Why

Why can't I just be allowed to enjoy the (very brief) presence of one of my best friends in the world? Is that really so very much to ask?

Why do I have to have an ex who manages to screw up all my plans (or as many as he can) and make me feel like shit?

You guessed it: my ex phoned today. And he had a rather strange request. He asked me to set up a meeting - "an hour or two, though two would be best" - between my friend J and her husband, him and me, so we can talk "about the girls' future". He claims that I'll "most likely agree with what he has to say", but I can't help but think he's up to something. And freaking the shit out of me.

You have to remember (even though I don't think I've ever mentioned this here before) that he actually phoned J before he walked out on me and TOLD HER, putting her in a horrible, horrible position. Luckily (if that's the right word) he did the deed a very short amount of time later, but still.

I just can't understand him any more (if I ever have, in fact). This is one of my best friends, and I rarely see her - usually no more than 3 or 4 days a year. By some kind of miracle, this year I might actually see her a couple of days more thanks to this holiday. And he wants to come and ruin it by forcing us into some weird, deep, religious (I'm guessing) discussion about how to bring the girls up.

I'm freaking out, possibly unnecessarily, and I'm angry and seriously pissed off.

The fact that the girls were uncooperative today and screwed up my plans to get things done didn't help.

We're off to see J and her family tomorrow, and I'm looking forward to it, but I'm not looking forward to bringing this strange request from D up, and I'm looking forward even less to whatever arrangement we come to with D to meet up for this "hour or two".

Why does he interfere in my life in this way?

WHY?

J

I'm so excited! In just a few days, I'll be able to see one of my very best friends! Yeah!

J and her husband and their two children are renting a house with a pool sort of near here (about 40 minutes away). They left their home in the south of England yesterday, spent the night somewhere in northern France and drove down today. I got an SMS from them this evening to say they've arrived safely.

J is going to phone tomorrow morning and we'll sort out when we can meet up, though most likely the four of them will come to Montpellier by train on Wednesday, the day after the girls get home. They can't stay with us, unfortunately, because their son is horribly, horribly allergic to cats. But they'll be spending the day here, and then we'll go over to them and oh, I'm just so excited!

I miss J and M so much; seeing them is such a treat - and I've been looking forward to this since last October, when J first started telling me about their plans to come down to this part of France for a change.

I can't wait for Wednesday!

Friends

You have to understand that I'm not a big TV watcher. I changed service provider back in October, meaning I have a new "box" for the telephone, internet and TV - and I haven't even installed the TV part yet. So I haven't watched TV AT ALL since early October.

It's always been the same - or at least, since I first arrived in France anyway (which was a LOOOOOONG time ago, believe me). This might be because I find much of French TV to be utter crap (an odd blend of totally dated variety show type things, reality TV and endless detective series, mixed with 3 or 4-hour pretentious chit-chat shows with eggheads and philosophers and bla, bla, bla, meh). I don't watch much TV, is what I'm trying to say.

For a while, way back in the late 90s (like, 97, 98 or perhaps 98 and 99, I don't remember), D and I had cable TV, so we were able to watch certain TV shows actually in English. We watched Seinfeld, and Dream On, and we kind of got into the "Friends" thing. We "joined" the series half-way through (probably series 3 or 4 I should think). But when we stopped paying for cable, we stopped watching Friends, even though it was on French TV because OMG - it's sooooo not funny dubbed into French. Lame, lame, lame. Absolutely not the same. So there are a lot of episodes - whole series, in fact - that I've never seen.

So. Back to the point of this disjointed post that's been rumbling round my brain all day (and, apparently, half the night too because it's now after 4 am. AGAIN.). A couple of days ago, I got this sudden urge to start watching Friends. I bought seasons 1 and 2 (which I'd never seen) earlier this year and found them pretty funny. And I've been watching them for the second time in the last few days. I've just got to the part where Monica hooks up with Richard Burke-Tom Selleck (that's for those of you who are fans - for the rest, it's about half-way through season 2).

