Lost in Lyon

Don´t mention Saturday...

2007-10-15T13:32:00.000+02:00

Am I cruel and ungrateful individual if I am secretly pleased that England thrashed France in the semi finals? I feel a bit guilty not supporting les bleues, but then again, I wouldn´t have been able to cope with the gloating had the Frenchies won...

Favourite headline was from the British paper ´The Sun´´- French Fried...made me chuckle.

Cycling is an extreme sport

2007-10-15T13:30:00.000+02:00

here is the damage....

Vive IKEA

2007-06-02T10:27:00.001+02:00

Well, well, well...another year and nearly halfway through it - a new president, a new flat...but still the same old me (although now veering, worryingly, towards 27)

Many dyspraxic shennanigans, from being knocked off my bike by an idiot driver (technically not my fault) to slipping on melted ice in the supermarket and landing on my arse in front of a group of bemused shoppers (also, technically not my fault). Wish France had a personal injury culture, but alas, not even an apology...

Perhaps the biggest change is moving in with the lovely Spaniard, which has taken a hell of a lot of energy, money and trips to IKEA. Managed to do five in a row before the rowing (no pun intended) started - I wonder how many divorces the staff at these out of town DIY/cheap furnishing joints see on an average Saturday afternoon, with couples hissing at each other whilst cardboard salesmen look on, trying to entice you to spend 1000 euros on a white leather sofa that should have ceased to exist circa 1989?

So have spent evenings and weekends drilling, hammering, constructing, deconstructing, turning instructions 'the other way up', reconstructing, measuring... but you will be glad to hear that the novelty is wearing off now, and so I can finally get back to doing exciting things such as, erm, blogging, ohhh and dieting! Yes, swimsuit season looms, and all that Foie Gras over Christmas was not a good idea...

Rant #1 - Why are sofas criminally expensive?

It has to be a symptom of living in the First World (oooohh, lucky me), but can we really justify spending 2000 euros on a sofa? We didn't (both of us are not that stupid), but the mere thought of people spending that much just to sit down comfortably is quite sickening. That sum could probably construct about 50 favela huts. Gratuitous consumerism grrrr.

(But I DO like our chocolate brown extravaganza in brushed linen...oh shame! Where is thy dignity in the face of angle sofa-beds on 0% finance?!)

Rant #2 - Why can't British children be as politically aware at as young an age as French children?

Sorry that I didn't blog during the French elections, but they were so excruciatingly painful, I couldn't bear adding my 2 cents to the fray. When you get cornered at 8am in your pink, stripy pyjamas by the postman, demanding to know your political affiliation (in France that is not an impolite question), you start to become the only apathetic person in France.

However I was delighted when my group of eight year olds started to have a political discussion during our 'What is a verb?' class. (can't blame them for changing the subject to something slightly more interesting). A nice mix of Jewish, Muslim and Catholic - all best of friends, and utterly unaware that in certain corners of the world, they would be fighting each other tooth and nail.

The Jewish children were for Bayrou, the Muslim children for Royale and the Catholic children for Sarkozy... almost like they were voting for Pop Idol...

- who will you vote for, Madame?

- Well, as I come from Britain, I don't have the right to vote in France

- Oh! so you are a 'sans papiers'? (illegal immigrant)

- erm, no, I have the right to be here, you see there is the European Uni-

- So if my Papa votes for Sarkozy , you will have to leave the country?

- ahh, well, it's not that simp-

-Ohh! I am going to tell my parents not to vote for Sarkozy because I want you to be my teacher forever....etc etc etc

It is not easy explaning the subtlties and machinations of the European Union to a group of 8 year old kids who now look at you as if you were fleeing genocide and bombing in deepest, darkest Scotland...

... a pity that the Hungarian chap with the slightly freaky eyebrows won by 6%...

Mea Culpa

2006-12-11T13:39:00.000+01:00

Yup...a month and a half and no word...but I do have a good excuse, I still haven't managed to wrangle a phone line an internet connection at home yet...because I moved house a month ago, which obviously flung French administration into a complete tizzy...

As soon as it is up and running I shall start blogging again, for in fact I have lots and lots of news...

So bear with me and I shall be back soon, promise.

All normal...

2006-10-12T20:19:00.000+02:00

...Except that I have three months to find a NEW appartement.

I would love to go into the hideous minutiae, but to be honest, I really can't be arsed right now. Yesterday was spent riding the wave of hysteria, and today I have flat-lined (no pun intended) into resignation. Never fear, will tell all at a suitable moment, but right now, am doing an ostrich.

Voili Voilu Voila...shall I cheer us all up with a couple of witty anecdotes? Are you sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin...

Had a blonde moment to end all blonde moments yesterday - the emphasis being on the fact that it was in front of a good proportion of my students...just at the point in my new job where I am trying to garner and earn their undying devotion and deep-founded respect for my prowess.

ahahahahhaha...

Realised yesterday morning that I had gone home with the photocopy room key (a cardinal sin as far as my boss is concerned), and so pegged it onto campus as far as my little bike could carry me. Lyon has a fab system of public bikes - you pick one up at a bike station, usually close to the metro stations, cycle as madly through French traffic as you can, liberally swearing at the complete arseholes who cut you up at the lights, generally purging the week's frustrations to an audience who can't hear nor understand you. Then, once at your destination, you find the nearest bike station to leave your bike, and tootle off to your meeting, sweating gently and profiting from a jolly good, cathartic exercise.

Except when the bike station near your work is full-up, because all of the stinky students have used them to get to lectures. So you decide to cycle to your department and lock up your bike for the two minutes it will take to give the photocopy room key to your boss. Except that you struggle for about 5 minutes trying to put said lock on said bike. You check the instructions, helpfully printed on the bike, you try again. It doesn't work.

You are completely incapable of locking up a bike. You start to become aware, with a hideous sinking feeling, that there is a group of Brazilian 4th year engineers watching you. You feel blonde. You swear, and finally give up, hedging your bets that no one will nick the bike if you run into the office quickly. Which you do, depositing the key into the hand of a bemused secretary, who tells you that they have a spare, and that it was completely unnecessary to come in on your day off. You ignore this, and dash outside before some criminal can steal the bike.

The bike is still there.

So are the students. They are whispering. Are you paranoid, or are they talking about bikes? You have no notion of Portuguese, but you are suspicious....

You get on the bike, put your feet on the pedals, push, and promptly fall of the bike, as it refuses to move. You get up. Someone chortles.

You realise that whilst you were (unnecessarily) returning the keys, some kind student had put the lock on for you. You then spend 5 minutes trying to unlock the damn thing...You dare not look the students in the eye. You slink off with a very, very red face.

Nul Points.

Bollux Pollux

2006-10-10T20:49:00.000+02:00

I am currently giving myself a sugar headache by indulging in a Halva moment... I don't know how people eat this stuff without cultivating a blinding sensation across the temples, and the urge to giggle, before coming crashing down like a three year old at a birthday party who has just wet himself during the 'Musical Chairs' game.

And apart from a really, really bad haircut that 'occurred' today, rendering me a twelve year old in the sophistication stakes (think early nineties page-boy blunt-cut with whispy, fly-away fringe), nothing much interesting has happened.

I hate hairdressers (obviously not on a personal level, but on a broad sweeping and generalised level). I explain, they listen, fooling me that they understand exactly what I want, reassuring me with a playful tug of my locks that they shall turn the hay stack into luscious, flowing tresses.

Ahhahaa.

5 minutes of chopping, 35 minutes of faffing about with a hairdryer, and I have exactly the opposite of what I wanted.

But apart from this, life is normal again.

Oh, except that I am not homeless, and spent the better part of last week lugging stuff and boxes into the new appartement. CORRECTION; The Lovely Spaniard lugged stuff and boxes into the new appartement, whilst I looked on in a feeble fashion, bunged up with a head cold and chest infection. And it rained like hell all weekend.

Now all I have to do is wait another 5 months for the hideous haircut to grow out before I can leave said appartement.

Ice Cream and Bicycles

2006-09-21T21:52:00.000+02:00

Sorry I haven't written for a week...have been rushing around madly teaching and trying to flat hunt. So far, I have only seen one appartment, which was lovely, but MILES from the centre - and that is no good for bar hopping little me.

Am getting slightly fraught and distraught...have a week to find something, and it doesn't look good...

...so I went out for an ice cream with a friend this evening; both of us trying to pretend that it was still the summer, in spite of the dead leaves being blown about.

Cycled home to clear my mind (and stomach...damned poire belle hélène, a fabulous concoction of pears and chocolate ice cream drowned in Chantilly), and as I was putting my bike back in the station, a cute chap came up and asked me if I wanted to go for an ice cream.

Sadly, had to say no, truthfully telling him that in fact, I had just eaten one, and was going home to bed.

Then got all paranoid, and rushed into the bathroom at home to check that there weren't any traces of chocolate sauce about my face, and that the nice chap wasn't just being heavily sarcastic...

I GOT IT!!

2006-09-15T20:46:00.000+02:00

And after moaning and complaining so much... I got the Golden Syrup!!

Thank you so much Craig...there are still good people in the world - good, kind, honest souls, whose only joy is to wrap up a tin of Golden Syrup and send it to me...you are worth your weight in, erm, gold!

There it was, nestling gently in my letter box, oozing slightly at one side from a dent - obviously having been abused on it's journey by some unfeeling and philistine post man - ruining all of my flat mates' letters and bills (hurrah!).

I am now obliged to make flap jacks...after a wait of nearly 5 months...and what treasured delights they will be.

Now, how to find Scott's Porridge Oats in Lyon............... bugger.

(Ditto Coleman's Instant Bread Sauce mix, Cheesy Wotsits and HP Brown Sauce)

Friday Flatlining

2006-09-15T20:16:00.000+02:00

Am feeling flat as a pancake...what joy, the roller coaster of accommodation hunting...

turns out that I will not be moving into the appartment at the end of this month, due to somebody's incompetence, somewhere. (In true French fashion, everyone looks suddenly wide-eyed and innocent, avoiding your stressed out gaze and whistling uneasily and making sympathetic noises).

So in two weeks I shall be homeless, sitting by the river surrounded by my possessions looking forlorn, and probably a bit damp.

Or not, if I can find an appartment in time...ohhhhhh but what fun it is! For various reasons, I don't (unsurprisingly) have the correct amount of paper work in order to get an appartment with an agency without paying about 6 month's rent upfront (sharp intake of breath).

...And for some reason, rents have suddenly jumped up dramatically in the last six months, meaning that what was bijou and vaguely attractive in February, is now a ridiculously expensive 'pied à terre' for an equally ridiculously paid executive. I spent the day tramping around in the rain going to various agencies, and promptly got all hot under the collar and indignant about the prospect of paying their charges, but I am now starting to realise that I have no choice...bang goes my trip to New York...

(re-reading this, I sound like an utterly spoilt brat. Am highly embarrassed).

So to cheer myself up, I am going to rent a movie, and possibly order a pizza with my last remaining shekels, maybe paint my toenails an amazing shade of vermillion...

Oh yes, and post a picture of my new work collegues and I posing on a Rhino...I have no idea why the Uni feels that it is fit to have a random Rhinocerous outside our department, but it makes me smile, and you can sit on it. Decorative and useful, that's what I like!

This was taken by our boss for the website. It is pretty hideous posing on a Rhino like an idiot with a whole group of students pissing themselves laughing at you...

Nimes Photos

2006-09-13T10:59:00.000+02:00

Thanks for your patience, here are a few more interesting snaps of the Nimes trip... namely Arles arena, the Nimes Water Way, The Pont du Gard, Beaux and my view in the car when I turned right (contrast with the left hand view of the previous blog!)

How long do we get for lunch?

2006-09-11T11:28:00.000+02:00

Ahhhhh, how was your weekend?

Mine was fab and relaxing, and I am dead chuffed that the sun has decided to make an appearence finally; went to the lake yesterday and fell asleep in the sunshine, what bliss!

