The almost-island of QUIBERON

Did quite a lot of stuff today. Marta came in her little car to pick me up just after eleven o clock in the morning, meant that i had to get my lazy arse out of bed at a decent time for once. There was nowt decent to eat though, so i cooked up the last of the pasta, maybe seven or eight of those little bow shapes, and added the remnants of a packet of grated cheese to it.
Simona was joining us- that is the italian au pair. I sat in the back of the car and we listened to the radio as we sped down the motorway out of our town and towards freedom and excitement.

digression- IS LOVE A DELUSION?
How can one conserve the childish adventurous excitement that made everything seem a thrill when one was young? Surely, one day everything will start to seem comfortable and ordinary, and we will have to take greater and greater leaps and risks to achieve the same heart-pumping excitement we used to feel? Maybe that is why we seek to fall in love even when it defies all logic.
Sometimes, seeing dried up, passionless, middleaged people, who seem to take pride in taking life very seriously and doing things right, even having their allotted amount of fun in the right way at the right time, it makes me wonder however they managed to let themselves go enough to take the risk of falling in love and making the bizarre miserable pairings in which they find themselves bound.
Lena, my Newcastle friend with whom i am keeping a loose distant contact, said that one of her friends declared that he was fascinated and in love with a girl, after just meeting her one time for a cup of coffee and a chat.
 He expained that something about her- the way she spoke, her soft voice, her little hands around the steaming mug, convinced him that she could be the one he has been searching for his whole little life. How illogical and almost ridiculous, more foolish than romantic. She was quite disgusted with his story, and even went as far as to lose respect for him as a friend.
She told me of another girl, a fellow Greek, who attached herself to Lena, without Lena much inviting it. This girl is very promiscuous, and perhaps you might think, one to seek pleasure and understand that love is but a delusion? Yet no, she became obsessed with a boy, convinced that he was the one for her, disregarding the fact that they barely knew each other, the fact that he had a girlfriend, and the fact that they had only met one time for a brief sexual liason.
The reason for her believing in this divine spiritual connection? They had climaxed at the same time during their one night stand- surely proof they were made for each other?
It seems to me that a lot of people fool themselves and cause themselves enormous amount of heartache along the way crying "but i know he or she is the one for me- so why don't they love me back!" believing that there is something amiss in the cosmos which is sending them evil negative energy and contorting the true path of their destiny.
Seems to me, one should see the truth for what it is, accept that one is alone, and focus on being a good friend and making the connections that one has already developed with people, count for something.

BACK TO MARTA AND OUR TRIP TO QUIBERON
A Spanish song came on the radio, and Marta cranked up the volume and sang along. I think it was this one. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCoC5q2Z0Bk&feature=fvst Whenever I hear a song i like, i make an effort to remember some of the lyrics so i can search what it is on the internet. This means i often screw up my face, and give the impression that i am really displeased with the song.
We drove into Quiberon after about half an hour's powering down the straight main road, passing through a few dead villages. Entering Quiberon, you see the sea to the left, and also to the right. Infact, you find yourself, confusingly, driving on a road plonked on top of a long straight landmass, a natural bridge. It seemed like something that you might draw a diagram of in Geography class, but come to life.
The presqu'isle or almost island, very much had the feeling of an island. A sleepy one. There was barely a person about as we rolled into town, and a chill December wind was blowing off the sea. Every shop was shut, except for a shop specialising in Breton delicacies- tubs of butter biscuits and tins of sardines, but even that rolled down its shutters as soon as we left.
We ate at a creperie looking out onto the lead grey sea. Flocks of birds danced in formation over the waves. After the meal, Marta declared that she had stomach ache, and we went off in search of a pharmacy, but not a shop was open. Everything was asleep in the plain light of day.
Driving back, we took a different route, and drove along a costal road, which twisted and turned following the path of the coast. One had the impression, that in the past the road had been further away from the steely sea, but erosion had eaten away the land and threatened to dash our little Twingo car to the angry waves.
The roadsigns told us that we were taking the "cote sauvage" back to our town- the wild coast- indeed it did seem like that. To the left, cliffs and the sea, to the right, marsh grass and open windswept land. We passed a hunched old man making his way along the costal road steadily, in the passive and tortoise-like way in which elderly  hikers walk. He was walking in the middle of the road, as if not expecting any passing traffic, and Marta had to navigate round him, but she did not stop.

That french film called intouchables

Hey! So I'm just going to write this like a diary entry so i can remember what i was doing at this particular time when i look back. I don't know why i don't just get a private little notebook to scribble thoughts in. I thAtink it's because keeping a journal seems like such a heavy commitment, and because anything on the internet is concealed from my mother, who might be the only one that I want to hide things from.

Hanging out with Marta :-
At the weekend, i didn't leave my town, which is unusual for me. It rained all weekend, a constant grey downpour, leaking through my suade boots and turning them into mush inside and out. I met up with Marta on Saturday. We sat in a cafe near the port looking out at the water and drank tea in the window. She had a little coffee in a tiny cup. She told me about the difficulties of being an au pair. Feeling underappreciated, being ordered about, and enduring being tormented and even kicked by a very rude naugty little four year old child.
This little girl is causing her all sorts of problems, screaming at Marta to get out of her room in the mornings when she comes to wake her up, and even going so far as to lock her cheeky little self in the bathroom in a ploy to avoid being taken to school.
Marta told me that enticing the girl out with threats was futile, and the girl began to demand a chocolate ransom, else she would continue to hold herself hostage in the toilet. After everything else failed she gave in and gave her a small square of chocolate.
Telling the mother of the child about these difficulties, in the hope of getting support or promise to discipline the child a little, proved hopeless, and in fact the mother found the story quite charming and hilarious. (Perhaps it is to someone who can look at the situation from outside. It seems bizarre and almost Victorian to sit back and leave the upbringing of your child to some foreign governess-type lady)
The lady of the house declared that her child simply had an excess of character, which she thought a quite healthy and promising sign. In fact, she delighted in telling the chocolate anecdote to her friend who came to the house. This woman is studying to be a nurse, and the strange hours she has to work at the hospital mean that she needs someone to look after her daughter.
Marta told me that the situation of being an au pair within a family is difficult, because they want you to engage with them, chat with them, entertain them, and often come to you for idle chatter, yet how far is one to express one's true opinions? It seems almost rude to disagree with one's employer, and Marta said she felt emotionally stifled, with her employer always waxing on joyfully about topics of her choice, the au pair simply a sounding board and a person to smile and agree.
All the same, after this experience of teaching in French schools, i am still undecided about what my next move will be. Perhaps a period of au pair work? I think it would be difficult though, and finding myself stranded in deepest darkest Germany without a single friend for company might be very trying. Marta is lucky because there is another au pair living in her house.
That's right- two au pairs for one naughty wild four year old! The first girl was employed, but then swiftly dropped when it transpired that she couldn't, or wouldn't drive the old battered car which Marta now rolls around in. Despite not being payed, she still lives in the house "for the experience" rather than going home,  and gets food and board provided for, although bizarrely, the amount of work she does almost equals that which Marta does. (this is the italian girl i wrote about eating crepes with.)
She's a strange italian creature, very quiet and mild mannered, doesn't like going out much, and has the face of a sweet shy bush baby. I think she's either my age or one year younger, but has a fiance in Italy that she often sepnds time Skyping with.
After our coffee-chat, Marta and I unravelled a map of the town, and made a plan of action. It was a special national fundraising day, a little like red nose day i suppose, so there were various activities going on around the town. We found some jolly black heavily-religious types offering gospel singing classes with beaming smiles: Marta was well up for doing it, but i was feeling ill and not in a mood for singing, the penetrating drizzle and mucus in my throat having dampened my joy. I felt a little bad for denying her this amusement, since she didn't want to sing without me.
There was a fire engine parked outside the town hall that was giving children rides in a big crane arm which stretched about it.

Intouchables:-
In the evening- after separating and eating at our respective houses- we re-grouped and wandered to the little local cinema. It was buzzing. There's this film which everyone is mad about in France called The Untouchables. Cinemas are full up with people clamering to see it. In the cinema in Vannes which we ended up driving to, they had to get out  a special paper sign saying "untouchables sold out" after a certain number of people had bought tickets.
 I'm not sure if i wrote about it when i went to see it, but the hype is something else. Something about the film must tap into the french psyche. I found it slightly patronising and moralising.
It's about a disabled rich old dude, who decides to employ a poor young black dude from an immigrant family, who lives with his extended family in the banlieues (of Paris?) to take care of him, bypassing many other candidates in the interview who have better experience and qualifications. He chooses this guy because he prefers his unprofessional informal attitude. And guess what?: despite a few rough starts and misunderstandings- washing his feet in shampoo and his hair in foot cream etc- they get along GREAT. They have a laugh. He even gets the common and uncultured guy to paint, and sells his works for a lot of money after telling a buyer they're from an up and coming artist. I just thought it was silly and self congratulatory and didn't really address any issues about  the fractures in french society and the yawning gap between rich and poor.
In the end we drove through the night through a long straight unlit countryside road to Vannes, to an entertainment complex where the cinema was packed. With a lack of decent nightlife in this area, seems to me cinema is what people do to amuse themselves. We saw a perplexing film called les Lyonnais. About french gangsters. People shooting people and unpleasant blood-spurting murder scenes. Marta didn't like it at all, which i felt a bit bad about, but hey...

