Stormy weather and Homesickness.

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Good day to all fans, friends and followers. (Family is a given). I have been curiously quiet recently i know, however i would like to reassure all those who are envious of my summer in the south west of france that i (apart from on 2 very brief occasions) have not been lounging around the pool casually. In fact we have worse weather here than England! It has done nothing but rain for days. Also if the timeline seems a little off its because i've written this over 2 days and have only just got a chance to publish it.

Nonetheless- last wednesday i went surfing despite torrential rain- you are already wet in the sea anyway so who cares really. Anyway i raised myself to my knees 6 times for lengthy periods of time but after an hour when for the 7th time in a row instead of impressively leaping to my feet on the surfboard i had instead been thrown around like a ragdoll and performed a variety of acrobatic rolls i find impossible on land i decided to throw in the towel. We exited the sea in weather which could be described as hail and i looked more like a drowned rat than that really famous and attractive, big boobed, blonde girl whose name i have conveniently forgotten. (Too lazy to look it up - pat ramsay - no i just made that up - i've no idea - i'm gonna be so angry when i remember.) Anyway to make the picture even more pathetic i was struggling with my wet, slippy surfboard and therefore wasn't looking where i was going and so managed to both fall in a thigh deep hole and to tread on a dead but voluminously violet jellyfish on the way back to our bags. Marc eventually took pity on me and carried mine as well. Yay.

I spent my weekend looking after 4 boys here as their mother wanted to leave the campsite and spend a weekend with her lover. It was a 120Euro i couldn't really turn down. However they are 12, 10 and twins of 8. I am now exhausted - i didn't get my habitual lie in (haha poor me) and although they were actually really good i can honestly say that growing boys spend half their time eating and the other half fighting/ winding each other up. One of the twins faceplanted on his bike about 20mins before their mother came back on sunday and the resulting nosebleed was truly horrific but that was pretty much the only traumatising experience - it was also a fight to get them to all brush their teeth at bedtime - but as issues go its no biggie.

What else? A bit more of me i guess.

Although its possible that I am the newest sufferer of SAD - that condition which means you get depressed without enough sunshine - i think its more likely that it has finally kicked in that i'm not really going to be home, with friends, boyfriend or family for over a year.

So i've had a week with a few more lows than highs but hey ho that's life.

It doesn't help that i've managed to strain the interior of my right shin (who even knew there was a muscle there?) which means that i can't bop around half as much as usual and i also hate being injured. Nothing winds me up more than some ridiculous weakness which tries to stop me from doing what i want.

And I get a bit fed up of the sand which gets everywhere, i kid you not, (including my bedsheets - is there anything worse?) and depressingly no matter how many times i sweep a day it is always there again underfoot the next instant.

I also regularly feel like the class idiot. Anyone who knows me knows that this is not a feeling i enjoy and the perfectionist in me shrivels up and dies cringing about 8x a day here. Perfectionism - as a linguist it's a trait you pretty much have to get over, at least as my level, otherwise you'd never get anything said. But i hate knowing that i miss all the little things that people say, things that affect the tone of the conversation rather than the message communicated. I miss being able to understand when someone mouths something at you from across the room - at these times i appear somewhat like a dog with an ear infection - manically turning my head from side to side in the hope that i will suddenly find my previously undiscovered french ear. I'm also mostly too slow to get jokes - and french people aren't funny.

It's silly really. - I've been here alnost exactly 4 weeks now and i know i'm improving (slowly but surely) but i had a night yesterday when all i wanted to do was come home. The skype conversation between Ed and I kept cutting out and after about 15minutes i ended up throwing a french book at the wall in my fury. My room is so small that this effectively meant that it rebounded at my face - and although this is conceptually hilarious now, at the time a a bruised cheekbone was the last straw - so i had a 2minute wrestle with my covers, screamed dramatically when my feet popped out the end for the third time and then fell asleep crying.

I just wanted a hug yesterday from somebody i love - and it wasn't possible. So i've felt a bit rootless and a bit lost. Knowing that my reason for being upset would only get lost in translation if i attempted to explain it in french only made it harder - why is nothing easy when you need it to be?

However today is a new day - Ed is coming, a flying visit, in a weeks time to cheer me up and my leg is getting better - so despite the continuing storm i'm smiling again.

To leave you on a happier note... Marie has been using my computer to learn origami that we can teach the littlies tomorrow which means i've been writing this down the old-fashioned way in a notebook as will type it up asap. When my hand got cramp (thank you for still reading) i decided to get changed for tonights mini disco - considering the rain and wind etc I assumed there would be no-one outside and so was quite blasé about my open curtains - which means that i accidentally just flashed one of the barmen before diving with a yelp onto my bed. Roll on tonight and my red cheeks.

Love you all lots. Meggie xxx

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Photos

Charlotte and I
Gooooood-loookkkinggg ladies!

Surfer Chick
As Ed kindly told me - the slightly matted blonde hair only adds my charming surfer authenticity.

Me, Marc, Charlotte
About 30mins before the torrential rain started.

The A Team
Vincent, Me, Marc, Marie, Charlotte - this is how we welcome new campers. With odd costumes and bewildering enthusiasm.

F-R-A-N-C-E-!
Goooooooooo Meg!