'riding solo'

With the four children dispersed to households around the area I was given a little time off. So with their satnav I was able to ‘ride solo’ around Provence for the weekend. Satnav while being a wonderful invention also has major draw backs. I swear the children have somehow found a setting that ensures that satnav finds the most difficult route for a 4x4 to go down. The satnav fails to understand that it is not finding a route for a bicycle but an extremely large vehicle being driven by a twenty year old who will definitely not win the driver of the year award. Satnav at one point led me down the narrowest, tinniest country lane that then led to well nothing. As if satnav was somehow testing my driving skills I then had to do a three point turn in what I am convinced was a cycle path. The one good thing about the 4x4 is that it is slightly bashed and I am ensuring this trend continues as I add more and more authentic bumps and bruises to the vehicle. Parking is also near impossible for me as I have no spatial awareness so usually just park the land rover horrendously and make very speedy exits (I am hoping you can’t get arrested for bad parking in France).

my impeccably parked ride

My first real venture was to a nearby town, that naturally had an unpronounceable French name that the family enjoyed hearing me fail to say correctly (L’isle Sur La Sogne if you want to try – not as easy as it looks I promise you). The village did have one pretty good antiques market though, I am extremely sad I am flying Ryanair as I doubt they will allow me to take an extra necklace on board never mind the sofa I have my eye on... I also managed to glimpse a random boat race in the town that involved participants trying to row upstream through several dams while crowds cheered them on. It seemed to be just ordinary dressed people with confused faces so I reckon they were all tourists taking part while the French laughed along. Very bizarre. They also love bull fighting – any opportunity for public ridicule I reckon.

The French being typically French do not seem to be that interested in the Olympics here. Too much attention on those pesky British I imagine. So when the children returned, I forced the family to take part in a mini Olympic party. This meant I got to make a jazzy T-Shirt, attempt to paint my nails patriotically, and get stuck in to some face painting. The children however did not enjoy all this as much as me, refusing to have their faces painted nor their nails. Well I did manage to paint the four year old’s nails until he ran crying to his Dad who looked at me like I was attempting to feminize his child. I also made some ‘traditional’ Scottish cakes with the four year old, these involve putting marshmallows and chocolate in cake cases (again not helping what my French family think of Scottish cuisine). This was amusing as he basically ate everything while we were trying to make it – I have never seen a child’s eyes open so wide when I opened a packet of marshmallows and melted chocolate! Watching him turn in to a chocolate child was amusing at the time but I regretted letting him eat so many sweets when an hour afterwards he became uncontrollably hyper. And believe me a four year old can cause quite a lot of havoc – as I repeatedly tell him to ‘arrete’ his new favourite thing is to repeat back to me what I have said in my awful French accent. I have been trying to teach him a little English as well but sort of got it wrong as I got confused so now he thinks that ‘merci’ in English is please - oops. I told his parents that he is the one confused and I taught him correctly – they believe me thankfully.

my various attempts to be patriotic! trying to draw a union jack on nails is very difficult as is writing London on a pizza I have discovered.

It is also getting extremely hot here so the best option is without a doubt the beach. Bizarrely though the beach near here appears to receive the most wind in the world – therefore you are battling through massive waves, and sand whipping your face constantly. It is hot though and is possible to tan so I can’t really complain. The beach is also perfect for people watching, especially the different types of families. I have divided these into certain main types. Firstly you have those who are clearly massively protective so their children are covered their children in suntan lotion, they are sporting arm bands, wearing a T-Shirt over the sun cream and of course hats, and are not allowed in water deeper than their ankles. You also have the ‘wild children’ who have matted hair that has not been brushed in a while, usually covered in sand and ice cream, and the girls never wear a bikini top making them look like Mongli in my opinion. You then have the ‘special’ children whose only interest is in digging a really deep hole by themselves (I fear this may have been me). Then the daredevil children whose main aim is clearly to terrify their parents by going as far as out to sea as possible and making numerous effort to attempt to drown in the waves.

When we are not escaping the heat in the house, the Wii is also slowly becoming the thing I come to dread. Today my awful dancing was brought in to the limelight when the girls forced me to play with them on Wii dance giving them an opportunity to laugh at my expense. Then when I play with the four year old we are only allowed to play the games he is good at. As soon as I win something, we have to switch to something else, this means my true Wii potential is not allowed to be explored in my opinion. I however have found a game that means my Wii character gets to blow up his Wii character which I have found somewhat more enjoyable for me.

