Weird Weekends

Recently I did a cleaning job. Because now, that Dan is unemployed, I do random stuff for money. If you have any random jobs either of us can do let me know. If you're reading this and you live outside of my region of France, I can't be your cleaner, but what about your virtual cleaner? 

I'll set up a regular zoom meeting, let's say twice a week, and I'll watch you clean. It's the best of both worlds because you won't have me snooping round your stuff or accidentally using your toothbrush to clean the toilet, you can get the house cleaned the way you want without being distracted, if you start scrolling on your phone I'll give you a gentle reminder to carry on cleaning, with an encouraging word. If you want to be entertained I'll tell you jokes, if you want to rant I'll listen to you. I'd be performing the job of counsellor, comedian, motivational speaker and cleaner all for the price of a regular cleaner. I started off writing this as a joke but now I think it actually could be a great service. I'd do it for £12 an hour, the price of a regular cleaner. What a bargain.

But back to my french cleaning job. A friend of a friend looks after an incredible holiday house that can sleep 25 people. 

I wish I was on holiday here!

It was change over day and a load of messy young people were leaving and 25 new people were arriving, so the whole place needed a big clean and all the sheets needed changing. I messaged the lady to say I was up for it and I invited along my German friend who is also looking for work. She sent us the address and we both turned up early in the morning and were confused to see it was just an ordinary house. We went in and there were about seven women sat around smoking and drinking coffee. Then our boss explained we were going to the house now. The slight confusion about what was going on due to my poor French, and the fact that I was not expecting to be going to a different address, which was in the middle of nowhere, led me turn to my friend and whisper "do you think we're being trafficked?" But actually due to the lack of space in the other car we had to drive ourselves, which meant Marie had to drive me as Dan had just dropped me off and so I didn't have a car. Halfway there Marie wished we were being trafficked, because a silver lining to being trafficked is you're not ruining your own car. 

The "road" we were driving on got less and less road like. The tarmac stopped and we were just on a bumpy dirt track winding round and round with no houses or other people in sight. Their car was built for these kinds of roads but poor Marie's car, was not and I'm sure she was heavily questioning her friendship with the person who got her into this situation.

The house

We eventually reached the house and all the girls ran in straight away and began tearing sheets off beds. We stood in a daze trying to be helpful but no one was explaining the system to us, they were so stressed about the limited amount of time we had that they didn't take the time to tell us how to be useful. Eventually we caught on to the system and what goes where and started folding towels and sheet for some guys to take away. Lots of the French cleaners were smoking while changing bed sheets which I found a little weird. I got paired with a woman to do the coolest bedroom in the whole place, right at the top of the house. The system for bathrooms was clean everything with vinegar spray, then wash it off with water and then dry it with another cloth? Is this normal? 

This is before the clean.

Anyway the reason I started this blog was to talk about what happened at lunch, which would NEVER happen in England. We'd worked really hard and still had lots to do and a limited time before the new people were arriving, but at 12:30 the boss declared it to be lunch time. I'd brought a little packed lunch, but she set the table with proper plates and cutlery and got a huge bowel of rice/bean salad and baguettes with different meats and cheeses. For dessert there were pastries and macaroons. But, the best part was everyone had a glass of rosé, some people even had a few glasses! Can you imagine that happening on a cleaning day in the UK? We all said, "cheers" and I declared that, "j'adore les francaise!" We sat round the table and hung out like friends for a full hour and then we were straight back to running around working super hard again. We only just finished in time.

Lunch time.

Here's a link if you want to see it on air bnb. 

This weekend was a lot more fun. My artist friend Flick had us round for a delicious pie and we went to the Saint-Cyprien festival where we saw people doing county dancing on stilts. I thought this was a very cool group of people and maybe the kind of thing I could try, until I saw what ladies in this group had to do.

