But the truth is we don't have to live without it nowadays so Im going to be precious as you like about it.
I didn't speak to the bloke for a whole 2 days which was horrid, eugh I don't care how much this English phonecall costs I just want to hear your voice!!! (I'll spare you the rest of the soppiness).
Not being able to speak to my parents either (sorry guys you just went into second place but only technically speaking) it's been odd enough anyway, I mean by no means am I a mummy or daddy's girl, neither have they raised me to be! Maybe because of this I am naturally close to them. I mean they have never so much as trimmed my wings as actively built me new ones anytime they were broken. My brother and I joked after they finally turned the third bedroom into a games room that we had the only parents on the planet who made it so we COULDN'T move back home after we left ;)
Don't get me wrong we can always stay anytime we want with them for as long as we need, but they raised us and then let us go, so our choices from then on have been our own right or wrong. Always there to pick up the pieces but never to say 'don't do it' or 'I told you so' no opinions, no expectations just support.
So of my own accord I pretty much used to talk to my mum at least every day if not every other and if ever life was hectic with rehearsals and such... Then sometime maybe twice in a week very very least. Now out here it's even extended to once a fortnight at one point and with no Internet it's eternally on hold! No good, so I deviated off to the nearest shopping mall to use their free wifi and get stared at for video conferencing in the middle of a shopping centre.
I don't care!!!!!
Anyway so I crumbled and got an over expensive 3G card for my iPad but it affords me some precious talk time. Ideal.
Soooooo what has happened? Why no Internet?? Well I moved house. Yes finally I now have my own place.
I wasn't terribly well the other week so had to go to the doctors (that's another story!) but finally we got our own place and it's amazing!!! Everything about it is perfect from location to size it's awesome.
We popped around as they invited us over on the Friday night to get our keys and have an aperitif (the french are so hospitable! Well in my experience they are anyway...) so we did indeed go round. They'd laid out nibbles and opened a Bottle of champagne to welcome us to the house. We had a lovely hour chatting with them, the gentleman is what is known as 'Disney retired' but of course when he said this in his thick French accent I had to stifle my giggles as all I could hear in my head was the voice of Borat saying; "you are a retard? It's very good you let him join you at dinner, in my country we keep them in cages..."
French pronunciation, you know sometimes you can help them understand your English by saying the word in English with a French accent? Try it, especially macdonalds, if you ask for a cheeseburger they may not understand. Ask for a sheeeeeeezberrgher (in your best Allo Allo accent) they'll actually understand! Hilarious! Speaking of Allo Allo one of the best things about working in France? You can quote Allo Allo for a little silly in joke and say things such as "listen carefully, I will say this only once..."
I'd be lying if I said we hadn't ever used this at school...
Anyway back to moving! Once it was time for our new landlord/lady to go Mishy and I gave them 5 seconds to get to the car and out of earshot before the screaming and victory
Dancing started. They have given us so much; new double beds, bedding, wardrobes, all cutlery and dinner sets, dishwasher, pots, pans, microwave, fridge/freezer, washing machine...we thought we'd be getting a shell of a house and they have kitted us out with EVERYTHING and Yep the house is that beautiful!
Yes ALL of it's ours.
Well when this is the key fob they give you, you KNOW it's fate
Kitchen:
Bathroom 1
Toilet 1
Lounge/my dance studio 1
Lounge 2
Dining room and stairs to le cave (and Mishy still excitedly dancing about)
Mishys tool room (Mishy doing the safety dance)
My dance studio complete with piano, bar ad UV lighting!!! (and dancing Mishy)
Up to mishys bedroom
My bedroom
And bathroom 2 my ensuite niiiiiiice
Also has a garden and another cave the same size as the dance space.
Yep I'm a lucky git. Yep I'm gloating. Don't judge me :)
Mind you the house has come with one extra. We have named him Peeves! Yes Peeves is our pet poltergeist.
