Parisian Parents

So, we all know that the family I work for are very, very posh.  To look at them you wouldn't really think so... The kids wear sensible clothes and the parents, at first glance, just look like average parents.  With my family, you have to look closer for the clues:

CLUE ONE: The parents clothes get sent away to be cleaned, then they arrive back through the door ready-folded in colour co-ordinated piles.

CLUE TWO: When I moved into my studio, there was a lot of stuff stored in shoe boxes.  Some of these shoe boxes were Chloe.  The rest are all from French shoe shops which sell pumps for over 100€.  And not just beautiful party shoes; a lot of the pictures on the boxes are just standard things like ankle boots.

CLUE THREE: The children do not wear hand-me-downs.  When the ten year old grows out of something, the six year old is not forced to wear it with the sleeves rolled up.

CLUE FOUR: They go away for every single school holiday and quite often just for the weekends.  Since I have been here they have gone to Normandy twice and Barcelona once.  Over Christmas they are going skiing.  In February they are going to New York and staying in a hotel overlooking Central Park.

CLUE FIVE: What I originally thought were cute, matching pink plastic macs belonging to the girls have, on closer inspection, turned out to be Burberry.  Actual Burberry.  For two little girls who are shooting up like weeds.

A lot of the other parents aren't this subtle.  Before moving to Paris I would never have thought to take fashion advice from a child.  Or a baby.  Or, to be honest, most people's Mothers.  But honestly...everyone here is so beautifully dressed!!  The Dads at the six year olds school are a prime example.  They lean one of two ways, either they are beautifully suited (Paul Smith or Armani suits, Hermes ties) or else they look like rockstars, complete with 200€ headphones and Alexander McQueen hi-top trainers.  Either way they smell edible.

As well as at the school there are the Ballet Mums.  Not many mums actually seem to show up at the ballet school, they prefer to send the Help instead, but the ones that do are definitely taking style lessons off Anna Wintour.  They all have that different-simple-dress-with-understated-matching-accessories-every-day thing down to a tee, which I suppose is good because it means that when your little darling performs their repertoire of irritating, attention seeking habits (including but not limited to: climbing up the side of aforementioned dress, flicking bits of puree at shoes) they are only ever going to ruin ONE outfit at a time.  Before I moved to Paris I always thought I was pretty well dressed, but I sit in that ballet hall and I feel like I've been shopping in Peacocks.

I don't get it!!  In England, even the posh parents at least look like parents!  What do they do when their child wants to play in the sand at the park?  Or spills food?  Or falls over?  Do the have Special Plastic Overalls stashed in their Vuittons for just such occasions?
No, they must just prod them with the ends of their Laboutins until the child stops and acts normal again.

Yep...sorry guys...

I just can't keep up this blogging stuff.  I am too lazy.  But I will try, because it makes my Mum happy and I still have two hours until I have to take the 6 year old to a birthday party.

SO, I have made a worrying and dangerous discovery...
There is a Kooples store 5 minute's walk away from my apartment.  And it's a really good one.  I found it when me and Chris were walking home from Victor Hugo over the weekend.  It has the most amazing blazer in the men's section, it is leather and wool with faux fur lapels :')  It's only 500€.  If I saved for 6 weeks I could afford it.  I wouldn't even have to stop eating because I get my food money on top of my wages.  Then again, if I stopped eating I could probably afford the blazer in 4 weeks...  I can't help it, I know that most people who wear Kooples clothes are probably tossers who take themselves a bit seriously but I love them (the clothes, not the tossers who take themselves too seriously).

The assistants in there were so nice as well!  I tried to go into the Kooples pop-up store in Printemps and the assistant basically followed us round, one pace behind, the whole time I was in there which I HATE because I am obviously not going to buy anything (I was wearing Topshop ffs...).  But in the Victor Hugo store it was just two blokes and they were lovely!  Then again, maybe this is because I was wearing more expensive clothes and looked like I might actually purchase the fabulous blazer rather than just trying it on to torture myself...

That's one thing I really like about the posh boutiques in Paris.  In London, if you walked into Chanel or Valentino, or even somewhere a bit cheaper like Vivienne Westwood, they would immediately total up how much your outfit cost and completely ignore you once they've worked out that you're not in there to buy.  Mostly they won't even bother saying "hello".  I don't know if it's just the weird compulsion the french have to say "bonjour" to everybody but as soon as you walk in, even if you are blatantly just looking, they say hello and ask if they can help you.  Then they say "merci, au revoir" when you leave, even though you've had your sticky, high street fingers all over their 1000€ dresses.  Then again, I think this non-threatening approach to designer clothing is going to be very bad for my bank balance once I've managed to save a bit!

