A leetle bit more muhnaay

So after months of fruitless searching (yip, months. I’m sure it’s due to my very dube french CV) I’ve finally found a second job! With only twelve hours scheduled work a week, and somewhat unreliable private pupils (who seem to swing between ‘intensive’ or ‘extremely sporadic’ lesson preferences. The concept of regularity doesn’t seem to exist here), I have been desperate for something to improve my French and fill the holes in my already shallow pockets. So it was much to my delight when one of my colleagues, Mme Poux, came bounding in with a lightbulb flashing above her head asking whether I would be interested in au pair-ing for one of her friend’s children. The family, the Blavignats, actually have four children but, as in our house, three have flown the nest as it were and then there was one. M et Mme own an office in town (called AFP – not actually sure what it does. Something to do with houses I think. By the way, I’m definitely lying. I have no idea) which is situated just off the main street in Sarlat. They live in the most fantastic house adjacent to the office, which is like some sort of fairytale tower. As both office and house are located in the heart of the medieval town centre, they aren’t built in the way that we are used to, and the width to height ratio is almost unbelievably asymmetric. Four floors high, you enter the house through a tiny door at the bottom and are immediately confronted with an extremely thin (people were smaller in the ‘olden days’ yeah?) winding staircase. The bottom floor is the bathroom. The first floor is where they ‘live’ i.e. contains the kitchen, miniature dining room, rabbit hutch (!) and a glass window that opens out onto a walled roof terrace. The second floor is just a door into Enzo’s room (my new charge!) – jam packed with books, a desk, a drum kit, and a ladder leading to his bed above. Opposite his room is a scary looking door marked APF which leads to the top floor of the offices. Although we knew not to disturb his parents and their employees, I’m sure that our rather enthusiastic djembe playing (he has a full size djembe..!) probably carried to the offices next door. As you climb the stairs to the third floor, there is a secret hatch which you crawl through to get to the ‘top half’ of Enzo’s room. I doubt that I am explaining this very well, but essentially, he has one of those ‘top-half-only-bunk-beds’, but instead of being just a bed, it continues round the top half of his room and opens onto a kind of mezzanine area complete with bean bags, books and a miniature television. Definitely every 12-year olds dream. I was amazed – thank god my limited vocabulary of adjectives (which essentially consists of ‘cool’) was enough to assure Enzo that I was genuinely impressed! Continuing up the stairs, you reach the top where one door opens onto his older sister’s bedroom, now used for storing things, and a ladder leading to a suspicious looking hatch, I am told, opens onto a bedroom shared by his brothers. Phew. What a house! I was completely enamoured. But I can imagine that although it’s not far off magical, it could pose a problem in that it is highly impractical. Carrying shopping up those stairs must be a nightmare, I have no idea how they managed to get any furniture at all into the house, and hoovering would be less like housework and more like an Olympic sport.

In acutal fact, the family are reaching the final stages of building a new house on the outskirts of Sarlat. Measuring 1000 m², and complete with tennis court, indoor pool, Jacuzzi, the works, I am assured that this new house really is the house of dreams. After three years work, they should be moving in before the summer, which means that I will hopefully be able to see the move through. Mme Blavignat seems to have definitely had enough of living en ville, and she was continually apologising for her ‘petite’ house, much to my surprise.

Well, medieval fantasy or luxury complex, I am extremely lucky both Madame Blavignat and the little Enzo are charming, relaxed, and extremely welcoming. So from now on I will be picking up Enzo from school, staying with him for a couple of hours and helping him with homework, perhaps doing a couple of English lessons with him, and taking him to his various evening activities. Not only is it great to have a little bit of extra cashish, but also another great boost for the French - Enzo chatted non-stop from the moment I arrived! I only have one worry... and was definitely tossing and turning about this last night. I don’t understand his homework at all!! Yesterday was Maths and English. Maths: OK, that’s pretty hard. Angles, yeh I’ve done angles don’t worry. Oh god. Maybe.. um.. all angles = 180°? Or is it 360°? Oh dear. I DON’T KNOW THE ANSWER! At least, as Enzo informed me, maths is his best subject. So hopefully next time I won’t have to help. Worse still was English. Honestly, it was a nightmare. He asked me what the auxiliary was. I said I didn’t know. I’m a native English speaker and I couldn’t do a 12-year olds grammar homework. Seriously. This is worrying.

I guess it’s time for me to dust off my old GCSE folders and re-learn all that highly useful information that, somehow, seems to have slipped my mind. Hum.

And PS. The girl from Pau (at badminton) is called Aude. My bad. Total legend.