Do you believe in faeries?

It's December! Looking at the stats page i have to try and get more pageviews this month than the last in order to keep my little statistics line rising.

Today I'm feeling absolutely horrible. Itchy eyes and a headache that won't cease. Feels like my head is being tapped constantly with a spoon like a boiled egg. Hopefully it'll get better.

Last night I went out to a bar in the town called le contretemps. They had a live band, which was two men playing a saxophone and a trombone. They had a sort of backing track going too. They were quite young, stylish bearded types, and spiced up their act by occasionally blowing through big conch shells and recording the sound to play back repeatedly. With the headache just starting to take root, it was really the last thing i could cope with. Was so loud that i couldn't hear anything that people were trying to say to me, which was annoying, since what's the point in socialising with people if you can't communicate with speech? What else is there to do? smell one another?

It seemed that everyone was getting along very nicely, except me, who sat on the sofa a little away from everyone else, twisting my hands in my lap with awkwardness.
I had decided to introduce my spanish au-pair friend (Marta) to the only other assistant in Auray (a half-italian girl called Laura). Laura turned up with her spanish housemate, and Marta brought along the other au-pair she works with, an italian girl. Thus, everyone fell to excitedly communicating in their own languages, and the odd number of us meant that i was paired off with nobody. There was a bookshelf behind me with books in English, so i paired myself off with a huge book by Satre. I couldn't understand it though, not with all the din and the headache blossoming in my brain.

I felt bad for making myself antisocial and knew that the others would be feeling mildly guilty for not talking to me, while at the same time resentful at feeling obliged to break off the exciting conversations that they were having with their compatriots. I tried to talk to people a little, but i had to shout over the music and my throat was hoarse, added to the fact that it is hard to pretend to be bright and happy and sociable when one is in pain.

I texted my greek friend from university, (shall we call her Lena- she is quite a private person, so i don't think she would appreciate stumbling across her real name online) Eternal source of comfort that she is, she advised me to just say my opinion, even if i have nothing to really say. Ask the italians whether they like the film Cinema Paradiso, and turn the conversation to philosophy, ask them what they believe in. Find out about them, and realise at the end that you've managed to avoid revealing a thing about yourself. Lena seems to effortlessly gain the trust, confidence, and friendship of whomever she chooses.

By the time she texted back, however, I'd made my excuses and wandered off into the night. The town centre was illuminated with fairy lights strung up high across the streets. It was the first of December, and the first night of sparkly christmas fairy-light magic.

I got home and wrapped myself up in blankets in bed. I lit candles and instead of logging on to skype, read books, which was a far more comforting activity. Perhaps, i should do book reviews? I finished off reading the collection of short stories (well, three of them) by H.P. Lovecraft, that my boyfriend gave me as a gift when i visited home for half term. They are all very creepy, but mildly ridiculous horror stories. The final one, which i read while nursing my headache, was about a couple of macabre grave robbers, who take delight in the gruesomeness and romanticism that they think their hobby holds. After stealing a cursed amulet from a graveyard in Holland, the spirit of a dog starts to follow them around- they hear barks at night and strange footprints appear in the snow.... All the stories seemed to have someone being pursued by an unknown evil while it slowly destroys them.

He is a strange one, my boyfriend, maybe i should give him a name, because i don't like refering to him with the posessive pronoun all the time, as though he is someone who belongs to me, like a pet. Let's call him Beau then, inkeeping with the french theme and sounding like the real first syllable of the name he goes by. A few weeks ago, I said that i didn't believe in faeries, and he threw a tantrum and hung up the skype on me! (If you care to disagree with me, you can write me a little essay about why faeries do exist in the comments.) Important to note that he was somewhat drunk at the time, but also worth noting that he is a quarter of a century old.

I agree that there are many things which science has yet to prove, and just because they are not yet proven does not mean that we can say definitively that they don't exist. Ghosts, faeries, spirits living in a realm parallel to our own, yet invisible to the human eye. Maybe there is a world unseen co-existing with this one, home of faeries and all those other mythical creatures?

He told me that he once emptied an ash tray over someone's head in a rage, after telling them to stop repeating "faeries don't exist". Something about that phrase deeply upsets him, he said. I tried to suggest that maybe clinging to this belief in faeries hints at a psychological issue, an unwillingness to let go of childhood, or perhaps the desire to re-create a childhood in later life that was missed at the time.

He cut me off, however, telling me that nothing i said would dissuade him from these beliefs, due to the fact that he has seen faeries in real life, while completely sober and not at all under the effects of hallucinatory substances. Once while waiting for a tram at the big shopping centre in my city, the other time while sitting on a patch of grass in the town centre of my city with his girlfriend. (Do faeries only show their faces in Sheffield?)

The last sighting, he said was shared with his ex-girlfriend, who said that she saw the same thing at the same time, a floating flash of colour, flapping wings, a faery. I refuse to believe it, as anything which links them together makes me feel irrritated. I doubt we would ever have such a spiritual connection for creatures from the other realm to materialise to the both of us. Therefore i prefer to screw up my face and say that they can keep their mutual delusions to themselves, i want none of that lunacy.

feelings tbc

Oh this toothache really won't leave me alone! I haven't been to the dentists for years, and think I am probably no longer registered with them anyway. Perhaps it is mischievous wisdom teeth come to torture me? I just want to ramble at you about my twisted thoughts through a pain-infested haze.
My landlady noticed that i seemed unhappy, and grabbed me when i slinked out of my room like a shy cat earlier, to ask me if I was ok, since i had appeared to have "l'air triste"
I was pleased that she noticed, although as soon as i could i sneaked back into my room, and felt suddenly provoked to tears. I guess I just miss my mum (lol). When one is feeling low, one shies from company and then moans about feeling lonely and isolated from others. But to make oneself attractive and acceptable to others and the world-at-large, one must be bright and cheerful, full of ideas and life. When I am feeling low, i feel incapable of putting on a happy face, and don't want to burden anyone else with my malaise. I feel they would find me hateful if they saw it, so best to keep the disgusting face of depression away from the world.
Also- it's hideous to moan about it, even here it's quite shameful, since there are some people who have real problems.
I'm feeling OK now, except for the teeth. Am sat in the dark in my room, have lit six candles. (just cos that was the number of available candle-recepticles that i could find, not for any particular significant witchy reason) Outside I can hear a wind raging, and earlier there was rain battering the roof. But i'm inside, away from the world. Cocooning myself from harm, like a cat by the fireside. Or rather, like a grumpy child kept from playtime by the weather, it's sulky chocolate-smeared face pressed against the rain-spattered window. In any case, I feel too tired to go out. If i was totally desperate for some air and society, there is the local bar full of outrageous horrible drunks, but the thought of it now makes me curl in on myself, like a snail that contracts and shrinks back when you touch it.
Last night and the one before, I had long long online video conversations with my boyfriend. Conversations which go nowhere and leave you feeling far more dissatisfied and blue than when you embarked on them. It's not his fault, moreover it's mine. (talk of the devil, he just texted me to tell me he has read my letters, and that they "somehow made him love me slightly more". He had them for two full days, without taking the time to read them, but then he has been working non-stop the past couple days)
I wonder what he would think if he scrolled through my ever-growing blog? Would he feel offended that I am putting my feelings up here for whomever stumbles across them? Would he be upset that i chose to keep this aspect of my life private from him, while brandishing it aloft for all the world to see. My mother would call this sort of behaviour "washing one's dirty laundry in public", and would probably advise against it. I think I have decided not to show him this, because I want to write freely, and perhaps, despite my best efforts, i can not bring myself to be my true self with him.
Perhaps it comes from an uncertainty over who i actually am, what is my real identity? or perhaps it comes from a fear of exposing myself to other people. For example, i shy from revealing my opinions to people, save for a small bunch of people who are my friends. It makes my heart quicken to have to choose a song to put on at a party, even something as small as that, for the excitement and fear of revealing my intimite inside feelings to the outside world. Or maybe my taste in music is just that embarrassing.... lol.
 Perhaps i should give you a song in every blog? I don't think I'm so abnormal really- just when i compare myself to some of my stridently confident, loud and eloquent peers, who like nothing better than to verbally strangle those around them......

Lesson one: How are you today?

I really am starting to think in french sometimes, almost wrote "so i want to aboard subjects more personal" but then realised that made absolutely no sense in English.

Gosh i'm in a bad fuming mood, with no outlet. It's probably good that there's no outlet cos i wouldn't want to unleash my inner fury on my dear friends. 

I think that if i study my personality i'm probably quite a control freak, maybe the most disorganised one you will ever meet though, and for this i'm constantly disappointing myself and raging against myself.

