The man from Maternelle says "non!"

Back in the summer I was asked by the boys' headmistress if I would go on a course, work really hard and by the end of it come out with a qualification so that I could then teach English at their school.  I gave her proposition very careful thought and after a long drawn-out pause of a full twelve seconds, I said 'yes, I would".

I was really very flattered to be asked.  Perhaps she saw that I had a spark of something that I never knew I had; an aurora of authority, nurture and intelligence; the potential to inspire and instruct?  Mmm.  Or perhaps it was because I was the token English mother, lived 100 metres from the school gates and was perceived to lounge around, eating chocolates and watching quiz shows until the boys came home because I wasn't in paid employment.  

Then two weeks after, she changed schools.  I like to think her reasons were legitimate and not because she'd had second thoughts about asking me.  Besides, if anyone was having second thoughts, it was me.  The only children I like are my own and certain select and random others belonging to friends; for me, patience is a card game rather than a quality that I am proud to possess; and classrooms make me feel a little panicky.  But hey, neither Jean Pierre Jeunet nor Christian Tortu were beating down my door with other offers to tempt me from the sink, so from the beginning of September, eager to prove that I did possess a spark of brilliance and not because I was the only candidate, I helped out with the English classes, voluntarily.

And now, I've just been dealt a bitter blow by the school who said that, despite my willingness to give hours of free English lessons on a weekly basis, they are not prepared to stretch the truth to get me on the course which would give me a qualification for teaching English as a foreign language.  Mmm.  All they had to say to the people running the course is that I am currently salaried by the school for the helping children to take the 'z' out of 'the'.  That's all.  Not a dreadful lie.  Just a tiny, little, white one that makes out that I'm already being paid, when I am clearly not.  But no.  Not keen.  I like to think it is a new requirement for those on the course and not something they knew all along when I was first asked by them.  Surely they are not capable of such skullduggery, are they?  They give my children pictures of Jesus to colour in for Goodness' sakes. 

Today, sensing that I may be frustrated by their reticence to bullshit me into the realms of "employable" , they've tried to jolly me along by asking me to select a 'chanson anglais' that is both 'joli' and 'traditionel', yet for the children to sing at the forthcoming l'arbre de noel celebrations. 

Ah-ha, the perfect opportunity for pay-back.  In fact, so perfect that I am almost inclined to continue typing whilst stroking Super Gary the guinea-pig in a  plan-hatching Bond villain stylee if only he didn't make me too nervous to concentrate on the keys.  He's a bit of a biter and I've told the boys so many times his eyes are red because really they're lasers that I've actually started to believe it myself.  Mmm. 

So minus Super Gary...but still with certain frisson, a plan is starting to hatch...Mwa-ha-ha...

What I need is a song that shows them that they are missing an absolute trick by not having me on the payroll - either pretend or for real.  Without me and my mother tongue, their children will be forever stuck on stating the prevailing weather conditions, what colour their t-shirts are and how many ice-creams they would like.  

Swinging into action as I got home, googled up 'traditional Christmas songs' and there, a little way down under the usual suspects of "Little Drummer Boy" and "I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas", there it was..."Santa Baby"... Bingo!  Fantastic!  In my mind, I see fifty children a-swaying and a-singing entirely inappropriately yet still rather charmingly "Santa cutie, fill my stocking with a duplex, and cheques".  In my mind, I see it all every bit as achingly glorious as the part in Little Miss Sunshine when Olive finally gets to do her song at the beauty pageant.  Call it a kind of festive homage.  What could be better?  It's jolly.  Sweet.  Christmas-y.  And previously performed by Marilyn Monroe.  Perfect.

I print off the lyrics and am all ready to dash down to the school to start preparations when B.  breaks off from arranging small vehicles into a huge traffic jam across the kitchen and blocks my exit from the front door.

"What have you got in your hand?", he asks, no doubt rather hoping it something for him, preferably to eat.

"A piece of paper.  Can I get past, please?" I reply in a dull, let-me-just-get-past-quickly sort of voice.

"Show me!" says B., not being palmed off.

"Look!" I say, "It's just a little Christmas song and it sort of goes like this...Santa Baby, slip a sable under the tree, for me.  I've been an awful good girl.  Santa Baby, hurry down the chimney tonight...Sa..." I start in my ghastly why-housewives-shouldn't-audition-for-X-Factor voice.

"Maman?" B. bellows trying to be heard, cutting me dead in my tracks.

