You absolute vagina!

(The title of this blogpost is dedicated to the absolute cunt who stole my phone and purse last Saturday, and is a direct quote of the text I sent them the next morning when I discovered the full extent of the damage they'd caused me.)

So, our weekend in Tours set out to be a fun time from the beginning. I got slightly bus sick on the way there and had to swap seats for one in the aisle.

This was our bus, I kid you not. (Soc Interurban Transport centre, of course the French swap the last two words around) I found it somewhat amusing. I am slightly upset now as I realise this was the last picture I took with my Blackberry which I miss shitloads right now. :(

We began by meeting Isy's friend Alex, who is an assistant in Tours, she showed us around the old parts (the studenty part) of the town where we met Rachel and Clara. After a nice wee drink we headed to find food and our hotel, which was fun as Clara was on crutches and French people aren't particularly mindful towards handicapped people- in fact, they make targets out of them, barging past and perhaps hoping to knock them over. When you add this to the fact that, much like Edinburgh, Tours' main streets are a bloody nightmare to negotiate due to the work on trams- ramps everywhere, completely uneven ground and everyone forced to walk in single file, you can see the difficulties. In Tours,  if you want to get to two places that are just across from one another- good luck! You are forced to walk a mile (bit of an exaggeration) full circle to get to a place that is literally 3 metres away, if only you could walk through the barriers... Sigh. 

Anyway, we found the hotel, got some drinks and had a nice Italian dinner. Once we returned to our hotel we played a drinking game (much like Ring of Fire, but with bits of paper in a cup- lethal).

And from that point on, my life went downhill. After so many whiskies, once we hit town- town hit me, literally. Remember how I was saying about those annoying trams? Well, I came across a ramp and pretty much flung myself down it, absolutely tearing my knee to shit. As I was more than a little tipsy, I was adamant that I was "fiiiiine, done worse before", thank god the others saw sense and dragged me into the nearest bar to clean me up- cos quite frankly I had taken quite a large chunk out of my skin. (Thanks again folks!)

You would think that that would be the worst done with, but no. After having quite a lot of fun, and unfortunately more drinks in a club- where the DJs didn't know Crystal Castles to my drunken annoyance, we got home and I found out that my purse and Blackberry were gone. To add insult to injury, I still have my absolute brick of a French phone. As Rachel wisely pointed out, there was nothing to do at that time but go to bed and worry about it in the morning, which I did... Next day, voila! I woke up to find out that some arseholes had been on my FB, and quite obviously gone through my private messages as they had targeted my ex, clearly they thought it would be fun to add yet more problems to my life. It's horrible to know that someone has looked through your extremely private messages and found all the most hurtful stuff that has happened to you, and found it extremely funny and wished to add more emotional stress. It's so spiteful, and I feel extremely violated. 

Anyway, I sent my text (the title of this blog). I knew I wasn't going to see any of my stuff again. Phone contract and cards were quickly cancelled, I phoned the local police station when I got home and started to try piece everything together again. I got everything sorted... Eventually. The joy of France is that everything of importance (the bank) is closed Sunday and Monday, and the town goes into a 2 hour lock-down every lunchtime as everyone heads home for food. Can you imagine that happening in Britain?! Everyone just goes on a looooooooong lunchbreak, the French really don't have a reason to be miserable bastards, they get to go home and make a meal instead of scoffing down a Mars bar and a Lucozade in a matter of minutes before the afternoon rush. How anyone gets anything done, I don't know, if you work 9-5 your only option to go out and get your bits and pieces is on Saturday.

Now back to the  knee that I fucked. By the time I got home, it was a big mess- pus everywhere! Honestly, this happened to the same leg that I had just managed to stab with a  pair of scissors that very week (I was opening a box, and the box stopped but the scissors didn't). After visiting the school nurse twice (which was nice as she started asking me for English words and phrases, and was generally a pleasant person to be around), I realised it still wasn't healing much. In fact, I was hobbling around like Mad Eye Moody. I was very lucky in that the secretary of the Lycée decided to call her own doctor for me and get me an appointment, she even drove me there herself- absolute doll! 

Well, visiting a doctor in France is fun. It's like going to an accountant, there were 3 card machines glowing on the desk and a cash box. He took one look at my knee, peeled off my bandage covered in pus and SNIFFED it! I know that it is the most effective way of discovering infection, but ick...

It didn't smell bad anyway, so I'm not going to die of blood poisoning and have my leg cut off like I originally imagined. It's just going to take a century for me to grow back skin.

After the intimate moment of pus sniffing, he then robbed me blind again. I know I'll get money back from MGEN after sending away the forms, but having to dish out 70 euros for medical expenses when you have no card is a complete and utter bitch! I certainly miss the NHS now. 

Anyway, throughout all this. I did well not to break down and cry, I simply had to get on with things and back to preparing classes. Unfortunately that morning I had to swap classes last minute to work with a class who were studying Miley Cyrus. I was NOT in the mood for 'Party in the USA', I'm NEVER in the mood for 'Party in the USA'. I felt well and truly cursed.

In the next class we did an English Karma quiz, which just made me wonder what the fuck I'd done to deserve all this crap in one go- did I kick a baby in the face in a past life?

