The lion's eyes

September 30th

Had a lovely day today, ignoring the issue of planning lessons for my first proper day of work tomorrow. Me and Rafaël got up early and walked up the hill behind the town to a tiny village called Occhiglioni. It means the lion's eyes, because of the view, but also inspired private 'eye of the tiger' motivational humming while tramping up the steep hill. We followed a track up through the maquis, rocky from the dry stone walls on either side which were gradually melting back into the ground. There are abandoned shepherds’ huts all along the way, and no sign of sheep except for a hoof in the middle of the path. The maquis smells incredible – it is all herbs, apart from the stunted holm oaks with their strange leaves like holly, and olive trees. No wonder Corsica was so poor for so long, when it seems so hard to make the land produce anything other than a nice bouquet garni.

Occhiglioni had a leather workshop and a beautiful view, but no café, so we walked along the road to Santa Reparata and had cold drinks on a terrace looking down to the sea. There was a big chestnut-coloured bird of prey wheeling on the thermals below us, and I tried vaguely to understand while Rafaël talked about how some languages are more suited to epic than others, and how he is composing his own epic fantasy novel about the magic of insects. Not fully understanding anyone lends everything a slightly surreal quality. I don’t feel like myself, communicating completely in a second language I barely speak with someone new – there are so many linguistic avenues blocked off, and all the verbal tics and subtleties you use in your first language are lost. We were feeling lazy, so hitched down the hill with a friendly Parisian couple, and then I happily reabsorbed all the calories burned on the walk with a coffee éclair.

The rest of the day wasn't quite so lovely, but I need various things to be fixed in my room, so I found the janitor and managed to understand his letchy comments about how he might walk in on me naked in the shower by accident, and had a stab at French 'banter' while refraining from actual physical violence. So that was linguistic progress, if not feminist.