The stilt dancing men

The men posing with the women

It was really lame dancing without stilts, and I've done lame country dancing without stilts before. Now that I've seen dancing on stilts I don't want to see any dancing not on stilts. I think it would look cool in all generals particular tap dancing and break dancing. We missed the pyramid people this year but this is from last year:

We ended Saturday with a try out for roller skating club. September is try out month for all the clubs in the south of France, last year Percy did basketball and Eric did rugby. This year Eric wants to change and has been considering football, boxing or roller skating. I like my kids to feel empowered to make their own life decisions and not be influenced by my own prejudices, but I have to admit that I did say, "Eric I'll punch you in the face and if you enjoy it, you can do boxing." It turns out boxing is full up anyway, and he did a football trial and didn't love it so he's probably going to join roller skating club and so am I!

I loved roller skating as a kid, I went to a roller disco every Friday aged 10 and it was the coolest place to be ever! Then for my 36th birthday, the last one in England, I also went to a roller disco and had the best time! Then I got some second had roller skates a few months ago and I've been out on them a few times, theres a few nice outdoor places, but a completely smooth sports hall is the absolute best. So I signed up and went to my first adult class last Monday.

my first skates

My 36th Birthday.

They have classes 4 nights a week plus the kids groups are on Saturdays. You start going on a Monday and they teach you some skills and then give you a skate licence and then you can go on the other nights as well, two of which are roller hockey based ones. What I think they're missing though (and if I ever get in there with the organisers I'll say this) is the Disco element. The place I went to for my birthday was all music based - they had a night where you could learn disco dancing on skates and they had a R&B night. It was like clubbing except without all annoying people.

All their weekday clubs start at 9:30pm how mad is that? But for the French that's "after tea time" luckily its only in my next door village. Last year I attempted to join a choir but wimped out, partly because I was unable to make small talk and I just found it sad in the break when I could see everyone making friends. But this year I was really proud of my small talk. I was chatting to this other mum there and she actually told me to use "tu" not "vous" which is like her basically asking to be my bestie. So I was super happy and I hope this group will help me improve my french, get to know people and be great exercise and if I get better at skating that's a lovely side bonus.

Halfway

“Woooah we’re halfway there-er wooooah oh living in a prayer-er.”

We’re almost halfway though our original 3 year trial of living in the south of France, (and maybe halfway though my time on this planet too) and at this point in time we more than ever really want to stay longer term. Both in France and just general being alive. Which is great because a year ago I was quite unsure (about the France bit). I was very aware of everything I’d left behind family members, a really nice Ikea hammock, and the beginnings of a career in comedy but the kids and Dan were very happy to stay maybe forever. I realised that I could be in a situation where I wanted to leave and they wanted to stay and that there’s no good solution to that. If we came back but the boys didn’t want to, or didn’t enjoy school back in England, I would feel awful. But then I can’t imagine me just being a frustrated extrovert comedian living in a tiny village in France forever.

So I’m glad I feel different now, some of the things that have changed are making some better connections here. I met a few nice people on my French course, but also I really appreciate my mad artist friend Flick. This week we were in an exhibition together so we went to the private view, and then afterwards went for a quick dip in the sea as it was going dark and then listened to the playlist of Flick six year old daughter on the way back in the car. If you haven’t heard the song from the Mario movie where Bowser is singing to Princess Peach you really should. The evening was the perfect mix of culture and silliness. So friends like that and also being in an incredibly beautiful place where you can wear shorts for 5 months of the year really help. 

Me and Flick in the neon corner. Her work is on the left and mine is on the right.

Some more of my art inspired by Port Vendres

The post art show swim.

I’ve also realised that some of the things I was sad to leave behind don’t really exist in the same way anymore. If we moved back to England and I tried to start doing my art job again I’d have to start again from scratch. I was doing quite a lot of work in my kids school and when I left I recommended some other artists, I can’t just come back and take that back. The same with comedy, I can’t just pick up where I left off I’d have to work my way up again. The boys couldn’t just go back to their old school, their places have been filled. Even my school run friendship circle has moved on a bit with some kids changing schools this year. The tenants in our house are decorating it to their style, who knows if I’d like it. Of course all my family members still exist and it is sad that I’m missing birthdays and babies being born. But going back wouldn’t be the easy option anymore.