Today I was supposed to go and teach the headteacher's daughters at his house, but I couldn't find his house. I began to furiously berate myself for having a shit memory, and for being generally hopeless all round. I'm constantly comparing myself to other people and coming out bottom, and detesting them for it, and detesting myself even more.

Well- that's just the mood I'm in now.

Since I couldn't find the house, despite having gone there twice before (albeit in a car), I took to wandering in circles around suburbia. Everything was sunny and green and neat, not to mention unbelievably hot for November. I took my coat and jumper off, and was sweating horribly and miserably. There was no one about, so i probably took the opportunity to talk to myself, and insult myself in the highest, calling myself a "snivelling piece of useless crap" and thus making myself cry. 

In my wandering though, I came across a patch of green surrounded by fragrant smelling pine woods. Everything shone bright and colourful in the sunshine. However, there was no one about. It was easy to imagine that all the people in my town might have suddenly, unexplainably disappeared, as happened with the Marie Celeste. It was truly a ghost town.

 In the centre of the park on a mound, was a round  white building like a fancy cake, with a cross on top of it's roof. Perhaps a church? I meandered up to it, sweating horribly, and found the big door locked. One could peer through a grille and see inside a sort of fancy mansoleum tomb thing, and a blot of colour on the floor- perhaps some flowers? I had my crap glasses on and so couldn't see properly (perhaps the reason finding the house was so tricky/impossible?)

It turned out it was the tomb of someone historical- in fact i'll find out for you so as not to be horribly unhelpful and vague http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Cadoudal

There you go- he is a royalist who struggled against the revolution and was eventually executed... hmmph. He was born in Brec'h though which is maybe ten minutes from where i am now. (Gosh, I'm really not being very discreet about my identity...) In fact, I have already given the blog address to a few friends- will they mind if i use their real first names? I suppose they won't if i only say very neutral things about them and avoid discussing anything personal relating to them. If, however, you would like to become a fully embellished character, do speak up in the comments now. I really am quite vain arn't i? I admit that i do quite enjoy the attentions of other people. Being somebody who is known, is quite comforting to me. Perhaps that is why being an unrecognised outsider in this town, with no friends, passing almost invisibly through the half deserted streets bothers me?

Now I'm back in my little room. Today in England, it's a big strike of public sector workers... just thought i'd mention it for reference when i look back at this rambling- just so i can see what was going on in the wider world. I wonder if my sister will be off school? I haven't been in touch with my mother for a few days, but I have a card waiting to be posted, on which I have drawn a picture of my landlady's cat in expensive pencils that i bought from the local art and craft shop.

Everything is expensive here. My rent is ridiculous- when you take it out of what i earn- it leaves just three hundred euros spending money per month. When you consider that i have to eat and pay for train fairs to amuse myself a little at the weekends, it means that I'm saving nothing from this. Gaining no financial gains from this miserable exile.

I have considered being a webcam model, wherby one can make money simply from one's own bedroom, however even signing up for that is a hideously long formality. One must scan a document to prove one is over eighteen- i guess i could get that done at the school- but i feel guilty for using the school equipment for things related to such sleazy business. 

Not that i see it like that: I think- why not. It's an experience. You can lounge around chatting to people, and you only have to get your tits out once they're paying you by the minute. I'm probably not really going to do it.. perhaps it's just the thrill of thinking that i could... that i might. What do you think?

a trip to ANGERS

Saturday morning, I got on a train in my town. The whole world was icy cold and covered in morning-mist. As the train pulled out of the station and began speeding through countryside the sun began to triumphantly show it's face. It's big round yellow face. The fields and hedgerows were covered in frost, which the sun-rays slowly melted as the morning progressed.
I wrote a letter to Emily, and a post card to the jazz bar in Newcastle where i used to work on weekends.
Then I settle down to reading a book which I had borrowed from the local library called "les filles de Riyad"- the girls from Riyad. It is the story of a tight-knit bunch of friends, who belong to the upper classes of Saudi Arabian society. Some of them finish their university studies, and others give it up to get married. It is an eastern version of sex and the city, with the girls exchanging thoughts and discussing problems relating to their engagements and marriages. I think it was quite controvertial upon it's release into the arab world, because of the girls' intelligent questioning of long-held traditions. Enjoyable stuff really and an interesting insight into a very different culture.
When I eventually  arrived in the big train station of Angers, I almost walked into Alice, despite the station being  bustling with travellers. This was fortunate since neither of us had noted the other one's number down.
Alice lived in the same student accomodation as me during our first year of university, and is also working as a language assistant. It seems she is fortunate to have a bunch of other assistants living in the same town as her to socialise with on a regular basis though.
She is a very sweet girl, and in universtity formed part of a firm and slightly impenetrable friendship group. A bunch of funny, geeky and loyal friends- perhaps the joyful alternative girls of our uni? Maybe i would have been part of that group had I not become close to Emily?
We chatted and found we had plenty to say, as we drifted down a busy main road towards the tourist information centre, where we armed ourself with a  map of the city. There was no need to use the map to find the castle. It is an enormous thing.
The castle is really just a huge wall, towering neck craningly high above us. The wall has round turrets at regular intervals in the wall- these turrets had a curving form, and resembled power station cooling towers rising out of a deep mist. The castle had a deep moat around it, which perhaps in medieval times was filled with dirty defensive sludge, but now was decorated with pretty flower beds.
Entrance to the castle was free, and we crossed a drawbridge to enter. Then we amused ourself into the afternoon, walking along the castle walls, looking down at the murky river far below and the tiny boats in it. We spied a boat which had a pizzeria aboard.
One of the turrets had previously been used as a prison, and a sign told us that up to sixty people at a time had been locked into the small round cornerless room in which we stood, inhaling the smell of damp and fumbling with cameras. Castles do have a particular smell of the past, of cold stone and ancient forgotten memories.
There was a chapel in the confinement of the castle walls. It was empty and cold, stripped of it's interior furniature. It had also previously been used as a prison, but the glass windows had been restored with modern designs- colourful glass attempting unsuccessfully to purge the place of it's atmosphere of quiet suffering.
After our castle-tour, we crossed over the brown river and found a fun fair. Colourful tarpaulins dripping with the rain of a previous shower covered many of the attractions. We bought churros and crepes from a stall, and a grumpy gypsy informed us that the fair would open in twenty minutes.
We  walked around the quiet fair, watching it slowly awaken. Goldfish flitted and flashed in tanks, ready to be won as prizes. Alice said she was too stuffed full of churros to go on any rides so we moved on to explore the town.
The cathedral was huge and massively impressive, with a great organ- Alice said the largest she had ever seen, and she is quite a church enthusiast. I am not a church enthusiast, so I won't go into minute details about the church's interior- you shall have to go and see it for yourself-  but i liked the way the gorgeous two-towered building was positioned at the top of a flight of stone steps. Ascending those steps, drawn to the huge wooden door, one felt a sense of the inevitable and one's powerlessness and awe before this magnificient piece of architecture- or before God if you prefer.
In the town centre we wandered into the local Monoprix, and played with the testers for longer than was reasonably acceptable. I left the place having bought a turquoise nailvarnish and a black eyeliner crayon, and with my face smeared with lime green and black makeup.
Of course we did other things, cups of tea, chips in a takeaway, an arty cafe, discusion of mutual aquaintances and paragliding, an exhibition of persian rugs, and Alice divulging details of the society of which she is president- the nerd society!
But i'll leave it there. Of course- any questions for me on any subject and you are most welcome to leave a comment.

