Day 36 & 37

Tuesday was relatively uneventful. Weather wasn't good enough to sunbathe and due to a late bedtime, I was too exhausted to travel far for nothing in particular. I spent the day making my new dress . It might sound like wasted time when I'm in such an awesome place, but there's only so much I can see in a short space of time when I have to ensure I'm home in time for Zoe's arrival. When she came home from school, we had a little swim, but the water has gotten colder!

Lutry

I took a brief trip to Lausanne for some munchies! It was nice to get out of the house and have a little walk from Lutry. The most exciting thing to happen to me all day was that the hot guy from Zoe's judo class rode past me on his bike and gave me the most smouldering smile.

Vines & the lake. Taken in Lutry

Wednesday.
Whilst Zoe was in school, I chilled and sunbathed a tad. We had a swim when she was home for lunch, then Eta came. She gave me a hug when she left as it's the last time I'll see her. My flight is next Wednesday morning. I've been thinking a lot about the fact that I'll be home in a weeks time. I'm excited about the prospect too! I'll be making the most out of the next few days for sure! I took Zoe to judo and sat in the park whilst she was there. Cully is famous for it's Jazz festival in April and I inadvertently stumbled upon their 'classique' festival which was a nice surprise. I sat and read my book and listened to the band play Stong - "Englishman in New York" in French!

Unfortunately I struggled to enjoy it to it's full extent. On the way there, I'd gone off a kerb on the scooter and fallen face first onto the road. Grazed my hand pretty badly, so it's super painful now. Sounds like I'm being a pussy, but I don't care. It hurts like fuck!

Rizla - Makeshift plaster

There was a bbq for the kids and parents after judo, unfortunately the hot judo guys weren't in attendance. I kind of sat there with Zoe for company. All of the kids were running around, generally being children. I asked Zoe "So are these all of your friends?"
"No..."
"So which ones are your friends?"
"None of them."
It's not from not wanting friends, but it seems she's really anti-social. I don't know whether she's too shy to speak to other children. She's 7 and she never goes out to play with her friends. It's so sad!
Zoe went off to play not long after though and she made a friend! I didn't want to disturb or tell her we had to go, even though it was past her 8pm bed time. I sat where all the parents were, in silence, sipping wine that I'd helped myself to. I've become accustomed to not feeling awkward in these situations now. After about 10 minutes, the judo instructor asked me "Ca va?" when he noticed my silence and I said "Je ne sais pas parlez Francais..." To which he replied "I no speak English too!" And that was the end of that! Oh how I wish I was bilingual!
I got a call off Valerie (who's away on a business trip) saying that David was worried as it was after Zoe's bed time, so I begrudgingly dragged her away from her newfound friend.
When we got home, I heard David swear for the first time when he was shouting at Zoe to get to bed.
I can't wait to go home.

Day 35

The weather was awful this morning, so my whole day was spent at home, finishing the design for my dress and watching Game of Thrones. I took a quick trip to Lausanne to get supplies too. When Zoe came home from school, we watched Mary Poppins - she's never seen it before, which I couldn't believe! It's weird watching childhood films when you're old enough to get them...
Halfway through the film, I made dinner of fish fingers and homemade chips. She tried to pull a sicky, forcing tears and saying her tummy hurt.
"Come on, I know you like fish fingers and chips," I said to her.
"Chips...? Where?"
She didn't know that chips were made from potatoes...?!
It was a struggle to get her to eat. She kept saying she was feeling sick and I could tell her tears were of the crocodile kind... I told her that she'd have to go to bed if she was feeling that ill.She said she wanted to carry on watching the film.
"Well if you're too ill to eat your dinner, you're too ill to watch a film, it's either bed now, or dinner and the film."
She ate her dinner.
After my shift, I went to the beach briefly to escape the house and have a cigarette. I came to the realisation that I'm ready to go home now.This place is beautiful  but lonely. I have Rosa and Iñaki and all of the other people that I've met, but that's on the weekends. I'm not used to spending so much time alone. It's time for me to leave now. The days are getting too repetitive and I miss my friends and family. I'm not so much home sick as people sick!