Work started on Thursday, so I am officially back in the working world, which after three months of enforced absence is quite bizarre. I had forgotten that it takes 4 hours of meetings to get to the stage of 'thinking' about time-tabling, discussions about which shall continue throughout September, so that we can be sure that everyone has enough time for lunch together (two hours) and breaks...

...Such a welcome change from Blighty, where I do remember being strapped to my desk from sun up 'til sun down, managing only to stuff down a crap sandwich at my desk in twenty minutes...

...contrasts badly with the delights of going to a French Uni canteen where a glass of Macon is only 50 cents.... I see weight gain and drunkeness on the horizon...

'Ay am enn Luff'/Florence Nightingale

2006-09-05T14:01:00.000+02:00

So how to spend two extra days of holiday...

Move into a mate's house, temporarily, to nurse her back from the edge of Glandular Fever...this involves fagging out of windows, making excellent nectarine tarts, drinking a little too much wine on a school night and watching crap TV.

Crap TV namely means watching hideous productions of 'Isle de la Tentation', where a motley assortment of tacky individuals parade around a tropical island sporting a cline of orange tans (and for the women badly applied eye liner and plastic surgery on the lips seems to be de rigeur), pratting about in jacuzzis (which are, of course, strewn with pink rose petals), proclaiming wildly that after a mere two days of lolling about flirtatiously in hammocks, they are 'een luff' and don't care about their erstwhile partners, who are on the other side of the island up to their own shennanigans...

The abject hideousness didn't stop me, however, from getting dewey eyed when one couple remained faithful throughout the disaster - by means of pink teddy bears that they had exchanged to 'remind us of each other during our time apart'.

I didn't think people like this existed. I am shocked. Dismayed. Irate. Sickened....and quite possibly addicted...

Hurry up and get well Nicki, before I get sucked into the hell that is M6.*

(*dodgy french TV channel on a par with Channel 5 in Blighty)

False Start...

2006-09-04T13:08:00.000+02:00

Hi ho, hi ho, it's not to work I go...

Today was supposed to be my bright and shiny first day at the University, to start my new job. Vaguely strange now being a member of faculty personnel, rather than a starry eyed (read 'damned lazy') student. Although some things don't change:

'Orientation Day Welcome' - starting off at 8:15 with cheap, yet hot, coffee and name badges. And yes, they spelt my name wrong...Ghastly meet-n-greet, where I just glowered at people from a corner and hid behind an illicit cigarette...

8:45 - 'Introduction to the Faculty- Its History, Ethos and Community' Trying to bite my hand to stifle illegal yawns. For some reason, being seated in a lecture theatre with a power point presentation has always been able to cure even my worst bouts of insomnia... added to this the fact that I didn't eat any breakfast this morning, dashing out of the house, and so my little stomach decided to make inappropriate comments at inappropriate moments... I tried to pretend it was the bloke next to me, but no one was fooled.

...presentation after presentation, by a gaggle of professors with various speech impediments, culminating at 11:45 with the budget deficits of various departments...and including 15 (yes count 'em!) beautifully coloured pie charts.

So I did the only thing possible and ran away during the break, muttering something about having to go to my department to sign some papers...(any whiff of bureaucratic 'devoirs', and you are instantly let of the hook in most circumstances).

But arriving at my new, shiny Languages Department, I was told that my boss is off sick, and so there will be nothing for me to do until Thursday.

After three months of inertia, I have to say this wasn't welcome news; I am gagging to do something productive, and now have another 2 days during which to twiddle my thumbs...

Agde

2006-09-03T22:05:00.000+02:00

Unfortunately (or fortunately), we didn't manage to get to the famous nudist beach at Cap d'Agde...but that's ok, I still bared more flesh than usual in my white and pink glory on the beach....and have photographic evidence to prove it!

What you don't get to see in this photo is the action shot of my bikini clasp snapping, and the look of sheer joy on The Spaniard's face as I struggled to get into my other bikini without flashing at everyone...

nada

2006-09-03T16:11:00.000+02:00

Tents tents, stones in my back..ouch! move over...BLOODY MOSQUITOS! Oh the joys of camping...

Stop Staring At Me, Nena!

2006-09-01T18:18:00.000+02:00

So slowly, but surely, the Nîmes photos are trickling their way into my inbox, so will just have to keep randomly posting them up for you.

Here is the view that I had to my left ALL THE TIME during the holiday...not bad, but not quite the lovely French country side...was accused of staring at The Spaniard, so I thought I would take a photo so I wouldn't have to turn my head to the left all the time...

Sweet September

2006-09-01T17:05:00.000+02:00

It's the 1st September, the sun is shining, I have Glandular Fever and I signed my contract for my new job....hurrah!

So a piccie of me smiling in Nimes - more to come when The Spaniard gets his arse in gear... Enjoy!

La Rentrée

2006-08-30T12:50:00.000+02:00

Well, although La Rentrée is next Monday, for me it starts today with the recommencement of my private lessons...

Which possibly explains the Ranty behaviour of yesterday - I ranted here on the blog, I ranted with the Lovely Laura about French men and their weird ideas about relationships (i.e. 'You kissed me once two months ago, now you are MY WOMAN'), and then after two hours trapped in a cinema watching the most dire drivel about the origins of the IRA in the 1920s, which did not deserve the Palm D'Or it received at Cannes this year, I left the cinema in a huff and ranted to the The Spaniard for a good half hour.

So I have been made to solemnly promise that I shall not rant for at least another week, on pain of being tickled to death, and become light hearted and airy, with only a smile on my lips and a song in my heart...

Well, I give it 3 days.

I seem also to have infected all of my nearest and dearest with a variety of coughs, colds, stomach upsets, glandular fever and headaches. Just because I was the first one slain by germs last week. I accept no responsibilty, except for the headaches, brought on duly by my ranting.

All apologies, hope you all get better soon, and I shall be on hand to administer soothing words and chicken soup as required.

Ng Ngg NGGGGG!

2006-08-28T19:53:00.000+02:00

Oooohhhhhh please can I rant? Pretty please??

Oh am boiling mad and frustrated by the complete crapness of shop assistants in lovely France. I do love it here, but there are some moments when I just have to bite my knuckles 'til the blood runs, to prevent myself from blowing a gaskett.

The theory here runs that:

The customer is always wrong

The customer is some kind of sub species from the planet 'NoFashionSense', in the orbit of the sun 'Pah, you cannot even think of affording this!'

The shop assistants are actually the personal owners of everything in the store, and will only sell to you if:

they like what you're wearing
they think you have a lot of money
they think you are vaguely famous in a cheesy French way
you are a personal friend

The customer must approach the shop assistant on all fours. Foot kissing and petal strewing is optional, but recommended.

All I did was stupidly fall in love with a dress in a shop window. Oh! Woe is me, turn back now! (it is reading a bit like a Greek Tragedy)... So like anyone with an overdraft to burn and a secret fetish for duck blue tea-dresses, halter neck with a satin bow (sounds bad, but is actually quite classy), I went into the shop and asked the nearest shop assistant if they could help me.

She couldn't even look me in the eye...and turned her back to fiddle with some clothes and hangers...

'Excuse me, I saw the dress in the window, and I wonder if you could show me where they are in the shop...'

Eyes of wrath gave me the once over, and then the harpy spoke:

HARPY: 'non, eet iz thee unly wun and we 'ave no mor'
ME: Oh, well can you tell me when you will be ordering some more?
H: Non
M: Ermm, ok, is there anyone in the shop who can tell me?
H: Non
M: Oookkk, well can I try the one in the window, perhaps?
H: Non
M: Is there anyone else here who can help me?
H: Non, look, I werk inzis shup, an I can tell yuu that there are no more dresses for you.

Being a little disgruntled by this blatant display of 'I have my permanent contract to work here, which means that I don't ever have to lift another finger to help customers, because the State protects me so much against being fired for bad work that the company would never dream of it, giving me a carte blanche to treat you, the customer, like crap', I try another assistant; also no help.

Apparently they don't know what will arrive with the next order, they don't know if they will be getting that dress in, they can't ring any other stores in Lyon to find out if it is in stock elsewhere, and I can NOT, under any circumstances, try on the last remaining dress in the store, as it is in the window, and will never be sold.

*SIGH*

Do these shops actually manage to sell anything? Is there some widespread conspiracy, involving the store manager and my Bank manager, to prevent me from buying a dress??

'All I want is that dress! I want to spend my money here - what is wrong with you people??' I exclaimed, in beautifully pronounced French.

The shop assistant gave a wry laugh, and said, 'well, today is not your day...'

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!

Octopus-Octopi

2006-08-28T13:09:00.000+02:00

Oh I am a naughty, naughty little girl...and I know it...

But you see, regardless of the fact that I have had diddly squat to do recently, my life seems to have exploded with activity, albeit pretty mundane things...

So I didn't blog about the wonderful Nîmes trip with The Spaniard, because I am waiting for said Spaniard to email me the photos, so for once I can delight my reading public with lovely photos of the beach, the Roman ruins...and for a grand finale - me in a bikini! Tee hee!

Oh yes, it was a wonderful five days in the South driving around the beaches wearing sunglasses, and being ridiculously pose-y in a 1989 Peugeot, if that is possible. I am now officially addicted to sea food. It is the food of the gods...how many oysters can you neck before you realise that you are swallowing live, salty slime? My personal best 7...then a faint feeling of nausea kicks in.

Also think the waiter at the ever-so-posh restaurant in Agde thought I was a nutter, because I wanted to keep an oyster shell as a souvenir. The Spaniard just looked on with indulgent amusement as I tried to wrestle the empty shells off the waiter, who was horrified that anyone could possible want to hang on to stinky shells. Managed to get away with one, am proud of it too - stands up all by itself, and will make a lovely bohemian ash tray...

Slightly worried that since the octopus eating session in Tarragona, I am obsessed by it. Had a dream a couple of nights ago about trying to buy some in a clothes shop whilst wearing a bright yellow evening dress...and actually whooped with delight on Saturday when we found some in the supermarket. Is there some kind of Freudian link? So next weekend is the weekend...I shall be standing in the kitchen with a bag of slime, trying to decipher a recipe in Spanish and locating the ink sac...will let you know how it goes...

Have also been slain with a throat infection for the past week; wandered around aimlessly in my pyjamas coughing and doing a great impression of the living dead...but these occassions only confirm my faith in French pharmacies...You only have to present yourself in a bedraggled state, and they start producing all sorts of medicinal delights from various drawers and boxes...even asked me how my bowels were doing...I had to say I replied in a slightly frosty, British fashion that that sort of question had nothing to do with the fact that my eyeballs felt boiling and my throat had turned into a venue for the National Bacteria Fencing Association Trials. Still, came away with four - count 'em!- four different medicines (which blatantly all do the same things)...thereby confirming my suspicions that I am actually sick, and not just being pathetic, which is normaly the case...

I did, however, catch the throat infection by swimming in an outdoor, unheated pool last Saturday at a birthday party - when the heavens opened and HAILED on us. So much for glorious weather in Lyon in August!

Also said goodbye this morning to Seb...who is off to the USA to marry the Lovely V on Saturday...bittersweet, that parting, but I shall see them soon-ish, in December, when they come back, all shiny and married, for Christmas in France. It is funny who you bump into at 7 in the morning; on the way back from the station, met, randomly, two friends on their way to work (bless them, they tried not to throttle me when I said I was going back to bed), and my old French teacher, Julian, on his way to work at the Alliance Francaise.....ah I remember well the lessons spent giggling with V and Anna whenever the Lovely Julian bent over to pick up the white board marker....

House front going well, broken back bionic man will be able to move out by the end of Sept, so I told my flatmates on Friday that I was outta here asap. Flatmate 1 was lovely about it, Flatmate 2 - the dishes tantrum thrower - just said 'good'. Ohhhh, there isn't enough love in the world!

Spanish - FAIR. Going a little better, have forced The Spaniard to speak to me in Spanish for at least 2 hours a day: seems to improving my vocabulary, but decreasing his pain threshold, poor thing.

Pyjama Wearing - POOR. Still unable to get dressed in proper, clothes for going outside before at least 1pm everyday.