eating crepes with spanish, english and italian girls

I suppose Christmas must be approaching because there was an advert on French TV featuring singing reindeer.  Sometimes I leave the TV playing without watching it, in the hope that I will perfect my french and expand my vocabulary through a process of osmosis, or rather that all the confused sentences blaring out will sink into my subconscious somewhere for future use.
 It's monday afternoon and i have to hurry a little because I have a class to teach in less than an hour. Just time for an update though.
I have made a new friend here. We met in french class. She is a twenty five year old spanish girl full of enthusiasm to meet people and make connections. I instantly recognised that she was new to the town, and was still hopeful that this place might have something bright and interesting to offer her.
After class one day, she took my number and offered  to drive  me home in her beat up old car. A few days later she got in touch, and we had a lovely trip to the local cinema- a small cinema, slightly reeking of damp, with three auditoriums and tacky blue neon lights framing the archways on the exterior of the building. We had to sit on the front row because the auditorium was full up- the first time i have seen it so packed- and peer up at the screen.
The next morning, she came to pick me up in her car. It was great to have a rendez-vous, to be in demand, to have someone in a ramshackle old car parked outside my house honking the horn for my attention. She had brought along an Italian girl- both of them are working as au pairs for the same family, looking after one badly-behaved four year old girl.
I was quite stressed in the back of their car, because i was late to meet the geeky but quirky english assistant Grace. Spanish girl- Marta- had the radio blaring out flavourless French pop music, and at the same time kept trying to make conversation with me. I could hear  a jumble of words over the noise, and see her warm-brown kohl-rimmed eyes peering at me through the rear view mirror, but could not join the words i was hearing up to make a coherent dialogue.
They had been half an hour late to meet me, and now were making up for that by powering full speed on the motorway. The fourteen year old car could barely take it, and was making unhealthy noises, like a aeroplane about to take off. Eventually, after struggling to find somewhere to park, we arrived well in Lorient, and met curly-haired cheerful Grace, who took  us to her favourite crepe restaurant.
How lovely to have female company- to have a lunch date with three lovely women- I was very content eating my shallots, tomato and egg crepe- the only issue was knowing which language to speak. During lunch we settled on English, as this was the easiest way for Grace and i to fluently catch up, but afterwards switched back to French.
Grace- I feel slightly bad using peoples real first names without their permission, but if I don't it will become too confusing- told me she was meeting a man after our lunch-date, someone she had met at church, and seemed somewhat nervous about this rendez-vous with an almost unknown person.
"Just follow your intuition" I advised "Don't go and walk in any isolated woods, or go to his house if you have a bad gut feeling about it" I suppose it doesn't hurt to be over precautious- not that i ever am.
She laughed at my advice and said that she had infact thrown such advice to the wind before, when she was living in Germany. Despite having the air of a little girl sometimes, she has had a lot of experience living abroad, and is perhaps not as naive as initial impressions suggest.
She told me how she used to take the train along the same line every day- perhaps to get to work- and would see a woman on the same train each day- travelling without a ticket, and dressed in a manner to perhaps suggest that she was homeless, or indeed very much a down-and-out.
Grace told me how she started chatting this woman, making small talk, and one day they decided to arrange a rendez-vous to get to know each other better. Nervously she took the train to the next small town, which was where the woman lived. When invited to go to the woman's place, she declined, taking heed of all the advice one is given as a child- don't got to strangers' houses. The woman confessed that where she lived was "pretty much outside" and led Grace to a cluster of caravans huddled in a green field.
From then on they formed an unlikely friendship- the unkempt middleaged German woman, and neat, perfectionist, cautious Grace. She would go to see her every week and drink tea and chat in the caravan, until they became quite relaxed in each others' company.
 I asked what sort of things they had to talk about, and she said they didn't really have anything in common- but she was content to just listen to the woman ranting on about her failed romances with other women in the caravan-dwelling community. The last news Grace heard of her was that she had decided to pack up and leave for the bright lights of Berlin.
I think sometimes friendships are unlikely, but they are very important. I think without them people wither and curl in on themselves like sick plants with no sunlight.

Being unkind to old men

Lots of conflicting thoughts have been going through my head the past few days, and i'm not sure if i'm happy or sad, of if things can be defined that easily. I feel completely confused about my relationships with people, and find myself pushing people away.

To update you on the narrative involving the sixty year old sailor-artist- I had a rather unpleasant exchange of words with him which ended with me pretty much terminating our friendship. He had asked me to go round to translate his book, and i'd agreed on the time and date a few days before and written it in my diary.

Such a lover of control is he, that were i to break off our rendez-vous, i knew he would take offence and accuse me of being "méchante", leaving me with a feeling of guilt and and a bitter taste.

So it was that i reluctantly went round to his studio, feet dragging on the floor. My eyes were closing with weariness- probably because i'd spent all night online to my boyfriend looking at pixilated versions of each others faces and not really saying anything interesting.

Upon entering his flat, I think i visibly shrunk away in disgust when he kissed my cheeks, a gesture which could be considered quite impolite and contrary to french norms and customs. But i felt irritable and vowed that i wouldn't allow myself to be persuaded into doing anything to please him that was contrary to my true desires.

On my previous visits he would instruct me: "lift up your top, i need to see how your belly is" or "take off your jumper so i can see your figure better" all under the guise of needing to know my body better in order to make a sculpture of me.

Naturally very compliant in character, especially when up against someone with such a dominant personality, I would of course acquiesce, but nonetheless would leave feeling as if a part of myself had been eroded, like some sort of cheap whore. 

Which may seem like a very harsh comparison- but he was always offering me money, which did prick my ears up. Fifty euros for translating the book plus two euros for every copy sold. Two hundred euros for making a film in which we film each other: him acting as himself and me as a student enraptured by him and his work... the projects go on... always involving some sort of role in which i have to "show the sensual side of my character".

After some consideration, and talking to Emily on Skype, I had firmly decided on following her suggestion, which was to just say no to his projects. One can always earn money some other way. My expenses are not really so great here, so hopefully from my teaching, I should end up with a few hundred euros in my bank.

I sat on his sofa, with my bag next to me, creating a defiant distance with both my words and my body language. 

He was very disappointed when i  told him i didn't want to do the film, nor the sculptures, almost angry, and after that took an unpleasant tone with me. He began criticising the way I speak french, pulling me up on every preposition that i might get wrong (which verbs go with "de" and which with "a" it really is a matter of guesswork to me).

I maintained that this nuance of french grammar wasn't something to get all het up about, since the most important thing is that you can make someone understand you- regardless of small mistakes. He told me that the way i spoke was the same as someone who knows nothing of the language, and that i better change my attitudes, otherwise i would never be a french teacher. All the while he was talking to me, he was stood at the other end of the room, fiddling about angrily with a sculpture of a skinny naked girl (me), manipulating the clay, his giant fingers fondling it's miniature breasts and legs and neck.

It seemed to me that he was trying to get one up on me on the one area where he could be superior, but he calmed down and apologised. I am very bad at taking criticism. Just try and critisise me and i will become horribly defiantly defensive and flare up in a rage. 

I continued what I'd been saying and explained that when i came to his studio, i often felt trapped, because he always made it near impossible for me to make an excuse and leave. Also the phone calls throughout the week deranged me and the small gifts to guarantee my loyalty made me feel both pleased and sick. The insistence that he book my time in advance, rather than just let me come round whenever i pleased, all this amounted to create a feeling of nausea  and suffocation in me, which I tried to explain in perhaps not the kindest way possible.

I think the last straw was when he tried to give me a gift of cut roses. Don't ever get me cut flowers, they are a token of insincere love and misguided affection, and remind me of stalkers and grasping older men that i've known. I hate to see a flower wallowing in a stagnant vase and slowly wilting and drooping like a disappointed penis.

The scene finishes with me leaving his studio in a huff, and marching off up the steep cobbled street, him waving and shouting behind me, making a hideous and humiliating spectacle of himself infront of all his artist neighbours. "should i call you?!" he kept repeating and seeming not to understand when i shouted "NO" in response.

Something which he said as i made my escape, made me feel somewhat guilty "you've been laughing at me for the past two months", which i think means that he feels i've been taking the piss. But i never asked to be given gifts and food, never wanted that he should try and transform me into his obedient muse. Like with most obsessives, the kindest thing you can do for them is to leave them alone for a time until they start to forget you, and the self inflicted lacerations on their hearts start to heal. 

