Swings & Roundabouts

Today was a perfect example of the many swings and roundabouts that make up everyday life here. I woke up grumpy, having spent three days alone now, broken only by the occasional supermarket trip. I debated staying in bed and watching One Tree Hill back to back from dawn until dusk, when a line from Rudyard Kipling's 'If' poem stirred in my consciousness; 'if you can fill the unforgiving minute, with sixty seconds worth of distance run'. One Tree Hill wasn't quite going to classify as distance run. I was going to have to do something. So I got dressed and ready to go and sit in the free wifi café like the day before and the day before, and embarrass myself again with the men that sit and ogle by the counter while I'm stammering 'je ne comprende pas' when the man asks me if I want to pay upfront. I was just washing up breakfast and searching under the sink for a new sponge when I came across bottles of cleaning products and the light bulb clicked on in my head. Cleaning was the way to spend this day. I would top to tail the apartment and when Danny and Becca arrive tomorrow it would be spotless and shining. 40 minutes of cleaning quickly escalated and turned into Extreme Home Makeover, and I turned the whole thing around to look much more feng shui-ed and not so offensive- the orange filing cabinets are banished now to just one corner. 

Two hours had passed without facebook or Oreos, and with a final flourish I pulled the plug of the hotplates out of the wall to move them to a more central location on the filing cabinet when there was a horrible crack and one of the plug pins fell on the floor. Suddenly, all the food which I cook on the hot plate flashed before my eyes, pasta, peas, soup, eggs, salmon... and I was staring desolately at the plug. I am not much of a DIY girl, because Dad has since explained (not very clearly), how simple it is to change a plug. But from my 10 years of studying French, although I could debate the back legs off a donkey about global warming or secularism in schools, I would not know how to start saying, "hello, I just pulled the plug out of the wall and the pin fell off." I also realised, until I was paid, I had left soup, pasta, an avocado and a tomato, and could not buy any more food, not least a new hot plate! I also rather think it is the schools responsibility to buy a new hot plate, and a new microwave, but since we have no contract here, negotiating things like that is a rather tricky business.

In self destruct manner, I decided to eat the last two edible things- the tomato and the avocado. Slicing furiously into the avocado proved troublesome because I had not realised, in my haste, it wasn't ripe. The knife slid neatly off the tough avocado and into my little finger. Now I had a bloody, unripe avocado. I still ate it, because it would have been too tragic to eat a tomato for lunch. At this point I was feeling murderous and speaking to Daniel, who is coming tomorrow and bringing a bag of things I really need from home, did not prove helpful. With him going through the pile of things I had left and going 'what on earth do you want these for?', picking up my beautiful, long sought after, saved up for, and treasured espadrille wedges, 'they look like garden furniture'.

Then I decided to go to the cash point and check on my money, to get me out of the house. On the way I saw the gardener who is really nice, very funny and doesn't speak any English but we had an attempted conversation in which I discovered, the heating is going on tonight! At last! Though as I sit here writing my fingernails are actually blue so I'm not sure what time that means. And then, my bank account was blissfully full of a month's wages and all the week of observation, misunderstandings, uncontrollable classes and broken hobs seemed worth it and I went off to the supermarket, relishing the challenge of buying meals that didn't have to be cooked in any way shape or form. I came back with smoked salmon, a pineapple, bananas, bread and more avocados.
Then, I booked the last of my travel plans before Christmas- Germany at the start of December to see the Christmas markets but more importantly to see my lovely uni friends and 4th year house mates, Georgia, Paige and Sofia, to get together at Sofia's in Jena and then go to see the spectacular Christmas markets in Nuremberg. I cannot wait to spend the weekend with them, and it fills the last month I'm here with something to look forward to before I get home on the 13th December. SO...happy days. What started a terrible day, has ended with a happy Amy, eating smoked salmon and avocado on bruschetta and happily awaiting the next adventure, Daniel's arrival in Avignon tomorrow night.

a preview of the spectacular Christmas markets in Nuremberg