Bumps in the Night. (And rings, calls, bells...)

All this taxi-ing around, cooking creative/different meals and entertaining kids does leave one pretty exhausted, so, like the next person, I decided to attempt an early night. I managed it to bed at a record-breaking 11.45, and was just falling asleep. All was quiet, all was calm, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. 

Then 10 minutes later, I was brought back to reality (Non-REM Stage 2 for all you Psychology geeks!) when the house phone rang (the ONE NIGHT I leave it in my room!!), and rang AND RANG. I think it's tune actually beats the dog's barking. I didn't pick it up, as my brain was in turmoil and I wasn't focused enough to understand any word of French over the phone let alone speak it, but OH MY GOD. It then stopped and rang again (WHO calls at midnight??), so I tried turning it off but it still rang (despite holding down the 'off' button), and then a few minutes later, after smothering the phone with a towel and enshrouding myself under the covers for SOME BLOODY PEACE AND QUIET, the door bell rang! Arghh! 

So I waited, but then thought it may be William, the father, coming home... very late... (I hadn't seen him that evening), so begrudgingly went down - no one else had bothered to get the phone/ the door. I opened the door to see man outside the gate. I could barely understand what he was saying (brain=mush), and obviously it appeared I wasn't understanding even the simplest of vocab so  he asked if I spoke English. Thank god! He explained he was William cousin and William had said he could stay the night but had forgotten to leave the gate open etc etc.. So I let him in - too tired to care if he was really a cousin, or a serial killer on the rampage - and went back to bed (although I put my laptop and iPod under my duvet beside me for safe measures!). Moments later, once tucked up in bed, duvet arranged around me and my rug cushioning my head and sweeping round my shoulders, the fecking phone rang again, although making a different ringing noise. It went on and on, and although undeterred by the contemplation of propelling it out of the window/ plummeting it down the stairs/ asphyxiating it in water/ battering it to a million shards of plastic, I very calmly and composedly (thrashing through the covers, vehemently trying to find the damn phone) took the batteries out. 

JEEZE! I'm the au-pair, not the bloody night-porter!!! :/ 
So with that, and the batteries at opposite ends of the room (in case they CRAWL back to each other and multiply into an army of ringing phones of terror), I rearranged my duvet, wrapped my rug round my shoulders and WENT TO SLEEP.