August 2010
with her class in the Alps, and Mooshi learns to count from one)
Saturday 28th August 2010. Two years ago I was thinking of calling an ambulance. We were in a hotel, waiting to move into our new home and Steve was being violently sick. So much so that I feared he'd need some intravenous fluids. Fortunately he survived the night (although the floor and bedding didn't), but unfortunately Imo and I then contracted whatever lurgy it was that he had had; and that was how our new life in France began. Thankfully, things only got better, and here we are, 2 years on and enjoying the Sete experience.
Too cold, too hot...
I wrote the last chapter/blog, or whatever you want to call it, on 8th March whilst watching the heavy flakes of snow falling outside our window, and itching my chilblains. Our neighbours are still commenting that since our arrival the weather has been very out of sorts. The winter was long and cold, and spring was not very spring-like, more slothful in its arrival and English by it's nature. Usually by the end of April the days easily reach 20 degrees and the sun shines almost without fail. But our spring was grey, wet and chilly. We had a few good days but never more than a few in a row. We were taught in geography at school that the UK had weather but that other places, such as the Mediterranean, had a climate (ie predictable), not so. By the end of May I was despairing of the summer and the 'chaleur' ever arriving, but one day, in mid-June. BOOF (as the french would say). Il commence! We went from a chilly 18 or so degrees to 30 - 35. (Oh god, yes I know I'm moaning, but seriously anything over 28 is too hot.) And so it was that in mid-July we left for our 3 week trip to the UK for some cooler days and some rain. More on that later...
Easter hols
Imo's school year is divided into 5 short terms, with two weeks in between each except of course for the long summer holiday. For the Easter holiday in April we decided to stay close to home and just take advantage of what is on our doorstep.
Our first sorti was to a 'Go Ape'-type forest adventure park near Montpellier. We decided to go as Imo's school trip to the Alps was pending and one of the planned activities was such a forest adventure place. Imo was slightly anxious about this so we thought that if she'd been to one first with us then it may allay her fears. It was fantastic. For age 3 upwards it had varying difficulties of courses. Imo enjoyed it, although was definitely happier on the lower ropes (the higher ones being easily higher than a house).
Our second day trip was to Cirque du Moureze, a geologists dream. Rocky outcrops dominate the landscape with tiny villages perched among them. We chose a child-friendly walking circuit and Imo and Mooshi enjoyed scrambling over the rocks.
Our third foray into our local environs was to the Canal du Midi. For two years we've been saying that with it on our doorstep we really should go and take a look. The day dawned bright and so we got in the car and drove for an hour and a half to a small village where we hired bicycles from a company called Melo Velo (how cool is that, like?!). Mooshi sat on the back of my bike and we all set off like the Famous Five on an adventure (only there wasn't a dog). We covered 14 kms, a fair distance for Imo, and enjoyed wonderfully idyllic scenery. The canal meandered gracefully, bordered by tall trees which cast a dappled light on the paths.
Hotel du Rue D'Auvergne
In the spring we had a rush of guests. Some haven't stayed long enough (ahem, Andrea and Flippy - AKA Kazza - and Verran). We've had the lovely Bryony come to stay, which was great, but catastrophic when she left as Imo wept hysterically and declared that she could never be happy again, and that there was no point in living!!! Luckily the tears dried up after a few days (by which time Bryony and her family had only just made it back to the UK via seventeen different forms of transport due to the flapping of wings of a butterfly in Ecuador, oh no, sorry, due to volcanic ash). We then had Toine and Sabine from Holland come to pay us a visit, and they win the prize for best hair-dressing technique - on the girls, not themselves. (And I'm sorry but Sabine can't really be a princess as Steve put a pea under her mattress but she didn't comment on it in the morning.)
John and Kaz (Aussie friends currently living on Christmas Island) arrived on the day that our kitchen was finished (more of that later), and I was then hard-pressed to spend any time in it as there was a lot of competitive cooking and over-eating. I'm still full from the biggest cous-cous meal I've had in my life. Incidentally, they win the prize for being the first (and only) guests to buy me a plunger to unblock the guest shower. Thank you!
My sister ('Miss Anna' as Mooshi calls her) arrived and had to endure appalling weather. We then had time to draw breath before Uncle Nick came (despite me pleading with him not to come on those particular dates). Hah - he'll listen to me next time - for he was caught up in a transport workers strike (this is France) and couldn't get home when he wanted. (Sorry Nick, but Tessa is always right, OK?)
We also entertained (and wore out by making them walk up and over the hill into town and back) Steve's cousin and family from Canada for lunch one day (no mean feat as this includes teenage quads!). The next week we visited them in their beautiful rented house in a small village an hour away from us. There was a swimming pool complete with inflatable dolphin. And if you want to know more about the dolphin you'll have to ask Uncle Nick...
