Strikes, nuts and nutcakes

Three weeks, and we're on our second strike ("greve").  The first was at Lisa's school one Tuesday.  Some of the teachers took a strike day.  It took a good bit of the day for them to figure out, but then Lisa called  to say she'd be out at 2 (that's what cellphones are for, apparently, so she wouldn't have to waste the final 3 hours in school like she did the first 5 hours). But when I got the the school at 2 the guard wouldn't let the kids out because the guard has to check their agendas and they still had classes scheduled.  Hmm, did the school guard not hear about the strike?  So the directress came down and give permission  (possibly there were forms and signatures involved) for the kids to leave school "early."  All except Lisa. Apparently her 4 o'clock teacher was here, so she couldn't leave.  She had to stick around and even got the benefit of a 2 hour class. Poor Lisa. A strike and she still has to go to school for the whole day while her friends went home early.

We have been notified that this Thursday David's school canteen workers will have a "greve". In honor of that special occasion they will partly relax the "no bag lunches" policy.  I say "partly" because the kids won't eat a bag lunch at school, but will eat them on a "picnic" in the park. So a strike at David's school and he will still have to go, and eat outside in January, too.

Speaking of food, The local specialty here in the Grenoble are is nuts (noix), mostly walnuts. There is even a local appellation controlle (like they have for wine regions) for nuts. http://www.grenoble-tourism.com/372-aoc-certified-grenoble-walnuts.htm So they make a lot of things with nuts. We've had wonderful tarte aux noix (nut tarts), pain aux noix (nut bread), but the REALLY big specialty here is nutcakes.  I had one for dessert tonight.  Scrumdiddlyutios!!!   So I guess the moral of this post is: "When life gives you nuts, enjoy the nutcakes!"... especially over the wonderful 1 or 2 hour lunch break we take every day.