Cereal Eating at odd times of the day - POOR. Have now become addicted to Honey Balls. Can also be eaten as popcprn substitute...hmmmmmmmm

Silver Lining, Sun is Shining

2006-08-09T12:07:00.000+02:00

Well, posted that photo of me, cos things are looking up a little bit, and thought a smiley picture was needed.

Namely the sun has decided to show its face, finally, so I can get back to maintaining the lovely beige of my legs, have actually slept A LOT, which seems to have done me good, and there are pipe-line plans to go away this weekend to Nîmes with The Spaniard... so may well actually enjoy this bank holiday weekend, and join the hoards leaving the city! Yay!

So yes, am in a thoroughly good mood.

Also made successful Gazpacho, after grappling with 2 kgs of tomatoes... but am not entirely sure what to do with the 3 litres of the stuff that remain in the fridge...

With my new found motivation, I might actually do something productive today, like erm...

Well, maybe I'll get round to doing it all tomorrow.

2006-08-08T00:21:00.000+02:00

Trixie Pixie

2006-08-08T00:00:00.000+02:00

Just a small note - I am being stalked by a song. Is this possible? Not sure, but if I hear it one more time....

The Pixies, 'Where is my Mind' - in the last month I have heard this song:

As a polyphonic ring tone on the train to Barcelona

In the taxi on arrival in Barcelona

In the Dia Supermarket on Carrer El Pintor Fortuny

In the Fortuny Bar

In the Flamingo Bar

On the metro platform at Sans Souci, Lyon

In the tattoo shop in St Vincent

At a random beach party

Played on a dijerido at Port Vell

When a mate randomly sent it to me via MSN

Is someone, somewhere, trying to tell me something??

la vida es normal otra vez

2006-08-07T23:37:00.000+02:00

Well, trying to settle back into the gentle rhythms of Lyon in August after the craziness of Barcelona...

And it is proving more difficult than expected. Especially considering that the Lyonnais have vacated the city like slap-happy lemmings on a Butlins end-of-season special. Tumble weeds are tumbling...and I still have to get through the 15th August...THE weekend when everyone buggers off to their respective families' houses in the Alps to be all healthy and tanned and Evian-advert like.

Bitter? ME? Nooooo, well, yes ok, just a little.. it is hard to say goodbye to evenings spent on the beach, guzzling Mojitos, fending of the beer sellers and avoiding bright red 'Brits on the Beach'.

Plus, my inbox is full of job offers in Barcelona for September, and the Travelling Bug has not been satiated.

On top of that, the flat I was moving into has fallen through. Well, the flat is still there, but the chap who was moving out broke his back, and is thus lying prone in the room that was supposed to be my room. *SIGH*.

I really can't complain...I have three more weeks of enforced holiday, plenty of time to do 'personal projects' (which seem to consist of watching badly dubbed James Bond movies at four in the morning, having discussions about stray cats, watching my poor poor plants fade and wither, making avacado milkshakes - no joke, it is divine- and general navel gazing). Which all in all is a bad combination...

Ooooh yes, I actually turned brown. It was a small miracle, aided by a ridiculous amount of posing in all of my bleached white glory on a beach surrounded by honey coloured latinas in TINY bikinis (frankly, just take the darn thing off - I could do something equally creative with an elastoplast and a rubber band).

I ignored ridicule, and the fact that people would navigate to their beach towels by using my neon white flesh as a homing beacon - 'yes, we're three towels to the left of the piece of radioactive driftwood...yes, the one in the pink bikini' etc etc etc.

So am very proud of myself, and it finally makes up for the trillions of euros spent on fake tan disasters earlier this year.

Titulo Tito

2006-07-10T13:20:00.000+02:00

Is there life outside the classroom?

I am supposed to be spending amonth in BCN having fun, but seem to be spending most of my timecowering away from frighteningly smart spanish students and staying up until 4 am writing assignments....Oh well, it will all be over in a month..

Landed in BCN last week and was dragged instantly to a party at a friend´s house...by the time we got home, it was 5am, and my alarm went off...there by signally that I had been awake for exactly 24 hours. I call it ´Breaking the Sound Barrier´; I managed to talk all night in not only Spanish, but Catalan as well. Not sure if I was making that much sense, but the conversation seemed to flow quite well, despite the calimocho...

Have so far

Been mauled on the beach by maurauding Italians
Swallowed half the Medditerranean Sea
Been woken up at 7am after 2 hours sleep by a small boy on my balcony using a two note harmonica as a breathing apparatus
Watched a pitiful World Cup Final...it is too too painful to talk about right now, on a number of levels...
Had a conversation in Spanish with a guy doing flamenco clapping on my doorstep at 4am
Dropped all of my clean and wet laundry (high level underwear and frilly knicker content) on the head of a passer by while trying to make 2 coat hangers and a piece of string into a chinese laundry on the balcony

All in all good, but exhausting and strange...

The Spanish Files a.k.a Bewildered in Barcelona

2006-06-30T20:45:00.000+02:00

And so to the Spanish Files (or, as the Lovely C put it, Spanish Flies...)

Running around manically trying to get everything sorted out - having had ohhhhhhh, at least 4 weeks to prepare beforehand.

Passport CHECK

Sun Tan Lotion CHECK

Linguistic capacity ERROR ERROR ERROR!

Oh well, call it a baptism of fire, but I suppose I will somehow survive, as always!

Not looking forward particularly to the 11 hour train ride, nor dragging full suitcases, laptop, vanity case (well, c'mon! I'm a girl!) all over BCN after arriving. But at least I have the weekend before the course starts to take a couple of strolls around and get into the swing of things. This means that I shall try and find a small cafe, where I can gesticulate wildly at someone willing to order a coffee...

Rather apprehensive. Realise that I shall be living 2 streets away from The Frog...whom I have absolutely no desire to see. But am sure that I will not bump into him...

For those not in the know, the above flag is that of Catalonia, not of Spain, as I have been lectured left right and centre about the pride of the Catalans...

True, the most part of the lecturing was by The Spaniard, who is from the North, near Bilbao, and also from a couple of Mexican friends. The general comment was 'I love Barcelona, but not the people'...I am hoping to prove them wrong (didn't have any probs the last time I was there, but then The Frog can speak Catalan, which helps a lot), and if the worst comes to the worst, I am going to pretend that I am Swedish.

Everyone loves the Swedes (except maybe the Finnish), and as Julia pointed out, Swedish girls have as much kudos as Brazilian girls. Not sure where the logic lies there, but will test out the theory...Such a great Master Plan!

I will try and blogg as often as possible - because let's face it,

Me + New City + Inability to communicate = Lots of Fun and Disasters

Take for example, last night, when I tried to impress the Spaniard, again, with my Spanish (don't know why I bother - it is blatant everytime I try that I am heading for a fall)...describing myself as 'Happy as a Cow'.

This was supposed to be más loca que una cabra - crazier than a goat (literal translation). Not only did I get the farm animal wrong, I actually mispronounced 'cow', and ended up saying 'happier than a urinal'.

I only wish I had the words to describe the look on his face - sort of passing from 'miscomprehension' to 'abject horror' to 'pissing himself laughing for 20 minutes'.

But I try, and that is the most important thing!

So folks, keep your Eyes on the Prize and I will see you on the Flip Side, perhaps with some intermittent ramblings in between.

Adios Amigos!

...now where the bloody hell is my toothbrush....

Words I have Added to My Mobile's Dictionary

2006-06-29T11:03:00.000+02:00

Babyshit
Poppet
BCN
Caddy
Cheekiness
Bises
Copita
Bitched
Chopsticks
Besoin
Argh
Buenos
Alive-just
Chez-Moi
2nite
Bisous
Fuckwit
Fuckwittage
âllo
Trombone
Espanolito
Mardy
Gah!
Cool and The Gang
Dunst
Dulces
Eccossaise
D'Hab
Eek
Dollface
Fucking
Estas
Frenchies
Fufito
Hurrah
Hooliganism
Hurray
Garibaldi
Hungover
Guapo
Hahaha
Hmmmmm
Hola
Greffières
Niggled
Matelas
Moony
Matraque
Noches
Nite
Monkey
Mecs
M'assputti
MacMonkey
Pequena
Reclamation
Purloiner
P'tit
Repainting
Sisi
Trombone
Terreaux
Tonite
T'embrasses
Veux
Toucher
Vino
Vous
T'estimo
T'amo
Tiddly
Trundle
Zapata
Yay
Yoghurt

I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike...

2006-06-29T03:28:00.000+02:00

Just had an exhilarating bike ride home at 2 am...I love the Lyon system of public bikes, whereby you can pick up a bike at the metro stations, using your bank card, it's free for the first 30 minutes, and then a couple of euros for every hour after that.

This of course means that when you and your date miss the last metro home, because you have been far to busy watching a psychadaelic baroque electronica band (I joke not - a cross between Bach Fugues and Japanese cartoon soundtracks), you can hop on a bike and pedal your way home, weaving precariously between various misplaced bollards, dog crap and old ladies (what are old ladies doing out at 2 am?).

Except, after saying a fond adios to Mr Trombone, I got completely confused by the one way system, the fact that I was cycling on the right hand side of the road, and possibly bewildered by a kir/bright lights of the city combo.

However all was saved by the winos that I nearly crashed my bike into...they set me in the right direction, after a lovely litle nostalgic chat about bicycles, the enviroment, did I 'have a cigarette?', and having your dad teach you to cycle by the universal method of 'just keep pedalling, I am still holding on to the back of the saddle' (when he is blatantly 50m away, laughing his head off...)

It's amazing the nice people you bang into, literally, at 2am.

La Pissoire

2006-06-29T02:39:00.000+02:00

Ah me!...free champagne on a boat during the Spain-France match...

Except I didn't enjoy it that much, cornered between the Spaniard, who was drooping physically after Spain were trounced by France (remember, we are in France, thus being a Spaniard wasn't such an easy thing for the evening), and a drunk and verging-on-sleezy Portugese guy who was coming on to me in a ridiculous fashion - blithely unaware that the Spaniard and I have a bit of a story.

I know it is shameful, but a gal's gotta do what a gal's gotta do, so I used The Toilet Excuse.

You know at school when they take the girls aside and talk about periods and hormones etc etc, and the boys just get double Physical Ed.? What a waste of an opportunity to enlighten men on the subtle language of 'Girlie Bar Frantic Signalling'. How many times do I have to wink outrageously before a guy gets the message;

'I don't really need to use the loo, but I want to get away from the guy to the left of me who is currently feeling my arse....?

ME: Excuse me boys, but do you know where the ladies' is?

SLEEZE BALL: Erm, no, I don't...

ME (directed at the Spaniard): Do you know? *wink wink wink*

SPANIARD: Yes, I do. *unhelpful silence*

ME: Oooooooo.K, could you show me? *wink wink wink maniacal wink*

SP. (pointing in a general direction): Over there somewhere.

S.B (pinching my arse again): I'll show you...

ME: But you don't know where they are. (To Spaniard), You do don't you...why don't you take me there? *WINK WINK EFFING WINK*

SP. : In a minute, let me finish my beer...

ME (desperately yanking beer from Spaniard's grasp, whilst fighting off hand that has now found my knickers): Actually, you need to show me NOW! *WIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNKKKK*

Finally wresting ourselves away from Sleeze Ball, Spaniard asks me if I am actually that desperate for the loo. I reply 'no, I don't actually need the goddam toilet!!'.

This is met with a blank stare of miscomprehension, so I spell it out 'I just needed to get away from that guy...'

Time taken for penny to drop, 10 minutes.

Note to general male populace: If a girl starts screwing up her eyes a lot, and gesturing wildly at you, looking as if she is having some trouble with a dodgy contact lens, trust me, she just needs you to swoop in like a debonaire character from an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, saying something along the lines of 'oh my darling, you seem to need some help, allow me...'

Think Carey Grant, suave, cool, with everything under control.

Do not look at your lady friend as if she is a paranoid schizophrenic with a bladder infection.

Continental Kebab Van Violence

2006-06-22T13:46:00.000+02:00

My head hurts....