Double rainbow that I saw whilst at the beach!

Day 33 & 34 - Week-end ennuyeux (Boring weekend)

On Saturday, I awoke with no plans in mind, but completely forgetting that Rosa had no phone. It was gloriously sunny, so I took a trip to Lausanne for some new shoes - all of mine have fallen apart since being here due to the amount of walking I've done.
By the time I'd got back, Rosa had been in touch. I took a swim to cool down and headed to her and Iñaki's apartment with ice-cream. Rosa was too tired to do much. We watched Django Unchained (well... Rosa fell asleep...) which is such a good film. A quiet night was definitely on the cards though!

Sunday, I woke up late and spent the whole day chilling. I started designing a dress and watched a lot of TV. The weather was bad so I spent the day cooped up in my room, although I joined the family for dinner - Valerie's speciality of beef bourguignon, yum!

Day 32 - Fête de la Musique (Festival of Music)

After dropping Zoe off this morning, I headed straight back to bed. I needed to get napping ready for tonight. Zoe has a longer lunch on Fridays, so we had a little swim. When she went back, I sat in the sun. Such a change of weather since yesterday. When I went to pick up Zoe, I was introduced to a Swiss (?) tradition of wedding cars throwing sweets at pedestrians, when one hit me! We swam again, then whilst I was getting ready to go out, Zoe kept me company. Her dad had had a go at her about some mess she'd made, so when she started crying, I took pity on her. Luckily she likes my taste in music... I had to refuse her requests for Mika...I met Rosa, Iñaki and Evelyne at the apartment and we headed to Lausanne centre for the Fête de la Musique. I didn't really know anything about it until afterwards, but it's huge. An article I read said that 250,000 people turned up to watch 7000 performers at 500 different concerts. I had NO idea of all of this unfortunately. Rosa took us to the drum and bass van  - the music was great and we stayed until the sun went down... and longer. I wish we'd explored a bit more now, knowing that there were so many different stages.

Strangers at the back, Rosa on the left, stranger in the middle,
Evelyene on the right!

Rosa had her bag stolen which had everything in it: purse, iPhone etc. That put a bit of a downer on things, but we were pretty drunk so at the time it wasn't such a big issue. 
I don't remember the end of the night due to exhaustion and alcohol consumption. We said goodbye to Rosa who we left with some guy, then Evelyne and I got the train... Although we both fell asleep so I had to walk from Cully again. I swear it doesn't matter how much I nap, I always fall asleep on the way home on Friday nights!

Rose & me

Shock of the night: using a public toilet in Riponne, there was a bin for syringes. Foil all over the floor, was pretty grim...

Day 31- Jour de tempête (Stormy day)

Zoe was chirpy this morning. She even said "I'm different to how I was yesterday," referring to how grumpy she had been yesterday morning! The rain was relentless - or so it seemed- but as we ate breakfast, we could see the clouds pass over France and across the lake. It was beautiful to see the sun over the mountains, while we watched the rain hit the windows and caught flashes of lightning. 
By the time we got to the bus stop, it was blazing again. I took a brief trip to Vevey for a wander.
After lunch, my afternoon was spent decorating some denim shorts with patches of material - I've been meaning to start making/customising clothes for a while, so I finally got down to it!
When Zoe came home from school, we went for a swim. Even though it was sunny, the clouds rolled in again and it started to rain not long after we'd evacuated the pool! And it was a huge storm too. It was awesome to watch. Forks of lightning hitting the lake and the thunder made the house tremble.

When the storm had passed & the sun started setting, it left the sky with this pink haze!

We watched Pocahontas and when Zoe went to bed, I carried on customising clothes and started watching Game of Thrones (I'm hooked already!)

Day 30 - Grincheux Zoe... (Grumpy Zoe...)

