Last blog I talked about how the jobs I thought I was going to have in September failed to materialise and I ended up with just one job on Wednesdays teaching English (plus a bit of graphic design stuff) but now I’ve lost that one job! Or more accurately I quit that job, which I know might seem insane given the lack of work me and Dan have between us, but it got to the point where it was impossible to stay. I won’t go into all the details, but let’s just say the things I was being asked to do, and asked not to do were becoming more and more unhinged, to the point where it felt more like we were in rival drug gangs, instead of just being two people in separate villages that want to teach English to children. So I’m doing it on my own now, I had a few kids come to a free trial lesson last week and then I did my first real lessons this week.
We had visitors last weekend, my lovely friend Helen and her husband Graham. Me and Helen have been friends since 2005, and have done many bizarre things together, like attend a medieval dance class at a Polish arts festival, went to a basket ball match in Palestine, got told off by the police for doing fire circus tricks in the park, and when I had only just passed my driving test I drove her while she held a fish tank full of water and fish, which sloshed around a lot. But these are the kinds of things that make a friendship. Helen moved out of Liverpool to the south in maybe 2009ish so we don’t get to drive fish tanks around much anymore. But whenever we do get together it’s always a good time.
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| On an outdoor ice rink in Norway 2008 |
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| Força Réal 2024 |
That friendship group we were in was the absolute best. I’d already been in maybe 3 good friendship groups before that at school and sixth form and unfortunately I’m not friends with any of those people anymore. A lot of them are all friends with each other still, and I wonder what I should have done to still be in their crews. But anyway when I met this bunch I thought, “I have to stay with these people forever even when we’re not all living round the corner from each other, these guys are the best.” And I have, kind of. Everyone is more spread out now, internationally as well as nationally, and a lot of people have kids and partners and you just can’t hang out in the same way. If I had a time machine, I wouldn’t stop Hitler I’d just go back to a Saturday in 2007 where we just hung out in each other houses, playing board games going to the park, playing ready steady cook where we all buy the most obscure item we can find and then cook a terrible meal.
So it was super nice to have one of the original crew in our little corner of the world showing her the sights. Our kids didn’t remember them at all but they quickly became friends, and got some great banter going with Graham. It was nice to have a break from everyday stresses and just be reminded of what a beautiful place we live in.
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| Eric looks like he’s in love with Graham |
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| The beautiful town of Eus |
And I’ll probably look back on this time the same as 2007 like, “remember that time we lived in France and the kids were at a fun age and we went to beautiful places” and I won’t remember all the stress and the times when the kids are grumpy. While Helen was here, we still had to do annoying things like fail to get my new ‘I’m still allowed in the country card’. I am still allowed in the country but I have to wait another month for my card, which is in turn delaying any benefits I’m entitled to.
But it was fun to then forget about that and hang out with my mate. We phoned some of the old crew including Will in Australia and Joy in L.A. And Josh in the Lake District. We haven’t spoken to them for years! And it’s mad that you can call someone for free and video chat but we rarely do. If you want a video chat let me know, I know some people find them weird but I’m always up for them. On the last day we were seeing Helen and Graham we were having lunch together and there was a knock at the door. It was a signed for letter from our landlord telling us what we roughly knew anyway. We have to leave this house by 11th April. Cheers for ruining our lunch landlord. It was kind of a sad goodbye after that. I don’t know when I’ll see them again because although we do come back to England its tricky when there’s lots of people to see and you dont have a car to make it down to the middle of nowhere south.
It is an odd feeling not knowing where we’ll live or even which country we’ll be living in, in a years time. But that’s enough sad stuff now, let me cheer you up with the happy news that we won a weekend away in a holiday park! Maybe we should go there on 11th April and then just squat.
In the summer we had Dan’s parents visiting us and they very kindly paid for us all to stay in a local holiday park in Canet. And while we were enjoying our free holiday I saw a sign for winning a holiday by sharing a photo on social media so I shared this photo:
And we won second place! Which is a weekend in any of their parks. We could go to a local one with a nice pool or we could go anywhere in France or the Netherlands. I’m tempted by Paris because we wanted to go there anyway, and although it doesn’t have any nice pools it is a free weekend’s accommodation just outside of Paris.
This week I’m in an art exhibition which has been nice, and a definite bonus of living here, there are a lot more inspiring things to paint. These are my painting from the exhibition it’s on until Sunday if you’re in the area.
The other bizarre kind of fun thing that happened this week was, for the second time ever, I had a video go viral. Really viral like at its peak it was getting 2000 views per minute. It’s slowed down now but it’s on 2 million views. Unfortunately I dont make any money out of it, but I have got what money can’t buy….a lot of data about what people call a “Chinese Burn” in other countries. Wow it’s a minefield. Very interesting. I’m not sure what to do with this knowledge now. I might actually be the current world expert on this very niche subject having read the majority of the 10k comments. Here’s some of that data on a map….
And last bit of happy news for this blog is Dan has an interview next week for a remote job. Thanks for reading.
