As I tiptoe through the house, I can hear the children upstairs and my husband holed up in the second bathroom, converted into a tiny study. It’s a stressful time, exam season, both here in France and abroad. There are muttered voices in one bedroom as my oldest prepares for his oral. The feverish tapping on keys as my daughter prepares for hers too, and then there is just the stark quietness on the other side of the house near child number three. Are they ok? Have they fallen asleep? Do I go and knock quietly on the door and get shouted at for being too much in their face, or in half an hour get asked why didn’t I wake them as they have spent all afternoon asleep. I inwardly groan as I quickly calculate which option would be best. Thankfully a small sound of a chair being shifted takes the pressure off that decision, and I look at the dog sitting forlornly watching the rain.
“No, John.” Sigh.
My husband can be heard in his minute study, as he works with student number three today. Online teaching has been an absolute revelation for us ever since moving from our isolated farmhouse in the beautiful French countryside to this village location. To have fibre internet where the speed is 300 megabits means our lives have changed irrevocably. However some things never change as a teacher, wherever you are.
“3 times 3 is nine, so 4 times 4 is…” I hear another sigh. My phone pings with a message. A frustrated face from my husband.
The conversation in the pokey airless room continues. “John, are you on your phone?”
There is an answer that I can’t hear.
“I know you are on your phone. I can see it. No, I don’t want to know the footie score at the moment. Put it away! Right, so if 3 times 3 is nine…”
By then I have moved away, as the stress of listening is just too much for me and I too look out into the rain as I sit by the dog. Soon I will be teaching, the opportunities to teach students across the world creating a varied and interesting life.
Until then, I wait.
A child stumbles down the stairs half-asleep and complains that I didn’t wake them. Normality returns and I sort out the biscuit situation which once again doesn’t hold the treasures that they were looking for, and theoretically should have been bought. Life is just so black and white with teenagers. The gold-coated packet of empty calories is found, hidden behind a mountain of treats, the essential food for exams.
Satisfied, with a fleeting kiss, the footsteps bound up the steps once more whilst Waffles and I once again return to stare at the droplets of rain splashing into the growing puddles outside. Exams. Stress. Rain.
Oh well.
Just another facet to life in France!
MidLife Crisis In France
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