a spontaneous boat trip to a small village

Today was my day off, so i had arranged to meet a french boy called Pierre-Louis. He is my first francophone friend here, and i feel content to have him as a potential new friend. We spoke french together all day, and never ran out of things to say: the beginnings of friendships with people that you instantly connect with are great- you are eager to learn about each other, everything is new and waiting to be discovered, and you are excited when you feel the warmth of friendship being reciprocated.
I got the train to Lorient at three o clock, and we met in the town centre outside the big fnac (a popular record store- three floors of dvds and cds)
Pierre is quite skinny and still has quite the face of a teenager despite having just turned twenty one. In fact, he had celebrated his birthday the previous week, despite his real birthday being in july. He said this was because he hadn't had time to celebrate it on the actual date. Strange. I think perhaps he is very attatched to his university studies in a somewhat geeky way, that doesn't even allow him a respite on a noteable birthday like a twenty first. He is studying history, and learns languages in his spare time- English, German, Russian, Chinese are just among a few of them.
Even his part-time job is tied in with academia- he had just finished working in the university cafeteria dishing out food to the students when i met him. He told me with a certain pride that over a thousand students had passed through the cafeteria that afternoon and been served.
I asked what we were going to do, but he had nothing planned, so i suggested that i would like to see the port. Being in the city centre surrounded by tall buildings and shops makes one feel a little bit enclosed and chlaustrophobic. The port jutted out to sea and the smell of the ocean penetrated everything. We lazily walked down a cobbled path alongside the water, listening to the seagulls, reading the names of the rows and rows of boats and sniffing the air. At the end of the path was a military building closed to the public.
There was a strange bus shelter too and a board which gave bus times. Times for the BOAT BUS.
That somewhat excited me. I think it's been years since i've been on a boat. (Perhaps the last time was in Fuerteventura when i was seventeen and went on a "glass bottom boat" which was exactly as the name suggests. Along with a crowd of tourist-children i could crouch down with my nose against the glass squeeling in excitement at the different colourful fish.)
Pierre-Louis suggested we get the boat somewhere, and we had a little espresso coffee while waiting for it to arrive. Last time we'd met up he'd blushingly asked if i could pay for his coca cola telling me he'd lost his wallet! I discovered today that this was probably a lie, since the same awkward silence ensued when the bill came on it's little round tray. I asked him if he'd forgotten his wallet again, and he confessed that in fact the real problem was that his grant had not yet been put into his account, and he had not a penny left! I hope he confessed this little white lie (since he is a good catholic).
The boat trip was really exciting. We sat on the top deck on the white plastic seats and began to gather speed, there was not a lot of rolling around on the waves, because the sea was really very calm. In fact i think this may be because we're in a bay- a bit of the sea that juts inland, and this is why it's much quicker to get a boat from one place to another. The boat took us past a wrecked grey military boat, which had a flock of black birds clinging to it's mast. It looked like a ghost ship from a creepy movie, and was clearly no longer in use. We passed an island, an empty mass of land with only one building visible on it, clinging to the side. It began to speckle with rain, which gradually increased in force until we were being pelted with freezing rain and buffeted by the wind like the seagulls which were screeching above us.
 Eventually we arrived on the other side of the bay in a place called Locmiquélic. We wandered down a long road, in the attempt to find life: cafés, creperies, bars. On the right hand side were big, attractive houses painted white with large gardens, which despite their size still had a lonesome air, as if being ravaged by the sea breeze had fixed a sad expression on their faces (if houses had faces.)
We passed one bar, but decided to continue in case there was anything more enticing further down the road. After walking for a bit we returned and entered the first bar we saw.
The propietress was blonde and middleaged and cheerful. She was very friendly to us when she took our order of strawberry syrup in water, a drink which tasted like childhood medicine. The bar was warm and had a friendly air (can you say that? Pierre Louis commented that i anglicise my french, but i think i'm starting to frenchify my english too)
There were amateurish paintings all over the walls, as well as ornaments and plants, giving the place the feel of a communal living room for the village. We chatted about: the history of france (france in medieval times), the different regional accents in france, why the symbol of Brittany is an ermine (stoat/weasel type creature), and who the fuck is that guy in the painting. There was a square canvas on the wall directly opposite us that bore the large slightly weatherbeaten but nonetheless handsome face of a middleaged man, rendered in clumsy thick brushstrokes. He had blue eyes which seemed to be staring right at us. Turned out that he was a very famous french singer which Pierre Louis was astounded that i'd never heard of.
On the journey back, the sun was just beginning to set. It was orange behind the clouds, and trying it's hardest to send it's warm peach coloured rays to us, despite the overcast weather. On the batobus, Pierre-Louis put his arm around me. I'm not at all attracted to him, but it seemed like a fairly pleasant gesture, since it was not too presumptuous and seemed a friendship gesture more than . I think at some point I'll have to slip into the conversation that I have a boyfriend, but i'd hate it if this would mean that he was less eager to hang out with me.
I have seen a small article in the local paper saying that this sunday in a small town which i haven't heard of, but which is nevertheless not too far from my house, that there is a play showing. A play in which all the characters are played by LIFE SIZE PUPPETS. I have to go. I don't want to go on my own. I must go with Pierre-Louis, since I know no-one else.
I'll keep you updated.

a trip to RENNES

Rennes is where i'd initially wanted to be stranded in france. However, I was quite randomly allocated my little town. At five past eleven today, I went to the little train station  and bought a ticket en route for excitement and discovery: Rennes.
I wrote a letter to my best university friend, who is currently located up in the cold northernmost outpost of civilization: Newcastle, England. I sat opposite a curly haired little girl who looked about eleven. I'd watched her anxious parents put her on the train and wave at her encouragingly through the glass for about five minutes while waiting for the train to depart. She kept staring at me in that innocent burning-gaze curiosity that only children can get away with, peeping at the letter which i was writing in enticing multi-coloured fine tip pens. I guess I to her was the mysterious romantic novelesque indapendant girl who captured her imagination. I was always fascinated by older girls at her age in any case, and the world they inhabited, so unknown to me.
When i arrived, my friend was at the station to meet me. We've met up three times now, and i hope is this transforming our aquaintance into a friendship, although i still feel nervous about making conversation flow. Being one on one does force you to bond whether you wish too or not. She's friendly to me and seems to enjoy our meet ups as much as me, which is important, as I'd hate to think i was boring her. She seems to have a dry yorkshire sense of humour to go with her accent, and has a rather cynical tone and mild hostility to the world which perhaps hints at an underlying malcontentment.
We got the metro to the city centre and enjoyed a crepe in one of the brilliant crepe cafes located in a pretty square. In the middle of the cobbled square was a fantastical carousel, which at night became illuminated with yellow-white bulbs flashing and glowing in the darkness invitingly. Rows of tables were layed out in the square- a book fair. I bought Victor Hugo's "Notre-dame de Paris" and a book by Japanese author Ryu Murakami, translated into french. Now it's just a matter of reading them.
We browsed round a few shops, including a dusty narrow DVD store. Up a couple of stone steps a heavy door led into this library of film, our arrival announced by a jangly hanging door-chime. I wasn't interested in buying a film- really I just wanted to stroke the cat. I had visited him on my last visit to Rennes, and this truly witchy cat had enticed me back.
He was sat ontop of an old bulky computer monitor, and when i roused him he miaowed at me with sleepy pleasure. I asked his owner- a grey haired but surprisingly young looking, friendly-vampire? shop-owner his name. The cat's name i mean: it was Grim.
Grim got up and stretched for me. He was missing tufts and fur and you could see his greyish skin stretched over his skeleton underneath. He was friendly and loveable despite his appearance, and he invited me to stroke him and purred deeply, and with a certain wisdom of the world, i thought.

being an artist's unpaid muse

Upon returning from lycée, I found my little-used French mobile phone clogged up with nagging voicemails from the sixty-odd-year-old sailor turrned artist who occupies a little art studio near the port in my little town. I decided to submit to his begging, and pay him a small visit.
His art studio is a square room with a little table covered in a colourful woven silk tablecloth. There is a window in which he has created a haphazard display of his sculptures, exhibited alongside a clutter of found-junk, including a mexican hat and a random book with chinese caligraphy on the cover. These objects are presented on shelves and pedestals, surrounded by brightly coloured scrunched-up tissue paper.
Inside his flat/studio, there is a blow-up mattress leaning against the wall, and a long sideboard cluttered with the tools of his trade- flowers, paintbrushes, tubes of paint, books, and sculptures made out of clay.
A recurring theme in his recent sculptures, which he has been busily crafting in my absence is the figure of a young girl. He portrays her naked, displaying her skinny gold-painted body proudly, moulded and dried rock-hard in various suggestive positions, thin clay legs spread apart, back arched, just the pert naked sculpted bottom and an elbow making contact with the ground, balancing the thing.
This is a depiction of me. I am now an artist's muse. He tells me that some of his previous sculptures sold for sums in the thousands. I'm not sure if this is fact, or just a tale to impress. The jumbled array of stories that he throws me give me a glimpse into his past life, but the narrative jumps and falters, like a scratched DVD. He has lived in the poshest neighbourhood of Paris with a rich model, he has lived in London and the list of mildy famous people who have entered his life is as long as it is unimpressive to my untrained ear. He has been close friends with the greatest sailors in history, those who win races and make round the world circumnavigations.
These tales do render him with a fantastical glow that leaves me more impressed than i would otherwise be, and i think he is aware of that.
He is obsessed with me, and has made me promise to keep our little friendship a secret, which i can somewhat understand in a small gossipy town. I don't doubt him when he says that he will contain his adoration and suppress his desire to make love with me. I wish he wouldn't tell me these desires of his, because they thoroughly disgust me.
I have made the somewhat unwise decision to agree to do a film with him. He tells me that he has made films in the past, which were a succcess, but am i to trust his words? He is somewhat rambling and insists that i stay at his flat for longer than i would freely do so, pestering me for "just another half hour more" while i am itching to spring up and leave. He asks me questions and doesn't seem too interested in the response.
He offered to give me a massage, so i agreed. It's a perfectly innocent and quite enjoyable thing. I told him to massage my neck, which gives me constant achy pain, and my feet, which were cold and overworked as always, but of course he didn't rest "there. I would absolutely draw the line at touching me anywhere that a professional masseur would not, and i think he was aware of that, because he stayed just about in the boundries of decency. I won't let him massage me again though, the whole thing was quite sordid and even though quite innocent, the desire which carroused through his wrinkled old hands and made itself known on contact with my flesh was somehow painfully offensive to me.
He suggested, over our dinner of pasta cooked with egg, tomato and basil (a fantastic meal, and certainly money-saving for me) that maybe one day i would agree to make love with him, even just as an experience, not as a love-binding agreement, just as something which one should experience in one's life. I told him I'd already had plenty of lovers and experiences, and didn't have need for any more, as well as my unshakeable faithfulness to the boy who i love. I might have added, following his probing, that my "number" certainly couldn't be counted on the fingers of both hands, which has probably made him mark me down as an easy catch and increased his hopeless and somewhat disgusting efforts to seduce me.
What sucks about being a woman of your word, which i am, is that you have to follow through with things you don't really feel like doing, simply because you promised you would. I am not a promise-breaker, and in any case, he's made me write and sign contracts for all our artistic projects in biro.
Being a man of my word, sometimes conflicts with my desire to be sincere. I value sincerity highly. If one isn't sincere, one must at least have a fabulous and stylish facade to earn my respect.

