Lascours Lockdown, Day 461

Friday, June 18th. 

After school drop off, I headed down to the beauty salon for a waxing appointment. The esthetician and I talked, among other things, about recent changes to pandemic restrictions. She said she had read that parents are still supposed to wear masks outside schools when dropping off and picking up their kids. Most in Lascours seem to have abandoned that as of yesterday. I've decided to continue myself, however, as I won't reach full virus protection levels until the very end of the school year.

Afterwards, I met up with Frédérique and Harikana for a walk. I showed them the new - to me - stretch of trail I learned about during the hike with Laureva's class. We made a loop from Fred's house that took us about forty minutes, shorter than the hour I had expected. I guess two fit adults and a dog walk faster than seventy-five kids and their half dozen adult chaperones. We had time for a quick cup of coffee on Fred's patio, then it was time to pick up the girls for lunch.

Sylvain volunteered to take the girls back to school after lunch. That allowed me to get back to my grading between lunch and yoga. Having to pick kids up for the two-hour lunch break really takes a chunk out of one's work day. After yoga, I finished grading my final dystopia literature paper and entered my grades. I had just enough time to make sure everything was set for my detective fiction resit exam and hang out a load of laundry before it was time to connect to Zoom and give instructions for the detective fiction exam which began at 4:30. Fifty-eight students were registered for the exam. However, only twenty-four papers were submitted. Yeah for less grading!

Sylvain picked the girls up from school as I had the exam. They changed into their swimsuits and headed out to the pool. After, they got dressed in their drama costumes and then asked to watch a Barbie movie in our bedroom. Meanwhile, I sat in front of the computer until 7 monitoring my exam.

At 8:30, we connected to Sophie's drama Zoom from two different computers - the girls downstairs in our bedroom, and Sylvain and I upstairs - for the end of the year performance. They kids did a dramatic reading of three scenes from Marcel Pagnol's Cigalon about a chef with a restaurant who no longer wants to cook for his patrons. This was Maeva's drama group, but even Laureva had a little part and she was more on top of her role than some of the older kids. Laureva played a boy, Chalumet, so she dressed in black, pulled her hair back under a cap and borrowed a pair of Sylvain's sunglasses to make herself look boyish: 

Maeva played Mme Toffi, a smart woman from the city who decides she wants to start up a competing restaurant in Cigalon's village. She wore a long white skirt, a mustard blouse and a black cloche hat with two feathers in the brim. As a result of all this, bedtime was pushed back an hour later than usual and there was no attempt made at sneaking off to the bathroom to read tonight.