Ici à Cherbourg

So I have arrived in Cherbourg! I'm loving my new family and getting to know the town.

My first day in Cherbourg was Friday 29th. Fran and Charly were really lovely and told me that because I had arrived early I didn't need to worry about waking me early and that I could just chill for a couple of days which is just what I needed.

My New Room!
(They bought me chocolates
and flowers as a welcome present!) 

Fran and Charly have two children, a boy and a girl. Marc-Alexandre (boy) is 3yrs old and then Aurianne (girl) is 8 ½ months.

Marc, being 3, tired and overexcited, gets a bit naughty and stroppy but on the whole is an interested and smiley boy. Monday will be his first day of school! They start school at 3 years old in France.

Aurianne is a very happy, smiley baby but two weeks ago hit the clingy phase and so is not very comfortable with strangers. Thankfully for all involved she took to me very quickly and is happy to be left with me for periods of time.

I'm learning how to find my way around places, and am having a lovely time settling in. It's been very relaxed which has been great after the stressful time with Helene!

Fran and Charly are on a bit of a health kick at the moment too. By this they mean eating better food, and in smaller portions; this is excellent for me, given my rocketing weight over the past year. Hopefully, with this and the walking to and from school, and up the two flights of stairs to the flat etc. I'll be back down to my happy size 8 again by Christmas! (Ideally well before that, but there's no point being unrealistic!)

In Cherbourg, they live in a large, 3 bed flat. The building used to be two, three-storey houses but the owner decided to knock through to join the two houses and make each floor into a flat instead. It's in a pretty good location with about 20 minutes walk from the town centre and harbour. It's a really good sized house but unfortunately has no storage. The kitchen has all of 2 cupboards under the sink so they've been forced to improvise with shelves. The lack of storage makes the house feel really cluttered, but there's not much that can be done about that. The other bad things about this flat is that the guy in the ground floor flat smokes, and it comes up through the air vents. Every now and then you get a big whiff of it which is not very nice. We also have other flats opposite and when they hang out of their windows to smoke we have to make sure the windows are closed else it blows right in.

Fran is taking me to find out about French classes the other day too. I think they're on Friday mornings and start next week (not 100%). I'm hoping that I can meet other au pairs/english speakers of a similar age so that I have people to hang out and do things with soon! We'll see!