So another week in France complete and I still have four children – just about!

communication problems

The language barrier I must admit is presenting something of a difficulty. I spend most of the time nodding along to what is being said to me and at the dinner table the family speak so fast I have no real chance of understanding. Therefore I just keep randomly smiling – they are definitely on to me though as I am pretty sure the answer to every question they ask is not yes. I just catch the odd word or so and can occasionally get the gist of the conversation but my faking understanding is definitely something to be desired. It is also extremely difficult to discipline a child in a language you do not speak very well which when it comes to the four year old is a particular challenge. The older children usually end up telling him off for me, which in essence completely undermines my authority in his eyes. He therefore takes great pleasure in knowing I have little control over him and seems to only be capable of being incredibly cute or incredibly evil. A new trick he learnt today was cycling in front of me in an effort to throw me off my bike. Another highlight of my week with him was after an argument where I tried to dress him (arguments consist of two words ‘oui’ and ‘non’) him running away from me. I searched the whole house for him and then realized the back door was open. Presuming he had run into the garden which leads into acres and acres of fields I feared for the worse. I ran (bare foot may I add for haste) round the garden getting more frantic by the moment, until finally returning back to the house where he suddenly jumped out from under a table shouting ‘a joke, a joke’. Believe me it was the least amusing moment of my life so far.

Moving away from that tragic episode, the language barrier is also a problem when I am told things are going to happen, pretend to understand, and therefore get a big shock when I am presented with a new scenario. Such as sitting in a car and suddenly ending up at the beach having no clue where I was told we were heading. Another day a random woman turned up at the house and I was motioned to go with her in her car. It soon transpired that I had apparently agreed (where the nodding my head along can go wrong) to go to a local town for the afternoon with the Mum’s sister. Thankfully she spoke a little English so that afternoon presented somewhat of a break but being ushered into a car with a random women was briefly upsetting. It turned into a nice afternoon as we had coffee in a nice hotel, which no less that Bono himself had stayed in the night before. Brushing shoulders with the rich and famous here in Provence.

Activity wise I am quite enjoying looking after three children who enjoy doing loads of stuff (slash I love doing loads of stuff so force them to do loads of stuff too – no Sims and watching TV when I’m their au pair). We have done quite a lot of arts and crafts stuff after a trip to craft making heaven. However I have forgotten how to do some of it which has resulted in a few papier mache disasters mainly resulting in papier mache becoming a crumpled heap on the ground. The language barrier also means that it is extremely hard to explain to the children that I know a better way of doing something and usually consist of an argument with both of us grabbing an item screaming ‘stop’. In the end I usually just explain how something should be done in English knowing at least I know I tried. I was allowed to successfully salvage one papier mache disaster and construct it into a pretty epic piñata which the four year old took great joy in hitting repeatedly, nearly missing me on numerous occasions of course. The children also took to painting another day – I have included pictures here as in my opinion they are essential to seeing the childrens’ unquestionable talent.

What the four year old drew

What the eleven year old drew

When papier mache goes wrong...

I took the children climbing another day. I therefore found myself having to not only teach three children to climb with robes but in a language I could barely speak. Without a doubt the most useful phrase I know is ‘comme ca’ meaning ‘like that’. I was extremely impressed with the fact I managed to get all three children up the wall and on top of that was able to teach the eleven year old to belay and learn some basic knots. The nine year did develop a very annoying habit of running around the climbing centre shouting ‘Olivia regarde’ (she does there everywhere to be honest and if she is this attention seeking now I worry for her future). I do count the visit a success though because I have managed to get the children hooked on climbing and luckily there are numerous centres in the region.

So my first week with four children has definitely been interesting, stressful, and amusing…

the 'other au pair'

I am now the proud au pair of four children these past few days. And it turns out that au pairing is bloody hard work when you have four children to look after so this blog post will now be more of a summary of the some of the more memorable moments…

When the two girls arrived it transpired that the family had an au pair last summer as well from York and it also quickly transpired that the girls preferred her. This is particularly bad for one’s self esteem I must admit. The nine year old was quickly won over with a cut and stick puzzle game I had brought with me and watching me fail miserably attempting a head stand. However the thirteen year old proved more of a challenge and I was faced with an evening alone with her and her sister Saturday night. This meant having to deal with a child who wouldn’t stop crying and who spoke very little English. She spent most of the evening on the phone to her mum or exchanging words with her sister in broken French while glaring at me. Not the best situation for an au pair I must admit.

The day after with the four year old we went to the beach with the parents who seemed oblivious to there being a problem. However ‘other au pair’ syndrome did begin. They kept mentioning the ‘other au pair’ and confusing our names. This other au pair better have been bloody good!

Fortunately I can report there is a happy ending to this story and it turns out all the thirteen year old needed was for me to create a school like atmosphere and as soon as I brought out my French learning books all was good.