Badly

And it is (as ever) my own silly fault - well, mine and the general populace of wine producers and vendors.

Last night was the Fête de la Musique in Lyon, a fabulous evening where everyone wanders around the centre watching bands in the open air for free, sipping on cat pee wine, dancing like idiots, losing shoes whilst dancing like idiots (you can tell this is me, can't you...), trying to find shoe in a crowd of 200 drunk and dancing people, realising shoe has gone on it's own little crowd surfing escapade, and that it is now near the stage, hopping manically on one foot (which was bloody difficult, considering remaining shoe was a wedge heel) through said crowd to retrieve said shoe. Completing mission successfully, to the cheers and general admiration of my friends.

Then ended up having a weird, vaguely existential conversation with a guy about Wagner and trombones...

Finished evening drunk as a skunk, and exceptionally happy, sitting on the kerb with me mates taking stupid photos - which I shall try and get my hands on and post here.

Oooooooohhh yes, how could I forget - I got punched on the cheek (by accident) by a guy who was fighting at the kebab van at 3 in the morning.

Very sweet about it - the two perpetrators stopped trying to beat the crap out of each other, made sure that I was OK, apologised profusely, offered to buy me a kebab...

...and then proceded to beat the crap out of each other again.

blush

2006-06-21T15:07:00.000+02:00

aha aha ahhhaahahaha...

Just hideously embarrassed myself...

(side note - Did You Know that it is impossible to say 'I embarrassed myself' in French? It doesn't exist...the Frenchies are obviously FAR too polished and refined to even dream up the concept of doing something so idiotic that you just stand around going bright red, fiddling with various bangles and coughing in a sheepish manner...)

Oh yes, thought I would impress the Lovely Spaniard with how hard I have been working on my Spanish, and reeled off my favourite phrase, concentrating particularly hard on the 'thththth' prononciation of 'c' and 'z'... 'mis manos pequeñas son vacías pero mi corazón es lleno'...

Getting all Marlene Deitrich and huffy about how absolutely perfect my Spanish is becoming, I waffled on about being ever so proud of myself, how Spanish wasn't actually that hard, and how I was particularly confident about talking at a high level, to anyone who would care to listen to my wonderful topics of conversation, when in Barcelona.

Except I said 'vacas', which means cows.

'My little cows are empty.....'

Now I am going to find the Spanish equivalent of 'Pride comes before a fall....'

Hurrah Hurrah

2006-06-21T14:37:00.000+02:00

lashings and lashings of ginger beer all round, Timmy, for 'tis two years today that I moved to France

A grand occassion indeed

May involve drinking this evening to celebrate, if my poor liver can stand up to it after the weekend...

Eh?

2006-06-21T00:02:00.000+02:00

Just did a bit of pre-class preparation web surfing, looking for suitable English comprehension material (i.e. looking for free books on the net), when stumbled upon a site offering audiobooks for free.

Great idea.

Then noticed a small sign next to each one;

Human Narrated

What on Earth.................?

This begs the question (sort of) about the other options that there may possibly be. Parrot, chimp? What about that simulated robotic voice thingy that BT customer service, Stephen Hawkings and the bus from the airport in Lyon use? Imagine Dickens with that kind of aural treatment

'it...was...the...best...of...times...it...was..the...worst...of...times...'

Just the idea of it send shivers down my spine, a bit like Musak versions of Tubular Bells on the pan pipes. I think it could spell the end of any teaching career.

n'importe quoi...mais, pour toi!

2006-06-20T23:43:00.000+02:00

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!

2006-06-20T23:18:00.000+02:00

Things that have pissed me off today:

My Ex's failure to buy a new toilet seat, to replace the one that he broke the day we broke up (ohh the ssssssweet irony!). It has now been 2 months, Olivier, and I am tired of falling on the floor everytime I need a pee. Sort it out!

Inability to find an organistation for volunteers that doesn't charge an outrageous amount in 'fees/costs/placement cover', or what other way they like to describe 'ripping people off'. All I want is a place to go an volunteer my teaching skills for a couple of months, in a Hispanophone country. I will pay my expenses, flights etc, but NOT agency fees. Any ideas welcome....

Banks, in general. 'Nuff said.

Mosquitos. Damn my white, juicy flesh!

Actually, that's about it, so I am obviously still incapable of getting angry for too long. Need to tap back into the adrenaline.

Aunt Augusta - I Need Your Advice

2006-06-20T22:49:00.000+02:00

Oh dear oh dear (hand wringing).....it has started to happen again.

The creeping feeling of The Travel Bug.

I am getting itchy as a cat in a barrel of fleas (does this metaphor actually exist?), and know exactly what the symptoms mean...

Let's look over the evidence:

Frightening obsession with latin music, even the most dodgy shit from the Eighties. Spending far too long fiddling around with the radio tuner, searching for badly received merengue music, piped in from godknowswhere (Julia said maybe Switzerland, but I personally cannot see the link)

Reading books in French and English by Spanish authors, also wading my way through short stories in Spanish

Dating a Spaniard

Passing a lot of time looking for jobs in Rio, Buenos Aires, Mexico

Passing a lot of time looking for holidays in Rio, Buenos Aires, Mexico

Sending text messages to friends in Spanish

Mentally trying to translate sentences I say during the day into Spanish

Now this is a lot of evidence. The last time I displayed these symptoms, was about 4 years ago, when the 'French Obsession' started.

Back then, I thought that moving to France would get it all out of my system. Which hasn't happened. Two years here, and I am still enamoured by everything. Well, France is a funny sort of mistress, there are things here so enticing and addictive, but she also drives you nuts, and is quite demanding.

I don't want to move. I want to get my apartment, shop at the market every weekend, relax now in the knowledge that after 2 years, people can actually understand what I am saying. I have a job lined up for the next two years here, a great job that I really want. I should be so, erm, well content dammit!!

Yet I want to dash off to the other side of the world, to learn a new language and experience a new culture, and have more adventures. This may just be a flighty attitude that I have inherited due to my rather nomadic childhood. Gah! such a contradiction (well, at least I am being consistent with myself)...

I get pea green with envy when my French friends go to their families' houses on a Sunday to see Tonton and Mamie, who have never changed, nor even left France. I crave a settled sort of existance, filled with plant pots, jam making and mortgages.

And yet I just want to fling everything into a suitcase and bugger off somewhere all Shiny and New.

Grass is greener, eh?

And anyway, this little girl can't complain too much - she is going to Barcelona for a month in ten day's time. I only hope it gets this wunderlust out of my system!

(I might also pause here, and reflect that I have recently had a birthday, and have now hit the 'age of finally pulling your finger out and being responsible'...and am being ridiculous about it).

26 ain't so bad

2006-06-16T11:48:00.000+02:00

I got a birthday cake with 100s and 1000s on it, and pink icing!!!

Ohhhh goody goody, I felt like a five year old again! Blue candles and everything!

Then promptly ate and drank too much, and felt rather sick.

Yes indeed, it really was a birthday party from my childhood - just the way I like it.

Thanks guys!

Birthday Suit

2006-06-15T10:09:00.000+02:00

Well, it is my birthday today.

After the traditional Crack of Dawn phone call from me Ma, who proceeded to sing 'Happy Birthday' down the telephone at me, I struggled out of my little bed, and wandered along to the boulangerie to buy a Birthday Baguette, or something nice and breakfast-y...

Except that I realised I was getting some very strange looks, and rather scornful ones from the women. And THEN I realised that in the early morning fogginess, I had forgotten to actually get dressed, and had wandered out into the street in my pyjamas.

You just can't do that kind of thing in France. One must be dressed for all occassions, and PJ's just don't cut the mustard. Or the confiture....

I felt like I had just drifted out of the Looney Bin;

Oh, for heaven's sake! I'm 26, not 126!

My Flat Mate Goes Greek

2006-06-15T09:40:00.000+02:00

And lo! There was a strange rumbling in the valley, and the peoples shook with fear! And he did breathe fire and smoke, and his head was a sulphurous mass of pig-stubborness.

And the Angel wielded the Sacred Mop, and did cleanse the floor of the Food Preparation Area, with the Holy Annointing Oil of Bleach, and lo! Our eyes were seared with a thousand bees and other stinging insects, cos the silly girl used too much bleach...

But the evil 6 headed monster did give fight to the Angel of the Pink Rubber Gloves, and refuse'd to clean up his bloody lunch dishes.

And there was a great wailing and gnashing of teeth, and the curse'd 6 headed monster did lift up and smash not only his lunch dishes, but also my favourite cassarole dish...and with a might scream and bellow, he did throw the crockery in the sink with such force that there was a breaking of glass and and a flying of shards of china.

And the Angel of the Pink Rubber Gloves did quake, but had no fear; for moral right and the fact that she is sick to the back teeth of cleaning the house all the bloody time, did give her strength, and she was annointed by the calming Oil of INDIGNANCY.

And the 6 headed monster did have a 'Terrible Temper Tantrum', such as has never been seen since the last 3 year old who had a temper tantrum... and he did throw the dishes in the Bin of Dust, snarling;

'Prithee, Angel of the Pink Rubber Gloves, provoketh me not, for I am the 6 headed monster of Lyon, and no one is going to make me do something like washing up, nor cleaning the toilet, for I am a Filthy Pig!'

And he did roar, and shake.

And the Angel of the Pink Rubber Gloves laughed with the laughter of a thousand glasses breaking, and told the 6 headed monster that he was an 'immature little prick'.

And lo! The 6 headed monster did re-enter his lair (which, incidentally is always SPOTLESS, unlike the rest of the house), and there he did SULK for 3 days.

And the Angel of the Pink Rubber Gloves gave thanks that now she had a bloody good excuse to Move Out, and promptly started looking for a new House...

Consternation

2006-06-15T09:05:00.000+02:00

...have been asked for a horticultural update..

Well, the Jonquilles on the balcony did not flower, and now they are doing something rather odd and curly and brown at their ends.

Obviously have to call Time of Death very, very, very soon.

Bugger.

Employment Bleus

2006-06-04T16:05:00.000+02:00

Oh where, oh where is Summer...

My gloating sins have come back to haunt me...spending a weekend in the Siberian... nay...BALTIC climes of Oxford whilst mouthing off about the fabulous weather in Lyon is not karmically intelligent. Cold, windy, shiversome...and it is now the 4th June...

...Which means that for the Frenchies, life has slowed right down, and people seem to just faff about waiting for their August holidays.

Students are not in the mood to conjugate anything, I have finished the academic term, and now I look forward to three months of relative inertia...apart from a month studying my buttocks off in Barcelona in July...

And so to the inevitable crap-I-need-to-find-a-job fandango. Apart from the fact that in France, unemployment is at a ridiculous level. Can I find a basic waitressing job for the summer? NO. Why not? Because I need at least 5 years experience. Explaining that it was only really for the summer was not a good move:

- 'but you know, madame, to be une serveuse is to follow a fine tradition in restauration...' indignant *sniff*...

Ah. So I can't just be a mardy waitress for a couple of months? No, I must want to follow an ancient career path of waiters and waitresses before me, treading in their well worn footsteps, humbling myself to an Nth degree in order to be qualified enough to serve some tourist a cup of coffee.

'you see, theese iz ze problème wit ze anglais...vous pensez that eet eez just a case of serrrving a cawfee...but eet eez an hart! We export our fully trained and prrrrofessionell serveurs to Eeengland, becaws you not 'ave zee correct attitude!'

Ah, that's me told then...

Off to sign on the dole - ohhhh yes, but I forgot! I am not eligible!!

Feel like wearing a sign -

'educated, willing, bilingual person, able to do pretty much anything...EMPLOY MEEEEEEEEEE!!!'

I swallowed a Dictionary

2006-05-12T08:30:00.000+02:00

I have been horse whipped into writing something...alas my afflatus has diminished, as am so tired I am practically making somniloquies.

So I shall make a pandiculation, shake off my lassitude and continue with the mellifluous tone of this blogg, as rests aptly with my general proclivities.