I couldn't figure out what exactly was making me watch these episodes so compulsively. They focus quite a bit on the Ross-Rachel saga, and they are the two characters I've always liked the least. So that's not the reason.

And then, this evening, it finally hit me. It's the theme song. That chirpy, brain-wormy theme song; not the chorus so much, as the verse:

"So no one told you life was gonna be this way; your job's a joke, you're broke, your love life's D.O.A. It's like you're always stuck in second gear - when it hasn't been your day, your week, your month or even your year..."

THAT GODDAM SONG IS MY FUCKING LIFE, people. OK, my job isn't a "joke", but the fact that I end up working ridiculous hours, every damn day of the year, and am still broke makes it pretty close to one (oh, plus the fact that there's no possible promotion and I'll never be able to afford to retire...).

These 6 characters are living the kind of life I should have lived when I was their age (but didn't because I was such a freak), and would like to live again (but can't because it's too late). I would love to start over, go back to when I first arrived in France and just do things totally differently. I would love to be young, and free and single-dating-falling in and out of love, instead of the pathetic creature I was back then, and the hopeless future old-maid I've become. I would love to hang out with friends, drink coffee, share meals together and have fun, like I used to back in university, but now can't. Don't get me wrong - there isn't one nanogram of regret concerning my beautiful little girls, I wouldn't change a thing about them, but the rest? Meh. Total waste of time.

I now feel like I'm living vicariously through the characters in Friends. Ross bugs the shit out of me, and Rachel has much the same effect (she's less annoying than he is, but still. Grrrr). Phoebe makes me laugh and Joey's cute, but the ones I like best - now and when I watched them on TV way back when - are still Monica and Chandler. They crack me up. I want to slip into their lives, become part of the Central Perk scene, BE SOMEONE ELSE.

My "real" life is such a fuck-up that these ridiculous fantasies are all that get me through. If I could just walk away from the shit storm blustering around me, believe me, I would. But I can't, and I won't. But I still feel like I'm being eaten up with worries and anger and frustration and loneliness. Lots of anger, actually.

Friends was hugely successful and I pretty much missed the boat on that one - I kind of know what happens, who ends up with whom etc., but I haven't seen the episodes yet. I will, though, I will. And I'll continue to live my life vicariously through them, trying to get through the real stuff the best I can. I'm not eloquent or good with words like Avitable, but I'm definitely feeling the same depression, the same funk. I know I'm strong, and I know I'll find a way through this, but right now, like him, I don't feel it. Till then, I'll watch Friends, and Mad Men and Glee, and get sucked into these alternative universes where I can feel, for just a short while, that I don't suck quite so much.

Nostalgic

Can't stop thinking about things-events-conversations-people from the past; even having dreams about them. Am starting to realise that I was probably happier than I've ever been back when I was a student, except that back then I was so up my own arse that I didn't know it. Oh, and except for my totally disastrous "love life" (ha! ha! ha! what a joke...) of course.

Still totally freaked out by money (or lack of it), work (or too much of it) and love (growing need for it) but that's life. That's my life, this life, anyway.

At least I have the memories of those (now that I think about it though it didn't seem so at the time) carefree days back when I was young...

Here's to you all - "inner circle" and "outer circle", all still in my heart, my memories. You were great, we were great, it was the best of times, the very best of times.

Cheers!

Life after...

C is still desperately fragile... When we picked her up this afternoon, she immediately burst into tears and said that A (the kid) had been nasty to her all day, spreading nasty rumours around the classroom, "taking her friends away from her" etc. We told her she has to toughen up a bit, that A does have the right to play with the children in the class and that she, C, has to realise that. As we were leaving, 4 different kids from the class all came up to C and wished her a nice weekend, which proved to me that these kids are no idiots - they can see that A is not a nice kid (some already said they didn't like her at C's birthday party) and, even if they sometimes play with her, that doesn't mean they don't like my sweet baby or that they won't play with her ever again.



Oh, it's so hard. I want to fight her battles for her, give A a slap on the face and give her a taste of her own medicine. But I know C has to learn how to handle this kind of thing by herself. We've both told her that this is the best way to find out who her real friends are - and I already have a suspicion of who some of them may be.



