I am writing this from the dauntingly large white leather sofa of au pairing. So far, everything is exactly the degree of uncomfortable I expected; the family are mostly nice, but occasionally lapse into scary Parisian command mode, the baby doesn't appreciate all the squeaky voices I am giving inanimate objects in a desperate attempt to entertain her, I am permanently hungry but too scared to tuck in to the fridge and my hair is not behaving.

[Time passes]

I am now in Guadeloupe. I've actually been here for two weeks now but this is the first day that my brain has actually felt capable of forming normal, English sentences. How does one baby (...)

[More time passes]

Ok so my plans to blog out my soul in an eloquent yet entertaining and therapeutic fashion during my séjour in Gwadders didn't quite succeed. I've been back for a good two weeks now...feeling pretty much recovered but still suffer from the occasional haricot vert flashback - never in my life have I eaten so many squeaky beans for so many days on end. One day, however, that made the whole ordeal worthwhile was The Day of the Poo: 24 hours of pure enjoyment and low levels of cringing. Only joking, it was the worst day of my life and it went as follows: The family bought this minimum €100 inflatable pool style rectangle, danced its way into the house, rejoiced in their ingenuity at bringing a body of water to their garden space for about 10 minutes, and then barked at me to inflate, clean and fill. After doing this, it was time to ceremoniously swimming costume the baby (who didn't even care about the mighty almost-a-pool) and parade her down to the water's edge before the momentous paddle took place. We both climbed in and it was almost fun for about 5 minutes, but this soon ended as she laid the largest poo ever, which broke up like a rocket dispatching another mini rocket and distributed itself everywhere. I was then charged with emptying 1416 litres of bobbly water with A GARDEN BUCKET and distributing them around the edges of the grass so as to 'prevent the garden from flooding'. Now, arduous poo emptying I can just about cope with, but unfortunately this wasn't the worst of the whole conundrum as I further managed to fantastically puncture the side of the pool in the process. Might have been a subconscious drive to destroy the source of all evil, or it might have been a genuine accident, but either way I murdered their new favourite vessel of water in one swift bucket swoop. No bicycle repair kit in Mr.Bricolage could fix this rip, and neither could it patch over the hole left in their lives by the departure of this demon creation from the mortal world - along with the translucent vinyl, my hard earned rep as a functioning, capable au pair was deflating rapidly, leaving behind and empty shell of shame.

[Nice pause in order to allow thoughts of excrement to dissipate before commencing food based discussion]

If you ever find yourself in a similar situation of high stress and panic, the best solution is probably to just stop doing whatever it is that is making you so stressed and panicky, drop whatever is in your hands and pick up a mug and drink deeply from it. You are likely to be even more effectively de-stressed if there happens to be something tasty in the mug, so here are some herbal tea combos of stuff to pop in:

(basic rubric is put listed stuff in mug and then add hot water)

A good chunk of fresh ginger, a squeeze of lime and a bit of honey

Clipper green tea with raspberry and ginseng tea bags and infuse away

The Classic Mint

Slice of lemon and some...ROSEMARY SPRIGS?!

A little drop of elderflower cordial and some raspberry leaves

mmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Now for the music that you should forget all your ruined pool nightmares to:
Tell Me Something Good by Rufus (featuring Chaka Khan, I am told) which soothes with its distorted guitar funk vibes and the frequent mention of the word good. My one piece of advice to you all, oh keen musical appreciators, is to never ever OD on funk (or actually, just never OD on anything...but especially funk) as it is a truly beautiful creation of this world, but can quickly become nothing but a series of annoying men singing like women trying to sing like men if overplayed in any way.
If you have ever studied psychology, you will know that a big part of coping with trauma (such as pooey pools/something worse) is to regress back to childhood, so do this you shall. Grab any piece of early JK Rowling/Dick King-Smith/Spike Milligan and tuck in, relishing how little you have to concentrate and how great Hogwarts would be. If, alternatively, you wish to regress but do not wish to repeat, try some more obscure kid lit, such as I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith or Elmer the Patchwork Elephant by David McKee, and become increasingly concerned as you find it more interesting and stimulating than that Rushdie thingy you felt obliged to try.