AH! you see, I am gearing up my sprachgefuhl and inviting you into the arcane world of 'Vocabulary For my Terminales Who Don't Want to Work'...

My usual ostentatious and sentient orations are being curtailed for a number of reasons...the propinquity of the end of term, the ubiquitous laziness of my students and the contumeliness of the comments left on the previous post, demanding that I be sequacious and type my little fingers off...

All this is a bit of a batrachomyomachy, and I shall return soon bearing news of exploits with religiously named figure (IT'S A COMMON FIRST NAME IN SPAIN OK?? JEEEEEEZZ!).

I trust that this entry has not been overly portentous, and obviates the need to harangue me to write ...

Craig, if this doesn't rock your boat, I don't know what will... Dictionaries at the ready!

courgettes 'R' us

2006-05-04T00:59:00.000+02:00

SO the cauliflower conversation worked it's charm....smile smile smile

NEVER underestimate the power of intellectual vegetable talk!

It leads on to exciting things like film conversation, dates and kisses....

1st of May (on the 2nd, of course...)

2006-05-02T12:01:00.000+02:00

I have an overwhelming sense of achievement that this is, indeed, my 50th post. Congratulations me for being amply self absorbed...it warms the cockles of my heart!

I wanted to write yesterday, it being the First of May, something about Maypoles and May balls and Muguet (lily-of-the-valley flowers that the Frenchies give each other on the 1st May...I recieved two bunches...smile smile smile!), however, I got a little side tracked...

Suffice to say that Sofian backed up my theory that cauliflower is a suitable subject for conversing on dates. He said that talking about various vegetables was a charming attribute, and that if I felt that strongly about them, then I was well within my rights to talk about it without fear of ridicule. Just as long as I wasn't proposing something sordidly sexual involving the Devil's Vegetable. What a great guy!

Here are some fun facts about the cauliflower, for those of you who want to impress future dates with your scintillating wit and charm à la Jonquille...

The scientific name for cauliflower is Brassica oleracea
The cauliflower is, indeed, a flower...the white part that we (well, not me) eat is the head of the underdeveloped flower
China is the largest cultivator of the cauliflower
Mark Twain said 'cauliflower is nothing but a cabbage with a college education' - a man after my own heart indeed!

Moving swiftly on to the enigma, 'A wolf, a goat, a cauliflower and a farmer'...there is one boat which can only take across the river one animal at a time, with the farmer. How do you get everything across the river without the wolf eating the goat, or the goat eating the cauliflower?. Answer to be posted shortly, when I can actually remember it...

www.dole5aday.com

Jonquille Substitute

2006-04-30T23:32:00.000+02:00

My flat mates don't believe that I am trying to cultivate jonquilles on the balcony...They think that I am growing leeks, or onions or garlic. Why? Because although my ten lovely bulbs are growing like wild-fire, they have yet to flower. It has now been six weeks that they have remained in this state.

I am trying not to be disappointed that so far I have only cultivated leaves in a pot. Especially as I prize my gardening skills.

So here is a picture of delightful narcissa jonquilla, after which I am named.

Small, fragrant and delicate.

Well, they say that you should be careful what names you choose for your children.

I suppose the only thing we have got in common is a slight tinge of yellow...

Anyway, for your viewing pleasure, and I only hope that mine on the balcony flower soon , so the guys stop snickering at me and demanding to know when I am going to make leek soup for them...

www.uni-bonn.de/~uzsmxn/.../Narcissus.html

Back in the Saddle Again

2006-04-30T21:12:00.000+02:00

Cool, calm, collected, cool, calm, collected...

Except not really.

Oh dear oh dear, yes Disasterous Date #36774 (well, that's a guess, but probably a conservative one).

Honestly, is it necessarily a complete disaster if the little Arabic tea house that you have chosen to go to, to snuggle up under pink lights on the sofas, drinking tea and smoking nargilé, decides to have a MALE belly dancer for the evening? A white, male belly dancer, with too much eyeliner and not enough hip? And what if said male belly dancer takes a liking to your date (who, by virtue of the fact that you are on a date with him, is straight), and spends most of his act wafting chiffon scarves around said date, and waggling his hips in a provocative yet distinctly camp manner?

And what if you spend these moments trying desperately not to laugh by practically shoving your fist in your mouth, coming off as particularly uncharitable...even if you did really appreciate his three costume changes, especially the rather natty little number in red with the gold tassels and coins?

Ah, perhaps things weren't so bad, except that the full throttle nervous Jonquille was launched...and the wittering commenced. The pinnacle of my efforts had to be the 'like/dislike of cauliflower' debate. This, I must admit, is of interest to me. Call it a little bit of side line research into the Devil's Vegetable. Innocent until cooked is all I can say. I defend my subject choice, but perhaps am willing to concede that it doesn't quite scream 'Noam Chomsky is my protegé'. At all. So the Lovely Spaniard won on the sweet/salt popcorn debate (a salty sea dog of salt pop corn kinda guy), but NADA on the cauliflowers! Qué lastima, senor!!

So I am slowly coming to realise that in terms of my love life, a bit of a language barrier works wonders for me. As long as we are at the 'gesticulating wildly and grinning like loons at each other' stage, I have a chance of letting my charms shine though. The moment I date a linguist, polyglot and frighteningly fluent in English, my cover is blown, and I am revealed to my horror as...GASP... a WITTERER!!! As the realisation hits me, and my nervous system checks out, the vicious circle of high speed babbling kicks in, and any hope of coming across as a serene, calm and oh-so-other-wordly individual gets shot down, even before it can commit hari kari by refusing the date in the first place. Craig will vouch for this.

Still, I am sure that as long as I stick to men who don't speak a word of English, I can find a kind cavalier who can take it in his stride.

I am living an Almodovar double life. There are far too many uncanny coincidences in his films that parallel with my life. Last week, 'The Flower of my Secret'...long distance love buggers up and woman spends rest of film retrieving her life and getting over it. Ok, so it actually only took me 5 days (ohhhhh, quelle salope!), but the theme was there.

This week 'Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown' (no, the title is not the parallel)...woman makes gazpacho...I made gazpacho!! Obviously there is a deep Jungian connectivity between myself and darling Pédro Al. Although I didn't put tranquilizers in mine. So someone, somewhere (P. Almodovar, I like to think) is trying to tell me something...

Right, I'm off to conjugate more Spanish verbs - must learn something before I go to Barcelona. I want to be able to communicate somewhat. But never fear! I will maintain a strictly basic level...that way I might actually have the chance of impressing another lovely Spaniard, without asking him 'What do you think Lions think about, and do you think we could understand them if we knew?'

(This was originally an high-brow article about language and philosophy that I read in the Grauniad, and managed to reduce to a blonde-level question...)

Guapo y guapa

2006-04-27T03:09:00.000+02:00

Have just returned home after a rather lovely evening spent in the company of 2 Brits, 5 Spaniards and 2 Frenchies...

Came face to face with one of my phobias: clowns...

well, in the shape and form of Rafael, who was a clown in Spain for a year at the age of 18. Apparently he was a frightening clown, scaring all the little kiddies with his hangover, alcohol breath....Would have loved to have been entertained by that, rather than the motley assortment of dodgy, quasi child molesters that seemed to be prolific at children's parties of my youth. Many juggling attempts ensued, which (after watching 'the most boring BCN match I have ever seen' and quite a bit of consolatory alcohol) was actually just an opportunity for people to throw cigarette packs at each other. Managed to juggle two (yes, two! Count 'em!) lighters...

Managed also to cough up some Spanish phrases, which was great, because I am in the process of learning it, but being in France, don't get that much chance to try... especially the phrase which I love:

'mis manos pequeñas son vacías pero mi corazón es lleno'

(my small hands are empty, but my heart is full)

and thanks to this little effort, have a possible date with a lovely spaniard tomorrow night. How wonderful that a little linguistic effort can be so fruitful tee hee!

Won't hold my breath, but will let you know how it goes

Right, off to collapse in my bed after one too many pastis - I really ought to change my drink preference, am becoming a pastiche...Or is that a pastis?

Monsieur Massembé

2006-04-26T15:45:00.000+02:00

At last it has happened to me...

For quite a while now I have been overcome with violent pangs of envy everytime I went to the loo at my friend Vanessa's house. She has the most fabulous collection of flyers from various voodoo priests, promising to solve all sorts of problems from back ache to marriage, lost lovers and unknown diseases.

It is beyond me how you can cure an unknown disease...do they mean a non existant disease? How do you know if you are infected if it is unknown?

And is marriage a problem from which we need to be cured?

These sort of flyers force me to ponder weighty things as I reach for the bog roll (and why is it everyone else is quite capable of shelling out for the expensive stuff? Am I the only wannabe post-war throwback who refuses to splash out financially on something that you wipe your bottom with and then throw away? Suffice to say that going to 'splosh me clogs' chez Vanessa is a vastly superior exercise than having a quick tinkle chez-moi)...

Back to the point;

Today after I trotted ridiculously around the park in an equally ridiculous manner, pretending that 2km is actually going to do me a lot of good, I returned home and checked my post box.

There, glittering and alone was my Very Own Voodoo Flyer, courtesy of Monsieur Massembé.

The Joy! Here is what he promises (translation for anglophones beneath):

MONSIEUR MASSEMBE
Grand Médium - Voyant exceptionnel

Avec le don ancestral, il vous impressionnera par la clarité de sa voyance dès le premier contact. N'hésitez pas, venez découvrir la vérité que vous cherchez depuis toujours; vous avez un problème qui vous tourmente, vous vivez seul(e), vous vous sentez mal aimé(e), retour rapide et définitif de l'être aimé, désenvoûtement, protection, amour durable, concours, clientèle pour commerce. Grâce à l'acquisition des secrets de la forêt africaine, il peut vous aider dans la discrétion à résoudre tous vos problèmes. Résultats surprenants et immédiats, garantis 100% dans les 4 jours. Reçoit sur RDV.

With his ancestral gift, he will impress you with the clarity of his clairvoyance from the first moment. Don't delay, come and discover the truth you have always sought; you have a problem that torments you, you live alone, you feel unloved, quick and permanent return of a loved one, release from a spell, protection, lasting love, exams, customers for your business. Thanks to the acquisition of the secrets of the African forest, he can help you resolve, with discretion, all of your problems. Astonishing results immediately, 100% guaranteed in 4 days. By appointment only.

What is bothering me, of course, is the African Forest. Which one precisely?

also...'astonishing results immediately.....in 4 days'. Does four days count as 'immediately'?

Does it mean that you get a bit of your lover back, and then in four days time, all of him? Which bit do you get back first? Which bit do you get back last?? Can you change your mind after day 2, or will you be left with a small heap of viscera and a random limb?

Ahhhhhh...weighty, weighty topics

Also disappointed that there is no promise to 'make your ex-lover follow you around like a dog at your heels', like Professeur Mbabé, in Vanessa's toilet. Hmff.

But then, my Water Closet has a long way to go to reach such dazzling heights...

You wot?

2006-04-26T13:48:00.000+02:00

I found an aftershave in the supermarket called 'Craps' yesterday.

For only 6 euros 50, you too can be the proud owner of a dice shaped bottle that promises to make you smell like crap...

or maybe it is a hybrid between crap and crabs

dammit - I wish I had a camera!!

yes I know it is actually named after an obsolete gambling game, the reference to which can be found in many jazz standards...lalala 'won't go to craps games in diamonds and pearlsssssssssss...that's why the lady is a traaaamp'...

but somehow that makes it so so much worse

Wish List

2006-04-25T10:29:00.000+02:00

Lots of my friends are getting hitched. I am being sent Wedding Lists, funky little things telling me what gifts I should buy to wish them well. All well and good (as long as there is something within the 5 - 10 euro price range...quite frankly I just can't afford that pink SMEG fridge).

But what about us people who aren't tying the knot? When do we get to send lists to our friends demanding gifts?

I am newly single (hurrah!)...so thought maybe it would be apt to post a little wish list of things that people can give me to celebrate a free and easy summer...