Bellydance class

So i returned after a week of joyful friendship, noise, bustle, love and reverting-to-childhood chez mes parents.
Returning home for a week had been a last minute decision, but a very good one, since i had a couple of the best weeks i've had since September, despite getting run down with a lingering infection. Exhausted and with grey hoops under my eyes, panting at the slightest exertion, i was nevertheless radiant with joy.
Landing in France made my face droop on both sides. Nantes is the most dull city i have ever seen. Maybe i should get to know it better before i pass such harsh judgment though. From what i saw, i was little impressed. Tall off-white, architectually-hideous buildings lowering in the grey mist-rain. I was glad to get on the train, but resentful to get off at the tiny little station platform of my nowhere-town.
I swooshed back into town in a jangling frenzy of gypsy skirt. A few days in manchester had opened my eyes to the dreariness of the dress here. I have seen very few alternative people, which is to say that most people strive to present themselves to the world as madame or monsieur normal, and the result is a grey faceless mass of people. Of course, it is up to me, with my "insightful" blog, to find the glittering jewel in the mass of sand, to unearth the freakish qualities lurking repressed under the calm-water surface and present it to you, as a meaningless case-study.
I felt hideous coming back into town in my gypsy skirt, my face speckled with rain. I walked down the grey main road and everything was miserably familiar. The skirt was no longer reminicent of a-thousand-and-one-nights oriental mystery, but in fact made me think of the heavy baggy skirts maman used to wear when she was pregnant, farts seeping unnoticed into the mass of excess material. I felt even more weighed down and hopeless.
Then i decided to fight against glumness. To take opportunities, not to sit around speculating cynically about what might be done, if one had more panache and energy. This new outlook is so far going well, but any slight relapse into my old ways might send me into a fit of remorseful sobbing, we shall have to wait and see.
Today at bellydance class, i half longed to talk to the people around me, but was prevented by some inner block. The most simple block being the realisation that i had nothing that i sincerely wanted to say to any of them. The second was the language barrier walling me in to my own skin, the third being the other women, who were all older than me, and therefore terrifying.
The class involved wiggling about in organised lines in front of a wall-mirror. The instructor is an arabic-looking woman with bleach blonde hair and a divine stomach. Maybe it's my slight belly-fetish that compels me to belly dancing? Also it amuses me that it's such a women-only event. If rugby is a testosterone scented sport, bellydancing reeks of estrogen. Perhaps it's all that focus on the belly, the baby-carrying belly. Looking at the large rounded woman-shaped bellies around me i was reminded of my womanlylessness. Around me jangling coin belts preceded the thrust of well rounded hips which protruded from bodies like teapot handles. My own figure was more like an androgynous worm wriggling imperceptibly in it's final death throws. I tried not to lose hope though, although my mind, caged in with it's thoughts kept turning over self-pitying thoughts about how miserable it is to be a foreigner- to not understand what people are saying and to feel humiliated on a daily basis.
At the end of the class, i smiled at a particular girl and gave her a shy wave, she smiled back with her weird teeth. From the first class, me and this girl have been catching each others eyes in the large mirror. My intuition told me straight away that she was a lesbian, and a non-sexual fascination drew me to her. Every lesson we'll peek at each other shyly in the mirror, but we have yet to really exchange words.

A funfair in France

At the weekend i went to Vannes with a girl who i met when i was at university. We'd never been friends in the past, and restricted our contact to pleasantries and minimal conversation- largely cos i thought she wasn't interested in being my friend. It seems she's a very nice and interesting girl. She's not afraid to gossip and let me be her confidante, even if it's only moaning about a bizarre german housemate of hers.
We chatted and ate crepes while sat outside a cafe in the city centre of this medium sized french town. Some children were rattling up and down repeatedly on their micro scooters, which reminded me somewhat of my own joyful childhood. My friend found them irritating. I was enjoying the sunshine, it was quite fresh, being October, but we took our coats off and sipped ice tea (me) and cider (her) and pretended that it was summer.
The fun fair was found at the far end of the port. so we had to walk along the water for about half an hour before we got to it. It was a cacophany of sights sounds and smells. Voices calling people to come and ride the dodgems, a man with a candy floss maker wrapping reams of the floaty pink sugary stuff into balls for excited sweet toothed children and adults. Shooting games, hook a duck, penny arcades, claw machines, and giant clear plastic balls floating on water in a large paddling pool which one could crawl inside and roll around like a drunken hamster. The fun fair had everything.
First, we went on a roller coaster type ride. The cart we sat it could also rotate as it zoomed around the track at top speed. We both enjoyed it, and the fear was minimal but enough to get one's blood circulating. Next, after watching it function from a distance we decided to brave a ride which had a pivot in the middle and was essentially a stick to which seats were attatched to the far ends. One was brought high into the air and could see the whole funfair down below in miniature, as well as the port and all the tiny little boats. Such a sense of freedom and infinity looking town on the crystal clear toytown world. Then down, fast, then up again. Washing machine rotations, until one didn't know where the sky was and where the ground was. Are we humans that walk the earth, or are we birds shooting through the air? Not that that was what went through my mind as i screamed voluminously with my mouth in a shape of fear.

a censored private letter to my best friend (what i've been up to)

Hey! Thanks for your email! Is good to hear from you.


 I wrote you a letter and posted it yesterday, so you should get it in a few days. I can't remember what I wrote, but i was on a mission to try and cheer you up, so sorry if it's patronising! 

Yeah, finally got some credit on my phone yesterday,  so thought i'd give you a ring. I'm really trying to waste less time on facebook. Well this is day one without it. I just don't understand why it's so addictive. Giving up cigarettes was much easier, don't even really think about them unless i see other people  smoking. I guess i'm just a massive attention whore. Although a lot of the time of fb is spent looking at what people hundreds of miles away, who don't care about  me are doing, it's bizarre.

So i was in the college from 8am  to 11am today. I actuallly enjoy getting up early and having something to do, although you have to get up when it's still dark! The walk to the college takes about fifteen twenty mins, and you have to cross over a railway line, which is always scary. There  are red and white stripy barriers that go down whenever a train is coming, but it's still weird, and i always imagine a train coming along and wonder what would happen.

With one group of students i did a little quiz about england that they filled in. They were quite unenthousiastic and i wasn't sure if they understood what i was saying or not, cos i decided not to speak french. They know fuck all about england! They still think the prime minister is Tony Blair. Although i guess we only know about Sarkozy cos he's such a weird little caricature of a person. (that's france's president, just incase you didn't know ;)

With the next group, i decided, fuck it, i've got to speak french otherwise it's excrutiating and i'm talking to myself. So i started off the class by making them play " i went to the supermarket and i bought...." they well loved that! i thought it would be patronising but it was ok. In the end it was me and this tough looking french chav boy battling it out (cos when you made a mistake listing the things you were out of the game) We decided to draw cos everyone was getting bored.

Here's what they came up with lol. You're probably not interested, but i'm curious to see if i can remember....

I went to the supermarket and bought an apple, a blackberry, a computer, a desk, an elephant, a frog, a gun, a history book, an ipod, juice, a kitcat, a limo, malteasers, n?, orange

fuck! forgot what n was.

Anyway: How's everything going? I rang my mum up and she said my brother's being a minge. Obviously she didn't use those words- that would have been funny. She said he's been slamming doors and stuff really late and waking everyone up, and when she complains saying "well you want me to live here". He's such a douchebag and a mega slob. When he did have his own student halls, he let like months-old takeaway packets fester away in the corner, with green chips getting furry in them. So gross! (He's pissed off cos they wouldn't sign the guarantor thing he needs to get a house)

(name of my boyfriend) has been hanging out with his ex-girlfriend (name) . I'm not sure how i feel now they're friends again. I think i prefered it when she was a legend of the past. I told him that the reason i felt unhappy about it was because, they have so much history and memories together and although he can argue "well all that belongs to the past" it's not really the past if they're still hanging out and being close with each other. Anyway, i later apologised for being jealous and silly, which i think i was a bit. After all, i do occasionally see (name of my ex) . But he's really not a great friend, and i don't feel that i need to be a massive part of his life. I don't know why he still feels the need to have her as a prominent thing in his life.

What do you think?

How's everything going? You seen anyone i know?