One thing I'm really missing since leaving Cornwall, though, is second hand shopping.  I have been told that the charity shops in Paris are completely amazing and out-of-this-world but I'm yet to actually find one!  The closest I got was in Montmartre where I found a second hand shop selling a vintage Burberry trench, but it was still 200€ so not exactly bargainous shopping.

SO my mission before my next blog post is to find an amazing vintage market or similar.  Probably a job for next weekend...
Over and out until then ;)

Tres Bad Souris

So, I am ACTUALLY IN PARIS.  But I've been so excited (read, tired from running around after children) that I haven't posted a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g  :(

Anyway it is even better then I thought it would be.  I've been here since Saturday 8th and my French is horrific.  I mean, I knew it was bad but it is really, really terrible.  I've joined a language school and I am in the beginners class.  So thanks a bunch, GCSE Grade B in French, you have served me SO frikkin' well!  But other than that I've met some really lovely girls and the two girls I'm looking after are really sweet :)  I basically help the younger girl do her homework and then get to play Polly Pocket with her.  It's like Corrie...on Saturday I went to school in a slutty dress and trainers and then today my Mum got married.  AND I get to ride to school on a Zhu Zhu Hamster.

On Saturday night I met up with some other au-pairs and went out dancing; we ended up drinking by the Seine and then eating Tapas at 4 in the morning and I didn't get in until about 6am.  I must at some point thank my ex-flatmate and favourite American for giving me Pride and Prejudice on DVD as a leaving present because I spent almost all of Sunday lying in bed, eating pasta and watching it.  I did, however raise myself out of bed at about 2:30pm and go to visit the Eiffel Tower which I had never seen before, then I walked home through the Champs Ellysees and window shopped at Kenzo and Louis Vuitton.

Trying to get into Louis Vuitton on the Champs Ellysees is like trying to get into a NIGHT CLUB.  There was literally a velvet rope and a bouncer, letting people in and out.  I thought about joining the queue but it was full of Japanese tourists and I was still tres tired and a bit hungover so I just peered in the windows.  I also stared in at Jean Paul Gaultier and it was all closed so I was going to take some pictures but there was a Random Man staring at me looking like he might shout in French if I did so I chickened out.  The clothes are so beautiful; I will never be happy unless at some point in my life I procure the kind of money needed to shop in Gaultier and not feel guilty afterwards.  At the moment I'm not even letting myself near the Naf Naf down the road from me because I KNOW it will end in my eating plain Quinoa for the next two weeks and I just can't handle any more Quinoa.

BTW can someone please answer me this:
Why, why WHY were there a MILLION tourists trying to take pictures of themselves outside the Nespresso shop in the Champs Ellysees?????  Come on!!  You're PARIS and you're excited about frikkin' NESPRESSO??!!

Anyway, I get paid tomorrow (hurrah!)  so I think I'm going to be very French and eat my breakfast in the Cafe at the end of my street.  I have no idea what it's like but it's pink and is also a Patisserie so it's winning with me so far, especially now I have finally worked out how to order coffee which is not an espresso.  You have to ask for "cafe a'longue" which is basically an Americano.  If you just ask for "cafe" you will get an espresso.  And I like espressos but they are hard to drink slowly!

Anyway, I realise this has been a rubbish, disjointed blog but I am very, very tired and I really only wrote it so that I'd stop feeling guilty.  Tomorrow I will write a very good blog on a set topic.  Promise.

Depressed.

No one has called me.  Or emailed me.  Or anything.

I have handed in my notice on BOTH jobs and now nothing is going to happen.  Never will I skip through the streets of Paris looking impossibly chic and leading either equally chic French children or a small dog.

I am too depressed to write right now.  I'm going to go and read a book about a French serial killer.

Oh God Oh God Oh God Oh God

I handed in my notice at work today :O  Everyone at my main job was really nice and looked all sad at me when I told them I was running away to Paris.  And they're letting me use my last week of holiday to shorten my notice period instead of being paid for it which is goood :)
I've handed in my notice for job number two as well, that's still supposed to be a month but I'm going to have to swing it so it's less because I said I could travel to Paris on the 8th October if they needed me to...

