? She didn't tell me, so I hope it wasn't too horrible.

All the nuns have gone out on a spree leaving Françoise and me in charge. The girls are having a rare old time. No study for them today! After their walk today Françoise showed them all a film while I wrote to you and this evening I'm playing them some pop records and they're going to play some games. Finally they'll all go to Chapel and then to bed for an early night, as I reckon some sleep would do them all good. The girls are all in agreement. You know it's nice without the nuns here. Françoise and I told them before they went what we'd be doing and they said it was okay so we're being a kind of Nero and Hitler team in a comedy act together.

It's getting awful, what should I do? There's a girl here who keeps coming and talking to me. She's forever holding my hand and kisses me goodnight about ten times each evening. She keeps trying to play me her discs of military music and when she's unwell wants me to sit and talk to her all day. She makes me sit next to her at dinner and asks me if I like her. She clings around me like a leech. Last night she told me she loves me and now is asking me to give her all sorts of things including money. I have an awful time trying not to say anything to offend her and at the same time keep my temper. It's terribly embarrassing for me but I don't have the heart to be rude to her as she's so stupid she doesn't realise how very much it annoys me and she thinks I like her. I keep out of her way as much as possible but it's getting really bad now. I keep saying to myself how lucky I am to be me and, but for the will of God, I could be like her or some of the other girls here, which would be almost worse than physical maladies or deformities. It is truly terrible. I have to feign non-comprehension or when that's impossible, make an excuse or lie to get out of the situation.

Monday, 18 March 1963.

I didn't get up to take the morning study today as I had a touch of migraine. It may have been the sun yesterday but I went to bed with a headache last night, couldn't sleep much and my head was still throbbing and my eyes hurt this morning. I got up at eight to take a bath only to find they'd cut the water off again. It seems to be a regular game here.

My headache improved and I spent a couple of hours doing biology and then went to the French lesson. My head began to hurt again and by lunchtime it was terrible. The nun who keeps giving me extra tasks to do for her saw me resting my head on my arm, muttering foul curses and she turned human enough to give me a tablet and pop back later to see how I was and to kiss me better. (I think I prefer her when she's asking me to take extra study periods for her though I realise she does genuinely mean to be sweet.) I feel a bit better now but the air seems very close and thundery. However I have to take the girls for their walk shortly, so perhaps the fresh air will help. I then have to take them for a study period and work on my biology. Within the last fortnight I've completely filled a large note book with diagrams and learned it all. I'm really pleased to find how very hard I've suddenly started working but I do hope the exam questions are on the areas I'm covering.

Danielle has told me that some unforeseen circumstance has arisen and her family will have to stay in Besançon over Easter so unfortunately there won't be room for Julie to stay there. (I've told them about her feet you see!) Anyway it won't really affect Julie very much as we'll simply stay at Champagne instead.

I've just come back from this afternoon's walk. As we set off I was fortunate enough to forget my scarf and returned to the school for it. When I rejoined the girls they told me delightedly that during my brief absence they'd had the pleasure of witnessing a farmer kill his pig by stabbing it in the neck with a knife! (It's horrible what goes on in the country that town people never think about.) Later on our walk we saw Mme Servant's husband weighing his cows on the village weighing machine. I'd spent ages playing on that as it rocks about when you get on but I'd not realised it was to weigh cattle. It was quite interesting to watch though, until I realised that all those over a certain weight were going to be killed for meat. Then I felt very sorry for the poor unsuspecting cattle and wasn't interested any more.

I do wish this storm would break. My head's driving me mad, but it will probably go on hanging around for days like this, it often does here.

Tuesday, 19 March 1963.

Guess which idiot is now sitting up in bed in the Convent covered in spots? As you know, the German measles scare over me died down when it was realised that I just had a touch of the sudden sun and a cold. However my splitting headache yesterday was due not as I thought to the weather, but to the onset of German measles. My eyes kept pouring water all night and this morning when I woke up I thought my head would fall in half any second. My throat was hurting and I couldn't speak. One glance at my scarlet face in the mirror and I'd have been speechless if I'd not been so already. When I looked, my entire body was scarlet and covered in minute spots. Isn't it typical! There I was looking forward to going to Evelyne's and that dance and instead I'm stuck here in bed for ten days with German measles. Still it's a nice holiday if only the nuns didn't make me have the windows tight shut, a hot water bottle, an oil fire and a bowl fire. I'm sitting in bed with my red dressing-gown on with my face to match and feeling like a furnace. I've been being teased by Sœur Martine who says at last I've entered a convent and she's going to find a veil for me. The nuns all call me " Sœur Jill" and I'm really not happy! 

