Life as an Au Pair Part 1: mountain air, wild flowers and tired legs

I was greeted at the station with a very Italian ‘ciao! ciao!’ as a little girl held a homemade sign with ‘Athena’ written in big child-like handwriting and wore a shy yet boisterous smile on her face. From there I was whisked away to my Italian family’s home in a town called Bogliasco, just outside Genova. My first hours as an au pair were spent meeting many extended members of the family, eating Genovan pasta and homemade pesto on the balcony with the most stunning of views of the Italian mare, and bonding with the oldest child, Anna, who was keen to show me everything in her bedroom, closing the language barrier by using two English words she knew well; ‘look!’ and ‘beautiful!’. For to the Italians everything is ‘bellissimo’. And perhaps after only a week here I understand why they have such passion for their country.

That same day we travelled 3 hours in the car, from the sea-air of Genova to the mountain-air of Cervinia in the Valle d’Aosta. There the family have a small but cosy apartment surrounded by big, booming mountains – perhaps the most beautiful I have ever seen. Everything is fresh; the air, the water, the food, even the people smile and say ‘Buongiorno’ as we pass. ‘I like it here because it is like we are at the edge of the world’, my Italian mum said to me. I like it here because when the clouds are low it feels as though we are in the sky.

On the first day we took the kids ‘da Gina’ – Gina is an American lady who owns the ‘Kid Zone’ in town, where Anna (8), Lucia (7) and Marta (3) can spend 2 or 3 hours playing with bikes, bouncy castles and balls without getting bored or tired. In the background Gina plays American 60s hits and I ask her about how she came to live in Italy. By this point I have already bonded well with Anna who wants to hold my hand and tries hard to speak English to me. The other two are more difficult to crack; they are content playing together and are not yet curious enough about ‘la ragazza inglese’ who confuses them with strange foreign words.

That was day one, now it is day seven and I hear ‘Ateeeeena, look!’ from all angles. I think this means we are friends now.

We have spent the last 3 days hiking in the valley. We began in Cervinia; up and up and up we went before arriving at a ‘chiesetta’ (little church) where we ate cheese and melon wrapped in prosciutto (they insisted that I must try this very Italian dish – it was strange but I ate it anyway, if only to be polite). After 7 hours we arrived at our first destination, Cheneil, a tiny but charming village with perhaps only 6 or 7 houses. We celebrated completing the first day with a treat of cream (good enough to rival Yorkshire’s) and forest fruits and later had dinner in a family-owned restaurant which had an old-fashioned till and black-and-white photographs covering the walls. We spent the night in the ‘rifugio’ where I shared a room with Anna and Lucia who were giddy with excitement all evening and insisted on giggling, playing games and arguing for a good hour before finally falling silent and asleep. Hiking is hard work, but when you also have three children full of life and energy to entertain it is even harder – needless to say I was tired.

On the next day the panoramas were spectacular. We walked past tumbling waterfalls and sparkling lakes, through summer snow and fields of wildflowers (bluebells and violets and buttercups and daisies). Lucia asked me all the English names of the flowers and then we played a game where I said a colour in English and she pointed to the flower. We play lots of games as we walk; Anna pretends to be a tour-guide and we ask her for directions to our next stop, Grand Tournalin. ‘I’m sorry I am English, where is Grand Tournalin?’, ‘Just here’ she says and points to a small building at the foot of the mountain. In not too long we are relieved to be eating apple cake and drinking milk, our feet resting before the final day of walking.

Somehow these kids have endless amounts of energy, and whilst the parents and I walk fairly wearily on the final day, they bound along playing games, arguing, shouting and laughing. When we arrive in Chamois we take a cable car down the mountain – though my mum would definitely have called it ‘a bus on a piece of string’ as around 30 of us were packed into the small cabin. We miss the bus home by seconds and have to wait for an hour in a restaurant, whilst outside the rain is pouring and thunder and lightening fill the sky. The children somehow still have enough energy to play nascondino (hide and seek); running around the restaurant, hiding under tables and screeching with joy.

When we arrive home the rain has stopped and it is truly like the calm after the storm; the girls decide that I am to be their doll and brush my hair, and then play horses together quietly (without arguing!) before it is time for bed.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about my new role at first, but I like being an au pair more and more everyday.