Fuck.

So it looks like I'm actually doing this... I only applied on a whim because I'd had a crap day at work.  Hahahahaha.  If I wasn't me then I would be laughing at myself so hard right now and saying things like "Ohhhh, you twat. What have you let yourself in for!?".  But Leanne's saying all these things for me anyway so I'm not missing out.

I'm PROBABLY staying with a family in the centre of Paris.  They have two little girls who are 6 and 10 and I'll have my own little apartment and internet things.  I say probably because their current Au Pair is really keen to leave so they're pretty desperate and don't know if they can wait three weeks for me to get out there.  But Nice French Agency Lady said that even if they can't wait for me she'll find me another family really quickly so it won't matter that I've handed my notice in etc already.

The children aren't going to speak English.

And I am not going to know where they go to school.

And I have to take them every morning.

They are going to trick me into taking them to Disneyland and I won't even know until Goofy is calling me a twat and laughing.






I am going to be mauled by a rabid baguette in a beret and die, alone, in Paris.

Real French people will shake their heads and walk away, looking solemn.



Nice French Agency Lady said she'd get hold of me as soon as she knew what was going on.  That was this morning and she hasn't yet which means I am going to be in this state ALL WEEKEND.  I'm going to drive my friends, family and hairdresser mad.

Adequate French

So yes, Adequate French. 

I honestly have been trying to learn French.  I can even say "Sit down", "Eat your dinner" and "No, do it now", all of which I feel are going to be very useful when I have to look after a mad French child. 
I spoke to my English au pair agency the other day because to be honest I was panicking about why no one had contacted me yet and that maybe I'd sent everything to the wrong address or they're taken one look and said "Ha ha ha no.". Or something.  And she said that she would get onto the French agency and remind her to call me for an interview.  During the course of this conversation she mentioned "Oh, Delphine will probably give your French a little test during the interview as well."
"Excellent." I replied. 
"Fuuuuuuuuuck!!!!" I said as soon as I got off the phone.

I have very little faith in my own ability to do ANYTHING.  This includes but is not limited to:
*Sending a fax
*Cooking a meal
*Correctly dialing a phone number which is written down in front of me
So really, when it comes to having a conversation, with a grown-up, who is interviewing me, in A FORIEGN LANGUAGE, there is no way it can go but badly.  I am bad enough at speaking coherent ENGLISH in this kind of situation

Oh, other people may tell me I'll be fine.  They may point out my ability to ask where the toilets are, tell a taxi driver to keep the change or to call somebody a whore.  This makes no difference.  I am going to forget all the French I know and accidentally call French Au Pair Lady Delphine a 'putain'.

SO.  As well as listening to Paul Noble explaining how if a word ends in 'ic' or 'ical' to just change the end to 'ique' (apparently, therefore giving me 2000 words in French in one fell swoop), I have been trying to read Harry Potter en Francais.  I say trying.  I don't know if it's working or not because I pretty much know the story back to front anyway so it might just be that my brain is reading the English version stored in my head while making me feel better by telling me I understand the French.
...Stupid brain.

Anyway apparently this approach worked for Chic Marjorie, my cousin's French girlfriend, when she was trying to learn English.

She hasn't called yet anyway. Fuck fuck fuckety fuck.
I wish she would call.
Although that's unlikely at 8:13pm on a Saturday night.
It's worse than waiting for a lad to call.
The tease.  She is waving Paris in front of me and then snatching it away.

OH GODDDDD.  I am totally unsuitable to look after small children.  I am strange and mad and obsessive and drunken and should sit in a corner doing crochet until I'm old and grey and sensible.

Poorly

I have Major Fear right now.  And the fear is this: I don't just have a hangover; I have, in fact, caught the boyfriend's tummy bug.

I could, of course, just have a hangover.  I drank quite a lot last night and this morning the only thing I wanted to eat was chip shop cheesy chips with loads of ketchup and mayonaise on them.  So I did.  And then I ate a Krispy Kreme doughnut.  But then later me and Chris went into town because Chris hasn't been able to get more then ten feet away from the toilet for three days and one of the shops has started selling american sweets and Lucky Charms and Pop Tarts and things, so we spent £15 on Pop Tarts, Lucky Charms and two cans of Vanilla Coke.  I don't know if it was just too much excitement for me or something but the Coke was really hurting my stomach, like so much that I had to stop and sit down because I couldn't even keep walking.  And then I was supposed to go to ASDA and buy a toaster because me and Leanne don't have one in the flat so we can't eat the Pop Tarts even though I've bought them but I even felt to ill to do that, I just went to sleep until I had to leave for work at 6:30.

