After losing his job in August Dan finally started a new job today. It’s been a tough time to be honest, last time he lost his job was the best job losing time he’d ever had. He was made redundant but given 3 months notice, he got a couple of month redundancy pay but managed to find a new job that started as soon as he finished the old one, he negotiated to get paid the maximum amount and the job meant we could move to France.
This time he was given only one month notice, and no redundancy pay, they weren’t clear about why they were getting rid of him and if he had a contract they couldn’t have got rid of him, but because he had to be self-employed in order to pay tax in France it was easy for them to get rid of him. And it’s been a really long time of looking for jobs. Looking for a job is a full time job. He’s not had much of a break, the kids have been off school a lot, and there’s been a lot of dull tasks that needed doing.
But he’s started a job today with P.O Life magazine, which is an English speaking magazine for the Pyrenees Orientales region not a magazine about the private life of red tellytubby. His main job is to sell advertising space to local companies that want to advertise to English speakers. But he also has to deliver the magazine all over the region. Which is what he’s doing today. He’s a glorified paper boy, and he loves it when I call him that. One of the coolest things about the job is that he gets an electric company car. At the moment he’s just working part-time, he gets minimum wage plus a commission for selling the advert space. Dan was a bit nervous because he hasn’t done selling before but he’s looking forward to the challenge and it’s a great opportunity to work in French as well as English and get to know all the local businesses.
I’ve also got a bit of a new job. In September I started working in “The English House” which is a fun club for kids where they learn English through games and stories and crafts. It’s on a Wednesday because kids don’t go to school then. Then a few weeks ago I was given a new job in a school in a village towards the mountains. It’s just for Tuesday mornings but it could be the way into more schools work, because it’s with a company that sends teachers into several different schools. They give you all the lesson plans and workbooks and audio files and a billion flash cards and you go in and teach. It’s will be pretty intense because it’s just 5 half hour classes back to back, but all the lessons are not the same because they have to be adjusted for the age of the pupils, from age 2 to 11.
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| Photos from my cycle commute to my Wednesday job. |
I’m also still teaching this older lady who comes to the house every week, that’s pretty fun and chilled though. One week I taught her how to make pancakes. I’m still trying to catch up on the rules of English by doing a TEFL qualification, because I don’t know any pattens for anything I just know the answers, because it’s my first language.
I feel weird about being here at the moment, two blogs ago I was saying how settled I was and how I loved it but now I feel a bit odd. I think the fact we were just living off our savings for the past few months and we can’t really plan ahead hasn’t helped, but also it’s hard feeling like you will never have a genuine friendship with someone who isn’t an English speaker. Tomorrow is the last day of the two week October half term, that’s too long right? I’ve had the kids all day and they’re not particularly difficult, but it was raining for the first day in ages today so we stayed in all day and played board games and did crafts and they played computer games. And I was thinking, “what did I do before in the holidays?” And I realised I went to see a lot of people, I had play dates where the kids would go off and play together and the grown ups would all drink tea and gossip and I miss that. There’s not many people I do that with here, and I have to import my own tea.
I don’t want to make anyone feel bad for me, there are a lot worst things going on in the world than me missing tea and gossip, but I just wanted to be real. I don’t want to always chat on about how it’s 26 degrees and people are having a BBQ (that happened yesterday 1st Nov). Hopefully sledging fun will soon commence, but for now if you have tea and gossip opportunities don’t take them for granted. X
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| Dan at the river yesterday |