They brought me breakfast in bed with a cup of tea as a treat as they know I drink it, but they put four sugar cubes in it and I'm now used to drinking tea without sugar! Ugh, it was foul! They keep making me take my temperature (the French way) and giving me nasal drops and gargles. Honestly you'd think I had something seriously wrong with me! I wanted to sit up and get on with some biology but they insisted I go to bed to keep warm and that I wasn't to do any biology because I'd tire myself. They've now gone off to get the radio for me to listen to. Ha, they didn't realise that all my biology books were wrapped up inside my dressing gown when I came here so I'll have to go in a minute to finish a GCE. question on what happens from the moment a molecule of oxygen enters the nostrils to the moment it leaves as expired CO2. A very interesting subject, I assure you, and if the sisters think I'm hanging around for ten days without doing any biology and resting in bed then they can stop thinking! How can I tire myself doing a bit of bilge then? Sœur Martine's just come in and lent me a French book on the life of St Bernadette to read, but although I'll read it, I can't help thinking bilge would be less strenuous! I think I'll go to sleep now for a bit and make the most of this lie in bed. I do wish these spots didn't itch.

It's now just after 4:00pm, and I just had to write and tell you because I thought it was so amusing. I'd been dying to use the toilet since 1:00pm. but the nuns were having a sort of ecclesiastical booze-up downstairs. It's the fête of one of them and they were making the most of it. They forgot all about poor old me upstairs and all alone until one of them came in a minute ago to see if the water was working in my handbasin. (They've been cutting it off again.) I seized the opportunity to ask where the toilet was and the nun got into a real flap about me being stuck here all afternoon in need of relief while they did high kicks at their party downstairs. Instead of showing me where to go, she rushed off to tell the other nuns who all came to look at me, taking me no doubt for what I felt like, i.e. a human tank! Sœur Martine, who's already had la rougeole or German measles, charged up and embraced me saying how sorry she was and how unfortunate I was while the other nuns murmured sympathetic noises from a safe distance.

Eventually someone hit on an excellent idea which after a short meditation she imparted to the others. They all thought it a good idea too and proceeded to put the plan into action, that is, show me where the toilet was! So off we set, the nuns forming a column down the stairway to have a royal view of my scarlet visage as I swept past, toiletwards. Off I set, decked in full regalia (dressing-gown and bedroom slippers.) One nun preceded me to the "throne" while the rest formed fours and followed behind. On reaching the regal seat however it was found that a usurper had swiped the throne from beneath my eyebrows! Someone was stuck inside! The nuns did a quick count of each other but they were all there so who could it be? Then Sœur Martine remembered the person mending the pipes and with a cry of "It's a man and she's in her night clothes" the nuns all fluttered round me like doves round a honey pot (I like mixing metaphors and similes it makes more interesting reading) and rushed me back to my bedroom where we all remained in hushed silence while one of them kept watch from the top of the staircase and, when it was safe, signalled the all-clear with a whirl of her rosary.

To change the subject before I forget, Marie-Noëlle has phoned up from Lyon to invite me to take Julie down for a few days over the Easter holiday. Wasn't that nice of her? If you can rake up a little extra pocket money for Julie to bring we'll be able to afford to go. As you know, Marie-Noëlle speaks English perfectly so Julie will be able to talk to her. It will only be a short holiday though, from Monday to Friday, as Marie-Noëlle goes skiing with her husband Pierre each weekend in the Alps.

Sœur Martine's just popped in, taken one look at my spots, said "ugh!" and disappeared again!

Champagne-sur-Loue, Wednesday 20 March 1963.

This morning my spots have spread over every available centimetre of my anatomy and my temperature is really high. The nuns insist that I take their "sputniks" which are horrible and very mucky. I find the cure as disagreeable as the complaint and wish I had a poor enough conscience to put them down the toilet without qualms. I was made to sleep with four blankets, a hot water bottle, an oil fire and the window tight shut last night. I thought I'd suffocate any minute. Two more girls went down with la rougeole this morning and have been sent home.

Sœur Martine tells me the 7th April will be fine for Julie to come. She is writing to her friend in Paris to arrange for her to meet Julie and see her on the train to Dôle where we will meet her. Can you please send a photo of Julie as quickly as possible so that she will be recognised at the air terminal?

I hope it won't be too much travelling for Julie to arrive here on the Sunday and then set out for Lyon on the Monday. Unfortunately that's the last week before school begins again in France and as Marie-Noëlle is a teacher it will have to be that week. We could leave it until Tuesday but it would hardly be worth going then just until the Friday. At least it will be easy for Julie in Lyon as there is quite a circle of people there who speak English.

