We did it!
Ever since I started this blog, rarely a day has gone by when I haven't asked myself if I was crazy.
I know the answer to that. I am crazy. I have never sent a text message. I supported the war in Iraq. And my favourite song is 'Living on a Prayer' by Jon Bon Jovi. That's just three examples off the top of my head. Plus I spent eight years in France when I could have just gone to London after uni like everyone else. But at least crazy is not boring.
I can't remember now what the last straw was. There was a whole haystack of them. I think I finally decided to abandon hope in France after the street demonstrations about the CPE (remember that?) in March this year. The thing that enraged me more than anything was the cynical way that the protests were unofficially pencilled in as part of the national calender. New Year, then in a matter of weeks the February holidays, Valentine's Day, then, to fill in the gap before Easter, 'manifestation' season! Then came Easter and everyone went off on holiday and forgot about it, just as they forgot about whatever they had protested about the year before. Nobody I saw interviewed on those protests had anything to say about what could be done to improve the job market for young people, or seemed to be living in the real world. But pose for the camera staring wistfully into the middle-distance holding a single flower, just like Mamie did in 1968? Much more fun than lectures!
Anyway. That's not my problem now. In April, after a year fruitlessly searching for a better job in France, hubski resigned his dead-end post, and we put our flat on the market. Living in France, which had once been an adventure, our precious neutral territory (he Russian, me English) and common enemy, had starting eating away at us. Fourteen years after arriving from Russia, he had never managed to get offered a job by a French company. Although I had, it was always as a foreigner, with all the caveats that implied. I was sick of feeling like a second class citizen. And also? I was afraid of hearing, in a couple of years, the words, 'Mummy, when I grow up, I want to be a notaire.' Or 'Mum, can you lend me a flower? I want to go on a march. How does my hair look?'
We took a huge risk. I was very aware that many mixed marriages bite the dust in similar circumstances. If hubski had insisted on staying in France, I would have stayed, but I dread to think at what cost. Instead, he gave up the modest everything he'd built up over the whole of his adult life, and took a leap into the unknown.
And here we are, three months later, and hubski has found a job at Heathrow airport, with prospects, and training, in his beloved aviation. He's been sent to Germany for a month to learn more about bloody aeroplanes. That won't make him more of an interesting dinner party guest, but it makes him happy. We exchange contracts on a house at the end of the week. And I've decided to resume work as a freelance journalist and editor, legally this time. Because in England, there is no such thing is URRSAF.
As Bon Jovi would say. Woooaah, we're halfway there!
I know the answer to that. I am crazy. I have never sent a text message. I supported the war in Iraq. And my favourite song is 'Living on a Prayer' by Jon Bon Jovi. That's just three examples off the top of my head. Plus I spent eight years in France when I could have just gone to London after uni like everyone else. But at least crazy is not boring.
I can't remember now what the last straw was. There was a whole haystack of them. I think I finally decided to abandon hope in France after the street demonstrations about the CPE (remember that?) in March this year. The thing that enraged me more than anything was the cynical way that the protests were unofficially pencilled in as part of the national calender. New Year, then in a matter of weeks the February holidays, Valentine's Day, then, to fill in the gap before Easter, 'manifestation' season! Then came Easter and everyone went off on holiday and forgot about it, just as they forgot about whatever they had protested about the year before. Nobody I saw interviewed on those protests had anything to say about what could be done to improve the job market for young people, or seemed to be living in the real world. But pose for the camera staring wistfully into the middle-distance holding a single flower, just like Mamie did in 1968? Much more fun than lectures!
Anyway. That's not my problem now. In April, after a year fruitlessly searching for a better job in France, hubski resigned his dead-end post, and we put our flat on the market. Living in France, which had once been an adventure, our precious neutral territory (he Russian, me English) and common enemy, had starting eating away at us. Fourteen years after arriving from Russia, he had never managed to get offered a job by a French company. Although I had, it was always as a foreigner, with all the caveats that implied. I was sick of feeling like a second class citizen. And also? I was afraid of hearing, in a couple of years, the words, 'Mummy, when I grow up, I want to be a notaire.' Or 'Mum, can you lend me a flower? I want to go on a march. How does my hair look?'
We took a huge risk. I was very aware that many mixed marriages bite the dust in similar circumstances. If hubski had insisted on staying in France, I would have stayed, but I dread to think at what cost. Instead, he gave up the modest everything he'd built up over the whole of his adult life, and took a leap into the unknown.
And here we are, three months later, and hubski has found a job at Heathrow airport, with prospects, and training, in his beloved aviation. He's been sent to Germany for a month to learn more about bloody aeroplanes. That won't make him more of an interesting dinner party guest, but it makes him happy. We exchange contracts on a house at the end of the week. And I've decided to resume work as a freelance journalist and editor, legally this time. Because in England, there is no such thing is URRSAF.
As Bon Jovi would say. Woooaah, we're halfway there!
posted by francesca tereshkova | 12:37 PM
3 Comments:
Hey, that's really great. I was wondering how you were adjusting.
Great news, Francesca! Thank you for the update and I'm glad your situation has taken a turn for the up in such a short time.
Good ol' Blighty!
Message for Marina, who left a very interesting comment that alas! has somehow failed to appear here, and has been lost. My fault no doubt. I promise to devote a post to replying to you if you wouldn't mind just summing up your comment here again.
Thanks a million!
A. Technophobe-Nontextmessager
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