New year’s eve with small kids

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Tehehehe….

Hey, how did you celebrate the new year ?

Bonne année to all of you!

Running

It is 11:00, I am late for my next meeting. I  run out of the building, and smile a distracted hello at a colleague from IT. I curse myself for forgetting to pack an afternoon snack for my daughter, and to talk about season greetings cards for our partner universities. Again.

I turn out onto the street: The morning fog has lifted, leaving behind sleek dark pavements shining in the curiously warm sunlight. I hear a tram, birds, the ridiculous whirr of a moped. The air smells musty, with a hint of diesel fumes, and warm bread. I stop in my tracks and smile.

However tough the last few months have been, little moments of grace have been reminding me that life is beautiful:

• I spent a week in the UK scoffing biscuits visiting dear friends, which was wet but great.

 

• The day after the Paris attacks last month, Mr Xmas and I hiked high above the valley, to catch our breaths, feel the sun, and anchor ouselves in the quiet mass of the mountains.

• I completed a course in mindfulness, which is a kind of meditation.

It made me laugh at times, and I still do wonder if what I’m doing is meditation or just sitting-on-my-bed-very-still-focusing-on-my-breathing, but somehow, I find it helpful.

Other than that, work is erm, interesting… I spend virtually my entire time trying to stabilise my team, with four new staff and a steady stream of crap coming our way. Yeah.

This means that 6 months into the job, I still know very little about international relations. My own management sometimes takes an issue with this on the grounds that I am the head of International Relations,  not Make It Up As You Go Along. I can see where they’re coming from, but hey, I’m doing what I can.

When I get home to a tired pre-teen who refuses to come down for dinner because: “I don’t want to see you”, and his tired six year old sister who refuses to eat the soup I’ve made because: “it’s disgusting”, I often get the urge to find a very large bin to throw them both into get the distinct feeling that I am failing as a mother too.

This has taken its toll, and I often feel bone-tired.

Thankfully, Mr Xmas is true to his word and picks my daughter up two nights a week, my mum came to the rescue last week, I have stopped taking my computer home, and somehow, I am still (mostly) standing.

I am also thankful that chronic overload keeps my mind from dwelling on the fact that I am single and likely to remain so for the foreseeable future I don’t live in Syria, Irak, Sudan, or Afghanistan.

My oldest brat son keeps listening to this strangely addictive song.

The FatRat – Monody (feat. Laura Behm)

Interlude

This week I have been blessed with forgetting.

Not my usual where-on-Earth-have-I-left-my-phone (oh, and the charger, and the canteen bill?), but the rare gift of has-there-really-ever-been-another-day-than-today oblivion.

In fact, get that: I managed to entirely forget the past year…

And nope, it did not involve half a gallon of rum and passing out with cocktail olives up my nose.

Which is impressive, because even by my standards, the last twelve months have been pretty hairy.

Say, if I were to produce a dodgy Xmas present calendar with pictures illustrating each month, there could be: Mr Nice and I crying over our separation and the death of my children’s pet Guinea pig (August 2014), Mr Nice changing his locks and turning into Mr Big Bastard From Hell (September 2014), me frowning over a job application (anytime beween July 2014 and February 2015), meetings at the bank attempting to fit a size 12 budget into a future size 6 income (November 2014), piles of unfinished work and a ticking clock (finishing my old job, Jan-Feb 2015), an idiot’s guide to international relations (starting new job just as Mr Xmas plunges into depression, March), a bottle of Sauternes and foie gras (to celebrate my promotion, April), an idiots’ guide to surviving hierarchy overload, stress at work and single parenthood (May to July), a blown gasket for Mr Xmas (June).

Although I have to admit that I wouldn’t know a gasket -let alone a blown gasket- from a garden gnome.

Anyway, this week, no shade of work, blown gaskets or big bastards. Nope.

I righted the world’s wrong with friends near Toulouse, until far too late in the night to cope with energetic offspring in the morning.

Watched my son’s delighted fishing despite his refusal to touch anything on the hook (bait or fish).

Watched my daughter go down the water slide all by herself for the first time.

Listened to the church bell ring out the slowing down hours, in a quaint village of the ruggedly beautiful Corbières.

Cooked with only a microwave for three days (a challenge)

Counted the number of mosquito bites behind my right knee (8, a record)

Listened to my children fight over three hours of jammed traffic and torrential downpour between Narbonne and Montpellier. Fantasised about heavy-duty parcel tape, gags, and James Bondey-type cars where you press a button and a sound/bullet-proof glass partition buzzes up between the front and back seats.