It all started Saturday night when I was home alone and unpacking things in the kitchen. Twice I caught site of someone looking in through the kitchen window. Local kids being nosey I thought, house has been empty a while... So I waited... Next time I saw movement I shot out the front door to catch them. Nothing. Street was totally devoid of all people. Odd! So I went back in and carried on starting to make dinner. Sure enough same thing so I opened the door ready to see who was there and what they wanted but still nothing! I thought nothing more of it and went back about my business. Short while later the landlord popped by with some extra things for us (more pans and nice wine glasses!) and they asked if i was alone. I said yes Mishy stayed in Paris last night with her boyfriend and probably will tonight too. They said "oh sleep okay? House warm enough? No ghost?"
I laughed and said no all good and definitely not! Thought nothing of it til they left and then kept thinking what a random thing to say.
Mishy decided she'd come back after all that night so I mentioned it to her later when sat in the kitchen.
"oh yes there's definitey something over there" she said gesticulating to the same windows that I thought the children had been looking through
"something pinched my bottom hard on the way in, I thought it was Chris and he knows I hate that so I turned round to slap him only he wasn't even through the front gate yet..."
Hmmmmmmmm curious. Anyway that was that til morning. I got up and joined them for breakfast (after I'd done my 30 second walk to the boulangerie for fresh pain au chocolats and been treated to the deadly silence and 'new girl in the village' look from the gossiping locals). As we sat chatting my protein shaker lurched off the dish rack. Michelle sighed and said 'that's the second thing he has chucked off there this morning'
After a bowl got pushed off 10 minutes later we concluded whatever it was it didn't like things being left on the dish rack.
So we cleared it and decided he needed a name, Peeves it is! On the Monday at breakfast I commented to Mishy that Peeves was pretty quiet the last 24 hours.
"no he wasn't not unless you moved the grill covers partly off the stove over night".
So there you have it that's the story of Peeves our pet poltergeist! Must ask the owners more about it. Before we moved in our mate Rich said the house was probably a bargain because it's built on an Indian burial ground or something. Yeah cheers Rich. As Meaux the town down the road is where World War 1 was halted as this was where the Germans were stopped whilst trying to invade Paris (battle of the Marne), we started inventing stories about the house being built on an old trench (it's 101 years old). Generally he is not a problem, I have only been a wuss once when I was toying with leaving the house early or waiting 10 minutes one morning. As I was hovering by the front door deciding what to do I heard a noise from upstairs. Not heard any noises from upstairs before so have to say I decided to leave pretty sharpish. Then felt pretty embarrassed. How do you explain that??!! He's cool long as you say hello and goodbye to him we figure.
Ghouls aside It's been a tough week this week I think maybe I'm still not 100% I went to the doctors the other Friday which was an experience as needed a certificate to prove I was sick. Well if I hadn't been when I went to see him I was when I got home. They are very thorough, but then for 30€ for the appointment and certificate I should hope so. You claim this back on your social security but still...
He found pain in my abdomen I never knew i had till he poked it.
Doc: Pain? (poke)
Me: no
Doc: (poke, poke) la?
Me: no
Doc: (pokey, poke, poke...) no??
Me: NO, no pain, pas de tout, definitely no pain at all none...
Doc: mmmm la?
Brief pause whilst doctor scrapes me off the ceiling
Doc: la? Goes to touch spot again
Me: (backing up the table) no touché, ouch, ne touché pas...whatever oui, yes, ouch, hurts, leave it, merci.
So he diagnosed me with an intestinal infection, wrote me a massive prescription for drugs (apparently the docs love to give drugs out here) and sent me for an ecograph to (in his words) check I wasn't dying. Thanks. Despite not speaking much French and no one speaking much english (well why should they I'm in their country!) I spoke and understood enough to get me through booking the appointment and dealing with the doctor so that felt good even if my intestines didn't!!
Not all doom and gloom asides being sick I have had some fab nights out with the usual suspects, biding my time in the bar at Planet Hollywood with Shawn and chatting to some of the others from the Wild West Show. Whilst putting the world to rights very recently we sat there evaluating my life right down to the fact I get to hang out in country and western bars with real life cowboys and Indians (one of the guys who plays an Injun is originally from the Will Rogers follies) so conversations are fascinating! chatting about growing up on the ranch and rodeo riding for a past time, they've lived whole other lives i can only imagine (but then to them i guess i have too) and I can listen to their stories for hours. Recently one of the cowboys Ludo stayed with me and we ended up chatting till the small hours about our lives (he organises rodeos and mostly lives in the south of France which sounds super exotic, I miss horses so much) but all in all I have to say...what a fascinating bunch of people I get to hang about with!!!