To cap it all, at her swim class this evening, C slipped as she was climbing out of the pool and really banged her top tooth on the tiling. It's moved a little, the gum is bruised and bloody, and she was in pain. My heart just aches for her...



As for L, well, she seems to have weathered the storm. She was back to making a scene every morning at school while A was here, but didn't do it this morning and was in pretty good shape all evening. I just hope her "circus class show" goes better tomorrow than the Christmas one did.

I'm hoping this whole, unpleasant incident will make a) C and L just a little tougher and b) me realise how very lucky I am to have such special little girls (but I knew that already).

Things are...

...NOT going well.

WARNING: This is going to be one long rant about the worst kid I've ever encountered...And she's only 8...

Holy hell, this is a fucking nightmare! The kid (A) is the Devil's spawn, I swear... She arrived here at about 6.15 pm on Tuesday and we're now still only half way through our ordeal. I'm not sure how many of us are going to get out of this alive...

To say that she's difficult is like the understatement of the century. She answers back, doesn't listen to what you say, doesn't obey, complains about just about every meal we put in front of her ("Oh! That's disgusting! It looks like it's gone off! I can't eat that! I'm going to be sick if I eat that!") and has caused a lot of hurt and misery in our humble little home.

Both C and L are totally out of their depth. A will be really nice (but watch out! Don't trust her!) to one of them and start being really mean to the other. Resulting in tears. And then, on a whim, she'll start doing the opposite. C and L aren't used to manipulation like this and, though I've told them they really shouldn't let A see how much she's getting to them, they're only little, and such basically good little girls, that they cry and are very visibly upset.

But it gets worse.

Since last night (Friday night), A has broken the main structure of L's bed (A is sleeping in L's bed and L's sleeping in our room on a blow-up bed. The bed frame can still be used, but there's now a risk of splinters and the under-bed drawer jams), stopped D's almost brand new, state-of-the-art Mac computer from working (she was "playing with it" without our knowledge and it hasn't worked since), stolen a bar of soap from our local chemist's and almost broken C's neck (I may be exaggerating a little, but the two girls were running and C was in front, so A grabbed C's hair and pulled so hard that C spun backwards and almost fell over). I'm terrified of what might be in store for us in the next 5 days... And can only be thankful that at least 3 of them are all-day-at-school-days.

I swear, this kid is evil. She's a compulsive liar, a trouble-maker, she's two-faced and even more scary when she's being nice.

The only plus point is that perhaps C has figured out that A is probably not the best friend she could have. C went to bed tonight with a sore tummy, which I'm pretty sure is pure stress and tension. She looks pale and drawn, and spent much of today at loggerheads with A (except when A was bitching about L and saying how nasty she is).

I still have a mountain of work, our money worries are getting dire beyond belief (6,000 Euros to pay to get the roof fixed - we don't possess that kind of money, even if you add all our accounts together), I've been doing endless laundry (because of course A cannot ever wear the same clothes two days in a row, including pyjamas, jumpers, jeans...) and my tax form nightmare is looming. But all I can think about is Thursday evening, when this monster will finally go home, never to come back if I have anything to do with it.

I'm thinking that Friday could be a day of celebration chez nous... Assuming we're all still alive, not in a mental institution and not in jail.

Back from the dead (no, England actually)

Yes, I know, we got back over a week ago. But this has been a busy week (and it's only going to get worse - of which more anon) and I really haven't had much free time for writing.

So, the holiday. Well, we had a fantastic time. It was SOOOOOO good to see my two best friends, first J in the south of England, where we stayed for 4 and a half days. C and L get on really well with her two kids, W and E (sweet E is my goddaughter, bless her cotton socks), we did quite a few things - a long walk one day, a trip to the local swimming pool another (where J and I quietly sat in the cafeteria while the two Daddies dealt with the kids: heaven!), down to visit HMS Warrior in Portsmouth on the third day and then lazing about on the last. Had a really good time, though it made me realise just how much I miss J on a day-to-day basis... I really don't feel like I have anyone I can talk to here in France...

