Well, he has gone, with his huge suitcases and his guitar, I waved him off and gave him the Welsh key ring that I had bought for him to keep our backdoor key safe. He still looked a bit lost....
I felt quite sad. Last night was great, we sang and laughed, he confided in us that he had been in a film in France. He had a part of being shot by Germans, he had to act surprised when they burst into his house and he had to cry out when they shot him. He described how they had fitted him with blood capsules and how he had had to repeat the scene a number of times. We demanded that he show us the surprised face he put on in the film, then we all tried to do our surprised faces. It was so funny....we are going to keep in touch and I specifically asked him to let me know the name of the film as it had quite a big release.
Just imagine I had a film star under my roof! This morning after he had gone I was thinking to myself how fortunate he was that he didn't arrive to the circumstances my last French assistant found herself in. It was the celebration night of my son's wedding. Sylvie was in bed as she had only just arrived and didn't really know the family. Suddenly the whole house erupted as everyone arrived for the after reception party. Two Aunties were banging on the front door a little worse for wear. Sylvie opened it and watched them sway past her slurring 'hello, love, how are you?' She actually had to help one Aunty up on to the front door step as she kept going up and down and missing the entrance.
I had not planned a party back at my house and I thought that I was conducting it very quietly but I obviously wasn't able to control everyone. When I awoke the next morning I thought 'oh heck' I was ready to make humble apologies but I thought that I had really blown it and that would be that. Surprisingly Sylvie accepted the apology and said that she completely understood that it was an important occasion and that it was not as if it happened all the time.
I was elated. That was it really Sylvie liked staying with us so much she came back for another year. We treat her as part of our family and keep in touch with email.
If I had not had other French assistants Rudy's exit would have been very worrying...you always have that nagging doubt though....