Of course then there's the Paris massive, these guys make me laugh til my sides hurt and Mishy is one of the only females on the planet I am happy to live with! She is just an awesome person and so a bright side to the dark winter nights is a box set of scrubs whilst lounging around on my bed gossiping oh and of course our meals! We can cook in peace, proper food! Oh the little things. Chris our boss had a late meeting at the school one evening so came back to ours tom chill out meanwhile, it's been such a long time since I was able to be part of a little unit in my nice clean kitchen, preparing food, entertaining and then chilling with a glass of red and just laughing in our lovely house with good friends, good food, good wine, good times.
Hard to explain then why it's felt so tough, I have a lot going on in my mind right now. When the clocks go back it always kicks my ass for a while and the one thing I forgot with living in the countryside is without the bright city lights, when it gets dark, it gets dark! It's suffocating! Wake up in the dark, go to work in the dark, work in the semi-light and go home in the dark I seriously need some light it is 2 weeks in and already feels like it's going to be a long winter! I get proper SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder)
Mind you also I've dealt with a lot this last couple of months, generally I've held it together pretty well, moving to another country, starting a new job etc. etc... But I guess somedays even I forget the enormity of everything I took on of late and I guess now I'm in this house I can settle for the first time in a while and so I now have time to reflect.
Same thing happened when I moved to London, I went through major stress with finding a job and let's not go there on getting the house! But the first night I moved in I was on my own and I unpacked, listened to music, had a bath, relaxed and finally everything was in place...then I sat and just cried for half an hour solid. Damned good cry it was too. No explanation but I couldn't stop!
This feels kind of similar but without the crying, if I really think about it I moved to another country alone, so I came out here to no friends or family, plus I don't speak the language, sometimes I can be the only person in a room full of people who has no idea what's being said (if you are paranoid don't do it) I took on a job I've never done before in my life, I moved into a room in a house with total strangers (I'm quite a solitary creature too and the landlady didn't give me a minutes peace) my boyfriend is back on the scene and being the kind of boyfriend anyone could wish for BUT I'm out here and that's not going to change anytime soon so that's quite an uncertain feeling, plus you are also left semi happy/semi empty because you see people cuddling (I mean heck this is Paris after all) and whilst you know you are part of something like that you are acutely aware they aren't there (I suppose when they are though it makes it ten times better!) I think when people look at me they forget this. I'm good at the exterior bouncy bit and making stuff look supremely easy but there's still stuff going on in my brain I'm only human. Sometimes there's lonely moments whilst you adjust to what you had and what you have.
All in all I'm literally making/picking everything up as I go along. But that's life I guess, who isn't! I am pretty sure I'm doing just fine but guess now I'm feeling it a touch. Bit like when you run down hill, sometimes you have controlled momentum and sometimes your legs pick up so much you have no control you just hope you don't face plant, then the ground evens out and you are left bringing back the pace, heart beating wildly and thinking 'hoooly c**p that could've been nasty!'
I'm also sure it won't last because having spent 1 hour in a meeting at lunchtime and an hour in the orange shop tonight sorting out my iPad and they only spoke French on both occasions and I understood pretty much all of it, that I'm doing okay there. It's only Wednesday and have had 3 reports of 'best lesson ever' or 'favourite lesson of the week' or 'never enjoyed that lesson before and now they look forward to it' from the children to their parents... I will assume I'm doing okay there also and with the incredible people I spend my time with and the fun I have in and out of work... Thats all good. Plus Matty is out to visit next weekend and the weekend after that so I get him 2 weekends in a row, I have a way to contact my family everyday thanks to Orange (plus they are visiting in 44 days and counting), the Christmas season has started at Disneyland, I have a 3 day weekend coming up to explore Paris... It's all good really.
As the birthday pressie from another of my awesome friends Nigel & Kat says..
It's all good :) xxx
Loving the 'fate-filled' disney key fob! And particularly the UV lighting!! :) x
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