"What???  Don't you like it? Isn't it quite funny and jolly?  Wouldn't you like to sing it with all your little friends? No?" I gabble defensively and a little taken aback that he's interrupted my rendition.

"It's not 'baby'.  You can't say 'baby'.  Santa's not a baby. Santa's a big boy.  Like me."

"Oh".  I should perhaps point out that the word 'Baby' in our house does tend to be seen as an arch insult between the boys and used to jeer and torment one another with it in a kind of "you're a baaaaby" type way.   For S. and B., although actual babies themselves are very sweet and funny,they absolutely can't do anything that they, as big boys, can do and so are therefore everso slightly rubbish.  So yes, I  can see why perhaps the man who can and does once a year would never be called a 'baby'.  In the stingingly logical world of la maternelle, how on earth would a baby Santa lift that sack?

"Don't you like it then?"  I venture gingerly.

"No I don't.  But you can sing Santa Big Boy, if you want" said B, brightening at his own suggestion.  So did I, until I had processed the visual of M. le Maire with his rudimentary grasp of English, head cocked quizzically to one side.  And then I felt distinctly unbright.

"No.  We can't.  I guess I'll have to find something else to sing" I mumble, abject and miserable that I have failed to even get la maternelle vote, then turn away from the front door and head back upstairs.

And so here I am.  Again.  Waiting for the printer to finish spewing  out the words to bloody Jingle Bells.  Easy to learn?  Yes.  Traditional?  Yes.  English?  Yes.  Will it urge the headmistress  to send me away on  a course?  Mmm.  Do you know something, my evil plan may just work after all...if I make them sing it for long enough.

point proved

Tonight I had to pick S. up on rushing through his homework too quickly.  For writing 'est' all hoiky-quoiky three times,  I was compelled to point out that even though he may find it easy and rather dull, they are not excuses to be all sloppy and careless.  It doesn't matter if words only have three letters in them, they are still as important as longer ones to write well.  All words are important so all words need to be written so that they can be read.  Especially his words.

Mmm.  Perhaps I did lay it on a bit too thick.  He is only six.

After correcting the 'est's, he handed me the following piece of paper...

 soriy maman fore my teriball writing

I loved it.  I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time.  And it is, officially my most favourite thing, ever.

Point proved, though: Words are important and need to be able to be read.  

Spelling can wait for another day.

 

Stitch & Bitch

During this Wednesday's preparations for the upcoming l'arbre de noël, I, along with other mothers of la maternelle, found ourselves sitting for three hours, threading polystyrene chips onto cotton thread to create the illusion of flurrying snow, driven by the compulsion to be good mothers, and to make the most of  a fabulous opportunity for a good old bitch.

And the perfect topic to bitch about whilst coddling together snow clouds, in an unheated classroom, balanced precariously on unsuitably small and hard wooden chairs that forced our bottoms to hang over the edges like fleshy cycle paniers?  Why the holy grail of Parenthood, of course; our infinite quest of ensuring our children are loved, looked after, respectful, happy and spirited, kept out of mischief and, all this, at minimum financial cost.  Tricky, tricky, tricky.  Especially as here, being so close to the sea, the year is not divided into Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter.  No.  It has only two seasons; Open and Shut.  Open starting after Easter through to mid-September and Shut which is all the other months clogging together into one, foul-weathered, contumelious clump.

Things to do with two small boys in Open season are a doddle.  Everywhere is open;  zoos, museums, fun parks, swimming pools are thronging and jolly and the seasonal sport of finding elbow room on a terrasse along with a parking spot in the shade is in full flow.  And there's always the beach, she added, stifling a complacent yawn.

However, Shut is shit.  The beach is wet and windy and there are no cafes or bars open where you can even warm yourself up afterwards over a chocolat chaud.  The zoo is pointless and disappointing; all of the animals are hidden, hunkered down in the far recesses of their houses refusing to grant anyone an audience.  The museums and amusement parks have shut down, waiting for the return of the holidays and with it the students to staff them and  the holidaymakers with their city wages to fill them.  And the only swimming pool open in close proximity to us is the open air one offering arctic swimming conditions, a slide often out of action and a spouty dolphin that spouts either water or ice chips at you as you pass underneath depending on the ambient temperature.

Yep, tricky indeed.