Saw a lot of relatives and was stunned by how much their children have grown. A mystery of the universe (apart from the disappearance of anti-matter): How do I keep forgetting that other people’s children grow up too?

Watched Camarguese cowboys near Montpellier herd bulls through the streets at high speed (and yeah, I didn’t fancy getting too much closer as I took this shot). It’s a local festive tradition. So is drinking neat Pastis.

So there. It has been a busy, and lovely week to round off my Summer break. Tonight, I will be driving North one last time, and going back to work tomorrow. I haven’t started loading the car and think I may varnish my nails. Anyone mentionned denial?

Madilyn Bailey – Radioactive

A nice cover, which keeps playing on the radio this Summer, and my children like to sing along to when they’re not fighting.

Not sick of holiday snaps?

Geek Central

Last week-end, Mr Xmas threw a flat-warming party for his physicist and IT friends. It involved a lot of black casual-wear, a few ironic t-shirts, crisps, beer, and because this is still France, foie-gras on toast. Voilà.

Actually, it was good fun…

Ooh, and my cleavage entertained a few riveting conversations about code.

Fog

Tonight, everything is quiet. Outside the city drips, inside the dishwasher chugs, and the fridge whines -no, seriously, my fridge does whine – in fact, I’m pretty sure it’s trying to say something…

Life has been a whirl lately.

Last week, I celebrated my birthday, sitting outside in a t-shirt with my colleagues. It felt like the weather had decided to forego Winter altogether, and go directly to Spring.

An hour later, I resigned. Nothing to do with the weather (or my colleagues), but the paperwork for my next job came through: A dubious birthday present, committing me to another fixed-term contract, assorted with a charming 60% pay-cut.

This interesting situation is about to propel me into the very-financially-challenged sub-section of the French population, which albeit I’m sure will be a sociologically-worthy experiment, I’m not particularly looking forward to.

Over the weekend, I flew to the UK to see a dear friend sob her way through her wedding vows. And for the first time ever, the thought of mariage made me feel like a deer caught in headlights, paralysed, terrified, trapped. Bearing in mind that I’m the girl who keeps pictures of wedding gowns and fairtrade rings on a secret Pinterest board, this was somewhat unsettling.

The mood remained decidedly grown-up as I caught up with three more friends, all confronted with the kind of grief that forces you to cherish life – one is lost after the sudden death of her father last Spring, one was about to leave her alcoholic husband when her father died a couple of weeks ago, and the last one is seeing a close friend lose her battle against cancer at the grand age of 42.

Back home, Winter has arrived: clouds are low and the wind has a new bite. Mister Xmas and I are still trudging along, one day at a time: It would seem I’m the one fleeing commitment… And this feels completely disorientating.

As I wait for the fog to lift, and for some sense of direction to return, this song has me under its spell:

Lana Del Rey – West Coast

Notice

What is more embarrassing than handing in your notice at work ?

Handing in your notice an hour after your colleagues gave you lovely flowers for your birthday.

Weather

Overnight, the-30°C-blue-sky weather has turned to rain, mountains all but vanished into the clouds. Exactly the kind of overnight change, which seems to be all the rage in my Summer-Autumn 2014 life collection…

Three months ago, my two children and step-son all feverishly bickered over Panini stickers for their football world cup albums, while Mr Nice mourned France’s demise in the quarter finals (which was obviously solely due to undeserved bad luck – nothing to do with skill). The school year was in its dying days, and everyone looked forward to a fairly predictable Summer of family fun at the beach, catching up with relatives, and general winding down.

But then, the weather refused to acknowledge that Summer had arrived, and remained sullen, cool and wet.

Mr Nice flipped. In the space of weeks, what had once been us, became an empty shell.

Two months ago, on a beautiful sunny day, we called it a day, turning both ours and the children’s lives upside down.

Overnight, Mr Nice became a peculiar stranger. I struggled for breath.

A month ago, as Summer refused to give way to Autumn, a steady pair of arms caught me for what must have been the hundredth time as I fell apart.

And I decided to stay there for a while…

To Mister Xmas

Fauve – Lettre à Zoé

Pulling back

Bubbles. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It has finally stopped raining, and I am blowing bubbles in the garden with my little girl. It has been a strange few days. I have been restless and uncharacteristically reserved, burdened at work, and incredibly tired.

I need a break. A break from thinking too much, and leaving too many snippets of my private life exposed to the world, a break from work and the discipline involved in bringing up two children single-handedly.

