The 2 hour shit, another whiskered companion and the return to Isengard.

Quite the long title for a blog post, I agree.

Following Halloween, I found myself whisked to my cousin Joop's (pro. Yope) house for his wife's birthday and found myself blinking in absolute disbelief to find my cousins Mandy and Arline now at eye-level, if not taller than me (last I saw them they were still kids, not big gangly teenagers). I also saw uncle Hans, cousin Johnny and aunt Bep, so I felt I could breath easy knowing that they'd all got the chance to see me for a short while. 

The next night we were at my friend Anne's for her birthday, it was great seeing her and finally getting to meet her boyfriend Dik. After living in the countryside of France, I'm far more amazed at my Dutch friends being able to hold conversations with me and understanding me so well that I don't have to slow down my speech for them. If I tried talking to anyone my age in English in France, I'd get nothing more than a wide-eyed expression and a mutter of "chepas" (dunno). 

Well, after that came the day of the 2 hour shit. I was shocked to discover that my 9 year old cousin still had her bum wiped when she went two-sie, in a case that was definitely 'could but wouldn't'. I think my shocked expression gave her mother the final push to let the little one do it herself. Wellllll, 2 hours (yes, TWO HOURS, she was that determined she wasn't doing it herself) of screaming, shouting, throwing things, crying and cursing like a Dutch sailor, my little cousin eventually returned from the toilet, cowed, having wiped her own bum which I gathered was rather sore after sitting on the porcelain throne for a great length of time. Huzzah! 

After that, I spent quite a lot of time lazing, watching TV (I have none in France) and streaming Criminal Minds and Game of Thrones. However, my cousin's internet is slow and the moment someone else tries to get online- you get knocked off, which led to me getting rather impatient when MJ got ill after her injections and wanted on her laptop every time I was on mine, and wanting the TV when I gave-up even trying to download videos and resorted to watching Comedy Central... after this became quite the pattern, I decided to head out a walk for my own sanity, to get away from the Dutch kid music in particular:

This delightful example is from the Dutch Junior Eurovision, with such inspired lyrics as "I'm a teenager, I do what I want!"

I decided to try head for some fields I'd seen earlier, I'd seen a path and wanted to follow it- turns out it leads straight back to the motorway... But before I made this somewhat annoying revelation, I had a nice breezy walk through mud and grass (just what the country girl in me needed). I was also surprised to come across what must have been hundreds, if not, thousands of geese! 

It made me feel at home, Orkney has its fair share of geese but the number of them in Vinkeveen took my breath away I have to say. After stopping to marvel a while, I carried on till I came to a bit a of a dead end.

As I realised my way forward led to the motorway, I decided to turn around and go back the way I came, gandering at the geese once more while feeling all my muscles relax and my mind mellow as I took in the sun and listened to the Coraline soundtrack, which is brilliant music for chilling and adventuring in my opinion.

'Exploration' by Bruno Coulais

On my walk back I came across another feline friend, black and white, much like Captain Nemo. Again, I believe this cat had a Dutch accent, while French cats are whiny and high-pitched, Dutch cats have a deeper, lower yowl...

My new companion decided to lead the way home for a while, till he got unsure and tried to follow me- somehow I don't think my cousin's hamster or budgies would have been thrilled at the new arrival so I had to ditch him. Cutie though, huh? 

On my last day in Holland, my cousin treated me to a lovely meal- I was delighted to go out somewhere and NOT have goat's cheese salad, the French really need to explore other veggie options for crying out loud. The amount of meat ingested in this country should not be healthy. Instead, I had the most amazing pumpkin risotto and was amused to find that what could be the only other Brit in the restaurant of a tiny town in Holland, was seated at the table right next to ours. Saying that, I heard fireworks on Guy Fawkes night and wondered if there were more Brits abroad- we really do get everywhere!

And on my last night, I got bitten to buggery by a mosquito- at 5am I woke to a buzzing in my ear and with my ninja reflexes got the little bastard against the wall. I don't know if you've ever squashed a mosquito, but it's rather satisfying as it actually explodes with blood- your blood! I'm actually the kind of person that wouldn't normally hurt a fly, but that little git harmed me first! I've been bitten several times on the arm, on the bum(?! I slept with leggings on!!), on the neck, on the chest, and, I believe, on the eye. Which you'll find more on later...

Anyway, I found myself at the train station waving a sad goodbye to my cousins and starting my trip back to Isengard (Issoudun), so called as the only thing of significance it has bar pile-ons is a white tower like the one in Lord of the Rings. Well, all went smoothly till I got to Paris and decided to brave the Metro- which as everyone knows is where the phrase "stuffed like sardines in a can" must come from. Some big fat black behemoth of a woman decided she wanted a seat, an improbability as I was squashed into the aisle- still this woman continued to say "excusez-moi" while I could do nothing but twitch and say sorry. She decided to force her way through. Seeing as the space between the seats could barely contain this woman, with me also in said space, the pressure increased until I finally went flying like a cork out of a champagne bottle into some poor Asian lads' laps, they kinda looked the type that played Dungeons and Dragons and seemed to be extremely terrified to find a female flung on top of them. As I struggled to my feet and relocated my suitcase, we came to a stop- the Behemoth got up and got out. ONE STOP! She'd caused all that trouble to sit down for one fucking stop! I could have booted her arse out of those doors.

After this stressful encounter, I got on the train for Limoges. Well, that increased my anxiety levels. I dislike travelling at night at the best of times as I can't look out the window and make sure of where I am, but the driver left 10mins late, stopped 30 times on a 4 stop train and announced nothing... My 8.30 arrival time to Issoudun came and went, the poor French woman next to me had to deal with a lot of twitching and questions until the girl with the trolley came- we were all about 40mins late according to her. WHAT?! How it was possible to stretch a train journey that long I'll never know. But at 9.30, une heure plus tard!!! I found myself in Issoudun. Carting a heavy suitcase wasn't great in the first place, but when I got in and came face-to-face with all the stairs to my flat, I could have sat on top of my luggage and just cried. About 10 dizzying minutes later, seeing stars and tasting blood in the back of my throat, I entered my flat. TEA, FOOD, LAPTOP, WASH! As I looked in the mirror I saw my eyelid had swollen up, and when I tore off my jumper, I was delighted to see great big red welts where I'd been bitten- and now that I was relaxed, they were bloody itchy! After consulting the internet, I decided to go for the teabag fix, as I was gunna have a cuppa anyhow. Literally, take the teabag while it's still hot- hot as you can stand it and shove it on top of the mosquito bite- it worked, it hurts SO good! Itching had stopped. 

However, this morning when I woke up the bites still hadn't gone down, nor my eye, so it's safe to assume I'm allergic to mosquito bites. After a long steamy bath in the hope to stop more itching, I went to the Pharmacy and got some cream, so that's where I am now- covered in cream and about to go flop on the couch with J.K Rowling's new book and put a cold teabag on my eye in the hope that it'll reduce some of the swelling... C'est la vie.