We’ve had a busy summer of visitors after returning from seeing 52 friends and family members over a two week period in the uk. We had a few more visitors, no one actually slept over so it was not too much but we had some friends from the school run stay in a holiday park by the coast, this week we had our old friends Lydia’s and Tom stay, they were a few days in the mountains and a few days by the sea, and we got to see them in both locations. Then in between those visitors we had Dan’s parents stay. They timed their trip around seeing a rugby match, Wigan Warriors played our local team the Catalan Dragons. Eric, who has played rugby this year, proudly wore his Catalan Dragons top, while his grandpa wore the Wigan Warriors top. It wasn’t the first rugby match I’ve seen, but it was the first one I’ve seen in France and it was a lot more fun than British ones. The actual rugby was the same, men fighting over a ball for longer than is necessary. But what I enjoyed about this match was, there was a barbecue and wooden games outside the stadium beforehand. I got to sit down, the weather was good, I got a bit of French practise and I got to make a sarcastic TikTok while watching. (See it here) 

We also went to stay at a holiday park for the weekend, that had a great pool with a few really good water slides. Unfortunately that weekend was the only weekend of rain all summer. We really need rain, the rivers are drying up and there was a bad forest fire in August but that weekend was pretty annoying. Luckily as it’s only 40 minutes away we just kept our wrist bands on any then snuck back in on a day we weren’t there. Usually I really have to justify rule breaking very hard to Percy (my 8 year old) but he totally thought it was fair, “Ok mum, we’ll go once, but only because of the rain.” He’s my moral compass for everything these days.

This week the boys were back in school after 2 months of holiday, which is at least a month more than it needs to be. Eric is finally starting “proper school” he’s now in the same building as Percy and will begin to learn reading and writing this year. Even though it’s two years since he started in reception in England. Percy who would only be in year 4 in the uk, is now in the oldest class of primary school, this is because his October birthday means he’s skipped a year and is now one of the youngest in his year, and because his school is small he’s taught with the kids above him anyway. So in two years time he’ll be going to secondary school here, unless we move back and then he’d only be in year 6.

First day back 

I also started my new job this week teaching kids English in a Wednesday club. So they don’t go to school on Wednesday but a lot of kids do activities or sports. So I teach two groups of 5-8 year olds, through games and crafts and fun. I had to become French self employed to do this and the French have a very annoying system of you become self employed for one thing and stick to it, you can’t do a bit of everything. So now that I’m self employed as an English teacher I’m looking for more work in that area. I already started doing 1 to 1 conversation practice with a friend of a friend but I’m going to try and do more and get a TEFL qualification too. Dan says I can get round the rules though by doing any job and speaking English at the same time, e.g. do an art workshop for a school, say a few words of English, it’s an English lesson. Do a cleaning job for someone, chat to myself in English it’s an English lesson. Babysit for a kid sing “the wheels on the bus.” It’s an English lesson. Maybe I should run that idea past my moral compass Percy.

Dan continues to job hunt, he’s applied for a lot of things and not heard much back, but he has got a few bits of freelance writing stuff to do for a few of our contacts, so it might be possible for him to focus on getting more and bigger clients and to do that instead of finding a full time salaried job. We’ll see. Now that we’re all on board with staying here I really hope we can make it work financially. Much as we miss our friends I don’t want to go back to the grey land!

Bonne nuit mes amis

P.S My next blog will be about the cleaning job in an almost château that I did today plus a roller skating club I might join. and after that I need to blog about gingers! I’ve got some exciting updates on the ginger bet that quite a few people got in on in 2013. Only 5 years left!