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I had to write this down: the Caterpillar Angel

The first ever night out of second year should have been bloody fantastic. Finally back with university friends and headed to the union, we had drinks at someone’s house beforehand and then set off. Should have been fantastic: was horrendous.

It seems bizarre to me that the mere beginning of the tale is that I completely lost my debit card, ID and money (as well as the bag they were in) during the walk from pre-drinks to the union. I later realised this had happened because I put my purse in the pocket of my shorts; unfortunately for me, those shorts do not, in fact, have pockets. A grand start to a grand night.

A kind (pragmatic) friend helped retrace my steps in search of my valuables while the rest of the group went into the club, but it turns out that streets are actually quite dark when it's dark. So I instead hoped my belongings might just be at her house from earlier –  she went to the club, and I set off in the opposite direction, to her house, mortified and angry. I stropped back through the student living area of Hyde Park, grimacing over “Where are you?!” texts from friends I’d promised to meet. This is a bad omen, I couldn’t help but think as I trudged along, kicking at scraps of rubbish on the pavement in tipsy annoyance. If I’m stupid enough to do this on the first night, I’ll probably be dead before graduation. And someone’s probably going to find my cards tonight and thieve my identity and join UKIP under my name or something equally distressing.

True disaster then hit. A good fifteen minutes away from my house, and now aware of the considerable time that had elapsed since we had first left pre-drinks, I realised I needed the toilet. Quite an alarming and acute realisation, actually, and I had a desperate moment of fervently wishing I were a man just so as to deal with the situation efficiently there and then. But in this instance, #ThisGirlCannot, so I started to pick up speed a little, half trotting down the hill. Of course this only worsened the situation and so, to distract myself, I started humming quite loudly. At least their house is a lot closer than mine, I told myself. Priorities were clear at that moment: pee, then purse.

I was in physical pain and humming very loudly before I finally reached familiar streets and wound my way to the cluster of roads where pre-drinks had taken place. Dozens of my friends lived in this area, I reflected, but at the start of the year nobody had directions by heart yet. And directions are not my forte anyway. Earlier, I had in fact briefly already worried that one day I would get confused between the roads and houses entirely and turn up at the wrong one.

…And just as my bladder was about to pop like an over inflated birthday balloon (probably incurring shrieks of terror in the same way), I realised this exact fate of street-confusion had befallen me. I peered at the row of houses as if through a kaleidoscope, the same black doors and identical living room windows over and over, and blinked. Confused and stranded, I hopped around the darkened street humming louder and louder – and soon admitted to myself that I had no way of identifying where they lived. And this really wasn’t about my belongings. It was about my bladder.

Then, just when I had reached the critical moment – having to decide whether to flat-out sprint for home (would I even make it?) or literally wee on someone’s door step (ah, the bright undergraduate lives we lead) – a giant caterpillar loomed in the window directly in front of me.

It was a huge caterpillar, seemingly orange-hued although unclear in the dim streetlight, standing upright. My tuneless hum trailed off. I was not frightened, per se, but rather in awe: this caterpillar was not just big, it was giant, floor to ceiling it seemed to me, with wise eyes behind glasses. Good grief, was this possible? Could a backed up bladder provoke miraculous hallucinations? Is this the old wives’ tale I was never warned of: neglect your bathroom needs for long enough and you’ll see enormous insects in spectacles?

My mouth dropped open and I stood, transfixed on the pavement, still hopping a little from foot to foot, surveying the great, shadowy beast silhouetted up against the glass. It calmly lifted its hand, waved in slow motion and then beckoned. It appeared to be speaking. What messages did caterpillars generally have for university students who need the bathroom so badly they’re getting vision impairment? As if stuck in treacle, I took a sluggish (ha) step towards it, squinting slowly as I tried to lip read through the double-glazing –

“LOUISA!” the caterpillar said, jolting me sharply from my hazy trance by rapping its knuckles on the window. “What are you doing?”

“I REALLY really need to use your toilet,” I told him straightforwardly, ignoring that he knew my name (you can’t question miracles), and the caterpillar shuffled backwards, out of sight. After a brief panic that my guardian angel had disappeared, relief struck: the front door unlocked in front of me. Holding back my tears of pain and hoping my body wasn’t about to collapse in on itself, I focused my wearied eyes.

The human-sized caterpillar was actually my human friend Oliver. He was standing upright inside a sleeping bag. “Heating’s broken and I don’t have a duvet,” he informed me solemnly as I sprinted past him in a blur of gratitude.

Afterwards, I sat down for a nap, fell off the sofa and then finally went home, but that isn’t entirely to the point. That night made me question myself (if only it had taught me to look after my valuables too. We’re still working on that).

Why was that the door in front of which I happened to stop, desolate and convinced that my time was up? Why was Oliver in his living room trying to snatch bits of phone signal at that precise moment? Why on earth is it my instinct to trust oversized larvae in the hope that they can provide me a toilet?

