T - 14 days

Fourteen days. Two weeks left in England before I head across the channel for eight months. Alone.

Not with my Franglais-fluent family, or with ill-at-ease science teachers on the school exchange trip whose understanding of French culture was limited to croissants, baguettes and anything else with a French-sounding name on the Sainsbury's bakery shelves. It'll just be me and Bordeaux. And I'm scared shitless.

Not least because, to be honest, I'm not really in a position to be poking fun at anyone else's language skills right now. After a summer holiday spent occasionally volunteering but mostly sat in front of endless repeats of Total Wipeout, my ability to speak French has deteriorated to the point where I'm now mostly just speaking in English but slightly louder, with the odd 'oui' thrown in and a thick French accent so bad that it's probably slightly racist.

I'm also lacking a translated birth certificate and a medical note from my GP, meaning I'm still unable to be paid and unable to join any sports clubs in the whole of France. It's a little humiliating not being allowed to do sport on medical grounds (even boules, which apparently counts) but that's the situation I'm in until my GP learns enough French to write out a medical certificate for me. Throw in some worryingly high expectations set by the Oxford-educated guy who last did the teaching job I'll be starting in three weeks' time and the reasons behind my pre-departure anxieties might seem a bit clearer.

But all my other worries paled into insignificance when I realised last week that I had nowhere to live.

Admittedly, I probably should have tried to sort this out sooner. With a slightly warped sense of priorities, student habits kicked in and I decided that it was more important to work out whether Bordeaux was far enough towards the south of France to pass my midday naps off as 'siestas' or not. After extensive research, I've discovered a lot of interesting stuff about brain-wave patterns while sleeping and how much a daily siesta increases the risk of contracting type-2 Diabetes (26%, if you're interested) but I still haven't worked out if daytime naps are socially acceptable down there or not.

Regardless, it took me until quite late last week to start actively looking for accommodation, which proved much harder than expected. Searching for sensible student lodgings meant filtering through the amusingly high number of scary-looking French men in their fifties posting adverts online looking to share their single-bedroom apartments with women between the ages of 18 and 25. Not quite fitting these criteria, I'd just about resigned myself to homelessness before noticing a missed call from a French number on my phone.

I'd only given my mobile number to one place in France- a small hostel for young workers right next to where I'd be working, which had told me last week that they would be fully booked for months. Without thinking, I picked up the phone and called them straight back, panicking straight away when a man with a very thick French accent picked up on the other end.

I'd known that my French was a little rusty, but I hadn't realised it had got to the point that my instinctive reaction to someone speaking quickly to me in French would be 'Hola.'

Lots of work to do... but there's only so much I can do here. Flights booked. Roll on the 20th.