As the voice of bitter experience and steep learning curves, I could write at great length of the horrors of Shut-seasoned-Wednesdays, Brit style; Grasshoppering between craft activities at home; clocking up huge mileage on the quest to find something new to do with two bickering children; scraping at the floor for hours with the back of a butter knife, trying to lift off the rainbow smears of playdoh; queuing for hours at the library to take out books with other short-tempered mothers and pinwheeling children; And finally, getting absolutely no joy or thanks at the end of a day that seems to last a week.  Oh and plus the sad old fact that you've used up all available options for the weekend's entertainment.  God damn it.  

The French, on the other hand, seem to have it all sewn up as they are not at all hung up on doing it all themselves.  No.  They unashamedly leap at the chance to have their children palmed off onto someone skilled in the art of animation who will patiently keep their petits choux happy, fully occupied, and possibly teach them something new.  Usually around the second Saturday in September visitors can wander the empty streets, marvelling at the eerie stillness and enjoying the birdsong, as a huge percentage of the local community cram into their local salle des fêtes.  Great shuffling huddles of parents with their children form around the various desks run by local clubs and societies who are eager for new recruits. Everyone knowing that the only way to survive the long gloomy months of nothing-muchness is succeeding to cajole and enrol your child into as many activities as possible.  It's the best option.  The only other is to try to get them invited round a mate's.   I'm telling you now, when you host birthday parties (ages 2 and up) or have your child's best friend round to play, don't think for one moment you, as the host, can seek solace in an adult conversation.  No chance.  Your child's friend arrives through your door whilst their parent shouts from the safety of the car, hoping you'll hear through the tightly-wound window and over the drone of the running engine, that they'll be back 'vers cinq heures'  before disappearing to spend a blissful two hours, sans gosses.  

Having seen both sides of the die, the way forward is definitely childcare à la française: Yield to it and cast aside the very British guilt about not doing it all yourself, for once and all.  It is liberating.  For, after digesting the sagely advice of a number of other mothers who, like me, want their sofas to be left with some spring in their seats come Easter, this September the boys were enrolled in a rolling rock of activities so that they are now channelling their unspent energy joyfully and wisely on a Wednesday and I no longer find myself bellowing like a fishwife about the perils of indoor ball games by 11am and running the bath at 4.30pm.  Quelle joie.

"Wednesdays.  Pheww.  Sorted." I announced one morning over coffee to a new-to-these-parts mother, fresh in from Hong Kong with her two similarly aged children, as we struggled to hear each other through the howls and hollerings of four children at play.  "S is off to roller hockey on a Tuesday after school till 6pm.  Then he's off to an hour's tennis lesson at 9am on the Wednesday and then both are off to Karate from 4-5.  It's great, isn't it?" I bellowed above din.

"Won't they be a bit exhausted?" she asked, a little gingerly.

"Exactly" I beamed, over-excited to be of some help.

"Well, I don't know..." said Ting Tong from Hong Kong, picking at an imaginary loose thread on her skirt so as to avoid eye contact, "...I would do the same but I really love spending time with my children.  We always have such fun together.  I actually miss them when they are at school."  

Mmm.  Damned and snubbed by a woman who's like Margot Leadbetter from the Good Life, trapped in Barbara Good's lifestyle,  my willingness to share any other potential life-changing nuggets of knowledge were gone, disappeared.   It was all I could do to give her the time to gather up her lovely lovely children who were wrecking my house before booting her out the door, leaving her to wipe the moustache of coffee off, in public, on the lonely walk back to her car.

That evening, I relay the morning's conversation to my husband and part-time honorary bird.

"So annoying.  Stupid bloody woman.  She's never even spent a winter over here.  She has absolutely no idea what's it like.  How dare she make me feel like I'm a crap mother and can't wait to get shot of my kids.  I'm only doing it for them.  It's not for me, I can assure you.  I've got to ferry them here, there and everywhere.  And who's got to hike round the fields in the rain with the dogs killing time till they come out?  Me.  Course it is.  God, it only costs  40 euros to do 32 weeks of roller hockey and have you seen the price of playdoh and those fuzzy pipecleaners?  Christ, I could whip through 40 euros a week..." I stop mid-rant and  look across at my husband, hoping that he is poised, vitriol at the ready, to add to my venomous torrent. No.  He's gazing at some distant spot located somewhere past my right ear, in a glassy trance of disinterest.  I should know.  It's the exact same expression as the one that fixes on my face when he's talking about the intricacies of Spurs' latest team tactics to me.

Mmm.  A wave of fear that we're slightly growing apart washes over me.  I change the subject.