Classe Verte
In May Imo went off with her class for 6 days (5 nights) in the Alps. I took her to the coach stop in the pitch black at 5.50am and suddenly all the other parents and children assembled; she seemed very excited with the buzz of it all. By the time the sun had come up about 80 children and their teachers had set off on the 5 hour journey. The next we heard from them was later that day when a notice was posted on the school gate saying something like: 'good journey, sun shining, all is well'. Each night there was an answer phone we could listen to where 4 pupils had left a message. On the first few days the messages were as follows (well, in French obviously, but translated for your benefit): (in quavering voice) 'Mama, papa, I miss you. we went to a farm today. I miss you, kisses to you mama'. On Wednesday I waited nervously for Imo's message which went something like this: (in a confident voice) 'Hello Mummy, Daddy and Mooshi. We went to a honey farm today and saw the honey being made and it was really good. And we went for a walk. And I hope everything is OK with you and I'll see you soon. Bye.' After that I was much relieved. At 6.30pm 6 days later we went to meet Imo off the coach and she was totally unscathed by the experience, hurrah, good for her. She hasn't spoken a great deal about the week but when she has it has all been very matter of fact, eg 'Mummy, Marie cried on Thursday as she wanted her mummy, but what's the point of that? I mean she only had 2 days left to go and then she would be home.' So, the apron strings have been well and truly cut at a very young age and she is now ready to go off into the world (well, more ready). Postscript: and right now Imo is outside, in the pitch black, in a very strong wind, in a tent in our garden, all ready for sleep; rather her than me!!
Nocturnal activities
Children in France, in the south anyway, do seem to go to bed far later than their English peers. It's usual to hear them playing in their gardens and on the streets long after mine have gone to bed. In line with this children's activities are often organised for late into the evening, for example, Imo's school fete (her school is for children aged 6 to 10) was from 6pm to midnight. I can't quite imagine the Mayfield School fete (ref. Cambridge) being held at those hours. All the classes performed a dance on a specially built outside stage, Imo's class did a dance from South America with lots of whirling and rotating hip movements. The girls loved it but the boys weren't exactly John Travolta. We were also lucky enough (?!) to witness pre-pubescent children getting heavily into air guitar and miming to English pop songs. And exactly one week later Imo's dance school had a show (a 'spectacle' held at the Theatre de la Mer ), which started at 9pm and finished after midnight. This is for 3 year olds to adults.
It's a different way of life and many of the children do take siestas, although obviously during term time they can't. There's a childrens' fun fair not far from us which opens every day in the summer holidays from 8pm. And one evening we were out and we saw a trampoline-thingy being dismantled at the end of the day (it was about 8pm)... until we realised they were actually setting it up for the evening!
Lifestyle differences like this take a lot of getting used to. When we first arrived it took us months to realise and remember that shops shut at lunchtime; we have now assimilated this information but when we were back in the UK I kept organising my days around when the shops would be open, forgetting that they wouldn't actually shut.
July 2010, UK trip
The temperatures in Sete hovered around 30 - 34 degrees for several weeks. The air was full of Mediterranean smells such as the ripe figs which had burst and splatted on the hot ground. We were in need of some English weather to cool us down. We went by train, and then hired a car from outside London (Ebbsfleet) and spent the first week with my parents near Portsmouth. This was my first time in the UK for a year. Instant impressions: car number plates - they're all English. Plus, all the people, they all speak English. Going into a shop I'd prepare my sentence nicely in French and then realise that the person behind the till is English. Very bizarre indeed. For the whole of our 2.5 week trip this never ceased to amaze me.
We then had a week up in the Lake District, on the shores of Lake Coniston, staying for a second time in a fabulous place called Bank Ground. This was where Arthur Ransom set his book Swallows and Amazons. The week started off by all of us ('us' being 19 of Steve's family and friends) celebrating Steve's 60th birthday. There were long walks, big meals, sailing, and late-night board games. Imo, who was totally into Swallows and Amazons anyway, then met up with Sam, the boy next door, who, aged 9 was a very, very keen angler. They spent hours together, running through the fields, climbing trees and most of all, fishing. Imo caught her first fish - a perch.
At the end of the week (possibly the fastest I've ever known a week pass in my life) we drove back down south, giving Uncle Nick a lift, to check out his new house in Hemel Hempstead. We ate at the 'Banana Leaf' Singaporean restaurant (my god it was amazing, reason alone for living in Hemel Hempstead) before heading on to Cambridge for 3 days where we caught up with old chums.