Fortunately for me having her on my side was definitely required as when the eleven year old arrived as well, I now needed to drive them all about to do various activities. Monday morning I was therefore faced with four children, driving on the right side of the road, and driving a land rover I had never even sat in before. Oh and to add to the fun I thought it might be a good idea to teach them English directions too. Therefore at every turning we had frantic yelling of ‘yes’ ‘oui’ ‘non’ ‘gauche’ ‘right’ ‘no’ ‘left’ combined with me stalling at every occasion. One particularly memorable incident was the eleven year old ensuring me it was all right to drive across a junction and the rest of France clearly disagreeing. It was not until the undercover French police flashed their badge at me I decided just turning left was probably the better option. Luckily I am looking after four children who are incredibly understanding and despite me slamming on the breaks repeatedly and stalling a thousand times they remained pretty calm and the four year old still managed to sleep. Another memorable hill start involved the eleven year old having to do the hand break for me while I did the peddles and the most horrific smell of clutch seeping through the car. The nine year old cautiously asked if the car was ok and I assured her the car was absolutely fine but yes that smell was coming from us.

When we eventually did get somewhere, our first outing led us to a park called ‘Amazonia’ which is a forest type adventure park for children. Personally I think the park was rather cunningly devised as it is meant to look like abandoned jungle ruins meaning that gardening and touching up the paint work are clearly foregone under the excuse they add to the atmosphere. It looked like an abandoned fair ground in an overgrown forest to me but the children thoroughly enjoyed it. The four year old was also on top form accident wise, falling repeatedly just to test my heart rate. The best thing about him is that he just gets up and laughs every time. At one point he decided to attempt to balance along a high rope and proceeded to fall off into the mud face first. All the other parents were gasping and looking horrified as me and the other three children stood and laughed at him. This time I will admit he did cry but I picked him up and gave him a kiss as he spat mud in my face and off he was again! In an attempt to get back at us, he later pulled down his shorts and pants and peed everywhere in the middle of the park attempting to aim his pee at us. The hardest part was trying to keep a straight face as I told him off.

Despite an outing with the French police and the four year old sporting a now very distinct cut right down his noise (he enjoys looking in the mirror at it) the parents just laughed as the children relayed the stories to them. Luckily the parents are EXTREMELY relaxed BUT unfortunately the children ensure the parents hear about every detail of what I do…

how it begun...

Despite only being an au pair for three days, they have been so many amusing incidences that it seems silly not to start some sort of blog of my time here. The likelihood of me forgetting everything that happened is also high so at least this way no ‘hilarious’ stories will be forgotten.

The four year old just came over and deleted that paragraph – not so amusing for me right now - apparently I should be watching him play the Wii and not typing on my laptop.

This blog will however chronicle the seven weeks I am spending as an au pair in the south of France near Avignon in Aix En Provence. Here I am living in the countryside with fruit farmers (unfortunately in my Scottish accent I often announce to people they are foot farmers) but can now verify it is definitely fruit as I have already eaten most of it. I am here looking after their four children: a four year old boy, a nine year old girl, an eleven year old boy, and a thirteen year old girl. But before you gasp the couple have both been married before therefore the three eldest children spend half their time with their other parents leaving only the four year old with me all the time. The fact I have never really looked after children before and only speak basic French will add to the excitement of this blog!

So here goes in easy to read vignette form, my first few days here:

Day 1: 10^th July 2012

As per usual, my attempts to find the cheapest mode of transport to get anyway (sadly for me walking nor cycling were not particularly feasible), involved a pretty horrific day of travel. Despite the fact I was only going to the south of France, I managed to find a route that took twelve hours to complete. Firstly I had to arrive at the airport in Newcastle lovely and early on the morning after my graduation for a flight to Nice (no last treble vodkas for me the night before). At the airport I proceeded to add a few more grey hair to my mother’s head by having such a heavy suitcase that I had to repack it three times at the checkout desk (despite BBC weather telling me the weather would be lovely I find it hard to trust its unreliable meteorology so packed raincoats, jumpers, and waterproof shoes just in case). Inevitably out of all the clothes I brought I will wear the same T-Shirt and shorts every day.

After arriving in Nice the next part of my journey involved a nice wee trip along the sea front on a bus to the train station there to catch a train to Avignon where the family would meet me. My dis-trust in Easyjet flight scheduling led me to book a train that involved sitting in Nice train station for three hours but at least I wouldn’t miss it. It also meant I had time to eat my way through a few French baguettes and laugh at French people and English tourists. It was worth the wait though as I got to ride on a French TGV Duplex on the top floor! I had also had time to buy a copy of Elle D’Ete (the French summer version of Elle); partly to practice my French and also so I would look chic and French and no one would know I was a foreigner. Cunning I know.