[Thursday 21 March 1963] .

I'm feeling a lot better today and my temperature is back to normal. My throat still hurts but my spots have faded. My face has been left very dry and peeling and I've been told I must stay in bed for another couple of days. Gosh, my bum's numb already! My glands have swollen terrifically and Sœur Martine has made me wear my school scarf in bed to keep my neck warm. I don't like it but it keeps her happy. I feel a right nit in your dressing gown and my Coloma scarf, Mum! Just to be ironic, in Diane's letter this morning she asked if I was still patriotically wearing my school scarf! That didn't delight me too much either! Sœur Martine actually covets it and I'd willingly give it to her if I didn't have too much consideration for the French public. I mean, there's just no knowing what mischief she might get up to with it is there?

By the way, thanks for the nagging about my rotten scruples. Actually I'd already decided not to ask Sœur Martine to let Diane come because, as you say, it would rather be imposing on her kindness, so you can stop worrying. There wasn't really any need for you to get into such a flap, I do use my own judgment. At the time I was wondering about her coming over I was feeling unwell, very homesick and in need of feeling closer to everyone at home. Actually, you can have little idea from my letters just how lonely I do sometimes feel here. As soon as I'd sent the letter broaching the idea, I felt happier again and realised I shouldn't have suggested it, so wrote again immediately to Diane to explain. There's only eighty nine more days left now, Julie will be coming on the seventh April and I should be up again by Saturday. Whoopee!

[Saturday 23 March 1963].

Just a list of odd thoughts:

1) I'm still in bed and it's 23rd March.

2) Acker Bilk's on Saturday Club this week.

3) Sœur Martine says if she hears me cough today I'll have to stay in bed one extra day for each cough.

4) The nuns have just lit a smoky wood-fire in my stove and closed the windows tightly so I can hardly see across the room.

5) Guess I'll stay in bed until I come home. (See 3 & 4.)

6) Got a letter from Derek this morning. He's off to Italy for ten days at Easter. Wait till I tell him Julie's flying to Paris and spending twenty-one days in South-East France!

7) Boat Race this afternoon.

8) I've not washed yet and it's eleven thirty!

9) Sœur Martine taught me card tricks for an hour last night and made me sleep with my scarf on.

10) She told me to tell you she's being very very strict with me. She is!!!

11) Got heaps more cheese labels.

12) The pulmonary artery from the right ventricle is the only one carrying deoxygenated blood. Red blood cells don't have a nucleus so only live for one hundred and twenty-five days.

13) I'm going to miss the dance and my trip to Besançon.

14) I hope you like the Mother's day card I've made for you, Mum? Sorry it's late but as usual there's another postal strike here and anyway I can't get it to the postman as I'm stuck in bed.

[Thoughts at 6 p.m.].

15) I'm listening to "Salut les Copains", where they play all the latest French hit discs. Somebody singing "Baby Face". Bits are in English but what an accent!

16) I've been sitting in bed all day singing French pop songs and the nuns keep coming to ask if I'm okay. I can now sing "Up on the Roof," "Bobbies Girl," "Good Luck Charm," "Sheila," "Walk right in," "Ya Ya Twist," "Let's Dance," "Some kind of fun," "If a man answers," "Things," "Hey Paula" and "Tell Him" in French.

17) You're going to have a lot to put up with in June.

18) Oxford won the boat race by five lengths. Hurrah!

19) Listened to the rugby league match between France and Wales. Wasn't interested in the match but liked the gesture of them playing both the National Anthem and the Marseillaise beforehand.

20) I've got to go to Mass in the Convent tomorrow and then stay in my room all day but don't have to stay in bed. Françoise and her sister Marie-Georges will come over for the afternoon as I'm no longer infectious.

21) I'm taking up gambling. I backed Irish Tourist for Sandown this afternoon and she came in first at twenty-five to two. I don't understand it but wish I'd put two on and maybe I'd have twenty-five by now.

22) I listened to "Brain of Britain" and got all the biology questions right! I know how Champagne is made bubbly and what leucocytes are. I'm very pleased with myself.

[Sunday 24 March, morning].

23) I was allowed up for Mass today in the Convent Chapel. There was just Sœur Martine and me because on Sundays the nuns go to Mass in the village church. Sœur Martine was ill half-way through and is now in bed with a bad liver.

24) Tomorrow I'm to be allowed back to the school again. Gosh, will I be grateful for a nice bath and a hairwash!

25) Have written to Marie-Nœlle to accept her invitation.