Un Jour Traumatique

Today has been very difficult. This morning I woke up at about 9:30 and was told that I must take the medicine! I find it really hard so spent hours deliberating about it. At about 11:30 Helene came to tell me off and said that it wasn't hard and that hard was being terminally ill and that if I wanted to she'd just hold my nose and force it down my throat - as that really helps me to relax and feel ok about it all! I tried to explain that it was a phobia and that as irrational as she thinks it is, it's a big deal for me. She made me give her the tablet which she crushed it up and then tried to make me take it just like that. 'Just hold your nose and you won't taste anything' - yeah cos that works... I tried to explain to her that the only way I can take medicine at home is very specific; I need to have cranberry juice or blackcurrant juice, two glasses - one with the medicine and a small amount of juice and the other with just lots of juice - and then a straw. They didn't have straws or juice and Helene refused to let me get a second glass, even with just water. I got so worked up about it because she wasn't listening to me that I couldn't breathe properly and got all sweaty and faint. Eventually Helene's sister, Anne (the doctor) came to help. She understands that it's a phobia and tried to help me to take the medicine in a different way. She mashed up a peach so we could use that as fruit juice and let me use a spoon to put the nasty medicine in my mouth (It's partly the tilting my head back thing that I struggle with I think). It took a while but I did it eventually.

Lots of Lizards in Corsica!

For lunch today we had the leftover chicken (just wrote 'children' by accident! Lol!) with rice, bread and salad. I then sat and read the french pirate book about 'Big Jack le Pirate' with Wandrille. I think it is all about the Pirate's search for a blue diamond but I'm not sure.... Reading in french does help with my pronunciation though as the children will correct me and it helps me to match the words with the spellings - very useful as they are rarely phonetic!

Hermine has been in a foul mood all day. She keeps answering me back (in french) and getting all stroppy when I ask her to do anything. Hillaire says she is tired - that much is clear! Anthelme hit her earlier while we were at the pool so she hit him back, when I told them to stop and apologise or go back to the house, Anthelme said 'D'accord, pardon' and then went off to play but Hermine had a huge strop and started throwing things everywhere. 
I told her that I had had enough of it and it was the last chance to stop or she would have to go back to the house (in bad french). She didn't stop so I said, 'ok, assez. Aller a la maison'. She just carried on shouting at me so I repeated myself a few times and then gave up and told her off in english instead. She then screamed at me that she didn't understand it when I spoke in english. I told her (in english) that I know she doesn't but if she won't listen in french then she will listen in english! And then repeated that she had to go back to the house. She screamed and slammed doors and threw things at me and told me that she would tell her parents what I had done (absolutely nothing, just asked her to stop or go inside in french and english!)

At around 4pm, I got the children some bread for a snack. They put chocolate powder on it! Very weird - they told me that 'it is very french'.... well it's definitely not english! Benoit then asked me to clean up after the children, empty the dishwasher, clean the kitchen, tidy the children's room and then go to the shop and buy bread all before 5pm... bit unrealistic! Benoit, Helene and Alienor are really stressed today because we leave tomorrow but they're just making things difficult and stressing out everyone else too.

Very few recognisable things...
Milka, BNs and Frosties were about it #FrenchFood

When I went to the shop, I bumped into Alienor and Alice who were coming back from the beach. They don't even speak to me anymore but they did to ask if Benoit had given me enough money to buy them something (I hadn't). Clearly it's far too much effort to speak in English to me... In an attempt to make future medicine doses easier to take, I bought some juice while I was at the shop and hunted profusely for straws but I couldn't find any.

Strange condiments that the
french keep having with bread

Pretty much all there is in Campomoro
Restaurant (far left), Shop (left by the road) and a Hotel!

Fish from the Corsican Sea

When I got back I was attacked by Wandrille who told me 'VITE VITE VITE, IL Y A UN POISSON!!' - Hillaire had caught a fish in a bucket at the rockpools!

Helene told me that she wanted me to make sure my 'luggage was ready to leave before dinner' - this really confused me because for a minute I thought we were leaving tonight but she just still can't speak english... I packed my main suitcase full of everything I wouldn't need for the next two days. This took a while as I had to repack everything as it wouldn't fit back in properly. They all started the Aperitifs without me (and didn't even bother to come and tell me they were starting) so I missed bread and smoked salmon - one of my favourites. I was not happy about that!

Dinner was Fish Soup (again), and then Pasta and that Tzatziki stuff with more bread. For dessert they had something called 'Fromage Blanc' - I couldn't work out what on earth that was. It's not Creme Fraiche, or Yoghurt, or Cheese, or Cream Cheese... It's kind of like a mix between Cream Cheese (which they don't actually have in France apparently) and Natural Yoghurt. They were pouring sugar onto the top and eating it just like that. Yet another french oddity.

After all that time packing, apparently my hand luggage was still too big and they wouldn't let me put it by my feet so I had to try and squash clothes and toiletries, plus a couple of things to do, all into my laptop bag as the only other bag I had was my medium sized handbag stowed away in my suitcase (they wouldn't let me get it out again). Alienor gave me a paper Carrefour bag and said to just carry my things in there (they don't half make things difficult!) Had they just explained earlier then it wouldn't have been such a problem but they are really bad at explaining things clearly - and bad at listening too because I definitely had room to put the bag by my feet (I just would have had to have limited feet space, but I've done that plenty of times before).

We are due to leave at about 8am tomorrow but apparently I have to get up at 6am (why?!) Surely the best thing to do it to get everyone up and dressed, eat something and then just leave half an hour later? We are getting a ferry (I think from Propriano to Marseille) and then driving until around 12am when we will stop at a 'Hostel' - I hope when she said 'Hostel' she meant one of those Formule 1 French Hotels they have in complexes just off the motorways? We'll see! I'm going to be so bored tomorrow. All I have to do is some Sudokus and my ipod - I won't be able to use laptop or phone much because I have no wifi and will run out of battery pretty quickly. Apparently (according to Alienor) there are no plugs on the ferry and we won't even have plugs at the Hotel - surely not?! After nearly 2 days of driving with very little to do I will be going crazy! I hope the children shut up long enough for me to sleep...

On that note, I am going to sleep. Especially as I will be woken up in just over 6 hours for literally no sensible reason... I won't be able to blog until probably Tuesday but will update on what is definitely sounding like the Journey from Hell!

A bright, clear day in Belvedere-Campomoro, Corsica!

Very clear water!