"Next Wednesday, can you come down the school with me?  They need some trees to be cut out of wood."  

What better way to find some unity than some hours spent together, stitching and bitching?

No Hawkers or Traders

As from today, I am not doing door opening. Just in case I open it and it's someone trying to sell me something and I get all hopelessly suckered in.  It happens every single time.  And enough is enough. Yesterday morning I was taken for a fool for the last time.  No more.  It's official.  

I know, I know, I know.  It is so very easy to find my inner resolve after an event.  But faced with full-on spiel and slight amateur dramatics by someone standing on my doorstep and I am the dream consumer.  God damn it.  Whoever they are, and no matter what they are selling, they seem to catch me at a weak moment.  Seeing as weak moments for me start from about 7am when I have the first Illy of the day to about 11pm when my eyes clam up tight for the night, there is every chance if I open the door between these hours, I will be suckered in.  As all good businessmen will probably tell you, timing and opportunity is every bit as important as product.  And quite frankly, if you approach a door where you can hear the bickering and cries of children, a harrassed female voice and the clatter of kitchen utensils as you stand on the street, you're just about to strike hawking and trading jackpot.  

So there I was mid re-wiring the toaster because the elements had just burnt out and couldn't face another morning's round of toast done only on one side whilst simultaneously preparing lunch for the boys, when the doorbell rang.  With my multi-tasking skills pushed to breaking point as I tried to simultaneously twiddle a screwdriver, wrap a saucisse in a galette and stop the baked beans catching, I was secretly quite pleased to have an interruption.  And look!  A little old farmer with a face that is begging to be snapped by Selgado, trying to sell his homegrown root vegetables.  Bless!  Come on in!

I was immediately suckered in by his frailty and his ability to talk very quickly whilst holding up vegetables with the rapid-fire speed of flash-cards.  I watched his gnarled hands seize and release his wares in an almost hypnotic whirr; an apple switched for a turnip which switched to a carrot which switched for a potato which then switched to an onion which then switched to a shallot which then....STOP!  I heard myself saying that I would take the very smallest quantity of shallots so that it would stop, he would go away very quickly and very happy and leave me to butterfly though the trauma of lunchtime.  Cue him looking really sad.  Obviously.  After months spent planting, nurturing, watering and growing, then hours of picking and packing and all I wanted was a bag of shallots?  No wonder he looked downcast.  And I felt bit sad for him too, so I found myself adding carrots, onions and potatoes to my initially rather meagre order.  

He perked up a treat at the revised order, actually stopped talking and waving vegetables and tottered off to his van to get the barest minimum quantity of each.  

With each sack that he staggered back with, and groaning under the weight of 32kg carrots, 10kg of onions, 10kg of shallots and a mighty 100kg of spuds, he managed to gasp through broken breaths that the quality of his vegetables was such they would last six months.  I looked aghast at the small vegetable mountain that was clogging the hallway.  10kg of potatoes? Six months?  I don't even eat flipping potatoes.  S & B only like them mashed and then only once a week and taking into account the child to potato ratio, it would be six years before we'd finish them all.  There was more chance of one of them growing eyes and getting a guest appearance on Eastenders, professing to be Phil Mitchell's long lost brother, than finishing them in six months.  He swapped back to looking sad and frail and said it was the smallest bags he was selling them in and that, if stored in dark, cool conditions, my family would feast like kings for the winter months.

Sold.  By the frail little old man who's just trying to earn a crust.  To the daft brush of a mother of two that needs this man gone from her doorstep because she can smell the beans burning and has both children currently clambering up the side of a huge onion bag.

Whilst I mentally calculated how many weeks it would take four guinea pigs to eat their way through 32kgs of carrots and  how many winning ways there were with onions, I wrote him out a cheque for roughly the same amount that a pair of Bottega Veneta boots I'd had my eye on would cost.  Before the ink could dry, he neatly pocketed it, wished me a 'bonne fin d'journee',and ploof! he was gone.

As I turned my hand to salvaging the boys' lunch and ordering them à table, I tried to focus on the vitamins and hearty nourishment my newly-acquired store cupboard staples would bring to my little family before I was gripped by clammy sweat at how my husband would react to me being so gullible.

Given that it must be utterly tiresome to have hitched up with someone who is borderline stupid, has a tendency to live in a fantasy world and never says 'no' to anyone, this could have been the straw that broke the camel's back.   I pictured him typing the words "hot divorce lawyer" into Google, as I announced "Look!  Our very own European vegetable mountain for just one month's housekeeping.  Fantastic.".  