1) Digital Camera...primarily so I can post more photos on this 'ere blog, thereby entertaining you, gentle reader. It is beyond me why I have yet failed to dip into the purse and splash out on one....oh yes, now I remember...that hideous doctor's bill earlier this year...

2) Flights to Athens in July so I can see the Beloved and flirt with beautiful Greek men again (ohhhh the memories of last year!)

3) Golden Syrup (here, a token nod to the impoverished among us)

4) erm...actually, can't think of a fourth...aren't I a low maintenance kinda gal?....ok, so this one you can fill in - something ridiculous and bizarre (but NOT illegal folks)...

Are you feeling generous?

Sun Tan Sun Burn Sun Stroke

2006-04-24T11:55:00.000+02:00

AHHHHHHHHH! Summer has arrived! Well, for the handful of expats here in Lyon, at least. I am wandering around in flip flops and little tops, whilst the Lyonnais are still swathed in boots and coats...

'mais Jonquille, ce n'est pas été, que -est ce que tu fais alors??'

And so to the fake sun tan disaster...

After envying the long and lithesome bronzed limbs that are appearing slowly around town, I decided to go and get a bottle of the stuff to turn my little neon white pins into something that Betty Grable would be proud of.

Why bother?? the last time I tried this method, I was 15 and naive. Now I am 25 and still, obviously, naive. This time financial prudency was on my side however, as a balked at the 30 euro price tag of some 'amazing' cream that promised sun kissed splendour. I went for the budget option - 5 euros for some rather natty little wipes that you supposedly smear all over the offendingly white body parts, and in a couple of hours BANG! Beautiful brown legs, arms, knees etc etc...

Oh woe is me!! Four hours later and I have some strange carrot-y effect streaked down my calves, fairly strange 'tide marks'...and as of yesterday, spent relaxing in the sunshine, red sunburn.

I look like a fruit salad sweet...you know those delightful chewy things coloured with something that was perhaps created in a nuclear lab.

Never again, never again! I am consigned to spend at least 20 minutes extra in the shower with a loofah, scouring my poor abused skin to within an inch of it's life in an attempt to get back to my natural lily-white state. But of course, this method only renders me more red, inflammed and pissed off. And having to wear jeans in the sunshine, a jumper and proper shoes (my mother would be proud...no skin flashing for the next week!)

And what happens this weekend if I go on a date which is successful...how does one translate 'no, honestly, don't worry, it isn't contagious, just self inflicted'?

Currently:

Frying the herbs on the balcony - gazing at them in a loving, domestic manner, but failing to realise that maybe plants need water

Drinking too much pastis (out of season) and being accused of coming from Marseille ( a great crime in Lyon)

Trying not to feel guilty every time I dodge the sunshine and go to the cinema to sit in gloomy, artistic silence for the Almodovar revival

Flaaaaaap Jacks

2006-03-24T14:00:00.000+01:00

And just whilst there is racial pride in the air (see blogg below), some of you (haha, namely Betts and Craig) will be glad to know that flapjacks are actually Scottish. And not deep fried. Wow.

Only thing is, where the hell do I find Golden Syrup in Lyon? Ideas on the back of a postcard...

Ingredients For Flapjacks:
75g of butter or margarine
50 - 75g light brown sugar
1 tablespoon of golden syrup
175g of porridge oats

Flapjack Baking Directions:
1. Put the butter or margarine, sugar and golden syrup into a saucepan and stir over a low heat until the fat and sugar have melted.
2. Add the porridge oats and blend thoroughly.
3. Press into a well greased 18cm square sandwich tin.
4. Bake in the centre of a moderate oven at 180c or 350f or gas mark 4 for 25 minutes or until evenly golden brown. 5. Mark into fingers whilst warm.
6. Allow to become almost cold in the tin before removing.
7. Enjoy!

Courtesy of Scottish Recipeswhere you can find other wonderful Scots recipes, aside fromHaggis.

http://www.scottishrecipes.co.uk/flapjacks.htm

Rant and Reward

2006-03-24T13:17:00.000+01:00

Well, I was going to rant on and on about being the subject of racism today, for the first time in two years, and how shitty it is to be treated as if you are abusing the State's benevolence by your mere presence in a country (even though I actually pay my taxes like every other frenchie, am an EU member, and don't use any benefits...)

However, I can't be bothered having a political rant about France's ridiculous immigration laws, blatant inability to integrate and accept it's immigrant population, it's archaic and Utopian notions of equality....the CPE, the kids in the banlieux, Le Pen etc. etc. etc.

So instead you get a lovely picture of ME smiling in Rome, on holiday.

There, rant over, I feel much better!

Rome (for a slight subject change)

2006-03-24T08:33:00.000+01:00

Well, not French, obviously, but European...me throwing (rather idiotically) 5 centimes in the Fontana di Trevi. I could add more ridiculous photos of Rome (Bloke-in-Tow took 324, I kid not...the flash going off, and that little 'schzz' of velcro was the soundtrack to our holiday), but I don't want to inflict them on my reading public. Well, only if you ask nicely, you sado masochists, you!

Standard Received Prononciation

2006-03-24T08:00:00.000+01:00

Oh dear oh dear oh dear! This year is going far too fast! I remember reading somewhere in some rather high falutin' scientific journal the exact reason why as get older, the years seem to pass quicker....all stuff to do with fractions of your life, i.e at age 5, a year was 1/5 of your life, whereas at my grand age of 25-careering-into-26, 1/25 of my life seems rather insignificant.

OK, far too much maths first thing in the morning....So where did I leave you? Oh yes, the post Christmas moan...well, now we are in mid-March, it is STILL raining, and I have to find a job before June turns up. Found out this morning that I am not eligible for chomage, even though I have been paying my taxes like a good little citoyenne for 9 months now.

'Why not?', I asked the admin lady, rather rationally, I thought.
'Because we don't want all the English coming over and profiting from the French way of life'.

Riling slightly at the fact that she had blatantly got my nationality wrong, I forgot to ask, 'why the bloody hell not?'...until I realised that I was sounding like a Daily Mail reader (god forbid), and that it was a small step until I started saying things like 'bloody frogs' and citing 'Agincourt'...which is a horrific thing to even consider.

So that was this morning. It is now 8am, and I have a Friday full of teaching children not to say 'I am so-so' when asked how they are. Where did they learn this archaic, Agatha Christie term? I can't remember the last time I used it (if ever), and I have been desparately trying to get across to my students that it is much better to say 'I'm OK', or 'Fine, thanks'

...and if they happened upon a group of hip and happening youths (now I really DO sound like a teacher, or maybe my mother), they would probably get the piss taken out of them if they said things like, 'I like to spend Saturday afternoons with my sister. We play tennis. I like rap music'.

The thing is, if I try and use my unorthodox methods of teaching...like accidently (ACCIDENTLY) faking an orgasm in front of 25 sixteen year old boys whilst demonstrating for them vowel sounds and aspirated H's (a, a, a, e, e, e, ooo, oo, ooo, huh, huh, huh) and taking a full 3 minutes to realise that the whole class was SILENT and staring fixedly at my chest...I end up trying to teach them the correct prononciation of SHIT, and such like.

Honestly, grammar is my highest priority, and I was even brave enough to use a Shakespeare sonnet last week (although the boys went into hysterics when they came across the word 'ecstasy'....and I spent 5 minutes telling them 'no, NOT the drug, no, NOT the drug...'). But sometimes, just sometimes, the only thing that will get the kids interested enough to talk and discuss are subjects which are, let us say, frankly a little risky. Oh well, all in a day's work for someone not eligible for unemployment benefit....

Also learning Spanish, trotted around Rome for 8 days in the rain, got stung at the doc's for 200 euros and found new flat mates. But I will tell you all of this later...

Because it is February

2006-01-20T08:06:00.000+01:00

It is amazing what a little praise and encouragement can do....here I am back again at eight in the morning (damned school hours), hiding in the staff room whilst pretending to organise lesson plans. Yes I actually got a proper job teaching English in a Lycee (15 to 18 years olds): Or rather, got a job trying to make such lessons as 'A Day in the Life of Derek' seem interesting and worthwhile.

January (Inspiration Deficit)

2006-01-17T16:23:00.000+01:00

So how was your Chrimbo?

Mine was spent eating far too much foie gras (I am very unsure of this Seasonal French obsession - fattening geese until their livers' explode, and then naming it a delicacy? Well, it tastes good, and is bloody expensive...), and yelling 'QUOI??' at startled 'bloke-in-tow', to every question asked, because I managed to catch Otitis from the Little Chap and spent Christmas being deaf in one ear. Also generally stuck in the corner away from the relatives, like some old bat whose dentures keep springing out.

But apart from that was wonderful...

And as you can witness, the half-hearted resolutions that I made were firstly to get rid of my brioche (involving many, MANY sit ups a day - HA! We shall see how long that lasts!) and also to return to the blogging.

I have to say that I thought more of you would be proud of my lack of blogging - thus lack of self interest - but no, most of you want me to continue the egotistical ramblings, justified only vaguely by the promise of Cultural Insight on French Daily Life.

Coming soon to a blog near you...

How to Survive Two French Christmas Dinners with No Sense of Taste
How to Pay the Doctor by Writing a Cheque Whilst Half Passed Out on the Floor
How to Pretend that You Have a Professional Grasp of the English Language

Well, as soon as I have finished my bloody sit ups, that is........

Early Resolutions...

2005-12-20T17:13:00.000+01:00

Ah yes. As we come creaking to the end of the year, I can only hang my head in abject shame as regards the blatant disregard of this 'ere blog. I don't think I even made the 6 month average life span....more like three before the blog morphed into a shivering and twitching wreck. But then, I always did have something bodering on an Attention Deficit Disorder.

So I make no excuses, I will not list my reasons for not bothering (even though some of them ARE rather interesting!). Like a sophisticated mistress, I shall keep mum, and let your flithy little imaginations do the rest!

I Take It All Back

2005-09-12T07:50:00.000+02:00

Sitting relaxing on a Sunday afternoon, listening to BBC Radio 3, and reading the Guardian.

How can I possibly take umbridge at some poor chap who wants to watch the cricket. I am so cruel.

And a hypocrite.

A thousand apologies.

It's just not cricket

2005-09-10T07:16:00.000+02:00

Was sitting outside my favourite cafe with the Lovely Julia yesterday, wittering on, as usual in high speed French. When who should appear but one of the Guilford blokes I bumped into last Friday (the one who took my number, and then failed to ring, thank god).

GRRRRRRRR.

He was looking for a bar in which to watch the cricket.

PLEASE go home if you can't assimilate, it is highly embarrassing. The most irritating thing was that I then had to explain my (rather sketchy) concept of cricket, how it is played and the general rules to a bewildered Julia. This stumps most die hard cricket fans, let alone me, who can't really tell the difference between cricket and rounders.

Or in Julia's case, croquet.

Oh dear Lord

2005-09-10T06:43:00.000+02:00

Quite literally speaking, this one. Tried to have a butchers at the old site, typed in the web address....Was received by the "Megasite of Bible Studies and Information'. WHAT?! I have heard of Divine Intervention, and on a few drunken occasions might have witnessed it too. But my site turning into an info web for Bible bashers? SHHHURELY NOT. I'm not that Soddom and Gommora yet. Although I can't spell Gommora, so obviously have need of a site like this, or will burn in hell, or something. Are we witnessing an unearthly, holy presence on the web, to be worshipped and feared?

Of course not. I just typed in the wrong bloody address. aahhahaaahahaa. So if you want a laugh, go to

www.lostinlyon.blogpot.com

You see what I did there? Ah yes! The all important 'S'. Forget that folks, and you may well reach your salvation. Because quite frankly, I can't say that this blogg is a life affirming experience, nor particularly enlightening.

So on to more important things than my spiritual well being......ME.

The Lovely V has been bored out of her mind recently, and has kindly forwarded all sorts of interesting things to do on the Web. Mostly psychological experiments. (Am slightly concerned about her perception of me....).

For those of us who are arty farty, rabidly scientific, or just bored, I also recommend the following site, purely because it caters to all of my instincts...Firstly by asking my opinion on art (and as we all know, I am SUCH a connoisseur), and finishes by telling me all about my personality type.