All was fine, until I cut my finger with a bread knife- something so little and silly, but at this point I just felt cursed and went in to a complete meltdown while finding myself a plaster. I was contemplating whether in fact I'd not only kicked a baby, but blown-up an entire maternity unit in a past life. Or perhaps I was actually Gengis Khan in a past life who, according to Loren's beloved Uberfacts, killed 11% of the world's population. 

Needless to say, everything felt better after a good cry. 

Now things are coming together again, my new cards are being sent, I FINALLY got a landline installed and will be getting cheap internet soon, and I can only hope that the nice man from Carphone Warehouse realises I just ran out of credit while filing my insurance claim- if not, mother can work it out. 

Today I had really nice classes, if they were this sweet all the time everyone would want to teach! Honestly. 

Let's hope things can continue looking up from here on.

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.

Halloween in Holland.

After about a day of travelling to Issoudun which led to me almost falling asleep face first into a pizza, and later face-planting onto my bed (completely unconscious to the world), how dismayed was I to find the French had holidays a few weeks later? While some of the assistants living near the South of Britain were delighted to be going home again so soon, I threw quite the tantrum: "I JUST GOT HERE!"
However, I soon saw this as an opportunity to go visit my family in Holland, it's been 4 years since I was last here so it's about time I caught up with them and saw how the little ones had grown.

I wrapped up my week in France by lugging a Jack-O'-Lantern from class to class, doing Halloween quizzes and telling the kids what activities we did in Scotland, such as 'dooking for apples', and saying how it's more traditional to have a neep as a lantern (a "neepy lantern", unfortunately the teacher heard "neeKy lantern" and was shouting this at the class- I didn't have the heart to correct her in front of them all). I then went to other classes and taught them the words to Thriller, played Halloween Pictionary with the younger ones, and got into a bit of a debate with the teacher of one class who were looking for the rhyming words in Thriller- yes neighbourhood and blood sort of rhyme, but as the kids are already saying "bloo-d" instead of "blud" I felt it would lead to some confusion later so scrapped that one. It's more important for them to get their pronunciation right in this case, you can't exactly shout at them that it's pronounced "blud" whilst telling them it rhymes with neighbourhood, which was what she was doing...
Anyway, I had lots of fun and I think the kids did as most of them were throwing their own dance-moves in class.

My Jack lantern- kept him traditional this year. Never getting a pumpkin this size again though, it took HOURS of scooping.

Come Saturday, I was packed and off to the train station in  a flash. I was rather nervous about negotiating Paris alone- I'd avoided it on the way down, preferring to arrive in Nantes, I needn't have worried though- you can hail a taxi just about anywhere if you're not willing to take the metro. However, after being in the middle of France where the weather is somewhat mild- Paris was fucking FREEZING! Ever seen Cool Runnings when they arrive at the airport? Yeah, that was me- just about turning my entire suitcase out to wear everything at once.

For those of you who haven't seen it- you should! No excuses.

After spending some time in Paris sharing pine-nuts with a pigeon (I love plosives), I was sat at a table of 4 with a Dutch family on the train to Holland- slightly awkward, but I was rather fascinated as the mother got out a tin and started stitching small clothes to a doll.

With a bit more train switching, I was soon in Utrecht and receiving a warm welcome from my cousins Sandra and Mary-Jane. There was warm spicy pumpkin soup on the stove, and a Halloween mask and card awaiting me. 

I should say MJ doesn't speak any English yet, but she does understand me perfectly. Also Halloween isn't popularly celebrated here, so this was particularly thoughtful.

I love my British holidays, so it's been great coming here and having the family getting in the spirit especially for me- MJ and I played Nacht op het Kerkhof (Night at the Cemetery) and watched Coraline. We also made Halloween style cakepops:

Then, on actual Halloween, Sandra had guests- an old friend of the family who married a Londoner, and their daughter, so I was delighted to speak to more English speakers! As MJ was away for most of the day, I kept 7 year old Aisha occupied by making Halloween decorations, with some Katy Perry in the background- I was quite appalled to find out that even she didn't really get to celebrate Halloween in London, just pfft! Kids should be allowed to dress up and get high on sweeties... And so should I. 

Aisha proudly presenting our work.

When MJ got back, we watched Monster House and later fashioned some costumes, Mj made a good wee devil:

I then got a call from my parents to go on Skype, I was delighted to see my 3 wee cousins at home were all dressed up for Halloween (witches) and were still buzzing on sweets after doing lots of trick-or-treating. They then proceeded to pull faces at the webcam while telling me how they'd shaving foamed their gran's car... I really shouldn't be so proud of them, the little brats that they are!






On a side-note, it's great being somewhere with lots of water again (being from an island I was starting to miss it), I am delighted by the food here- HARD CHEESE!! The French have lovely cheese, don't get me wrong, I can sit and eat a whole wedge of brie by myself, but I'm missing cheddar something hellish... But Dutch cheese is just as gouda (ah, bad pun), I particularly love the cheese that has cumin bits. And, I had a good chuckle that the Dutch have an expression- doing the cleaning 'the French way' (badly), I'm sure the French would be delighted.