Anyway.

Off up to the south of London on the Friday to spend the night with my other best friend, M. Had a lot of fun there, too, even if D and I didn't sleep all that well. In the evening, once the kids were in bed, we watched Mamma Mia! (which the two guys loathed but which M and I enjoyed), in the afternoon we went to Greenwich park and on the Saturday morning we met up with another friend from Uni, K, for coffee before catching our train.

And finally, that train took us up into London from where we caught another train down into Kent to spend the afternoon, evening, night and morning with my cousin. Now, I haven't seen this cousin in probably about 20 years (yes, we're a very close-knit family) so I was a bit apprehensive, but in the end it was great. His mother (my aunt, then) and sister (a cousin I haven't seen since I was 2!) and her husband came round for the evening, we had a lovely time, we were made to feel very welcome and it was all very heart-warming. I'm so glad we've caught up with each other at last - I wanted my aunt to meet her little sister's granddaughters, I wanted C and L to meet their family, I wanted to see them too, and I'm unutterably pleased that we did it.

My cousin drove us to Gatwick on the Sunday morning, we did a little shopping and then came home, tired but happy as they say.

Back to school and work last Monday and it was a truly hectic week.

And as for this week. Well.

First, I have a shitload of work to do - 40,000 words to translate for various dates through the month. Not an undo-able amount in and of itself, but a lot to have already booked up. I just have to pray that not too much else comes in between now and the end of the month!

Second - and this is the real humdinger - the parents of one of C's classmates are flying off on holiday tomorrow and don't get back till 12 March. So the kid is SPENDING 9 DAYS WITH US. Now, she's a nice kid, very open, very self-confident, very extroverted (everything my sweet C isn't). But she's also the weakest student in the class and since the beginning I've been worried about this most unlikely friendship. C has been very odd of late, crying for no (apparent) reason at all, very morose. But she won't say why. And I'm scared that A (the kid), who's almost a whole year older than C, is just too much. I'm sure C is impressed by her and that A likes having such an admiring audience all the time. She also probably likes having a friend who's so good at her lessons. But I don't want people to like my baby just because she's good at her lessons. And I don't want her to stop getting good marks because her friends don't and she wants to be like them.

As you can probably tell, I'm not wild about this friendship. So you can imagine how I feel about having the kid live with us for 9 days... She also apparently needs very little sleep (this, I feel, is doomed for failure given how much sleep C needs and how hideous she can be if she doesn't get it) and I know from experience that having three little girls in the house is usually a recipe for many tears. L will inevitably be left out (pushed aside by C, I suspect) but, when C and A have arguments (and they will, I'm willing to bet on it), A will turn to L and C will go into total meltdown.

I have to say I'm absolutely dreading the next 9 days. And D is equally ambivalent about the whole thing, despite the fact we had a minor spat about it this evening.

I'm so worried about C. Her school work does seem to be dropping a little - she seems content if she gets a better mark than her friend, but as A's marks are generally pretty low, that doesn't mean much. I don't want C to feel under A's thumb, I want her to be friends with other little girls, to develop confidence in herself. She knows she's clever, but, like me, has real self-confidence issues in other areas. She's breaking my heart right now, and seems so small again. My baby's 7 years old, but I haven't seen her this vulnerable since she was a little preemie...

My plan is to somehow go and see her teacher and have a talk with her, see what she thinks. See if she thinks it might be a good idea to split them up next year (I hate saying this - I know I don't really have the right to decide who my little girl is friends with, but it's so tempting to ask them to put them in different classes next year... that way they could stay friends, but wouldn't be as close... Oh, I feel so mean!).

So you get the picture. A hard week (9-day week) looming. And yes, of course, the flat is still a tip - in addition to all my work I have to do some serious cleaning, sheet-changing etc.

I wish I could just fast forward to this time on 12 March...