One lesson learnt overall: go to the toilet before you leave pre-drinks, alright? Promise me you’ll do that. Because I was blessed, certainly – but we can’t all have gigantic pre-pubescent butterflies coming to our rescue.

Fox en France Ep.11: Poutine on the Ritz

Friday 4^th – Sunday 6^th Nov

After an anticlimactic return to work after the holidays (one hour of exam supervision then being told I was no longer needed for the day), Friday meant back to Saint-Brieuc (home-from-home here. My home-from-home-from-home?), and a night in with friends, wine and some chocolate. Reward after a long, hard, sixty minute week at work. 

Joel samples the vino

Saturday was a flurry of lesson plans and so much tea I may as well have had a keg (does that work? Is that a thing? Get in touch), before we trudged out through slippery leaf-clad pavements to a food and wine festival. This was truly something special, despite our initial doubts as we entered the building; only the first stall was in view and it was full of dubious-looking kitchen equipment. “Sorry, but… Where’s the wine?” someone whispered, worried that our plans of a delightful evening out were going to be severely trampled by three hours of surveying sub-par colanders and carving knives.

But the wine was just round the corner, it turned out, and in no limited supply. Early on it dawned on us that traditional buckets in which to pour excess drink were nowhere to be found, so our fate was sealed as soon as the liquid hit our glasses. And stall-owners, rightfully guarding the Divine Quality of their produce, completely refused to serve us at all until the smallest drops of whatever we’d previously tasted were gone, so as not to disrupt the flavour. More top quality advice: you have not been berated until you’ve been berated by a small, angry, wine-selling Frenchman with a goatee ("No, drink it all!”). The group marching round together after copious glasses of wine was enough to create a scene anyway, but shortly word somehow “got out” (we were quite the celebrity buzz, within that marquee) that we were “all foreign” and stallholders couldn’t believe (or understand why) there were eight of us from across the world here to taste their wines. Then it all got rather overwhelming as tumblers and shot glasses were thrown at us from all angles by beaming stallholders: champagne, cognac, mushroom liqueur (really), passionfruit-something-or-other, cured ham and lots of cheese. Would rate the evening highly, although the stuffed wild boar on the sausage table could be considered a little much.

Genuine shots of mushroom

SO:

Clouds: If someone is friendly and convincing enough, they can quite easily convince a group of tourists to buy two bottles of their finest passionfruit-something-or-other.

Silver linings: It tasted very, very good.

Monday 7^th – Monday 14^th Nov

An entire week seems like quite a feat to write about, but some of it is predictable and has been written thousands of times already by thousands of people so it won’t take long to read and absorb:

I watched the election results on Tuesday. I watched it with American friends, and with baited breath. I do not support Donald Trump nor his views nor his actions. He won. People handed him power. It sucked.

It really really, really sucked and seemed to slow the world down a little for the next few days. This, combined with the single hour of poor-quality sleep I managed to steal that night, and the fact that I live alone and had no one to wail at in person after Wednesday, meant the end of the week felt pretty bleak. And then – call this either bad luck, or perhaps rather a very clear cut consequence of the above circumstances – two months’ worth of escaped homesickness rushed in at once and hit me with force comparative to my kitchen cupboard the other week when I left it open and then walked into it. With lessons cancelled left, right and centre (more variation than Western politics, at least) I was beyond grateful when a couple of pals pitched up on Saturday night and we repeated our wine-chocolate-film ritual with marvelous healing effects. Who knew that living alone is actually not at all peachy when you feel like the end of the world is nigh?! Someone should note this stuff down.

The rank remains of our Democrat/Republican punch bowls. I remembered I'm allergic to ("Republican") grapefruit and my lips swelled up. Omen? 

I should have hung on, though, to the buried but significant knowledge that teaching – talking to young people – can almost always perk you up and haul you out of even the deepest, bleakest wallowing session. Today’s lessons have made me laugh out loud until I couldn’t speak as the terminale class began their “Swinging Sixties” topic. After a guessing game of sixties icons (and one absolutely unmentionable attempt at pronouncing “Quant”), and the realisation that two of them had genuinely never heard of JFK, we moved on to a “Guess who?” game. I sat on a chair in the corner – I didn’t need to hover intimidatingly; how could it go wrong? – while they took turns in guessing which ‘60s icon they had been assigned on the board behind them by a peer. I settled in comfortably, feeling smugly assured that this would be the lighthearted, calming end to the day we all needed.

…Seven minutes passed. Madness descended. Hillary Clinton had been mistakenly called a man, there seemed to be doubts that Clint Eastwood was human, Vladimir Putin had been spelt “poutine” (as in the Canadian delicacy), someone had written my name on the board… I don’t know quite when it went awry. 

The moral of the story is - be prepared. One minute there’s blank silence and tentative squeaks of, “Errrrr… I am an actor?”, and the next you’re having to request if we could possibly stop making each other fascist world leaders and/or Kardashians (the original “sixties” theme completely dropped). As an awe-inspiring finale of creativity, one girl even assigned a friend his own name – cue confusion and partial philosophical meltdown at Monday’s close: “I am human?!... Attend! Attend! I am... ME?!” Good. Grief.