So, on 10th August, after nearly 3 weeks of minimal housework, cooking, cleaning etc, coming back to this busy domesticity has been a bit of a drag. I'd forgotten what a big house this was to clean and how the dust and wildlife gets everywhere... Plus, our lovely Mr Fix-it is no longer available and so the petty house problems remain unsolved: no hot water, hole in the ceiling where the rats live (!!), banister hanging off wall and garden still pretty much a building site......... hhmmm, yes, our holiday really was a break for me!!! My post-holidays blues weren't helped by the fact that whilst we were away there was a big thunderstorm which caused power cuts and broke various electrical items (including the telephone). Plus the power had been off long enough for everything in the freezer to defrost so we had to throw it all away...
Renovations... or not
Since March very little has been done to the house. The bulk of the big work has been done (thank goodness). The kitchen was finally finished in May after a record 11 months in progress. It's now in a new place in the house and in a much better position than before. It's two steps higher than the rooms around it so I have good views to Steve twiddling his thumbs in the study, Mooshi watching DVDs in the sitting room and Imo climbing her rope in the garden. It has also been the first time in 2 years that our fridge has been in the same room as the kitchen. Strange but true. (The downside of this is that with less running around to do I am gaining unwelcome pounds.) We've had photovoltaic (solar) panels fitted to the roof, so we now sell electricity to the national grid, and a few other little nips and tucks have been done to the house. I've just divided our upstairs sitting room into two 'spaces' to give the girls a play area where they can leave stuff lying around instead of having to shout at them each evening to clear it away. We have two large outstanding projects: 1) where will our third bedroom be? At the moment we still have only two. We have several not-very-good solutions but no perfect ones. 2) our plot of land remains a building site and I have been crooning with envy at other people gardens. I hope that by the time I next write that something has been done to tame the dust bowl which blows in through every door and window.
La rentree
The return to school on the 2nd September will be very traumatic - for me! That is when Mooshi will start in the Petite Section (equivalent to UK 'pre-school'). Many pupils go all day (8.30am - 5pm), but we have opted for mornings which are 8.30am - 11.30am. So far Mooshi has not gone further than the end of my apron strings, so I'm not sure how she'll fair, although she has spent the last few months saying: 'I want to play with my friends'. I take that as a good sign. It will also be her first time in a purely French environment without having me by her side. I'm just crossing my fingers that she has a nice teacher and that she is happy.....
Imo will be entering her third year of French schooling. She'll be in C.E. 1 (equivalent UK Year 3) but is in a 'split level' class (something not altogether unheard of here) where half the pupils are Year 3 and half are Year 4. We're not sure if this is because of awkward pupil numbers or whether it is to see if any Year 3 pupils can be jumped a year. (We do know that the most mature and able children were chosen to be in this class and in France it is very common for pupils to be shifted up or down a year according to ability.)
My girls...
As you will gather Imo is wonderful, very intelligent, and off to study Veterinary Science at Cambridge University when she is 7, and plays cello and harpsichord at grade 8. Well, isn't that what blogs and round robins are meant to say? The truth is that Imo is very well integrated here and seems happy. Her strengths (as I see them) are her maturity, ability to entertain herself and how well-behaved she is. Her weakness is the fact that she is incapable of ever picking anything up and/or putting it away. Drives me nuts. And Mooshi, well, still very sweet and doll-like. Very cute, very funny and very mischievous. And, for the sake of balance, her weakness is that she can be a little moany (????!!!! arrghhhh) from time to time (minute to minute...). She's finally mastered the art of counting (to about 8 anyway) from ONE. For months she would only count from 2 as if the number one did not exist.
and me...
What will I do once both my little girls have fled the nest and gone to school? Well, to be honest Mooshi being at school only gives me 10 hours of 'extra' time a week, and for months now I have been creating lists of things which need doing which will take far longer than that, such as varnishing doors etc. In reality it will be nice (if house work can ever be nice?!) to clean the house all in one go without being interrupted to lift up the sofa and get out all the marbles which have just been rolled under there for the 17th time, and re washing the floor where Mooshi keeps on walking all over it. I can play more tennis without feeling guilty that Steve is baby-sitting and that I must get back, AND I can even hit with Steve without having to rush to the court-side seats in between each shot to set up another ingenious activity to keep Mooshi from walking to and fro across the court. I've even almost committed to playing in the teams this year. Because I haven't played competitively so far in France I don't have a ranking yet, so will probably have some easy matches to begin with (I hope). The last few weeks I have been playing with a German woman called Anna who is ranked number 12 in Germany*. She's a fantastic player who I met last year when she came to Sete for several weeks as her husband is doing up someone's boat. And my dream hitting partner (other than Kate and Carol from Cambridge!), she prefers to whack the ball to and fro without having to worry about points and games.
I'm also toying with the idea of giving (for money ££ !!) conversational English sessions as I have been asked by several people if I will do this. But, I fear my 10 Mooshi-free hours will disappear very quickly.
and Steve...
Well, this is for him to say, but in a nutshell: Eyes - no change. Tennis - lots. Maid service - 24/7. Lifestyle - enviable.
* over 60.