And because I could not seriously consider doing any of this with split ends, I started off by getting a long overdue haircut.

In fact, much like my hair, I feel stronger these days, even though I am paradoxically more aware of my fragilities too. I reckon the only possible conclusion from this, is that in contrast to Samson, I need to get regular haircuts to feel stronger.

On a more serious note, I listen to my instinct more, and finally know I can trust it.

I have turned a page.

As with most things in my life, it didn’t come as a breakthrough, a single defining moment, but rather, it’s crept up on me when I wasn’t looking. If under duress (say I was threatened with not being able to eat chocolate for a week), I had to pin-point some dates, I would hasard that the change started gathering momentum around the first anniversary of T’s leaving (and of this blog) last January, followed by letting someone new into my life, then experiencing and mourning a different relationship.

2012 is a different year.

I still have bad moments when my confidence wavers and fear dominates my life, I still find it hard to relate to T, and to entirely let go of the pain he inflicted on me. But overall, I feel more grounded than probably ever before.

I still find it incredibly sad that our little daughter will never know her parents together, and that my family was ripped to shreds. I still struggle with separating my children at least every other weekend, and rarely ever getting a break from being a mum to my son. But overall, my children are growing into lovely, balanced, little people, who amaze, humble, and harass me on a daily basis. Life goes on.

I have projects, ideas I still need to mull over, and sudden impulses such as taking up playing the guitar again, that add flavour to this new, strange life; Not the life I would ever have chosen, but one that I am coming to accept and enjoy.

But for now, my newly-potty-trained daughter needs a wee-wee, so I need to go. Sharpish.

I’ll leave you with a great new song all the way from Canada, which feels a bit like the tranquil start of something: Monogrenade – Ce soir

Suddenly Summer

A thermal breeze sighs down the mountains, a tendril of honeysuckle tickles my shoulder, I am finally sitting down.

The last week or so has been a whirlwind, and I am bone tired, but mostly, it’s been a good kind of whirlwind. I have spent the last May Bank Holiday weekend with my children and relatives near Montpellier, and the three days are a blur of trying to fit fifteen people around the dinner table, rubbing cream onto toasted shoulders, guitars, flute and singing under a starry sky, and enough sand to build a small castle on my bedroom floor when I unpacked our bags.

Then, I had a visit from a secondary school friend … Twenty five years ago, we lived in a Parisian suburb, were preoccupied by the theorem of Thalès and pimples, the future looked both far and immense. We were very close. Now, he lives in Peru, is full of fascinating tales about hiking up and down the Andes, and we bump into each other every 5 years or so. His private life hasn’t been easy, but he seems to have found some stability at last.

Likewise, I have lived most of my adult life abroad, and it almost feels like I have landed back in France randomly, single, and with two beautiful children.

Still, I too feel like stability and a new, more grown-up sort of contentment are within reach these days.  Could I finally be leaving my teenage behind? I’ll leave you with that shocking thought, and a cool song.

To Sébastien who made me want to travel again.

Soma – The brightest side

Chocolate mousse and other anti-heartbeak recipes

Ok, so remember how if all the advice you’ve been given to cope with heartbreak fails, there’s always chocolate?

Here’s something to get you started:

Traditional French chocolate mousse (makes enough for 6)

Ingredients:

• 6 eggs
• 200 g of dark chocolate
• 1 pinch of salt

The secret to this mousse is to use the best chocolate you can find, and by best, I don’t mean most expensive, or with a sky-high cocoa content, but one which contains only cocoa, cocoa butter, sugar and lecithin. I generally use Nestlé dessert or Meunier cooking choc, which you can find in most UK supermarkets.

You might also want to use really fresh eggs to avoid making Mousse à la Campylobacter/Salmonella. Unless of course, you are cooking for people you deeply dislike, your ex for example… Just saying.

Preparation time: 10 minutes + a couple of hours in the fridge

How to make it:

1. Break the chocolate into chunks, add a bit of water and melt. I normally just blast it in the microwave on a medium heat for a couple of minutes, but you can also use a saucepan on the hob. Just make sure it’s well melted, and looks smooth.
2. Separate the egg yolks from the whites. Add a pinch of salt to the whites and whip them into stiff peaks.
3. When the chocolate is cool enough to not burn your finger (of course, you will be fastidiously checking that approximately every 17 seconds because you are such a methodical cook… Just remember to leave enough chocolate to not just have egg mousse), add the yolks and stir well.
4. Fold the whites into the chocolate mix, which basically means: Add a bit of white, cover it with chocolate and gently mix, then repeat until you have an entirely brown mixture.
5. Refrigerate for a couple of hours at least.
6. Invite people around and stuff your faces.

