Lost and Found

I just had a really good night, I was cool calm and collected. I was with my three favourite people. I was with the kids. Never thought you'd hear me say that did you?

We just finished watching Alvin and the Chipmunks, I normally leave the kids and run off to do whatever I have to do but it was fun translating the film that I had bought Fred for Christmas from English to French.

The children loved it and so did I, it was a good movie.

It was in the middle of this film while that I realised something.

I'm sure that I'm not the only one who loves finding things once forgotten or thought lost. I find bits and bobs everywhere, my jewellery discarded in unworn coat pockets, essential mint tasting lip balm from America(only thing that works on my lips) in an unused bag. Dental floss in the back of a cupboard (I'd been looking for that for ages). But the most precious thing that I've recently claimed back is my sense of humour.

I've also found some unwanted things, hair in places......People that I don't wish to associate with. I think I've found my voice again, watch out guys, am ready to chew your ear off.

Nighty Night!

PS, the children are still hmmm how can I put this delicately....I can't, they are spoilt but I can handle them.... or lock them in their room (only joking- I only do that when their parents are not in hahahahaha)

Feeling Good

Wednesdays used to be my favourite day of the week, my day off as J doesn't work so she keeps the children busy. I fill my time with French classes in the morning and give English lessons in the afternoon, which keeps me busy up until 4pm.

I teach four kids in total and am making some nice pocket money from it. One of my students, a 10-year old boy is so enthusiastic, a real teachers pet. Every time I teach him I feel good, I'm actually doing something, hopefully having a positive influence on his future.

I can be kind of hard on my students, but I don't want their parents to feel as if they are wasting their money, by the end of the next six months, they need to be able to hold a very basic conversation.

It has been raining all day, but I have been in an incredibly good mood, I think that things can only get better. Maybe it's because my pockets are a bit heavier now, or maybe I just walked past a mirror and caught my reflection (some of you will get it).

I may be going to the cinema today, if I get to borrow the car. I don't mind seeing a film by myself, there's a first time for everything right. My friends are starting to fear for my wellbeing due to my latest blogs but, what did we all expect? Of course there are times that I will be down, I am away from all that I know for 10 months, I'm going to get down.

The clouds have parted and as the rays of sunlight pierce through my window, I smile and think bring it on.

Some things are better left unsaid...or are they?

Things that one should keep in their head are listed below

Lose weight

Please eat, the emaciated look is so 2006

Don't ever wear that while you are out in public with me

I really don't like you that much but you're the only person in this room that doesn't smell

Do you ever stop talking?

I would only go out with you if you were the last person in earth then I may consider killing myself but why waste the pretty.

No, No and categorically no.

Why don't we just be fake together and pretend that we like each other yay!

I'm wondering if I should tell certain people how I feel about them, hmmm, probably wouldn't go down too well, but then I wouldn't have to pretend that some phantom hacker logged into my fb and deleted all the names beginning with M.

Anyway, these are just some of the things that pop into my crazy little head.

Feel free to add.

Life is a cup to be filled not drained

The last few weeks have been difficult and I'm glad that I have been writing this blog and I have had a revelation. What a moany b*** I am.

I'm a slow learner, no really, I am a slow learner. I stick to things that are destined to fail and don't make them work for me. I am the sort of carpenter who doesn't own an electric drill but slaves away taking twice as long to finish something or waking up earlier. I'm the cook who doesn't have an oven so puts the cake out in the sun. What I am trying to say is that I don't exactly use my options and there are so many.

Third week into this new year and I have done nothing but complain. Now you well and truly know that I am not going to stop, however, I shall stop moaning about the same things, it is starting to get boring even for me.

I have been reading some inspirational quotes, some are great, some have me on the floor rolling.

'Life is so short, we must move very slowly', I get the message but at the same time I have an image of us all walking around like zombies. It has lifted my mood.

I think that I only have one resolution for this year and I am making it now, if you don't like it, change it or the way you look at it, whatever happens, something has got to change.

Might take myself to the hairdressers on Thursday and wash all of this negativity out of my hair.

Misery LOVES company.... but I don't

I am rediscovering the Christina Aguilera 'Stripped album', I love that album, every song was great, not such a fan of 'Back to Basics' though.

The beginning of this week saw the snow begin to thaw and the city began to warm up and the children start to play up. I gave Fred the last Kinder Suprise as a snack and Annabel almost had a fit. It was supposedly really unfair of me to give her younger brother of four years the last piece of chocolate that was bought specifically for him. She had had enough and was going to ask her parents to find them a new au pair.

Two weeks after getting back from my family and friends at christmas and I could personally think of better places that I would like to be so I told her to go ahead. The other two children protested but the au pair herself had had enough.