On a more positive note, we are going to Arles again in April, but with my father this time, so I'm looking forward to that, and I'm trying (no thanks to a crappy website) to book our first ever 2-week holiday for this summer near Saint Jean de Luz. Which looks fab too. Of course, we can't afford any of this (can't afford anything, to be honest - I haven't been this broke in ages. I do wish people would start paying me!), but I'm desperate for a holiday, even though we've only just come back from one...

Leavin' on a(n) (Easy)jet plane...

...But I do know when I'll be back again: next Sunday, late afternoon.

This promises to be a hectic week involving little sleep, but I'm also hoping it'll be kinda fun. We're staying with two of my best friends, one from tomorrow till Friday morning, the other just Friday night (very little room to sleep), and then our last night with a cousin I barely know.

Of course, it's still 2.30 am here and I've only just finished all the work I had to do before we leave, so of course I also haven't packed a single thing yet (though I've done loads of laundry!), but we don't have to be at the airport till 3 pm, so it should be OK.

And I've also booked a "gîte" for the 4 of us, plus my father, for the week after Easter in Arles (went there last year with my MIL and it was cool, except that she did bugger all to help out and that that really, really fucked me off).

Just have to start thinking about our summer holidays now...

And the minor, minor fact that I'm totally broke (yet again) is best ignored, I feel.

Oh, for those of you interested (?!), you'll be delighted to know that the flat is now once more a total tip. Maybe less cardboard boxes than before, but still a real mess. I despair.

See you in 9 days!

Big night out

Wow, people! I HAVE A SOCIAL LIFE!

OK, I had to endure the hideous ordeal of going to the local "Olympic-size" swimming pool with D and the girls this afternoon first, but the reward was well worth it.

Backtracking...

Why do I hate the swimming pool so much, let me count the ways...
1. I swim about as well as a brick. A very heavy brick. Technically, I can "swim", but in reality, I loathe getting splashes on my face, freak out if I'm out of my depth and probably analyse what I'm actually doing so much that I start to sink.
2. I have serious body image issues. In the last 12 months or so, I have put on more weight than I care to admit (OK, about 7 kg) and now feel fat and blimpy and pig ugly most of the time. And even the observation today at the pool that I seem to be slimmer than many of the women (the ones my age, I mean) there, proving my point that French women are NOT all skinny and chic and what have you, didn't help. At least I did my legs last night and didn't look like an albino gorilla.
3. D adores swimming, as in, really swimming - multiple lengths, serious stuff. So, the typical scenario is that he goes to the big pool and does his stuff for a while, and I go to the "fun" pool with the girls. And have to watch over them like a hawk as they can't do the same things and are rarely in the same place. So (1) is virtually a moot point as I don't actually need to get wet, I can do this part sitting on a chair round the edge.
4. If, however, I do end up getting wet, I then very quickly turn from ashen white (my usual "healthy" skin colour) to bright, Smurf blue with ever-so-attractive violent orange blotches because of the gut-wrenching cold. This, of course, does nothing to help (2).
5. As I have two girls, I get the fun and games of going into a tiny cubicle with them both, getting changed, helping L into her costume, bla, bla, and then, on the way out (even better), getting them both showered, dried, and dressed. Such a hassle.
6. Swimming hats are now obligatory and not only are they hideously ugly (see (2)), but they also make my head claustrophobic. I loathe them!

That said, today's trip wasn't as bad as the last one. For one thing, I managed to stay dry (got my feet wet in the footwash thing, that's it) and thus reasonably not cold (and not blue, then). Second, D came to help quite quickly and third, L is getting a little more adventurous and so spent more time with C than on her own.

It still took about an hour longer than I would have liked, though, but never mind. I feel that I've done my duty.

And my reward? A night "out" with two friends. Actually, "out" means at the (fabulous, elegant, chic) house of one of them, but it was "out" for me. Both have kids at the same school as C and L - the hostess' daughter is in L's class, and the other has one son the same age as C.

We chatted - and not only about our kids! - and had a lovely dinner (homemade pizza and salad, fruit salad and clafoutis, coffee, wine) and felt grown-up. Well, I did, anyway. And we're planning on doing it again.

