Dear diary

I'm on a mission to try and document as much Nogentaise life as possible before I leave. Somewhat difficult with a slight writer's block this morning.

So my weekend has been quite jam-packed. On Friday, I took myself off to the pool. After so long without dipping my toes into a pool I'd forgotten what it feels like to swim. Therapeutic would be a good word to use. That evening, after I had been tutoring, we trotted off to Vista Verde for another "interesting" soirée, full of the usual unlikely types that one often finds in said bar, including one Polish guy who liked boxing and insisted on thumping me on the arm every time he made a (seriously unfunny) joke, fab.

Yesterday was the journée gastronomique in Nogent, essentially a farmers market. I bought some of my most favourite cheese ever, Morbier. It has a soft, slightly elastic-y texture with a line of ash through the middle which gives it a wonderful smokey flavour. If ever you find this marvelous dairy product, do yourself a huge favour and buy some. It's magnificent.

In the evening, I whizzed off to the local Chinese restaurant with a group from "on va sortir", a website where people suggest events and you just tag along to whatever you like. There were 28 of us and whilst we had all pre-ordered from a set menu of about 4 dishes, the staff still insisted on bringing everyone's meals out one at a time. After waiting for two and a half hours and playing "50 things you can do with chopsticks", it's fair to say that by the time my meal arrived, I had become slightly delirious and lost the will to live. It's at occasions like that when you learn to appreciate the logic of England and find yourself questioning the sanity of the French. Afterwards, we popped back to Vista Verde for an evening of different sorts with some enjoyable company.

Onto today, I have resigned myself to doing nothing but catching up on Channel 4 programs, because nothing can beat the blissful feeling you get from resting your brain with such mind-numbing television.