Le Nouveau appartement - The New Flat

It's been some week here!  We're so glad to hear that Anna's home from hospital and recovering well after a horrible bout of pneumonia.  I hope you're able to do some 'trick or treating' tonight, Anna!  The other good news is that I've found my digital camera!  It had been left at one of the mums' houses following the babygroup meeting.  I don't remember ever taking it out of my bag, so I'll just blame one of the babies.  Melinda (the American woman who hosted the meeting) emailed everyone to ask if they'd lost a digital camera.  It was so good to see her email!  I've arranged to meet her next week for a coffee and to get the camera back, so I'll upload more pics then.  In the meantime, you'll have to make do with this awful photo I took with the computer's camera of Max in his Cowboy Outfit for Hallowe'en!  

Yee-Hah!  Max the Cowboy!

The French don't seem to bother with Hallowe'en at all, but I was meeting my English pal, Rachel, today and her wee boy, Oscar, so I thought that Max had better make an effort.  I'm wishing now I'd taken a photo of his feet as he was wearing his cosy Australian sheepskin boots he received from Ferg, Karen, Margot and Fiona - they're brilliant as it's now very cold!  He's loving his food at the moment and surprising me with how much he can scoff and still cry out for more.  He's also taken another growth spurt and it sometimes feels like you can actually watch him getting bigger.  The introduction of food has meant that for the first time, he's SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT!  It's excellent - I'm loving the novelty.  It's absolutely magic to wake up to him smiling in his cot, as opposed to having a crying baby as an alarm clock every few hours!

We went to the 'Sing with Your Baby' class, which was a good laugh.  The lady who takes the class is around 50 and very French looking, with a sing-song voice and expressive face.  She sits at a grand piano while we all sit with our babies in a circle on the floor.  Sheets with the words on them were (thankfully!) given out for most of the songs, but she stood up and played a cd for the 'action songs', so I had to concentrate to try and pick up the words.  These included a kind of French 'Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes' - but saucier, as it included 'derriere' - risque!  I was concentrating so hard on following the teacher in touching my various 'parts' whilst singing that I didn't notice (until the third go) that everyone else in the room was touching their babies' body parts!  Poor Max was lying on the floor just watching me play 'Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes'!  It's hard to know whether he really enjoyed it, but it felt good to be doing something quite structured with him as I'm sure he must get bored with my pathetic repertoire of rhymes and peekaboo!

The first drama of the week was that I was evicted on Monday!  We had arranged to move to a different flat in the building at the end of the month, but one of the office staff asked Paul if we'd agree to move a bit earlier as someone else was interested in taking on our old flat.  We agreed as it wasn't going to make much difference to us.  They then called us to say that the proposed tenant had cancelled so that there was no hurry and we'd move at month end.  Paul went out to work on Monday and everything was hunky-dory.  An hour later, I received a call from the office saying that a new tenant was coming that afternoon and that our flat needed to be cleaned!  When I explained that we couldn't possibly move that day as Paul was out and I was on my own with the baby, the guy wouldn't take no for an answer and said, "It is not a problem, I will send a lady to help you, you can tell her what to do" and promptly hung up!  I was RAGING to say the least, especially when the lady arrived half an hour later expecting to clean an empty flat and she was annoyed at having to help me!  I'm sure that Max picked up on my bad mood and screamed whenever I tried to stuff another bag with our things.  Sorry for yet another rant - I'm reliving the experience!  Paul was puzzled when he returned and eventually found me in the new place with our stuff everywhere.  I sent my man down to the office, fully prepped up with such pelters as "I have just returned home to find my wife in a very distressed state...!".  It was successful as he came back with a load of free 'washing tokens' for the washing machine.  I actually think that Paul was secretly glad to have avoided having to do anything for the move!

The new flat is a lot smaller, but it's cosier, so probably better for the winter.  It is just one room, with a mezzanine level for the bed and cot.  Mezzanines are fairly common here - it's like someone's gone a bit crazy with indoor decking - but it is a good use of space when the ceilings are so high.  Paul went away to Nancy for a few days so I enjoyed unpacking and making the place feel like home.  Nancy is not Paul's mistress.  It's a city to the east of Paris and it's where his boss is based when in France.  He'll be going there on a regular basis for conferences and talks and to meet the rest of the characters working on the project.  He gave a talk on Wednesday and it seemed to go down fairly well.

Whilst he was away, I received a call from mum to say I'd been offered a job at the Scottish Government!  It was a job I'd applied for ages ago but I'd been told that my name would be kept 'on file' if vacancies arose, which I took to be a kind rejection.  It's really a dream job, although the timing isn't ideal at all!  I'm hoping that they'll honour my maternity leave and allow me to start in May, but it will definitely be sad to cut short our 'Year in Paris'!  Phew - it's been a mad week indeed!