We spent 1 week with Clarissa. It was fantastic! I am the one who is learning French, Phil was keeping me company. Our day started with Clarissa arriving early in the morning with fresh croissants and a baguette. We had our petit dejeuner together, I and Clarissa speaking French along the way.  After breakfast we had three hours of tutoring, then lunch together, then Clarissa would take us around, to show us the local attractions. The most precious moments for us was the time spent with Clarissa and her family – we really appreciate the two evenings spent at Clarissa’s and consider it a great privilege to have been able to participate in the French way of sharing the meal with friends and family, which I was always very curious and keen to experience. We felt welcome from the very first moment.  We really appreciated this time, so unique and otherwise impossible to know and savour. I am forever grateful to all present there who patiently listened to my broken and very imperfect French… Because my French is far from fluent, it takes me forever to produce a sentence and then it is far from perfect. Thanks to Clarissa’s efforts I like to think that my French has improved…I was not game enough to ask…

The accommodation was very special as well – it was an old governor’s quarters, now adapted as a hotel. There was a piscine but it was a bit too fresh for us to enjoy it. The Island is tiny but very beautiful. It has its “je ne sais quoi…” that makes it alluring and gives it some special ambiance. The sea comes and goes, the little restaurants and  cafes abound around the port,  little boutique shops, chocolateries with the chocolates that melt in your mouth, bicycles everywhere, mostly French tourists at that time of the year. There is a fort and a lot of history everywhere. 

The time spent there was a real “immersion” experience for us, an immersion in French culture, ways of life and sharing good times. I am forever thankful to Clarissa for allowing us to have this experience, her generosity in sharing the knowledge of French, her time, the family and the way of life with us. It was a very special and memorable time for us and it has been well imprinted in our memory.  

I will remember this week forever and I miss it very much. I am hoping that maybe one day we will make it back there!!!