Still not got your letter, but there is no hurry. Miss you! Take care,

muchos love

Susie

My facebook engagement and winter blues

Despite self-indulgent blog receiving no hits for the entirity of the past month, I shall still continue to right, if only for my own personal records.
Winter is approaching, it is now a month that i have been in France, a month since I have seen my sweet mother, who loves me more than anyone. Although, she makes her presence known by putting credit on my phone, and occasionally texting me to ask how things are going. She has send me a package containing socks (Which I forgot to pack... I mean, when planning what cute teachery outfits one is going to wear, one doesn't immediately think to bring socks.) She send me my pink jangly coin belt. I didn't got to bellydance class today, because I was suffering from a deep wearing fatigue, which is draining my desire to do anything, other than stare wistfully at the computer screen, scrolling up and down facebook and hoping vainly that my fiance will come online. And then when he does, inwardly bemoaning that I have nothing to discuss with him.
Today, the weather was colder than has been usual here. I woke up and it was drizzling, the sky was heavy with rain clouds, and the weather demanded a coat. I went into town, only to find the bank and phone shop closed for the ridiculously long lunch break which people take in France.
Next, it was time for my three hour workday in the technical college, with a bunch of unenthusiastic, sulky teenagers. There was one chirpy girl who asked for my help and seemed quite eager to learn, so that made the day go a little faster.
Then- a Breton language class, conducted entirely in that language. Never mind the fact that I have never learned a single word of Breton. I'm really not convinced that total immediate immersion is the best way to learn. A little bit of explanation in French might have helped. I can't remember a single thing from the class. I'm undecided whether i will pay the ninety euro subscription fee for a year of sitting in a dazzling lit room understanding nothing and getting shyer and shyer and more and more underconfident. The class was really terrible. I felt very stupid and wanted to crawl and hide under the desk.
Then, I came home and tried to translate this damn book about sailing to the Pitcairn islands. It's not very well written to be honest. There are characters who are mentioned briefly, and then no further detail is given. It seems to skip from one location to the next in a matter of sentences. Some of the language totally confuses me, and i'm beginning to doubt whether I will ever be able to fulfil my task as a translator. It's frustrating.
It might seem like i'm in a self doubting and down mood. I should be joyous really, because as you might notice the word boyfriend has passed into the word fiance. This came about through an online skype discussion in which he said that he wanted our relationship to appear on our facebook profiles and thus be known to the online community and our many hundreds of online aquaintences (most of whom we never see). i've always been skeptical about the idea. What makes our love work is that fact that it belongs to us alone. It's something that is between us and is untouchable to anyone outside the special connection that we share. It simply doesn't concern the outside world. That's probably why I got so furious when anyone from the outside world attempts to intervene, as though it is their business- noteably his mother and mine. I don't like the idea that getting married to someone means you're marrying their family.
I don't like the idea of having to say "i do" to all these periphary people who may be important to him, but who rile me up the wrong way or simply give me a sense of emptiness and non-existance when i'm in their presence. Can love not be between two people. I'll try to get on with other people as best I can, but it's the sense of obligation I dislike.
So- i agreed, we could publish our love online, like a blog post. Is that not what i'm doing now? However, the term "en couple" or "in a relationship" displeased me. I am not a couple. That is not my identity being one of two. So i suggested we put engaged or "fiance" instead. Which is what we did.
Does that mean that we're really engaged? I certainly shaln't announce it to my narrow minded disapproving family. I don't have a ring, and I'm not going to get married, until we've spent more time together and i've verified that we actually do get on well together and understand one another with a clear beauty. I don't think we will get married for another few years at least. I have two years left at university, he just has this one. I think we need to work on getting a certain amount of stability into our lives. At the moment, being a teacher appeals to me. What I like is that, in the process of preparing classes, to engage and enlighten young minds, you learn things yourself- new facts, new methods of teaching, and about human nature and individuals themselves.
Do let me know what you think in the comments. I shall update you soon on the dull details of my existance.
Right now it all seems cloudy-grey. I long for Emily and excitement. Drink and dance and the celebration of living.

further encounters

Things i've been up to lately: There was a night where i went on a ramble with the vague aim of finding the bearded sailor for whom i've promised to translate a book, but have not really yet made a start. I got waylayed however by a man outside a cafe when i asked him for a lighter. There are these cafe-bars which are open to the street and often have a sports game playing on a screen and a bunch of men lazily sipping beer or coffee and watching the world roll by uneventfully. Very much local places, where as a young, outside female i feel a little intimidated to enter. This man was quite friendly however, bought me a coke, and told me to hang around cos a friend of his who is an english teacher was going to pop along in a bit. Said friend materialised, to my surprise a woman, clutching a cat-carrier with mewing creature inside. I was quite delighted by this, but she seemed in a hurry to go and shoved the cat in the boot of her car and drove off.
The man was called Christophe. He assured me that he knew everyone in the town, and that if i ever had any problems i should come to him. He was about fourty maybe older, with a beer belly, wavy long black hair, an earring in one ear, and sensitive eyes which changed expression with almost frightening rapidity- one minute expressing a certain longing nostalia and sadness, the next fierce interest and illumination. He offered to buy me dinner, so i agreed, it would be a good opportunity to broaden my knowledge of the town, to get to know another place.
We went to a vietnamese restaurant. He knew the small oriental propieteress by name and was very familiar with her, while she was still somewhat reserved with him. He told me that half the year he works on ferries, and is away from home a lot. When he comes back to his empty flat it is often past ten o clock, and he's not in a mood to cook. The vietnamese restaurant is just around the corner and is the only place which stays open late and so this is where he eats on a regular basis. He told me he has his particular table- next to the fish-tank, and that i had taken his customary chair. "Six years i've been coming here. Always sitting in that chair. This is the first time i have company. It's nice" His eyes became soppy and i feared he might cry. He seemed to have a deep weariness, which he said was brought on by non-stop work. Now it was his hibernation period, his six months without travail. When i asked him what he planned to do with his endless spare time, he replied: sleep, i'm incredibly tired.

french small town nightlife

Last night i decided that lounging in my grubby attic smoking cigarettes and watching trashy french tv was really not what i had envisioned for myself for my year abroad- so i decided to do something. I had been told that the local concert hall type place which is called the Athena was having a sort of opening night, perhaps to mark the start of the theatre season or something? I dolled my face up, backcombed my hair a bit, had a look in the mirror and thought "what will the french make of THIS" Satisfied, i set out alone.
When i got to the Athena, music beckoned me, and lights. I walked into a big sort of school hall. Families were sat round tables which were covered with nibbles and children were throwing baloons around and dancing. Everyone was sat in tight knit familial groups. There was no one else alone who might be engaged in conversation. I left.
Walking through the centre i found a fairly welcoming looking bar, so i decided to wander in. They didn't serve chocolat chaud as i requested, so i went for a rum and coke. Which was more than five euros. However they did just about fill my glass half up with spirit. There were a bunch of locals around the bar on stools chatting with the bar owner. Shy to intrude i went to smoke outside and sit on the chairs looking onto the street. Not a single person walked past. I mused on my isolation somewhat miserably as a melancholic spanish song played. Then things improved when the locals came out for a smoke and some manu chao started to play. They tentatively asked me where i was from and what i was doing, but soon went back to talking amongst themselves in rapid incomprehensible french.
Next, i set out drunkenly for another bar. That one drink was burning my empty stomach and had inebriated me quickly, alcohol in my veins and head.
The next bar i'd walked past many times and noted it's somewhat rowdy eccentric clientele. The door was locked but a man with dark straggly hair came to open it for me. When i entered i was faced by a bar full of pissed french men who turned to stare at me lecherously, but with big friendly smiles all the same. I wandered over to the bar tentativley and perched myself on a stool. The long haired barman asked me in a gruff voice what i wanted, looking at her closer i realised she was infact a very manly woman. On the bar was a giant glass fishbowl-cauldron filled with green liquid with some solids floating in it. I wondered if it was a mythical creature preserved in formaldyhyde, but she told me it was rum with bananas in it. oh right.
I went for another rum and coke and was allowed to smoke- a lock in! I chatted with a very drunk frenchman who told me he worked making something to do with cosmetics, and had recently moved to this town after divorcing his wife (he used to live in a nearby very similar small town).
The only other woman in the bar, a creased up, painted-up, rather mean face who eyed me with poorly concealed dislike. Probably cos her man was making eyes at me and i was beaming back. I didn't realise he was hers until she made a point of dancing against his bar stool and kissing him. He was frightfully ugly.
Then she jumped onto the platform and gave us all a sexy wriggling dance against the pole. I was quite tempted to have a spin round it myself after she left, but thought i should become more of a known face in the town before i started to make such an exhibition of myself on their territory.
After a game of table football, which i lost, i left. I think i shall return though. That cavern of drunkeness and debauchery and genuine human nature is the best place i've seen so far.

