Birthdays
So we moved into our new house on 23rd April. Dan's birthday is inconveniently 30th April and Eric's birthday is 3rd May. We'd given Eric's birthday some thought and arranged a trip to Manchester Legoland with another family. Also, on the last day of school, we invited both Percy and Eric's classes for a little party in the park after school, which was a fun but manic time. I'd planned some sports day type races and team games, but I just remember running around throwing packets of sweets on the floor while kids chased me. I was like the Pied Piper on crack.
Dan knew his birthday was going to get forgotten, but after his last two birthdays being affected by Covid I did want to do something. It was hard to think about it back in England, in the phase where Dan was chasing the French estate agents everyday, we were having our kitchen wall knocked down, and my main aim in life was trying to sneak bin bags into other peoples bins. There seemed no point buying him a gift in England, but having to get it once we were there was tricky. I didn't (and still don't) have a french bank card. There's one we both use, but he gets a text whenever it's used saying how much was spent and where and also we don't live near any big shops, and I've only just started learning to drive our new big car so the options of getting him a nice surprise gift were limited.
In fact gift-wise I did not do great. On his birthday I suggested Dan bought himself a raclette machine while he did a full weeks shop and bought a washing machine, and he did. Ah the romance.
I really did want to do something nice though. His family come from north west France, so it is very far from where we are, but that's my fault. It's all because I said, "I'm not learning a new language for the weather of Cornwall." But his cousin and one of his aunties are in the south. I messaged them and his auntie was free, plus it turns out his grandma (he calls Mamie) was visiting the south for the weekend. So they very kindly offered to make the trip (over 3 hours from Marseille) to come and surprise Dan, even though at the time of arranging it we had no dining table or chairs or sofa or working oven, so I was a bit nervous about this plan working. I invited them for an evening meal on the Friday and they planned to stay over in a nearby airbnb to be around for Dan's birthday on the Saturday.
Dan was working on the Friday and had arranged to go and pick up our new car on the Friday morning. Dan's a massive car enthusiast, so I imagine getting to spend a big chunk of money on a mum bus from 2011 was an absolute dream for him. It's a Renault. But how the french pronounce Renault is very different. It's sort of like how you pronounce the word gnu but with a "ren" in front. Anyway in the morning he went to get that and a bunk bed, and after work in the evening he went out to get this table and chairs we were given. I had been saying how much the chair and table were important for days, trying to make sure he could get it by Friday, when really I think a sofa is possibly more important but obviously for eating lasagne, a table really does come in handy.
So Dan was out and I started cooking this big lasagne. I was bit nervous that we could run out of gas, because our gas supply is just a massive gas bottle and you have to just buy a new one when it runs out, they sell them everywhere. I have no idea if ours was full when we moved in, so it could run out at any point. The gas was fine, but I did manage to set the smoke alarm off and the kids were yelling at me. While all this was going on I was trying to go over the French for, "would you like a drink" and, "thanks for coming." Dan's family arrived at 5 while Dan was out, which was the plan. Dan's Auntie speaks very good English, which is great, I don't think I could have arranged it without that. My spoken French is bad, but writing messages is even harder, because I'm not sure how to spell hardly any French words.
We've visited auntie Beatrice once before in 2013, when we cycled to Kuwait. She was living in Paris at the time and we stayed in her very trendy flat for a few nights. France was one of the best bits of the trip. I loved cycling because you get to see all of the city, from the fields on the outskirts where you can just see a tiny tiny Eiffel Tower on the horizon, to all the rough looking inner city suburbs, to the really fancy old buildings right in the middle.
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| Dan and Beatrice 2013 |
Then in 2019 Eric was almost two and we thought this would be a good time to try a new adventure. Because he was free on a flight, we looked at a map. I quite fancied going to Barcelona, somewhere we'd both never been, and we'd also not done much of southern France, so we rented a camper van and drove from Nice to Barcelona. That was the time we spent a day and a half in Perpignan, and have since decided to call it home for the foreseeable future. But before we got to Perpignan, we stoped off in Marseille, where Beatrice lived then (and continues to live). Her and her partner Olivier were beyond generous and bought me a lobster to eat, even though they were on a weird diet of drinking the water leftover from cooking vegetables. Not even eating vegetables!
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| 2019 in Marseille |
So it was really nice that Beatrice and Oliver were up for coming over, because it really is a long way. But equally exciting was that Dan's grandma Rosalie (from the north) was staying with Beatrice, and so she could come too! I've met her a few times and she's absolutely lovely. Her English is a bit better than my French, but I hope in a year I will have surpassed her. Rosalie is one of 10 children and one of those great aunties to Dan came with her on the journey to ours.