Zoe was being a stroppy little cow this morning. She was tired, but so was I... and getting on my bad side when I'm sleepy isn't cool... First of all she shouted at me for opening the blinds in her bedroom. Then when she was getting dressed, she started putting on jeans. "It's a bit too hot for jeans" I told her - it was boiling!
"But mummy says it's going to rain."
"Yes, but look out of the window, maybe wear something else."
"No."
She was silent throughout breakfast, then when she went to the shoe cupboard, she put on her wellies.
"They're definitely not needed!" I said.
She turned around without a word and stormed off to her mum's room. I could overhear Valerie apologising for not telling Zoe that tomorrow will be rainy, not today. She came upstairs 2 minutes later with a tear-streaked face and all of her clothes and wellies in her arms "I'm going to change."
She's just like me when I'm tired; teary and grumpy.
When I dropped her off at the bus stop, I told her to be in a  better mood by lunch!
I had a nap and a swim whilst she was in school and luckily her mood HAD changed! Eta the maths tutor was ill, so after lunch we spent 2 hours in the pool, followed by finishing off her science workbook. She was so proud, it was super cute! The other day, she had been making wild guesses at all the answers when we were doing the exercises, but this time she really understood them, it made me feel pretty proud too!
After this, we took some snacks to the park (I invented sandwich cake! Nutella and icing sugar in between 2 slices of bread - culinary genius.) Zoe played in the playground until she went to judo, whilst I read my book.

At the park in Cully

She was so tired afterwards (I'm not surprised, the last 5 minutes I caught of judo, she was dropping some guy on the floor repeatedly!) We had dinner and after Zoe went to bed, I told her parents all about Juliette's behaviour. Hopefully things will get sorted. According to Valerie, Zoe has always been quite exclusive when it comes to friends, so doesn't have a big group to turn to. Sounds much like  her father, whom I've never seen with, or heard him talk about friends.
I hoovered up all the spiders in my room before bed tonight, but there were still 4 big 'uns by the time I clambered into bed, ugh!

Day 29 & 30

Yesterday was quite uneventful, so doesn't warrant it's own post! Whilst Zoe was in school, I spent the day in/next to the pool, topping up my tan. It's far too hot to do much else. The most exciting part of my day was lunch: epic pancakes. For all of those people that care about my pancake diet: Savoury; prosciutto, Gruyere cheese, tomato and (a surprise double yoke!!) egg. And sweet; apricot, grape & mango mixed with raspberry and strawberry jam.
When Zoe came home from school, we swam some more and that was it really! My bedroom is SO hot, so I had trouble sleeping.
Today went pretty much the same. I did the ironing in the morning whilst watching Freaks & Geeks. After lunch, I wanted to go to Lausanne just to get out of the house. I waited half an hour for the train, but as soon as I got on it, I came face to face with two train conductors, so swiftly turned around and got off. Not really up to paying a 100FR charge for the sake of 'getting out of the house.' It was way too hot anyway, so I went home and stayed in the pool until Zoe came home from school and joined me. The water was like bath water, it was so warm!

Things with Juliette in school had been bothering Zoe again today. After lunch, she'd told me that Juliette had pulled out Zoe's plaits, I can imagine her being quite upset by this as she loves it when I put plaits in her hair. A simple thing, but it's not nice! Then after school, she said that Juliette had hurt her by twisting her arm. Now I don't know if Zoe is doing anything to provoke Juliette, but I don't care! I told her that she needs to play with someone else and all she said, in her sad little voice was "But then I won't have anyone to play with. I don't have any other friends." The poor thing, I don't know what to do except tell her mum to have a word with Juliette's mum and hope that things don't get any worse. Although it might sound petty, it's still bullying. And the fact that it's getting physical (hair pulling and chinese burns) is not acceptable.
After I had 'clocked off', I took the 7 minute train journey to Lausanne, purely because I was craving chocolate and at 8pm, I think it was the closest place I could get some. When I got back, I sat on the 'beach' for a while, had a smoke and sat reading as the sun set.