We didn't actually speak about the event afterwards and everybody kind of moved on, but as the little jibes mount, I wonder when I will reach the end of my tether. I do feel a lot more closer to the children, especially Fred who tries to involve me in everything he does from pooing to playing. He cuddles me and I love it. But I do get tired of the daily arguments between them.

Why can't we all just get along?

Some people say that FB is evil is it? The main purpose is to connect people right? Well what if some people are meant to stay disconnected.

Am kinda fed up of the girls here too, they are so fake, I guess I am too. We went to see Avatar and it was ok. But I should have gone and seen it alone. We have planned to go out and get drunk next weekend yay! One of them is leaving as her sejour is over. I am jealous. But then I think to myself, why? What is there to look forward to in England?

I can count on one hand the amount of genuine people that I know, I may even have some fingers left after that. I can't seem to lift this dark cloud that has been hanging over me and I hate it. I am a relatively positive person but my spirits definitely need a lifting.

How?

Sayings and signs

I'm finding it difficult to settle, my feet are well and truly itchy? Why all of a sudden do I have this urge to jump up and leave, pack and get away. Lay on a beach somewhere and sleep, sleep for a week and awake to find that the world is probably still as messed up as it was when I left it.

They say pain is beauty

I'm in so much pain

They say life's a B***

I say I am that B***

They say love hurts

I say it doesn't have to

They say still waters run deep

and that you don't miss your water til your well runs dry

I say I'm not that thirsty

They say absence makes the heart grow stronger

oh they do say a load of BS don't they!

I am trying to grow up, make choices that make me happy while also considering others, I know that you cannot always avoid hurting everyone but how is it that most of the time you hurt yourself. I like walking into open minefields and when things blow up in my face I don't change direction, I go deeper.

I was looking to build on two relationships this year and one has been eliminated already.....but the signs were there from the very beginning. Oh but how I love a challenge, don't we all girls. Now where do I find my next working progress?

Why should I be sad?

I've never understood those who air out their dirty laundry, who announce their misery and solitude on Facebook, but then sometimes I understand and while they express their emotions in a status update, I bore people to death in a few hundred words.

I think that I have been watching a bit too much S&TC and an email finally brought me back to earth. What is the difference between being in love and loving someone? I love you but I'm not in love with you = I don't want to be with you. So what has love really got to do with it? Erase the love and just say what you mean and mean what you say. I've seen films and read books where this phrase has been used and always find it kinda funny when I hear or read it. As an adult (yes I am) you begin to understand the complication of relationships and well erm it's not so funny now huh?

I'm listening to 'The Sherry Dixon Show' and they are talking about getting back with an ex, is it ever a good idea? Normally once I am really done and dusted with someone, I can't go back, the feelings just never are the same as they were before.

But still tears are shed, even if it is over spilt milk. Is it possible to cry a river, maybe when it turns out that you're not 'The one'. Then again sometimes a good cry is all you need, forget the song all you need is love, all you need is a good cry dun dun dun dun.

From the lows to the highs, I am pleased to say that I still see love all around me, I'm going to be a bridesmaid.....there is hope, so why should I be sad?

Wine, wine whine!

I think I am addicted to this blogging thing, even if noone cares about what I am writing, I have always enjoyed writing about whatever and whoever, I'm addicted, OR maybe I just have nothing else to do.

I have been snowed in for two days now and all plans to hit the French sales have been abandoned. (But I need some heavy duty gloves). So I'm in with the family for the weekend. I am very 'lucky' to be taken everywhere the family are invited, some of my fellow au pairs don't get the chance to travel with theirs but mine are really welcoming. Sometimes though, I just don't want to go. When J suggested walking in 10inch snow, my enthusiasm fell to the same degree as the temperature outside.

The night with the family at the maternal grandparents home did go rather well, good food, wine, champagne and an open fire. The children were occupied by a film and I had the chance to practise my French, with adults.

As I helped clear up, J's brother followed me in and we started tidying. We had an interesting conversation about racism, he is well travelled and lived in Italy for three years. Once on the train in Italy he was sat amongst five strangers, one black. Four started chanting racist slurs at the black man. He asked me if everything had been OK for me here in France and I said that I had been lucky so far. He gave me his number and told me we should do lunch sometime, at that moment his wife walked in and for some reason I felt guilty, maybe because although I met her first she had not been as inviting as he. I find that with a lot of the French women J introduces me to. She looks at me weird too, but I hope that she knows she has nothing to worry about, I call him my uncle for goodness sakes.