See if it is accurate or not: Apparently I have

1 - High extroversion
2 - High Agreeableness (tee hee!)
3 - High Intellectualism (Oh joy! Oh rapture! I'm not thick as shit after all!)
4 - High Emotional Intelligence

Then it gets a little sticky.....

5 - Average conscientiousness (yes, perhaps I am a little erratic in the old house keeping stakes)

And finally...

6 - Average Emotional Stability. (Oh Dear. Well, at least it wasn't High Emotional Instability...But close nevertheless)

So does that sound like me? They didn't give an Ego-Obsessive rating, but we all know how I score on that one!

The address for this delightful little romp is:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/surveys/art/

So go and knock yourselves out, discovering 'You".

Oh, must include something vaguely French...hmmm...Well, the Lovely Colette will be winging her way over here in October, So watch out for exciting reports of the capers and japes we get up to. Ginger Beer all round, Timmie! Or some such Enid Blyton type thing.

Ole

2005-09-07T07:07:00.000+02:00

Have booked train tickets to Barcelona...am now looking forward to a nine hour trip on the way, changing twice. I realise that I might have to pick up some Spanish (words, that is!), but could only find the Italian phrase book on the bookshelf. Will this work? Possibly, if I smile nicely enough. Ideas for appropriate phrases to learn please...and no filth (OK, maybe a little!).

HERE I AM!!

2005-09-07T06:16:00.000+02:00

This is the cheekiest grin I could muster, without looking like a complete loon. Although Loonish photos are available at a Jonquille Outlet near you (Hurry! Hurry! Summer Madness sale ends soon!).

La Rentree

2005-09-07T06:08:00.000+02:00

I have to say that it gives me a warm, squidgy feeling inside, just knowing how much my absence impacts on the lives of my dear Readers.

I have to agree that I have been particularly slack recently....but geez louis prima - can NONE of you work out why?? No imagination, I tell you. Three clues, and after that, we change the subject:

1) gazing starry-eyed at the moon

2) investing in ridiculously useless shoes (always a primary symptom)

3) trying to book train tickets to Spain.

Is that enough evidence to plead temporary insanity and get let off the hook? Oh good. How charitable of you all!
So love life is all go, and I shall leave it on the back burner...

Life has returned to Lyon. It's like some kind of social Pre-Cambrian Explosion, though perhaps with less jelly-like life forms...
Ah yes, the bars are packed with bright eyed students, the streets are vibrant all evening, public transport in the heat is once again unbearable...

And yet I seem to be saying goodbye. Not only has Mr Spain disappeared off to, erm, Spain, but today the Lovely Lotta left Lyon (cor blimey, wot aliteration!), and after a teary-eyed farewell, I watched the last standing Suede disappear up the escalator to the train platform. Although to be fair, she is actually Finnish...

But nevertheless, I seem to be the only Anglophone left, and I have started to maniacally quote John Donne (I ain't an Island, ok?) and turn my thoughts to the glorious 14th of Sept, when a certain little Yankie lass returns to put things to rights. What to do, what to do...oh well, better just spend more time with my Frenchies...

Except nothing stops the British invasion. On Friday night, a little threesome of Lotta (Finnish), Kouri (Japanese) and Me (Scots) went out, all speaking our variously accented French, the common language between us. So who do I bump into in a club?

Nothing but blokes from Guildford. Is there some mathematical equation that shows within a certain population of lovely Frenchies, there will always be a bloke from either Croydon, Basildon or Guildford? In fact, Craig, that's the kind of thing you could do.....

It took one poor bloke, who is over here for Erasmus, nearly 10 minutes to work out that I wasn't French, and 12 minutes to stop saying things like, 'oooh, I think French girls are so cute'. I don't think I helped my case by replying, 'Really? Pity, as I'm from Edinburgh'. Bless, I think he got really embarrassed by that.

Oh yes, and I managed to use the squat toilet on 'La Passagere" (the boat bar), WITHOUT pissing on my shoes/jeans/pants, whilst on a DATE. How proud am I? More to the point, how proud are you?

The Lady Returneth

2005-08-24T08:39:00.000+02:00

AH! Cher amis, how long you have faithfully waited for a hushed word from my lips...how long you have ached and burned to hear the quotidienne nonesense spring forth in verbal rhapsody...how often you have all sent me hate-emails demanding to know where the fuck I have been....

Well, after ten lovely days of not writing anything (why did that feel so much like a holiday?), I am yet again here to fill you in on 'ze bizz'.

First things first - to cast aside petty rumour and misunderstanding, lovely french bloke was not caught during my online dating escapades. Oh no. He was a genuine 'friend of a friend' thing, you know, more my kind of style than trawling through emails sent by desperate individuals looking for their 'soul sister' (and they don't mean Sister Sledge. Ah ha ha ha! See? Haven't lost the ol' sense of humour!...ok, I take your point).

Good thing - now know a hell of a lot more rude French words, and You Lot get to hear me ranting again.

Bad thing - although Lyonnais, he lives and works in Barcelona. Erm, that's right. And so Mr Fiday Night becomes Mr Spain. It is a mite too far for even my faithful little self, so after fond fairwell, hand kissing (I kid not) and bittersweet smiles, we parted... though armed with telephone numbers, email addresses and promises to visit...Will let you know how that pans out.

And thus I am hunched over the computer, wine on one side, candles on the other, listening to Mozart's masonic musique, dabbing the corners of my eyes with my lace edged handkerchief. Ok, not really (well, the hankie part, anyway), am feeling a little mopey, but otherwise on Top Form.

For where would I be without these romantic interludes? For example, I am now fully qualified to give you the Francophone Championship Board, as discussed by Mr Spain and friends:

#1 The French - of course, they invented the word chauvinism (or rather, bastardised the Latin). And who am I to contradict?

#2 The Swiss - Taking second place as a reward for their neutrality, chocolate, and their trans-alps drug supply

#3 The Luxembourgians - I have nothing to say. It's a small, grey place, apparently

#4 The Quebecoise - Although they have their own, unintelligible version of the French language, are recognised as a bastion of hope against the Brits across the pond

#5 The Cajuns - sort of inbred, zydeco playing second cousins to the Quebecoise, but the only French speakers who actually ENJOY hot food

#6 The Belgians - I have no idea why they are always the butt of French jokes, but I have to admit that it makes a refreshing change from hearing bad German jokes. I have yet to hear anti-English jokes, but I suppose that is primarily due to the fact that even the French aren't THAT rude.

And so I have spent a few evenings trying to do a Belgian impression, with lots of back-of-the-throat gutteral noises, but infact, ended up doing it quite well. I think it has lots to do with my Scots blood......

Oooh yes, and may have a date with a banker. What was that I always said? One deal closes and another opens...

Check Mate

2005-08-14T08:46:00.000+02:00

A thousand, million apologies, gentle readers, for my blatant disregard of blog over the past few days. I have been busy. Smiling. AND playing chess. And drinking champagne...I feel hellishly guilty that life and love has made a turn up for the better, but to be honest, it was about bloody time too. And thus Mr Not-In-The-Car-Friday-Night has become Mr Makes-Me-Giggle-In-A-Ridiculous-Manner. And smile.

Ahem, ahem, ahem (a great clearing of the throat)...And so to present business.

Ah, a new subject is needed I feel, and so shall sit back, swigging my demi-biere on the Terrasse, listening to the crickets gambol and chirrup in the undergrowth, and think hard.

Oh dear, it seems the only thing that I am qualified to speak about at the moment is mostly in regard to champagne fuelled chess matches (vis a vis that really dodgy scene in the original Thomas Crown Affair, but without bad, Sixties soundtrack), and realise that this has turned me into a drunkard-geek. The 'Things I Have Done Today' list isn't going to help me much, as I spent most of today curled up in bed, trying to ignore the constant hammering (gutter!) of Yannick the Builder. Who has finally made some sort of kitchen area, with cupboards, but as yet, no sink. A case of everything but... (boom boom, how I make myself laugh!). And he is mightily pissed off, as he is behind schedule, and has to work on Monday, WHICH IS A CRIME NON PAREIL in France.

Monday is the 15th August, and nothing, no one, no living creature moves (and possibly only breathes when absolutely necessary). We're not talking Bank Holiday Monday in Britain, where everyone gets very sloshed on Sunday night, but can still buy a kit kat and bog roll at the local Spar on Monday if required. Oh no.

In Lyon, if you are left in the city over this weekend, you are one of the following;

1) Orphaned

2) Suffering from medically recognised B.O. problems, and obsessed with hot Metro carriages

3) Absolutely poor (even the hobos here seem to have gone South for the weekend)

4) A tourist

Ah, the poor tourists. Currently seen wandering aimlessly around the city, wondering why they can't eat, find a place to stay, go to any museums, buy said bog roll/kit kat, drink, or observe the inhabitants. Why have they just arrived in droves? (I hear you ask)...well, the flights to Lyon from London, and from Germany are dirt cheap right now. But you see, only idiots would come to Lyon on the weekend of the 15th (or for that matter, anywhere in France). Right now, Frenchie tour operators are laughing into their sleeves at their ameliorating commissions, gained by selling weekends away in Lyon for peanuts, to unsuspecting Brits, who thought (foolishly) that a nice, cheap weekend away in the second largest city in France would be a good idea.*

HA HA HA.

*(But the silver lining is that they will leave, go back to Britain and purport the myth that Lyon is a really boring town and not worth the bother, thereby cloaking my beloved city from rampaging Brit property buyers and other twats).

The only idiots who will be working on Monday are myself, and Yannick, who will no doubt sabotage the kitchen plumbing in revenge.

Moral of the tale? Go and find someone to play chess with on the 15th (shall remember this next year).

Men and Motors

2005-08-11T08:54:00.000+02:00

I realise previous post is info-lite (TM) and thus, in some sense, I owe You Lot an explanation...

So I will illustrate with a question:

If men (god bless them) have one track minds (bear with me, before any you of the male persuasion get uppity with that statement), AND let us say around 80% of said men like cars....why do they make it so blooming difficult to combine the two?

Bucket seats are a no-no, and no front seats can recline in that way...even in the darling, adored French-made Renault. Surely a gap in the design market? Aeroplanes have managed to embrace fully reclining seats (given, at extortionate cost), why not car manufacturers?

But you will be happy to hear that I kept my semblance of dignity (such as it is) and declined the offer, feeling somewhere between Mary Poppins and Maria Von Trapp. Poor Julie Andrews, she will be haunted by the sex appeal of the nanny/ex-nun variety, though I can't for the life of me work out why!

And as this blog is somewhat 'Life in France' based (although, admittedly, often only tenuously), I feel compelled to do thorough research on the French male, such as he is.

Findings so far...

1) Exceptionally romantic from the off...in a quasi-off putting way. (See previous post for example).

2) Generally has slightly unhealthy obsession with man jewellery...WHY?? I cannot find a chain necklace on a bloke remotely enticing, yet they ALL (not just the french equivalents of chavs) wear them. When pressed on the point, I am met with puppy dog eyes and the reply that 'eet eez senteemontale'...apparently, french mamas like to give their male offspring these ridiculous pieces of metal, especially on the occassion of the eighteenth birthday. This might have to be added to my list of pet hates...

3) Cannot function in a social environment without trusty side-kicks. The Three Musketeers meets Bart Simpson+Millhouse.

4) Quite, quite gallant - most definitely live up to racial stereotype.

5) Spend far too much money on lingerie for lady-loves. 200 euros for a pair of pants?! Oh how that grates against my British sensibility! AND you have to hand wash them, pshaw! (Tacky pink, diamante, ribbon-tied thongs also joining pet hate list)

6) There is nothing quite as sexy as someone whispering sweet nothings in your ear, in a broken English accent...and being told how wonderful you are in French. Tra la la!

Frenchies are Fun

2005-08-11T08:47:00.000+02:00

Smile Smile Smile Smile Smile Smile Smile Smile Smile Smile Smile Smile Smile Smile Smile Smile Smile Smile Smile Smile!

