Its hard to believe we have lived without SB for a full month. I miss her every day, sometimes to a physical hurt. my chest feels heavier, my shoulders sag, and my dreams are unsettled. Why do we do this? because SB really wanted to, she wanted the chance and the opportunity to relish and fully immerse herself in another way of life, to learn to be french. So she is. I cant say it has been an easy ride, she has been homesick, had a few misunderstandings with french family, en famille sorted them out easily [as not that big, had just been worrying her] . but the french family, sb and us, as well as en famille, are all committed to making it work. I think it will.
today we had a few tears in the phone call, we all need a hug. it has been a month after all! however, things are carrying on, she lots her school card and wasnt let out – had to go to etude. she forgot her maths homework this weekend – etude again i reckon! but she is auditioning for the choir – chorale – they have 3 taster sessions. singing in french seems a tall order to me! she is enjoying scouts, she has friends. school is boring, but thinks civics might be ok if she understood it 
she is really happy with her french sister 
and has settled into life there. she really misses reading tho as she wakes up early and can’t think what to do. i wonder if french family could find audiobooks she might understand for those moments?? we put some simple ones on her kindle – not sure if she still is allowed to use it tho, as we forgot to ask. She was v excited to have bought some records – vinyl!!!! at a market stall. Her french dad [who she thinks is great, especially because he loves pasta so often buys that when he shops] says she is using more french and speaking to people SB says she mostly speak to otheer children/friends as her words are often in the wrong [ie english] order and need unmuddling still. but hey a start
miss you SB, but still proud of you for taking such a big step, and hoping you have a good week
Clo apparently cried after every phone call. Sometimes during and would be reluctant to let us go. I found putting the phone down the hardest bit though so would get M to do it where possible except she would want me back and it wasn’t easy to get her to let me go :-(. I think we had overly long phone calls. That was after C requested no phone calls at all during the first month. I think we were at the end of the third week when P messaged me to say she thought C needed some home contact. Then we were weekly on C’s request and some calls were too long – nearly two hours. I looked forward to the calls and sort of didnt all at the same time as problems would be said to us that we had no way of dealing with. I think she just wanted a venting space. Only thing I did manage was R would go through all C’s things, reading her letters and looking at her photos and things went missing from her personal drawer. I had thought it was Maman doing tidying but realised C was right as R went through all our stuff here too. So I said I couldn’t complain or sort the problem other than sending both girls English boarding school tuckbox lockable trunks (can’t send something to just C!). That problem was sorted :-).
Thankyou, that is a bit reassuring. We have 20 mins to 30. Not had any communication from French family. Hoping that means all ok in the meantime! I hate just one short call a week being it.
as if it is tearful that’s the mood I am in for a whole week.
Oh yes, it did affect us. Yet I’m sure the children are not similarly affected. We had photos emailed to us (P was mostly good at this and it helped massively, just as i know seeing happy pics of R in our blog helped them) so used them to ask C to tell us about the people in them and where and when they were taken. Easier calls if C talked to us about events and experiences rather than us talk to her about what we had been doing. .
karina from en famille rang. they really are a nice organisation. it was the utterly perfect day to ring
and Karina and Fabienne are so lovely . they rang sb today, pretty positive on the whole we discussed the phone call, bits and bobs, asked her to pass onto french family how happy we are with them, that SB has been well matched. that tho home sickness is sad, if it is just for a short while with the phone call, that it is not something we would see as failure, and having discussed with a variety of families, it is something that some of them had for the whole 6 months, so perhaps english families just better at showing home sickness and have lost that stiff upper lip! so not to be worried about it. [tho i wish she had been happier]. I do think we have a fab match for SB. [not sure if they read this blog, but a cheer if they do!]. V, the mum is really spending time with SB helping her with the language, and the other things we knew, friends, school, happy on the whole etc. I feel a lot happier 
. after next weekend, when I am working, we will think of moving the call to first thing sun morning where possible. SB has blogged – also cheering. I said that we never sound sad on the calls, always cheery, upbeat, and mostly about france.