Day 4 - Au revoir Isabel!

The view from my window

First off, happy birthday to my mum!

I was up bright and early to get Zoe ready - you can tell she’d stayed up late last night as she was a bit groggy this morning. After we dropped her off, Isabel finished off the last of her packing and made a goodbye cake. On Wednesdays, Zoe finishes school for the day at lunch time. I made sure that we had enough time to walk Isabel to the train station so that we could say a final goodbye. And it was a sad goodbye too. She handed me her house keys and gave Zoe and I a big hug.

Saying "goodbye" at the train station

I haven’t know her long at all, but she’s a very lovely person and she’s really helped me get my bearings here. Zoe had a little cry and was very quiet on the walk home. Luckily, as children are so fickle, she perked when we got home and tucked into the cake that Isabel had made!
It was strange being the one in charge. Even making lunch I felt lost. All I did was heat up yesterday’s leftovers, but as Zoe hadn't eaten with us last night, I panicked. What if she doesn't like it?! I only know of her aversion to peas… What does she like? I have no idea.  She fussed about the meal, but thankfully, the art of persuasion and the promise of Nutella topped apple cake saw that she ate (nearly) all of her lunch.
Zoe’s tutor arrived not long after - a really lovely Irish lady called Ita! She taught Zoe her times tables and hyped her up! When she left, Zoe and I played Lego - sorry, Playmobil. I keep getting told off about that - and she showed off her unicorns to my friends on Skype.
At half 5, we walked to Cully (much to the disdain of Zoe who wanted to ride her bike - I had no idea where I was going and didn't want to be the poor, lost au-pair trailing behind) for her Judo lesson. While she was there, I took a walk around the village. Everything was closed again, apart from Co-Op which is small, overpriced and uninteresting (and I'm normally quite the fan of supermarkets…) I wandered to the lake and watched a guy slackline between some trees
I was early picking up Zoe, so sat and watched the judo. She was paired with a boy that was about 4 inches shorter, but a belt higher than her. Every time he got her to the floor, she’d jump up and smile at me. I’d smile and wink back, but in my head I was screaming “GET THE FUCKER DOWN!” Judo might have to be on  my list of things to do here, the instructor was rather nice to look at!
I made dinner when we got home and realised that giving Zoe a choice of what to eat isn't the right way to go about it, which Valerie later confirmed. I quite like the challenge of making healthy food appeal to her, I just have to have tasty treats to hand as rewards!

Red sky at night - fingers crossed for sun tomorrow,
the weather has been rubbish!