Now I'm at work and I actually feel like I might DIE.  I'm all floaty and funny :(  And I've just started sneezing and shivering as well.  Blegh.

I work in a hospital and it's visiting time at the moment and just now the parents of this girl I went to school with walked past.  I completely HATE this girl.  She is actually the devil incarnate.  No joke.  Erm, I'm trying to think of a specific example of this but I can't because SHE WAS NEVER NICE THE WHOLE TIME I WAS AT SCHOOL WITH HER NOT EVEN ONCE.  I know that they recognise me and I really hope they don't try to talk to me on the way out because in my current, reduced mental state I think I might just yell "YOUR DAUGHTER IS THE DEVIL INCARNATE PLEASE STAY AWAY FROM ME!"

Maybe if I seem really engrossed in typing/reading 'Harry Potter A L'ecole Des Sorciers' when they walk back then they won't even notice me. 

By the way.  I'm reading Harry Potter in French.  It's a desperate attempt to improve my French to 'adequate', which is what I claimed it was on my application form, but I think I'm going to write about why it's suddenly so important to speak French adequately in a different post because this one is bitty and ridiculous.  But I can't help that because I am a Very Poorly Person.

Reasons Why I Need To Leave Penryn

1) There is a human poo at the top of my Mum's alleyway.  My Mum's house is in a 150m square nice area of Penryn.  It is surrounded by drongo pubs and council estates.  I know it was a human poo because the poo-er had used a sunglasses case to wipe their bottom afterwards.

2) I've started getting angry at the students for being 'foreign'.  Well not really, actually I get annoyed at the students because they are pretentious and annoying and wear stupid clothes and push you in Remedies when you're dancing.  But they're as good a reason as any to leave since they make up about 70% of the under 25s in Penryn.

3) I'm becoming an angry NHS worker.  I tut at young people who don't say "thank you" to me and am getting VERY. GOOD. AT. SHOUTING. SLOWLY. AT. GRANNIES.

4) My grandparents were really pleased when I got my receptionist job because they think it has "good career prospects".

5) This is absolutely and definitely the only time in my life when I will be able to say "Fuck it, I'm moving to Paris!" and be able to get everything sorted in exactly 1 month (this is the notice period on my flat/job/other job).

6) The bar staff in Mango Tango now know my name.

Senile Puppy Nursemaid

I had plans for this weekend; honestly I did.  I was going to visit my pony, go for a nice long run, learn some French, and recover from the enormous hangover I planned on getting last night.
I'm currently sat in my Mum's house, watching the Athletics and TRYING to make sure that my deaf, partially blind, senile, 14 year old Springer Spaniel doesn't have any "little accidents" on the living room carpet.  So far I've got him outside almost every time.  I've also eaten half a share size bar of Fruit and Nut.
My Dad lost the sight in his left eye on Thursday night.  On Friday he started to think that maybe he should go to Casualty; they took his blood pressure (about 5,000,000,000/3,000,000 in case you're interested) and are now refusing to let him out of hospital until at least Monday.  So, being the *ahem* lovely daughter that I am, I've had to move back to my Mum's house while she gallivants around Gay Paree because the Senile Puppy is too senile to manage the stairs up to my flat and he can't be left by himself for more than three hours at a time (and that's if you're pushing it and prepared to do some cleaning when you get home).

And do you know what she has to eat in her house? Five Ryvita, a box of Special K, some hotdog mustard and a pot of garlic paste.  However she does have two bottles of whisky, one bottle of Kahlua, some tequila, a bottle of red wine, christmas sherry, Noily Prat martini stuff and her FREEZER contains only a bottle of gin and some Grey Goose vodka.  Bad, alcoholic Mother.

I've also been geeking out slightly reading another Paris Au Pair blog, Left Bank Manc which made me decide to start a blog.  Since I never have anything to do and will have even less to do once I'm in a country where I only know one person and don't speak the language.  Unless I get to meet Christoph Le Maitre who I am convinced is my One True Love.  If we had babies they would be very, very fast.
The Senile Puppy is giving me a funny look.. Either he's doubting mine and Christoph's love or he needs letting out again...