By the time I'd got back to my room, it had been infested with spiders. 9 huge fuckers. I attempted to sleep in the spare room, but there were just as many in there. That, coupled with the heat saw that I didn't sleep until about 3am...

Day 28 - Festival de la Terre (Festival of the Earth)

Last night, Rosa and I had planned to go to the yoga session at the Festival de la Terre. By the time I'd got to Rosa's and we got to the festival, it was a bit late. We explored the festival properly, during the day it was a hub of activity. There were massage stalls set up, yoga and meditation workshops, clothes stalls, food stalls, activities for the children, such as making musical instruments out of household items, origami, puppet shows. It was really cool! Everything was free too! We spent some time watching people get massages. Weird kinds of massages too. There was one masseuse who just moved around the person and did what looked like some spiritual cleansing, but never actually touched them. And another woman that used some didjeridoo type instrument to blow onto the person on the table. It was odd! Rosa and I booked ourselves in for a relaxation massage on our neck and shoulders and a 'polarity' massage. We got a pizza while we waited, it was so good! All of the food being sold was organic.

Feta & rocket, mmm!

The first massage was really relaxing. I had a lot of knots in my neck and shoulders (I get told this every time I have a massage) and the masseuse sorted them all out! We were joined by Rosa's friend Evelyne(?), we got some ice-cream! Then Iñaki came not long after. Rosa and I went for our polarity massage which was a bit strange. The idea of it is to encompass emotions, spirituality as well as physical pain. She asked me about any physical pain. I've always had problems in my back so I mentioned this. She explained that I was carrying other people's problems on my back and she was trying to physically and spiritually remove them. I'm a bit of a skeptic about this kind of thing, but it was relaxing nonetheless. Me and Rosa couldn't find the others, so we wandered about. We watched a small puppet show which was impressive and some juggling clowns too!

The clowns were for the children,
but we were impressed!

We finally found Iñaki and Evelyne - Iñaki was pissed off because he couldn't find us. I just kind of sat there while they argued. We sat on the grass and watched the live music, had a bit of a smoke, then left about an hour later. I was invited for food with Iñaki and Rosa, but I was just so tired. I had planned to do something productive when I got home, but I was asleep by half 10!

Day 27 - Festival de la Terre (Festival of the Earth)

Continuing on from yesterday, we left the party at the top of the mountain at 6am. We started walking downwards and we could see the city of Geneva and the lake from below... and we were far away! I'd had no idea how high up we were.

This was how high up we were... we needed to get by the lake...

We were so exhausted, we were both falling asleep as we were walking, it was ridiculous. In the end, we found a spot in the sun on a grassy banking on the side of the road and took a nap.

Taking a nap!

We're not sure how long we were asleep, but we woke up around the same time and set off again. We reached the point that we were dropped off at the night before, but we still had a LONG way to go. We stuck our thumbs out to try and get a lift and it didn't take long for a really nice bloke on his way to work to pick us up! It's a damn good job as well. It took 20 minutes to drive, but the road was windy, it would've taken us HOURS to have walked. We got back to Lausanne at half 10, so the journey back had taken us 4 hours!
I got the train to Villette and fell asleep until half 4!
When I was conscious again, I met up with Rosa and some of her friends in Lausanne. We sat by the lake and although a barbecue had been planned, I got there too late. Isabel was there and we caught up. She asked me how I was doing with the family and we mainly spent the time gossiping about the parents. How we much prefer Valerie when David isn't around. Turns out that I'm not the only one who can sense David's hostility towards others. For example, David doesn't allow guests in the house. Not even friends of Valerie's. Yesterday, Valerie had a colleague around for lunch. Afterwards, she came up to my room and asked me if I wanted a cup of tea (she's never done this before) then asked if I would mind not mentioning to David that she's had a friend around. She later tried to justify with "We're always working away, so weekends are special for the family," but we both knew that she wasn't convinced by this herself.
After sitting in the park for a while, Rosa, Christelle(?) and I headed back to Lausanne centre to "Festival de la Terre." We met up with Iñaki and Marta and watched some bands play, they were pretty good. Sim's were a hip-hop/pop-rock band, then there was Hugh Coltman which was acoustic blues. It was a bit too slow for us though.

