Food is life

Bonjour mes amis.

Good news, the oldest girl has returned. Sadly though, my sanity has not. She gave me the most fitting gift: a stress relieving stone. 

The girl gets me, she understands that her siblings are chaos in the form of children. I think she even sympathises, as she's disclosed to me her desire to be an only child. Unfortunately, I can't really assist her in that. I can only ease her suffering slightly by trying to spend some one on one time with her.

I have learned in my time here that what mum doesn't know, doesn't hurt her. My host mum is so anti-ketchup that her kids have developed small internal fires, only satisfied by the dreaded red stuff. So, when the youngest came home for lunch and said she wanted a volcano for lunch, she damn well got one! Who am I to quash her creativity? 

This week, my birthday packages came from the angels that are Megan and Katie. It was easy to ignore their tardiness when I opened them up to see this sweet, sugary splendour. I genuinely think this euphoria is close to what one would feel in heaven. Let's just say, I'm sure I should have enough food to keep me going until I leave next July!

Friday night and few of my favourite people and I hit Geneva...eventually. My maps led us astray, so we arrived a little later than expected. The choice of venue: a ‘pub’ called Queen Victoria, who were hosting a karaoke night. Did I participate? Hell yeah I did and I'm not remotely ashamed to admit that I was stone cold sober for the entire time (okay, well maybe I am a little.) Basically, this is what happened. 

The songs of choice were;
Mark Ronson - Valerie
Beyoncé - Love On Top
Black Eyes Peas - Where Is The Love
At the end of the night, those of us being starved of real food at home required something unhealthy, greasy, but oh so good. McDonald's. Unfortunately, I was still full after my pizza and chips, so I couldn't indulge in those deliciously crispy chicken nuggets. I was devastated that I'd missed my (potentially) only chance to eat a McDonald’s, but as soon as I can I'm coming for ya Maccies! 

Saturday was uneventful. I was dragged out to go shopping in an Outlet shopping centre where things were still expensive because, well, Switzerland. I'm experiencing very different definitions of cheap here, so have started using the terms ‘English cheap’, ‘France cheap’ and ‘Switzerland cheap’ to distinguish what exactly I mean. For example, English cheap is my £5 Primark jumper or my 30p jeans. France cheap is €10 for a pizza. Now, Switzerland’s cheap is everyone else's expensive. Switzerland cheap is 20CHF for a tiny burger and 3 fries. 
Something I did find interesting was this sticker that reads ‘Warning: this product contains dehp. A phthalate chemical, lead and other chemicals known to the state of California to cause cancer, birth defects and other reproductive harm.’ Fantastic, I'll take the lot! 

The oldest girl also enjoyed trying on these bad boys (side note: this is the one who plays football and lives in football shirts, shorts or tracksuit bottoms.) 

Saturday evening, I was joined by the oldest girl for Snapchat pictures and sausage rolls, in the metaphorical sense. I'm not sure actual sausage rolls would make it past the front door.
A - because health and crap
B - because if I caught wind of a sausage roll in a radius of 2 miles, it would immediately be inhaled by me, sorry neighbours! 

On Sunday morning, I started my job on the side. Every week, just for an hour, I get to spend time with a sweet, yet stroppy, 4 year old boy. Essentially, I get paid €15 per week to play with and read to this boy. This time, we made a farm with lots of animals inside, who needed all kinds of different things. They all needed food and water, but the ducks and frogs needed a pond and because the frog was disproportionate to the other animals, he needed quite a sizeable amount of water, which took up a lot of space in the barn.

I hope that we will continue to get on with each other, because I'd hate to stop going. They have only recently moved here and they think it would be good for him to have some sort of stability in who is tutoring him and when. On a completely selfish note, who doesn't want extra money at the end of the month? 
After my early start, I headed out to the market, because I absolutely refuse to spend all weekend at home. Boy is that market good! If I go there every Sunday, I'm going come home either diabetic or obese (or both.) The rest of my day consisted of eating and eating and eating on a bench by the lake, with two of my loves - Meta and Kee. It's funny how the simplest of days can be so fulfilling. All I need is food and friends for a happy life.

P.S the eating didn't stop when I got home. As soon as I set foot in the door, I was straight back out again, going to the all-you-can-eat buffet in Versoix that charges you extra if you don't finish everything on your plate. Quite frankly, it would have been rude of me not to stuff myself to the brim, you pay good money for that food and I'm not going to waste the opportunity! 

Today (Monday) has so far consisted of me waking up two very unimpressed boys early on their day off, nearly being late to drop off the youngest girl at school and being vacant in my French lesson due to my hectic morning and lack of sleep. 
For this week I will simply say, on y va!