Too much to read

We have almost completely emptied the mediatheque now, and I had the misfortune of catching a glimpse of the outgoing piles of New Statesman, The Economist and New Scientist. And so now I have about two feet of reading material, the time for which I think I shall have to magic out of the aether.

I am, much like my mother, something of a hoarder. However, while she hoards things - plugs, cables, instruction manuals for equipment long since dismantled or disregarded - I hoard information. As a result, I have a room which could legitimately be the study of a professor of linguistics, statistics, or politics. It could even, at a pinch, serve as the flat of serial chef. (It should be noted that a cereal chef, although it sounds the same, is not. It's not even a real kind of chef.)

There is a chess set, in the middle of a game. A book of poems by an excellent poet of my acquaintance. A library covering titles from Why Does E=Mc2 to The Bartender's Bible (which is going to be an absolute nightmare to get home, I have not the first clue why I insisted on bringing it). A camera, a Kindle, five packs of cards and a shot glass complete the ensemble.

In any case, with the room nearly packed the question of where I shall be going has apparently only just reared its head, much to my consternation. It appears nobody knows where I am going, and I shall likely be shoved into a closet office in the back end of nowhere. However, a colleague has offered me space in her office and she's really nice - plus, it should lead to me speaking even more French than ever. Result.

My extra-curricular working week is now over, and I have to say it's cheering that even in the three weeks in which I've not seen C she's made a concerted effort to keep her English up to scratch. She'd written the story of The Three Musketeers in her own words and for the most part it was excellent; very few mistakes and lots of elaborate tense use. She still tends to use enormous sentences, a habit many French people form (and a habit which of which I am often guilty), so we worked on cutting them down and on coordinating conjunctions.

And now I'm home, and I've written, and I've realised I've nothing for breakfast. I work too hard. Anyone want to be my butler?

Oh, bonus question - which country literally means silver? No googling, and answers to @jonodrew