midnight cats and dogs

After having a little sob, bemoaning my misfortune at being isolated far from all i love, i got online and my boyfriend gave me a step-by-step detailed guide to cooking lentils and making something delicious. This was much welcomed, since i had planned to go to sleep in the afternoon without anything to eat, and perhaps fall further into my self pitying depression, and further my self destructive weight-loss anorexia plan.
Lentil preparation went well, and filled my little two-room flat with familiar smells. Three hours later it still stinks in here. I felt much better after eating, and after watching a little french TV, i decided to brace the outdoors and go for a lonesome midnight wander. I say midnight wander, i mean half past nine.
It is nice to have a night-time wandering partner, my lovely uni best friend Emily, or my lovely love in his furry coat, but alas, as in life sometimes one must go it alone. Outside my house is a discount supermarket, the car park was deserted and the only sound was the metallic rolling noise of the billboard automatically turning it's advertisements round and round.
I walked down the main road which leads to the town centre, and passed a few people, but all in all few signs of life, one could almost hear every little noise made echo around. I have misplaced my coat somewhere, and am pretty sure it ISN'T in the cinema where i went alone last evening, but i thought i would go and ask anyway, and also try and further the conversation by asking which films are showing tomorrow. The cinema is in an old white building and it's archways are framed in blue neon light which spreads an inviting glow into the street. There's quite a lot of neon scattered about this town, on shop fronts. One walks past shops and hears it buzzing like a fly trapped in a jar.
The man behind the counter was very professional, but friendly, but didn't try and enter into any further conversation other than answering my questions appropriately.
Next, i decended a cobbled street to the harbour, which looks much better at night than it does in the day. There's a stone wall with a ramp up it which was all uplit with yellow lights, and the lights of the cafes accross the water cast a bright reflection in the water. Those cafes are very expensive though, as i discovered on my first day here, when charged three euros for a very diminutive bottle of icetea.
I crossed over the bridge and decided to explore the other side of the harbour. I took a steep dark path, with the aim of reaching the attractive looking church which is uplit splendidly at night and can be seen glittering away on the hill invitingly from the other side of the harbour. The steep cobbled paths were a bit much for me and i was panting away desperately. When i got to the top i found the church to be very disappointing. It was surrounded by concrete and a car park. There was no creepy graveyard as i had hoped. I had planned to secret myself there and have a cigarette while basking in creepy isolation, surrounded by graves and twisty plants, but alas...
I continuted up a dimly lit narrow street, exploring what else is on the other side of the  harbour up the hill, but alas it was all quite residential and closed-off to me. I spotted a beautiful playful little cat pouncing around playfully in the shadows and tried to make contact with it. She was friendly, and had her tail up in the air, and would roll on the ground a few meters away from me teasingly, but would jump up and run away if approached. I sat on the floor and she crept up to sniff my outstretched hand, but would come no closer. When i got up to pursue her, she darted away through a tiny square hole in a garden gate, which i was astonished that she squeezed through with ease. Her little disembodied face continued to watch me from a distance with playful curiosity poking out of the cat-hole in the gate. I tried to put my hand through the hole but she moved back to conceal herself. I peeked over the tall gate on tiptoes and saw her, just on the other side, teasing me. At this point, a girl turned the corner onto the street i was on, and i sheepishly decided to move on.
Walking further from home, the sound of strange insects chirruping in the warm night air, I came upon a car park with a couple of camper vans parked in it. It was clear they had inhabitants from the smell of warm buttered crepes which was emanating from them. Quite a sickly smell that turned my stomach a bit. There was a field with disinterested horses in who were munching grass and wouldn't approach me, and at the other end of the carpark, closed gates to what i hoped was a park. Alas, it was a cemetery. I peeked through the metal bars and saw big stone gravestones with Breton names twinkling on them in the starlight. The fence was too high to scale, and indeed, why would i want to sulk in a cemetery alone? While doing a circuit of the car-park, very much hoping that someone would peek their head out of a camper van and befriend me, and shatter my loneliness, i was suddenly shocked by a huge black dog walking towards me.
My first instinct was to stroke it, as with any animal, but then i saw the menace in it's slow, considered walk towards me. It didn't hesitate or flinch but looked at me with an almost human face as it approached. It was an enormous dog, a real hound of the baskerville's. it's eyes looked right into mine, and it let out the deepest most sinister growl, a low note of hate that echoed through the silence. I turned and walked calmly away, and when it was satisfied that i was going, it returned to one of the camper-vans. It stood on the other side of the van as i walked away sneaking peeks back, and though it was concealed, i could still see it's four enormous paws.
Voila, here i am. I feel content that i've managed to write something finally. Hopefully many more entries will follow that will be something i can look back on with interest, when i'm in happier more comfortable times.

Shut down toilets and cassini in the graveyard

T'other night me and my boyfriend went for a midnight ramble around Beauchief, since that is where he lives at the moment (well, until tomorrow.)
Stalking the streets by the light of the moon and the orange streetlamps is one of our favourite activities, as is stumbling about in the enchanted woods, scaring ourselves by imagining the innocent night-time forest-noises to be sinister.
We found some toilets which must have been shut down for two decades at least. We'd walked past them countless times but never noticed them since they are barred off by iron gates and down the end of an overgrown path. We hopped over the fence and went for an exploration. In the building vines were reaching down through holes in the roof, like electricity wires in an abandoned building. Any smell of urine had long since dissipated, however a toilet cubicle was still intact, as was ancient graffiti dating back to the eighties and early nineties. A museum worthy relic indeed, perhaps not having the gravitas of the berlin wall, but still... This wall had black marker-pen scribblings going into incredible details saying things like "meet me here on thursday at six thirty. I want you to wear your wig and make-up" and other such propostions from a time long gone. Was quite spooky to intrude on this relic of the past.
The other day, i had my "leaving do" and got nicely drunk with a bunch of people that i have collected along the way in this life. Some of them knew each other and others were meeting for the first time, but everyone seemed to get along pleasantly, and we ended up moving from the pub to a graveyard. This is not a creepy overgrown ancient graveyard, just a field in the middle of town, the church now converted into a university lecture theatre.
I was happy because i got to hang out with an old friend that i haven't seen for too long- my old friend Becky- red-haired and lovely and chirpy and sincere.
Tomorrow morning i wake up early and get the train to Manchester Airport- my next update shall be in a different country. 

funereal downpoar and mossy woods

Today was a yuck-mood day. I felt anxious last night trapped in my dark attic with the wind whistling about malevolently outside, and took to frantically and somewhat obsessively searching things on the internet. I don't think i slept until after 5am. In the morning i lied in bed for ages and couldn't be bothered to get up since, despite the sunlight and wind filtering into my room, i felt the day had nothing to offer me. Sleep was far more inviting, and the marshmallow-soft comfort of the dream world.
The day didn't turn out too bad though, despite small clashes with the mother. I went over to my boyfriend's house. Which is really his mum's house where he is staying over the summer. Drank a cup of tea in the basement-living room on the comfy old-lady sofa that we got out of a skip for his mum. One of his mum's workmates was there, a young chatty girl who seemed in very cheeky and upbeat spirits, rather on a level i felt unable to connect with in my sombre mood.
After an hour or so of lazy procrastination, tea-drinking, internet-surfing and fag-breaks, my love was ready to go on the walk i had suggested. We got the naughty, mischievous, scampy little dogs, put them on leads and set off. No sooner had we got going than a great downpoar began, drenching us and sticking our hair to our heads. We were wearing big furry coats that became heavy with water.
We stopped off in a posh pub-hotel for a cup of coffee and walked in on a rather jolly funeral party, which was composed of men in black suits getting tipsy and little children skipping around with kitten-curious faces. We had our expensive coffee in a corner while we warmed up, and then continued our walk into the "enchanted woods"
The sun came out and shone on the leaves turning everything illuminated-green and full of hope. The woods smelled damp and mossy, earthy and deathful. It is the start of autumn and the leaves are beginning to fall, and winter is fighting against summer and is pre-destined to win.
We sat on a mossy wet log and had a cigarette while the dogs scampered around. I commented that the mood felt strange- like an impending break up, a sadness and nostalgia for past times combined with the knowledge of impending separation.
That's where i am at the moment.

Windy-Sunny Sheffield Hurricane Day

Miaow!
Today my cat-loving, kittenlicious blog begins. I'm not sure if i can put photos of kittens up. Not sure how the photos feature works, so if anyone would like to tell me that would be excellent.
Was thinking of starting a blog so certain friends can have a read of it when i go away to teach English in France, there is still a constant stream of connection, although in a sort of public-forum way. I think i should make a conscious effort not to say things about people who might not want their business discussed online. Although all the interesting things that happen to me generally relate to other people so that might be a bit tricky.
Today it was very windy. I think this might be to do with the beginnings of a hurricane brewing in Sheffield and the north of England in general. If this is the case, am not sure where it will be blowing next? Perhaps to whip up whirlpools over the sea, or to attack Russia?
Today i went to town and met up with two good friends, and drank mochas. Coffee with hot choccy in it. Was alright. Two pound five pee for a tiny little cup and the patterns in the froth wern't even symetrical. Maybe i should become a cafe reviewist? Become the most feared customer in Sheffield? Waiters rushing to please me so that i may write a favourable blog entry on their establishment? maaaaybe....
Then i went to sit on the hill in the park near my house with my boyfriend and one of his friends who had brough a guitar with him and a big bottle of cider. I don't really drink cider cos it tastes a bit gross and reminds me of an occasion when i got hysterically drunk and sick off it. It was all blue skied and windy with a nice view over the city, and the sun set on us through the branches of the trees. Was a very pretty scene. Cos it was so windy black crows were using the air currents to float about with an apparant joyfullness. Me and my boyfriend cuddled up in his big furry coat and his friend played nice sounds on the guitar which floated away on the wind. Very lovely...
This time next week i will be in france and far away from here :S
the wiggly line face of mixed feelings...