SO:

Clouds: A heavy, grey cloud this time, I feel, and one I can’t ignore: I am worried about the USA. 

Silver linings: Small scale remedies in the face of world-wide tragedies: thankful for friends who are at the end of a Skype or phone call when a Trump-shaped shadow is looming, and those who drove for miles to harmonise and cry over Skylar Astin, huddled under a duvet on my sofa. Try to tell me your Saturday topped that. Plus some very successful lessons, much hilarity, and some real progress in learning the names of my 120 students. ...No longer having to shout "VALENTIN!" or "MANON!" just because it's likely there will be one in the vicinity.

Calm

Fox en France Ep.10: Stick it to Le Mans

Thursday 27^th – Sunday 30^th Oct

Les womans in Le Mans #grammar

Recovery after Spain was moderately bleak, and merged into one long house-cleaning, clothes-washing ritual of four days. Riveting stuff. 

Monday 31^st Oct – 1^st Nov

The gentle pits of despair post-Spain were getting to me, so another change of scene was required: I fled to Le Mans, a nearby(ish) town for a stay with some other university friends. Yes, more of them. Who knew I had so many? It was a random choice of location based on geographical convenience between the three of us and so we had few expectations… Apart from someone telling me to “look out for the big F1 track” (they know me well, clearly; sports facilities are always my first go-to sightseeing priority!!!).  This meant we were actively impressed on arrival – possibly because of the crisp clear blue skies and the most welcome croque monsieur I’ve ever been served – but I am yet to be bored by colossal town squares full of beautiful pale buildings and friendly cafés.

The Pinterest House

And then – and then – we checked into our last-minute AirBnB choice and realised just how fortunate the entire set up was. Vincent, possibly the friendliest man I have ever met, welcomed us into his (what can only be described as) palace. I must apologise for the lengths at which I am about to describe his rooftop apartment: an impressive array of plants tumbling off shelving units, globes and a sculptures and a large map of early London spread across a wall. We had no doubt that this man was our cup of tea (notre tasse de thé?) – from the vintage mojito recipe placard behind a stash of twenty-five special edition liquor bottles, to ‘60s records lining the walls, to Jane Birkin posters and wall hangings (tastefully) propped up behind the sofa (“she is just a goddess!” he informed us). I genuinely felt like I had stepped inside the Pinterest app itself as he showed us round the kitchen – low-hanging lightbulbs on turquoise cords, and a small yellow bus that was actually a charging station. Jars of farfalle and multi-coloured candy canes lining the glass cabinet tipped us over from “woah” to a feverish “this is a potential life goal standard of home”. Vincent, we will be returning. A* in interior design for you, Glen Coco.

A slightly disturbing cold bolognaise put a dampener on the evening meal excursion – and an even more disturbing array of costume-clad French teenagers reminded us that it was in fact Halloween and this had completely passed us by. So, for the first time since I can remember, I did not dress up for, nor celebrate, Halloween in any form. We instead drank some wine, shared our most disturbing stories from our time abroad so far (wouldn’t you like to know) and went to bed. Quite early.  

A rushed panic to catch my train home resulted in an inevitable but nonetheless painful moment wherein I lost any capacity to speak French under pressure (seat number confusion, obviously). To my dismay, just before I dissolved in a pool of my own sweat in the aisle, the debacle ended with an eight-year-old asking me (with remarkable complacency for someone who looked young enough to be an extra on the Teletubbies), “Oh… You’re English?” and then translating for me the confusion of which-seat-is-mine. Not fun, very embarrassing, and not okay that such a young child was so full of intimidating sass and eye-rolls. Just because you’ve clearly been conjugating verbs since the the minute you were born. In, like, 2011. No grudges held here.

Gratuitous shots of Vincent's place (thanks Anna)

There are leaves everywhere and it’s such an autumn cliché but I’m becoming fixated with them, covering all the paths and roads in a fiery red carpet. So in a moment of healthy November delirium I stopped on my way back from the station and picked one up: it was perfectly intact and about twice the size of my head (no, really). I then stood up and realised an old lady was staring at me. My reputation continues to be on point – I think “Clumsy British Leaf Girl” suits me well, personally. Does leaf-pressing work the same way as flower-pressing? If not there is a leaf inside my teaching textbooks for 100% no reason and knowing me it’ll rot and crumble and then fall out of the pages in the middle of a lesson in three months’ time. Good luck explaining your way out of that one, Future Lou xoxo

SO:

Clouds: I want Vincent’s apartment to be my own but it isn’t and never will be, I have started to stash bits of tree paraphernalia in my apartment, and I got an accidental private translator but he’s barely out of the womb and that feels demeaning.

Silver linings: Le Mans was another idyllic area I’ve been lucky enough to see, and we booked an AirBnB palace by mistake.