Linda Blair

Today marks two weeks here in France with this, my new family, my new life...

Yesterday was the first day I have had off since I arrived.

Don't get me wrong! Things here are lovely about 80% of the time, which by my calculations is pretty damn good for this type of situation. Nothing is ever perfect, and when you essentially trust complete strangers with a year of your life to be welcomed as I have and treated as well as I have is truly a blessing.

My typical day begins at 7:30 when I wake up, do my morning push ups, take a shower, drink coffee and maybe do my makeup. I get the two youngest kids up no later thank 8:00, dress them, get them breakfast, make sure they have a snack for school etc... This usually involves a fair amount of screaming and or flailing from the three year old who really seems to have it out for me. I swear this girl sometimes... I have never met a child that was so adept at physically escaping any situation where even a little bit of force is required. She makes her body go limp and moves her limbs around in such a manner that makes her literally impossible to keep a grip on. It's really something else.

After the kids are ready and fed I walk them to the école which is about two blocks away and go on my merry way until they return around 5. Lundi, Mardi, Vendredi, Jeudi I have the hours between 9 and 5 pm more or less to myself, and in that time I will aid in the constant stream of laundry- putting loads in, taking loads out, folding folding folding, and the same goes for the dishes which never end either. So it goes in such a large family, and to be honest, at least they have a dishwasher!

During my free time I love to ride my bike. I bought a used Bianchi road/racing bike in really great order. It's a little weird getting used to the new geometry, and in all honesty it's a bit large for me, but not terrible to ride. It's FAST. I don't know whether it's the overwhelming beauty and solitude of the countryside, or the fact that my bike rides are more or less the only thing that is totally and completely MINE, but I can honestly say that I have never enjoyed riding a bike more in my life. Although French drivers do scare the shit out of me.

Mardi I also have my language class which I look forward to all week. Two hours of only French speaking!!! And my teacher is a doll. Yesterday she let me bitch for like 20 minutes about what was bothering me around here and gave me some very French advice. She's lovely. I do get the sense, however that this specific course is pretty much souly aimed towards English ex-pats who emigrate here after retirement and are required to learn the language. Consequently, my two classmates are in their 70's so, not exactly my cup of tea. Pun very, very intended.

I was informed at dinner tonight that the littlest one, the linda blair one has really upped the crazy since I've been here. Superb.

Around 16.45 or so I walk to the école to pick up the three youngest kids. When we get back to the house I fix them a drink, maybe a snack and play with them for about and hour or more until dinner.

Dinner is usually a mix of broken French on the side of the mother and I, lighting fast "courant" french from the kids, that I frankly can't understand for the life of me half the time, and of course, Dutch. Oddly enough, It has gotten to the point already where I can understand a fair amount of Dutch, but still not enough to be able to decipher what the hell anyone is really talking about.

Dinner is usually pretty tortuous as the littlest one screams and yells and gets out of her seat and generally makes it very unpleasant for everyone involved. I suggested two things to remedy this situation- Threaten the youngest with having to eat alone in the hall at her play table, and two giving every member of the family about 5 minutes or so to recount their day, so that everyone has a chance to be heard. So far, the adoption of these two tactics to control little Linda's behavior have been my biggest triumphs here.

After dinner, we all help clear the table and the next battle commences- Bath and bed for the little ones. So far it has varied from actually pretty pleasant to downright insupportable... But we're getting there. After that I am technically "off" so I generally retreat to my room and talk to friends on Skype or mess around on the interwebs.

So thats about it for the daily routine so far. Stay tuned for humorous anecdotes and potentially inspirational snippets of my life in the South of France.