Back at the table I was feeling very comfortable and even more so with every sip of the Brut, that was until they asked me to sing. Turns out that people have been listening at my bedroom door as I belt out Jennifer Hudson and Neyo at the weekend. Note to self, turn the music up so I can't be heard. JP and J had told everyone that I can sing and now as all eyes fell on me, I felt the pressure, another mouthful of Brut down the hatch!

Why could I only think of songs from Oliver Twist, I sang who will buy this wonderful morning, it went down well, I am considering a professional career in dinner table entertainment.

As my stomach resettled I thought about how I would soon, be mixing my family with their's, should be interesting. J has expressed her fears of having the family round for my birthday, she is worried about her standard of English and trying to hold a coversation with my parents may prove difficult for her. She was however very enthusiastic about me taking them to a museum.............cue silence. None of my family will be interested! We are very similar in many ways, but also complete opposites, like I said, this should be interesting.

I have managed to sneak a couple of hours to myself, bliss, pure and unadulterated bliss. The family and guests have gone sledging, I dipped out at the last minute, no I didn't feign injury, no tiredness, I was brutal and said. Je ne pas envie.

Happy New Year?

On the plane I tried to fight back the tears as I loosened the scarf I had wound tightly around my neck, it smelt like...comforting. I knew and loved that smell. I tried to sleep for most of the journey, tried to forget what I was leaving and perhaps losing.

As I descended the plane I was greeted by snow, the cold wind whipped my face and I pulled the scarf tighter til I could almost taste that familiar scent, I wanted to hold onto it for as long as possible, for in a week it would be gone and maybe forgotten, my first precious gift of the year.

I don't know what it is but now that I am back in La France, I am really looking forward to the next seven months. Maybe it is the challenge of not returning home and really focusing on studying this language, maybe I'm a masochist and I like to be tortured by French children alone in a country house full of caged animals, which when let loose...bite ( far king parrot).

My family should be visiting me next month for my 25th, I have nothing planned....yet They will be staying with me in this fortress, I wonder how that will all pan out.

The rugby player asked me out again for a drink....and somehow I forgot how to say no in French, ah there it is 'non'. I know that soon after my rejection, within three months he will be coupled up with a gf of his own. I feel like 'good luck chuck'. Two of the guys that I rejected last year have started the new year with girlfriends. I am not in the least jealous, in fact, I am rejoicing in the fact that I will not have to ignore another text from them.

I am however wondering when a certain someone will realise that I am the one! I feel so Carrie Bradshaw, but instead of Manhattan, erm I am in a little village not far from Lyon. Perhaps the only thing remotely Carrie Bradshaw about me is my inappropriate shoe collection.

This time last year I was still on my transatlantic jaunt. I should have probably started my blog then with all the things that happened to me last year but hey, there is more to come.

My friends should also be joining me in the month of February, but am I being too pessimistic in expecting most of them to fall out at the last minute. I have already been disappointed by some of my nearest and dearest just days into 2010, but deep within, I think that I half expected it.

Coming back to France, I set myself some targets, visit my friend in Aix, move up from group four to group five (french classes) by March, save save and save some more.

Back at the Institut (where I take French classes) I reunited with my 'friends', we had a lot to talk about, clearly some more than others. One had received the keys to her then'presque petit ami's'(almost boyfriend) flat, now definitely petit ami. One was still undecided between two men and a third had broken up with her boyfriend and decided to start a relationship with a married man. The usual looks of disapproval followed this announcement but there was the lack of a gasp of shock from me. These are the females that I kinda fear (and I am not even married yet). No regard for the sanctity of marriage. She explained that he was not happy in his relationship and was not at all disturbed by the situation. They have planned romantic weekends together even though she 'thinks'that it is just a fling. I could say that I am not one to judge but I am and she has seriously gone down in my estimations. I still cannot fathom how humans hurt each other the way they do. What happened to do unto others as you would have done unto you.

At the house, second day into mon travail (work) I am walking through the snow to the chicken pen. Water bowl in hand, I cringe as I open the door hanging slightly crooked with bits of barbed wire, preventing the chickens from escaping their monotonous life of, crapping and waiting to be fed. How I ended up being the one to accompany the children to feed these creature I don't know as I strongly recall asking J who would be expected to look after their many animals, she told me it was her and the children. I believe I kept that email....should I lay it innocently on her pillow? They have now added a rabbit and another parrot and large dog are soon to arrive. I am feigning allergies if this ish continues.

Thursdays and Fridays are my favourite days, peace and calm in the house as I come home early from classes and am alone to do what I like to do best, nothing! Imagine my despair when I hear that school is cancelled for the children and my only getaway route is not working tomorrow. Thanks a lot snow, like Delilah you're very pretty to look at but perhaps a lot more trouble that you are worth.