I spent ages loading them into a wheelbarrow, ready to cart them out to the darkest, coolest endroit my tiny mind could think of in a kind of cleaning up the crime scene sort of panic.  Ahh-ha!  Over there.  Dark.  Cool.  Perfect.  Mmm.  Also happens to be my husband's workshop.  Not so perfect as it forced me into a very early confession of how I'd allowed myself to be duped into buying kilos of vegetables by a wily old man.  He was working in there at the time, sawing up some wood.

Understandably exasperated that I could once again have been quite so silly, he very kindly focused less on what I done and more on the obvious flaws in the little old farmer's sales pitch.  Marvellous.  And he came up with some awfully good points.   Surely chemicals were invented and slapped on vegetables in order for them to last inordinate amounts of time because cool and dark didn't work that well.  How, indeed, would an untreated spud last six months, even if kept in the darkest, coolest conditions possible?  Indeed.  Shall we see if the old farmer was right? 

As punishment for my actions, I have been set the tricky old task of seeing if the vegetables will keep fresh and usable for a full six months. And I must use them on a daily basis in a variety of interesting and tasty dishes until all evidence of my foolishness is erased.  And surprise! surprise! I am not allowed to answer the door to strangers ever again.

What a relief!

The Three Year Itch

Today I have broken through the Three Year Barrier. 

 I recently read an article that stated that somewhere around the three year mark of living in France, almost half the number of British families who choose to do so then decide it isn't for them after all,  pack up their things and hoike on back to Blighty.  A failed business, language difficulties,  battles with the system or simply missing family, friends and 'home' are all cited as key factors for their exodus back across the Channel.

So even though I have spent the past 1095 days deriving a strange pleasure out of clammily conjugating sentences, brushing cheeks and swapping pleasantries with impeccably made-up and genetically skinny mothers of three so that they'll be my friend,  visiting five different shops in one morning to get one week's worth of shopping, having such a high intake of carbs and fresh fish that it's bordering on biblical and embracing every single folly and fault that France has on offer, it's really not that surprising that even I may succumb to a variation of  the Three Year Itch.

And yesterday it happenend. 

 I just woke up, all fed up of spending yet another day as a watered down version of the real me. The one who has to speak French the whole time.  The real me's dull shadow that is constricted by the lack of  rich vocabulary,  restrained by the rules of politesse and weighed down with the ever present guilt of being seen as a cuckoo in France's nest.  The slightly-tortured-me that about 99% of the people around me only ever see.  But yesterday all I wanted to do was  just wanted to hop out of bed, breeze through the day and have everyone that I came into contact catch a glimpse through my opaque facade and see that I am not actually thick and I just say 'errrr' a lot, interspersed with moments of looking rather blank, so that I can work out how the next verb should end;  that I do have a few really funny stories up my sleeve, albeit much more hilarious when drunk; and that I am actually alright as person and not the slightest bit interested in eating children.  OK, so perhaps  I am not the fast flowing river that I would like to spend my life being, but it wouldn't half be a treat if I could give all those around me a flash that there is something lurking in the murkiness of a being une anglaise à l'étranger.

I have really tried to lose the guilt, pep up the vocab and chat to anyone and everyone like a crazy in the queue for the nightbus but despite all this rather draining activity, I am still batting well below the expected average.  Well, in my mind at least.   

There are at least four fingers I can hold up on one hand to represent people who may have actually glimpsed a twinkle of the true me, despite the French outer coating .   Four people who don't mind if I  sweep and swerve my way precariously through random topics and verb conjugations; or that I forget to swallow because I am lost in the moment of free speech and get a bit spittily; and all of whom will gently correct and encourage me to end my sentences coherently.  God damn it, if they weren't so busy with their full time jobs; being a mother to two children, cleaning people's houses, fixing rotten teeth and making domestic animals better, they might have the time to go forth and spread the word that Mme Craie is kind of alright.  Just five minutes down by the school gates.  Not much to ask.  Even if they are really very busy.

Actually finding four whole people in three years gives me the hope to carry on.  So,  you will be relieved to know that I have scratched my Three Year Itch by spending the entire day with self-reproach, sour thoughts and wavering bottom lip.  And even though I spoilt an entire day for myself and those around me, on balance it isn't half as bad as spending it on a bumpy channel crossing back to Blighty.  Four people might actually miss me.