D may frequently say that I'm hopelessly antisocial (which isn't entirely untrue, I have to admit), but let's be honest: of the two of us, I'm the one making contacts for me, I'm the one going out with friends. I'm giving it my best shot!

I feel a little exhilarated, a little sick (nothing to do with dinner, all to do with the chocolate I ate when I came home, see "7 kg" remark above), and a lot exhausted. It's the school half-term break here (already) and I have a shitload of work to do, which is proving tough.

But I'll be on holiday myself on Sunday and we're going to England to see my two best friends and I'm really excited!

Bleurch

That's how I feel right now. My throat feels like a nutmeg grater every time I swallow, I'm alternating between cold and roasting, my voice is all croaky (a sure-fire sign that I'll lose my voice completely at some point over the next couple of days, much to the hilarity of D and the girls) and I've been blowing my nose ALL DAY. Yup, nothing more than a common cold, but oh, how nasty it is!

Other than that, I've signed up to "make things" for the school Christmas market, and have (perhaps foolishly) promised to make truffles ("about 10 sachets of 5 truffles"), gift tags and a few Christmas tree decorations. When, exactly, I'm going to have the time to do all this is a total mystery...

Had quite a good morning, though, despite less than 4 hours' sleep - took the girls to school and then met up with the very nice mother (with a daughter in C's class) in charge of the Christmas market and two other mothers I already know and we spent almost 2 hours chatting in a café. Not exactly productive, but really very pleasant.

We're new to this school, but I already feel very much involved and that I'm starting to make real connections... It's a nice feeling, and I would be feeling pretty good with myself tonight (even though it's really late yet again, I still have work to do and I'm aching to a) go to bed and b) make myself a bowl of porridge) if I didn't have this horrid cold...

Roll on the holidays, that's all I can say!

Little girls

Oh, it's so tough being a maman! All you want to do is protect your babies from hurt and pain and sadness and disappointment and suffering and illness and badness and...

But of course you can't do it; and, truth be told, it's probably a good thing.

But when I arrived at school to collect C, she came out of the playground and immediately started sobbing. And crack - my heart broke.

When I asked her what was wrong, she gave me the absolutely classic "A and P say they aren't my friends, and that no one wants to be my friend any more". It's so hard to explain that little girls just really aren't always very nice to each other (not just little girls, for that matter, but I'll not mention that to her for now).

As I said before, C and L have started at a new school this year. Last year, and all the years before that, they were at a very, very small bilingual (English-French) private school. It cost us a fortune, but was great, really great. Except that the classes were TOO small. By which I mean that last year, C was one of a class of 4 children. And one of those has moved back to his native Romania. If she'd stayed, she would have been one of just 3. The whole primary part of the school probably doesn't have more than 25 kids. It's too small.

So, we decided to move her now (when she's still young - she'll only be 7 on 27 December), to another private (but not bilingual, Catholic instead) school with a very good reputation (because my sweet babies are good at their schoolwork!).

C is now in a class of 25, and her year (CE 1, the equivalent of 2nd grade I guess) is composed of 3 such classes, meaning 75 kids in her year alone. A huge change, obviously.

She has settled in; remarkably well, in fact. But she's also pathologically shy and, being one of the youngest (here in France, classes are by calendar year so obviously, with her birthday at the end of December, she's nearly always the "baby" of the class), she often seems to be somewhat in awe of the others. Until today, her "best" friend was A, a girl bursting with self-confidence who will be 8 in January. She's almost a year older, but is already aware that my sweet C is (probably, for the moment and of course it may change) a better student. This causes tension already. And then C is still very much a little girl - but she HATES being called a baby. I can see where the hurt comes in: she wants so badly to fit in, but she lacks confidence, lacks maturity, lacks what most of these other kids seem to have in spades.

And I hate to see her so unhappy. I know in all probability the whole thing will be forgotten by Monday. But this evening she just seemed so small, such a very little girl. And my heart aches because not only can I not do anything to help, but - worse - I mustn't do anything to help other than explain how things are. She has to learn to fight these battles on her own.

But she's my baby, my sweet little girl... This is so hard!

Why are (little) girls always so mean to each other?