So four French people arrived at our house, one of whom I didn't know the name of. Dan was delayed getting the table so I was actually with them for an hour without Dan (and with no chairs or sofa to sit on). They were all staying in the nearby town of Millas, about 2 miles away, so when we got the message from Dan that he wouldn't be there until 6 Beatrice and Olivier went to check in at the airbnb. We were all a bit concerned that they wouldn't get back before Dan, but it made sense to go. This left me with the boys Mamie (the grandma) and the random French aunt that I didn't know the name of, and who spoke no English whatsoever. We managed to have a few conversations, mainly by me just showing them things. I did a house tour and then showed them our photos that we had framed ready to go on the wall and I got the boys to show some of their toys.
Mamie asked how long we were renting this house for. I can easily say in French, "for one year" but I can't say, "it's actually on a rolling contract, so we just need to give three months notice if we want to leave." I really tried but that just confused her, so in the end I just said one year and got Dan to explain later.
Beatrice made it back just in time, but Olivier, who was parking the car somewhere a bit further away so as not to be seen, didn't quite make it. We talked about how to do the surprise, but it ended up with the three French ladies hiding in the down stairs loo. I later thought a cool idea would be to put the visitors in the back garden and put the shutters of the French doors down, and then reveal them legs first. Like they were on the horrendous show Naked Attraction, but not naked obvs.
There was quite a lot of Dan going in and out, before the surprise. He picked up this table so we were carrying that in and then all the chairs. But it was a really lovely surprise when they finally came out. Especially that Mamie was there, I don't think we'd seen her since Dan's youngest sister's wedding three years ago. 
It all worked out and we squeezed round the table to eat my lasagne. I asked Dan the name of the random auntie and he didn't know! (We later found out it was Victore.) They bought us some gifts, including a card game called Papayoo which is fun, but at the time we played it I was so tired and didn't really understand the rules. The were a lot of laughs, including some quite rude humour from the oldest French people. It turns out bum holes are funny to old French people too. - Thats a top tip if you're thinking of holidaying here and want to strike up a conversation.
The next day (Dan's actual birthday) was a bit less successful. It started with a little dip in the pool of their airbnb, which looked amazing but it was actually probably the coldest day we've had since we've been here. Then we wanted to go somewhere nice, but not far because they had traveled so far to see us and had to get home. We tried to have a picnic at a very local lake, but actually just spent ages driving our new massive car down tiny farmyard tracks, following a sat nav and then giving up and going back to ours for lunch. Ah well, it was so nice to see them and I'm very grateful for them for making Dan's birthday fun.
On Sunday we went to our local mountain. I can see snow on it, so we took sledges and coats. We got nowhere near the snow, it was boiling hot the whole time but still beautiful.
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| I can see you but I can't get to you, snow! |
The rest of the week was reminiscent of lockdown. Dan was working, I can't go anywhere far with the kids because I can't drive. I've had two little lessons with Dan and it is pretty hard, mainly the fact I'm driving a big car on small roads with ditches, more than the driving on the right thing. So we were mainly in the house, doing a bit of homeschooling, because Eric's only learnt two thirds of the phonics sounds he needs to know to be able to read. Also, just to confuse them, we started learning the French alphabet because even though the letters look the same they don't make the same sounds. Like J and G are pretty much the other way round in french and "T" and "H" don't make the "th" sound that they do in English, they make a different sound that sounds like it's got a "w" in. It was a tiring and a bit boring time. I feel the need to say that because my photos look like I'm having fun 100% of the time. It's quite hard to capture boredom in a photo.
Tuesday was fun though. It was Eric's 5th birthday and I tried to give him as much fun as I possibly good within the restraints of: we don't know anyone and I can't get anywhere and Daddy's working. We did have a lot of cardboard though and I've got a degree in making stuff, so making a cardboard castle was a good way to spend the day until Dan clocked off work.
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| This beanstalk has, over several days, grown right round the corner and to the top of the castle |
In the evening went on a road trip to the toy shop, followed by McDonalds, followed by the beach!
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| Toy shop purchase. |
Well done for getting this far, sorry it's so long. This is a good bit though:
Today was a beach day too. We went to a different beach with some people from the english speaking church, and then stopped in at this very picturesque town called Collioure.
Matisse has painted Collioure it and now it's my turn.
We got an ice cream, and here's a tip about ice cream pricing:
1 boule = 3.50 euros
2 boule = 4.50 euros
3 boule = 5.50 euros
4 boule = 6.50 euros
So, if a family of 4 get 1 scoop each in a separate bowl the total is 14 Euros. If they get two bowls with 4 scoops in (2 flavours each and you have to share a bowl with 1 other person) it's 13 euros!! That's my top money saving tip ever. That and never buy insurance for anything you don't legally have to, because either it might not happen or we're all going to die anyway.
Anyway, we didn't get two ice cream scoops each (sorry to disappoint) we shared. I shared two scoops with Percy and Dan shared two with Eric. The reason I bring this up is because Eric loves to pick blue flavour, or unicorn flavour or something mad. This particular blue one was called Smurf flavour and Dan picked nut flavour, and I took great delight in telling him his combined flavour was Smurf nuts. Ha Ha Ha I am hilarious.
School starts tomorrow. My real retirement begins then. I bought a lounger for the garden and I'm going to lounge so damn hard.
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