Sim's

Christelle, Marta and Iñaki went home and Rosa and I went to the train station to pick up. We spent the rest of the evening getting blazed at the festival and drinking beer. We got approached by two guys which was a bit intense (more so because we were stoned) who were trying to chat us up. One was getting a bit too touchy feely with Rosa. It was quite entertaining for me because the guy that was attempting to chat me up couldn't speak English, so we had this weird conversation which was us both using what little we knew of each others language. He also kept calling me "Bat" - No one outside of Britain can pronounce the "th" sound! Eventually they left us alone. We'd started to look for a club, but thought that just sitting down and smoking in the big park that the festival was being held was best. Favourite quote of the night from Rosa: She tried to say she had an apple in her bag "I am an apple." I cried with laughter!

I caught the train home, fell asleep again, GAH! But luckily woke up in time to walk home from Cully.

Day 26 - Saleve party!

I got a text off Rosa in the wee hours of the morning, asking if I wanted to go to a drum & bass party on a mountain, just over the border into France, so my morning was spent trying to work out how to get there... Not that I worked anything out... 

Zoe was really grumpy when she came home for lunch. Valerie was working from home today so at least I didn't have to bear the full brunt of it. She insisted she wasn't tired, but me and her mum made her go and rest. She's going to sleep over at Juliette's tonight, so she needed to get some shut-eye! She's getting quite worried about the bed-wetting situation that could occur. She's planned to wear pull ups, but she's frightened that the other kids might see them, poor thing!
After she went back to school, I was free! I took a trip to Lausanne to get some beer for tonight and some food shopping, then took a nap when I got home. Didn't want a repeat performance of the public transport debacle last week! As I was heading out of the door, I dropped my phone and the screen cracked. I didn't check it until I was on the train, but it's completely unusable, so I had no way of getting hold of Rosa when I got to her flat. I stood outside, not really knowing what to do. In the end, I stopped some people in the street and a guy let me borrow his phone to contact Rosa by Facebook. What a hero!
Rosa and I sat in her flat for a while, trying to figure out how to get to the mountain top. Public transport didn't get up there, so we had to get as close as possible. We just went on a whim. At 9.30pm, we left the house, then we got the train to Geneva. We didn't pay, so when the conductor came up the train, we pretended to be asleep. Fool proof! Once we were there, we asked loads of people how to get as close as possible. The taxi would've cost 100FR so that wasn't an option.

Rosa & Martin (The good luck charm!)

By this point, we were pretty drunk, so we didn't have a clue what was going on! While we were waiting for the tram, we went to use the toilet in a bar across the road from the station. The bouncer caught us just as we were about to walk into the bathroom and threw us out. Nightmare! We got the tram/bus (Can't really remember) and ended up in a place called St. Julians which is just over the border into France. From here, we stuck our thumb out and eventually a guy picked us up. Rosa communicated with him and I had a nap in the back of the car. He managed to get us pretty close... But not as close as we thought. We stopped a car on their way down who said that it was a half an hour walk up the hill... It was double that at least! We were just following the sounds of the music! Eventually, we made our way up a dirt track and found it! By this time it was 3am... It had taken 5 and a half hours... but we were there. There were probably about 25 people left and a couple of tents scattered around, but we danced! There was a small table set up for the DJ's and some decent speakers and lights!

We got chatting to a few people and danced with everyone, the atmosphere was really friendly! We were both absolutely shattered, but the music was great. We just danced until the sun came up, it was awesome. The mountain top was a really nice place to have it. By the time the sun had fully risen, we were both absolutely exhausted and everyone was starting to clear up. We did a runner! It was 6am when we left.... To be continued!...

DJ Rosa, when the sun had come up!