Note that because the eggs are raw, the mousse doesn’t keep for more than 24h, unless you are serving it to people you deeply dislike (see above). In my experience though, the mousse rarely survives its first serving.

There. Really easy, and when you feel comfortable with the basic recipe, you can start experimenting, adding candied citrus peels, Bailey’s, or nuts. Let me know how it turns out!

Right, once you’ve downed the whole bowl of mousse, you may also want to reflect on life, and the universe. Seriously, all the people who got over heartbreak fast have one thing in common: They took a long, honest look at themselves

Long, honest look at oneself (makes enough for one)

Ingredients:

• courage, about 300 kg of it, because let me tell you, taking a long, hard and honest look at oneself isn’t terribly pleasant at times. Guess why most of us had been avoiding it up until now?…
• friends and /or family for support, tissues, sharing breakthroughs and frustrations
• some external catalyst such as a counsellor, therapist, group, self-help books, coach whatever works for you. For some people, this ingredient is optional, hats off to them because they manage to challenge themselves enough to really make some progress, and I couldn’t do that for toffee. If anything is an unpleasant truth, I usually manage to studiously ignore it, and pretend it’s eventually going to blow away.
• A journal, or record of your moods of some description

Preparation time: Anything from weeks to years. Yes, I know, how remarkably unhelpful isn’t it? Don’t thank me.

How to make it:

1. Find whichever catalyst is going to work for you. I recommend just giving every option a go, and going with your instinct.
2. Stick to it because you will feel like you are beyond help, going round in circles, or going backwards at times, but it’ll be worth it in the end.
3. Stir, cook, and stir some more until your head is a big messy ball of confusion.
4. Chart your progress by keeping track of how often you feel rubbish (let me guess, approximately 26 million times a day now?), and anything that makes you smile.
5. Gradually picture what you need to be happy, and want from life in general
6. Move on to relationships and what you may want to do differently next time. I know, I know, you’re probably telling anyone who’ll listen, and probably anyone who won’t too, that you will remain celibate for the rest of your life. Allow me to just have a little snigger here (huhuhuhu)…
7. When feeling dreadful, stuck, like you’re not getting anywhere, and what’s the point anyway because we’re all gonna diiiie…, check your record to measure how far you have come. You can also whinge about it at length on the internet, which is what I did.
8. While taking your long, honest look at your navel, remember that you are allowed to keep on living (I know, phew). In fact, I would highly recommend that you keep doing things that bring a smile to your face.

Things that bring a smile to your face (makes enough for a bus-full of people, a double-decker, if you’re feeling generous)

Preparation time: Five minutes each day to plan + a few seconds, minutes, hours to enjoy the results

Ingredients:

• One table-spoon a day of forcing yourself to do it when you feel like nothing
• A jumbo-sized pack of pats (a pack of pats, oooh, I like that)
• A calendar
• Something to make lists on (if you’re as organised like me, you can also go for sticky notes, notebook, i-phone reminders, and never find anything)

How to do it:

1. Make a list of things which may bring a smile to your face (to try). Ask people for suggestions, follow all the useless advice you are given…
2. Keep a list of things that work (which may be non-existent when you first start)
3. Plan one little thing each day to look forward to and chart on your calendar. It may be something very small. I used to buy myself flowers, plan to call someone whom I knew made me feel better, have a bath, borrow comedy DVDs from the library…
4. Apply pat to your back for actually doing it.
5. Something which really worked was to give to others. So I would for example help someone, give a bit of change to a beggar, cook my children’s favourite meal, get little presents for my friends, pick up some litter at the park, tiny things, which probably make me sound like a slightly demented wannabe Mother Teresa, but really, totally selfishly helped me feel better.
6. Enjoy, and give me your own tricks, tips and feedback!

PS. If you are scaring yourself, or feeling like topping yourself off a lot, then firstly don’t do it, it’s totally last season. Secondly, seek professional help. Not kidding. A lot of us know just how despite being invisible, the pain of heartbreak can be absolutely unbearable. Don’t try to bear it alone. Pretty please.

Right, I don’t know what you are doing tonight, but I’ve got both my smurfs back under one roof (mine), a fridge full of left-overs, and a big week of work ahead after a fairly up and down weekend. I am listening to Rover.

Rover – Tonight: