ALL IS DARKNESS

Don't worry- I'm not going all emo on you. Honest.

I am, however, in the dark. Literally. As I have been for most of the last week. The bulb in my room died on me a few days ago, and as I didn't have the necessary gear to unscrew the cover on the light by myself I needed some help to replace it. Unfortunately, my room is such a tip I can't possibly let anyone who works here see it... so I've just sat here in the dark. For six days and counting.

8 PM and living by laptop light

I do realise that tidying my room would be the more logical option. Unfortunately, as most of my lessons were cancelled last week I didn't have any work to put off with mindless procrastination, so cleaning was never really going to happen. Thankfully, none of this even matters in the slightest, because in less than a week I'm FINALLY MOVING OUT. Having spent the last three months living in the sort of grim, tiny room that probably only needed a metal-barred window to perfectly recreate life in Alcatraz, moving out feels like Christmas come early.

On that note, Christmas itself feels like it's come early as well- it seems to have crept up on me faster this year than ever before. I now have less than a week left to buy presents for everyone, which wouldn't be such a problem if buying gifts for everybody wasn't always such hell to go through; on a comprehensive list of 'The Worst Things Ever,' Christmas shopping would probably rank somewhere in-between ethnic cleansing and Nicki Minaj. And of course, as with everything else in the world, living in France makes it all a million times more difficult.

I headed out into the city centre a few days ago on a search for some present-buying inspiration, where just after entering a small shop I was grabbed by the arm, had my rucksack taken off me and promptly shoved behind the till. In a wonderfully typical display of French manners they went on to tell me I could have it back when I eventually decided to leave or buy something. In an equally typical display of British petty passive-aggression I walked out in a huff and bought what I'd been looking for at another shop nearby even though it cost almost €10 more. That'll show 'em. Bastards.

I don't know if I'm just a particularly shifty-looking shopper but that wasn't the first time it's happened either. A couple of weeks ago a man stopped me at the entrance to the Virgin Megastore and asked if he could seal all the zips on my rucksack shut with cable ties before I started looking around, only to eventually decide against it because I couldn't stop laughing at him.

Shopping scrooge-isms aside though, it's been an amazing build-up to Christmas. The lights they've put up around Bordeaux are beautiful, there's a specially-built festive ice rink right in the middle of the city and I've even been invited out to a meal with the other teachers at the school, who in a stroke of utter genius have decided that the most appropriate food to get for a sophisticated Christmas meal out in France is... fish and chips.

And in a weird way, it's that thought of fish and chips that has got me more excited for Christmas than anything else. Because Christmas doesn't just mean mince pies and snow and fat beardy men in red hats anymore... Christmas means home. Christmas means England, and all the tiny little things I'd always taken for granted until now. Roast dinners. Cheap beer. Fresh milk. Cadbury's chocolate. Proper gravy. Free healthcare. Walker's crisps. Big red postboxes. Bacon sandwiches. The McDonalds PoundSaver menu. Cars that actually stop for pedestrians at zebra crossings. Daytime repeats of Come Dine With Me and QI and Top Gear and...

In fact, the only thing about England I wasn't missing at the moment was the ridiculously dull race each year for Christmas number one, an apparently once-proud tradition bastardised by a long line of forgettable X Factor nobodies and Rage Against-fuelled anti-Cowell campaigns. But the one year I'm out of the country, this guy's apparently in with an outside chance of getting it in what would undoubtedly be the best Christmas number one since Bob the Builder. Oh, I've missed you, England.

I'm pretty sure this is where I should probably say something about how I miss all my family and friends back home most of all... but if I said that my brother would call me a massive bender and my friends would all laugh at me. So I won't say it.

But I'm thinking it.