Before I knew it I was meeting my French family at Avignon train station. The moment of truth when I would discover if they were either axe murderers or non-existent. Fortunately they were waiting and despite clutching my French Elle I looked British enough they recognized me straight away!

So there I was off to be an au pair!

Clearly someone somewhere does like me as the family turned out to be absolutely lovely – as welcoming and friendly as they could possibly be. The four year old is extremely cute and fun to be with. He is also small enough to be picked up (I like picking up children apparently) and comes complete with a very endearing French accent. Although the Dad and four year old do not speak any French, it turns out my French audio CDs did work slightly so we can just about understand one another with lots of pointing. There are of course a few issues – to me the words vent (for wind) and vin (for wine) sound exactly the same so when they were asking me if it was windy I was replying by saying I would prefer a beer. This was after being in the house for about ten minutes so they most likely thought they were welcoming a Scottish alcoholic into the house, especially when I appeared downstairs with my present for them of a bottle of whisky. I have further done Scotland dis-service through my descriptions of Scottish food (bear in mind I have limited French especially when it comes to explaining the intricacies of haggis and other delicacies). Therefore basically they think in Scotland we eat lots of Italian food, lots of potatoes, and lots of ‘mince’ (they don’t know what mince is though). Scotland should be proud of me I reckon.

Day 2: 11^th July 2012

My first full day started with me looking after the four year old in the morning while the parents went out to work. This was a very trusting move in my opinion as although they had met me the night before I did still have the potential for ax murderer status. Those who know me will already know that I have very limited experience looking after children. My two main experiences have been baby sitting for the siblings of a friend of my brother – who declared me boring - and dropping a baby in Bangladesh. And I must confess my first morning with the four year old was not without incidence – while playing Wii golf I may have accidently whacked him over the head with the Wii controller during a particularly vigorous swing.

HOWEVER

He was absolutely fine and luckily he is quite clumsy so is used to falling and doesn’t ever cry. Basically he can fall over reasonably badly and just gets back up and says ‘ca va’. So the ideal child for me then, just maybe not for social services. On a serious note though he is an absolutely lovely wee boy, not perfectly behaved but then what four year olds are. He is also extremely amusing to be with, although he does love Thomas the Tank Engine, he also loves the music channels on TV – particularly R n B music. Watching a four year old dance and sing along to Chris Brown is one of the most amusing ways to pass a morning. He is now also my favourite four year old as when I sang along to the music too, I was instantly told by him to ‘ne chantez pas’. You don’t need to know much French to understand I was told to stop singing by a child who barely knows me.

The rest of the day was spent making our way through the epic toy collection he possesses, while I realized that toys were the biggest secret children keep from us. For instance Playdo is amazing. Why there is not an adult version I do not know – you can play a dentist game with it and he has a pizzeria game also! The opportunities are endless!

After the Wii incident I am still slightly reluctant to use it again but it is a brilliant way to occupy a four year old I have found, as is the TV. A personal favourite programme on French childrens’ television is ‘Sam le pompier’! However the most amusing thing that occupies the four year old’s time is what I will call: ‘French child Jackass’. Basically there are tons of videos of toy train sets (in particular those of Thomas the Tank Engine) crashing on youtube which the four year old loves. It is similar to older boys watching police chases or Jackass but for small children! As for obvious reasons I am not putting photos of the children here. This is a link to what he watches.

Get a kick out of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5qUVqQAJyY

Four year olds these days eh.

Day 3: 12^th July 2012

Another morning was spent in the house with the four year old where my French is slowly progressing. I am slightly worried about the fact I am learning French from a four year old but he is very good at correcting my pronunciation. And the best thing is that I am spending most of my time pointing at things and saying ‘qu’est que c’est?’ to which he gives me the French word and is yet to get too bored - a clear advantage of learning French from a four year old. Yet on the other hand most of my French is from someone who can’t read and repeated viewings of ‘Sam le pompier’.

The mum also took me for a drive in the car on the RIGHT side of the road. This was pretty trusting of her in my opinion as she let the four year old sit in the back (he slept the whole way so my jolty gear changes are clearly not so bad). The main problem is that she drives this massive SUV type thing which compared to my tres petit Suzuki swift is something of a shock. Cyclists on my right hand side should be terrified, as should the owners of any cars I choose to park near to. Look out for a big white car with terrified children in the back.

The weird food I eat was further confirmed to the mum when she brought out some pureed apple pots for the children. I instantly grabbed one declaring how much I love it to her amusement. Those who know me will know that my favourite thing about France (no joke) is the pureed apple pots you can get here which are basically mashed up fruit with sugar. But honestly are like heaven on earth and completely unique to France really. Unless of course you are willing to pay lots of money to buy a poorer version in organic food shops in the UK.

This event has however confirmed my worst fears that they are a food product meant for children.