Chapter 3: CAP Cuisine - French cooking diploma

Life went on. I was getting bored with not having an income and had nearly run out of my savings that I had in the UK - which I had been spending for stuff for me in France. So tried looking for any work nearby. I signed up to the local job centre, in French, by myself. zero help or prompting by Greg. I found that I could do a cooking course (CAP Cuisine), and it was funded by the local prefecture - perfect for if I wanted to cook more complex things (transforming foods) in my cafe....so I enrolled on to a CAP cuisine - it's like a practical diploma equivalent of GCSE level with lots of placements in restaurants as part of it. I started in Sept/Oct 2022, it was tough. mainly being surrounded by native French speakers - who spent the entire time using lots of slang...and the French thing where everyone talks over each other. So, I was concentrating super hard all the time. By December I was exhausted. had a breakdown in the kitchen as we were preparing for a service because one of my classmates was telling me I needed to stop washing up dirty dishes and watch someone fill a chocolate tart. Like I'd never made a chocolate tart before, and ignoring the fact that no one else was doing the washing up which would mean there would be a issue with materials when we began service. Anyway, I cried, hyperventilated, and had to be sat down in the chef's office and they sent the person who spoke the most English to me to try and find out what was wrong, they sent me home. Anyway, I wanted to show off my Asian cooking to the class and offered to write up recipes and do a special Chinese new year menu for the restaurant in Jan (before I went back to London for a pre-CAP course arranged visit) so I taught everyone how to make bao, make dumplings, and five spice duck with pancakes....and then went back to London. I dreaded going back to France. It was horrible there.

I felt incredibly isolated. Greg always made my family feel unwelcome. We were difficult to visit being so remote. There was no Chinese supermarket for me to get Asian stuff to cook. even in Paris they don't have the stuff I want. I had to go to London and buy stuff over...FYI, on many occasions, I had asked Greg if he could go to the Asian district in Paris to pick me up some specific things from the Asian supermarket which they didn’t have in our closest supplier (in Brest). But he never did, never had the time.

Anyway, I came back from London and had my first practical exam...had to cook stuff in butter and milk and cream, all of which are essential in French recipes but I am totally intolerant to. Anyway, passed that, but during my exam they were still faffing about with my qualifications to show that I had done GCSEs or equivalent.... one day they accepted it, and then the next day they rescinded it and deleted the file. Equivalent to ECTS credits of level 4. My PhD is level 8. Despite my exceeding their qualification level they rejected my diplomas, saying they didn't prove I had passed the minimum level. 

The university linked with this adult education college I was at, refused any of my degrees, citing Brexit and UK not being part of the EU at time of application for dispensation for additional exams. and they refused the official European accreditation of my Japanese doctorate - because of this they wanted me to take extra exams to prove my level, of French, English, maths, chemistry-physics, and geography-history. All this with no support materials, no syllabus and no timeframe. I stormed off in disgust. And quit the course. So, I have no French cooking qualification. Greg is too scared to invest in somewhere for me start a cafe, and he was not going to change his mind anytime soon.

I couldn't find work in Lannion. So, I fell back on some old contacts, - floated the idea of moving back to the UK but my previous company didn’t offer me enough for me to seriously consider leaving Greg for UK (added to this I’m having more existential crises about what I was doing with my life. I keep falling back to the wanting to adopt - Greg would rather me divorce him and go back to the UK than adopt or foster (I can't start a cafe or adopt here without Greg - in fact I can't do anything without Greg and a year and a half of it really got to me). So as a stop gap, and so that I could have a bit of financial freedom and purpose I signed up to a 6 month contract with Fugro June 2023 (which is at least in my field, and they were fine with me working largely in English but "based" with the Paris team and also I demanded to work remotely and 80% time) however, to get my demands my salary is a kick in the teeth - which was not great when I am already feeling pretty low. My panic attacks (3 June 2023 – assurance maladie - Urgence), and insomnia got me on to antidepressants and sleeping pills, I’d just started my antidepressants and sleeping pills when I went to Paris to start my new job (6 June 2023). I had also tried seeing a psychiatric nurse in Lannion - in French) only managed to have 4 appointments with the nurse 8^th Sept, 6th Oct, 25th Oct and 21 Nov 2023) I also has a single appointment with the psychiatric doctor (13 Nov 2023) - who asked me why, when she worked in Mauritius, where there was a big Chinese community, as to why she never had any Chinese patients....