Day Three.

I have moved to France, alone with my children, to live with my inlaws. My husband will follow in time, but for now he still lives in South London, fixing up the house that we thought we'd live in for a decade but which we actually outgrew emotionally within two years. Times are strange.

The girls and I flew to Languedoc on Saturday after 24 hours spend mostly crying about the impending move. I'd been so excited about getting out of fucking south London that I forgot I was leaving Nye behind for 18 days, that in nine years the longest we've been apart for was nine days and that the girls won't see him for a further week, having spending most of their waking hours with him for four and a half years. The reasons I had for thinking that this wouldn't be a big deal escape me right now. It's a big deal.

We are settling. It's now (...counts it out on my fingers...) Tuesday. We've done three days and three nights. The girls start l'ecole maternelle (nursery) tomorrow and although I have no idea what that will comprise of (because I still don't speak a damn word of French*) we are all excited and looking forward to this next, huge, milestone. We visited the nursery on Monday and it seemed very sweet, smaller and more structured that our nursery in London, which was what I think is described as 'child-led' (the French are not led by children.) There were tiny desks in rows and hand-writing exercises on the walls. I can't help but recoil at the shock my children will get when they realise that 'nursery' is not a standardised thing, that it will not be simply what they already know but with new children. But then again perhaps they won't recoil, I hear that children are more adaptable than adults, less thrown by things being different. Here's hoping.

Other things that are happening; I am being kept awake every night by a god damn frog that lives in the pond outside my bedroom door. It is raining in biblical proportions. I have no idea which of the six types of flour is the right one for making cakes. French toothpaste tastes funny. We have yet to catch a wild boar. And to learn the French for 'where is the lightsaber shop so we can buy one to kill the wild boar which we are going to catch and make into dinner because wild boar is just hairy pig and pigs make bacon, did you know?'


*not true. I can invite someone to dine with me and then tell them 'I'm sorry but it's not very comfortable for me like that.' The language course I've been using is clearly catering to a more sociable traveller than me.