Pine Fresh

2005-08-09T08:34:00.000+02:00

I realise that blogging is a little like dieting - it all starts well, but then the tub of vanilla ice cream lurking in the fridge somehow takes over all thought processes..

My metaphorical tub of vanilla ice cream is, of course, my love life...though perhaps not quite so cold, nor expendable. But I did promise myself not to bang on about it, because it is the kind of thing that bores the shit out of most people, even those involved. And there is nothing worse than being a bore.

Except being a love pariah, perhaps...

However, my love life (or blatant lack of) does seem to interest quite a large proportion of you (DON"T email me comments! Comment on the blog!!!). And as I am ever eager to please, like a cocker spaniel puppy that's been hit on the side of the head one too many times, I shall continue to blog my disgracefully slow and painful progress as and when there is any vague sign of amelioration in that department.

Otherwise, I shall stick to comments about great French cheese, the weather and, of course, dog crap.

I have found my amputated siamese twin (slightly scary, considering she was a doddery old lady wearing a purple crocheted beret).

Was going for a walk in the park, and stopped to admire the lovely Scots pines (don't worry, this doesn't turn out to be a Wordsworth poem). A tiny little lady started chatting to me, about the trees in the park, and how the pines were her favourite, whilst I nodded politely and interjected an appropriate 'oui' or 'non'. And then she said something that was priceless;

'But you know, dear, it is such a shame..."

'What is?'

'That people let their dogs do their business under these trees. Look! The ground is covered with 'dejections canines'...

I looked where she was pointing and making a sweeping arm gesture to include all the ground beneath the trees. But for the life of me, I couldn't see one dog crap. And you lot know how I have honed my sensitive Anti-Small-Dog-Shit-Senser.

And then I realised, the poor old biddy was that myopic...she'd mistaken HUNDREDS of pine cones under the trees for little piles of pooh.

And THEN I realised that this will be me, in fifty years time. God help us all.

Bach meets Boo

2005-08-08T20:22:00.000+02:00

Ahhh, Sunday, day of rest...Well, not for me, was working 12 hours and so have a bona fide excuse for not writing yesterday...

Spent day running around after Little Chap, whose medication is making him hyperactive right now, and leaving me ragged! We went to listen to a Baroque Lute and Voice Concert at the Musee des Beaux Arts yesterday afternoon - timed specifically for Little Chap's siesta. Thought he would conk out whilst listening to the dulcit tones of the Renaissance, and the music would somehow waft overhim, like a soothing accoustic waterfall. Hahahahah aha ha!

FAT CHANCE! Two pieces later and Little Chap is enraptured by the music (good thing), and proceeds to do an improvised rap-style, clapping hands and squealing backing track (not such a good thing). I went very red and we had to go and sit by the fountain in the garden, into which Little Chap tried to repeatedly commit hare kare.

But Little Chap is so joyful (when not flinging self to ground and screaming with disgust at the thought of turning off Thomas the Tank Engine), and so beautiful that no one really seemed to mind...in fact a terribly handsome arty type bloke, with concientiously sculpted two-day stubble and a pretentious, thespian scarf around his neck (it's HOT, it's AUGUST!!) commented as I trotted past trying to placate Little Chap with smarties and a banana;

'oh, your little one is very sweet, it's good to bring children to this kind of thing'

To which I could make no reply as I was being dragged by Little Chap to investigate the pigeons (a great pastime), but I really wanted to say

'HE'S NOT MINE!! I'M SINGLE!! TAKE ME, TAKE ME, OH DIVINE SPECIMEN OF MANHOOD'

Ah, the joys of the 'Walking Contraceptive'...

Dahl's Chickens...

2005-08-06T10:32:00.000+02:00

Sorry for lateness, have missed friday deadline, as is now technically saturday morning. However, do not stress You Lot, am here and will commence again soon...

Suffice to say I have a BIG SMILE PLASTERED ALL OVER MY FACE!

For those of you who avidly read the comments as well as my drivel, you will know about the Friday Night Date (with a bona fide frenchie, for once). Am pleased to say that the BBQ was very...erm...productive, and we shall see how it all goes, wink wink, nudge, nudge...

Am also very proud of myself for managing to play Taboo in french all evening, whilst drinking pastis. This is a combination not for the faint hearted.

Ok, HAVE to get some sleep, but will fill you in very soon - so no more comments complaining of content deficit etc., am doing my best under very strained cicumstances (i.e. brain concentrating on something else completely, and having a harder time than normal focusing)...ooh yes, you know that addage about buses, 'you wait forever for one and then three turn up at once'?

SMILE SMILE SMILE

Supply and Demand

2005-08-05T08:29:00.000+02:00

I am hitting what artists refer to as ~THE WALL~, whereby my adoring public of one has decreed that I don't write enough, nor often enough. Ah yes, to strain the genius that is my ranting is to lose it forever....

Actually, it's more along the lines of 'my life just ain't THAT interesting, and I am currently struggling to validate the existence of these sad mumblings...'

Plus, whereas I had a huge amount of time last week to do absolutely nothing (holidays, what are they good for...), this week I have been running around in the sunshine, pretending to be a train, finger painting, swing breaking (they are designed for little chaps, not Jonquille-sized chaps, evidently), ball losing (that's basket ball, folks - get yer minds out of the gutter!) and various other child entertainment antics. So all in all, a very busy, productive and mentally stimulating week.

AND, as my faithful readership will know, I have joined the ranks of online dating. And do you know something? It is actually improving my French no end - lots of lovely french blokes who want nothing more than to look deep into my eyes and fondle my verb conjugations. No, really, I don't know where I'd be if I hadn't learnt one or two phrases today...

tu es vraiment ravissante (you are really ravishing)

tu m'excites (you excite me)

tu es une jolie fleur jeune (you are a pretty, yellow flower - very imaginative, that chap, wonder if he was perusing his horticultural dictionary at that point)

Ah yes, these frenchies are romantic, if over the top, right from the off...and it certainly makes a difference to

The Brits - 'Will you make me a cup of tea afterwards? Can I keep my socks on throughout? Where's my football kit?'

The Canadians - 'May I, dear?'

The Americans - 'Wha'?! Foreplay? Whaddya mean foreplay?!'

The Irish - 'I know a really nice field...'

But to be really honest, I'm not sure that I don't prefer all of the above (save, perhaps the Canadian approach - far too needy), rather than hearing;

'Bien que c'est seulement le deuxieme fois que je te voie, je pense que je t'aimes'
(Altho' it's only the second time that I have seen you, I think I love you).

And just for the record, ALL of the above quotes have been said to me, though perhaps not at the same time.

On second thoughts

2005-08-04T19:40:00.000+02:00

hhhmmmmmmmm, perhaps not such a waste of time!

Consternation

2005-08-04T08:15:00.000+02:00

That was the biggest waste of time. It is true - one has truly failed when one has to look through a gallery of idiots to find a vaguely normal person to have a drink with. Am resorting to old methods of bumping into people in bars. Tried and tested, that one - and to a lesser or greater degree, actually productive.

Oh, the humiliation, the inhumanity!

The Horror, The Horror!

2005-08-04T07:30:00.000+02:00

Oh dear god. It has finally come to this. After too many months (or is that years now?) of prats, idiots, egomaniacs and physiotherapists, I have finally succumbed to the embarrassment that is Online Dating. Oh the joy. This evening, was sat down at kitchen table by Chap-One and told (in no uncertain terms) that instead of whining about the male populace in Lyon, I should put myself out there more. To which I replied; That's all very well, but I am beginning to suspect that the only normal blokes I am ever going to meet are NOT IN LYON.

This was met with a little laugh and an arm lock...so I have done it. My little face and all of my personal attributes are out there, floating in Internet space so that not only the weirdos I normally meet have access to me, but all the COMPUTER GEEKS TOO. I realise that this is a tenuous statement, considering I seem to chain myself up quite happily to the Net, but on the other hand, I would not describe myself as having a close relationship with my mouse. Oh no, this gal is VERY normal, non-geeky (apart from the whole palaeo thing, but we'll just gloss over that)...is this truly the last resort? We shall see, will keep you posted...

Ooooh, am still cringing at the thought! Eeek!

Happy thawts, happy thawts...erm, well, the Lovely Jenny left for Sweden today, so am particularly miffed.

OK, am off to trawl through loads of photos of french blokes 'looking for love'...oh god, think am going to be violently ill.

Eyes on the Prize

2005-08-03T06:03:00.000+02:00

Sorry to leave it so late in the evening, but I was very, very drunk last night at a barbeque. The last thing I remember is yelling 'Human rights! Eight shots to the head!', at which point, mysteriously, the party broke up. Alcohol, political ranting + Jonquille ain't too pretty...

Plus, I have been back at work today, which was difficult considering hung over state. Still feel like crawling under the duvet and sticking my head in a bucket....but all that can wait.

Yay! I made a guy fall off his bicycle today! I didn't even touch him, but we locked eyes in a rather steamy way, and then I noticed that his bike started to wobble, so I smiled AND HE FELL OFF! hurrah! I have never had telekinetic power over anyone before. Must remember this for bars and suchlike; 'you will fall off your bar stool, and then buy me a drink' kind of thing. So felt quite chuffed that I could have this affect on someone.

As long as he was actually looking at me, and not someone behind me...

what is in a name?

2005-08-02T01:29:00.000+02:00

Well, that does it. Not only is it the start of the dreaded month, but wandering around a DIY shop this morning, I found on special offer, for the princely sum of 19 euros, a toilet seat named after me!

Yes, you too can be the proud owner of une abbatant 'Jonquille', a classy little number - light blue transparent seat with mock stain glass window effect outlining Jonquils.

I am also two prize show goats, a cul-de-sac in Welwyn Garden City and a motel in Arizona.

There is no pride left now.

I'll scream and scream until I'm sick

2005-08-01T08:32:00.000+02:00

Ah! Chaps back, house clean (apart from the fine layer of dust settled over everything, a bit like Miss Haversham's wedding breakfast, although no rats), Sunday evening...

...time to unwind (from doing What?) and look forward to the start of a brand, spanking new week. Nestling cosily in my wing arm chair before the crackling fire, bread singeing well on a toasting fork, pint of port by my side and the gout only giving minor agony, I remembered the glory days of India, when my regiment and I....OK OK OK, metaphor taken way too far, and result escalating into bad Edwardian memoir-cum-Barbara Cartland novel.

But you see, all is not ok in this corner of Lyon, for tomorrow, 'tis AUGUST - month of dead wood, doldrums, boredom and heat. Those with a brain and a budget flee the city, whilst the rest of us remain, slaving through the roasting days, suffering insomnia through the endless nights..

I've got to watch myself, obviously there is some third rate novelist begging to get out and write the next Dickens pastiche..My most humble apologies, but if you haven't guessed by now, I am NOT looking forward to August. Suddenly the city dies, all the bars close, the population shrinks and there is nothing to do. So I have taken precautions:

1) Agreed to work lots of weekends

2) Spent all available cash on useless items that I shall curse at, every time I want to go for an ice cold beer but fail, due to budgetary restrictions

3) Developed a slight (?) addiction to blogging, and will spend ridiculous amount of time telling you lot things of absolutely no interest, nor importance.

4) Restarted research, and will trawl through various scientific journals, trying to remain interested, and not confused, after the abstracts

In short, will turn myself into a boring hermit, and OUT-BORE AUGUST! Yes! This is my dastardly plan of action. It is the only way to survive!

I only hope it works, and it doesn't become a permanent change...So in order to entertain me through the hell that is the month named after the Emperor Augustus (See? Parents didn't waste money on a classical education for nuffink...and guess who is the namesake for July. Eh? I'm dead clever I is), I now appeal to my faithful readership to send me lots of rubbish (no porn please, or kitten photos - they're neither sweet nor funny) to keep my brain ticking over in my self imposed solitude..

Oh! For heaven's sake, it's not all THAT bad....I'm even starting to bore myself (god forbid)

Craig - this one's for you, to thank you for commenting so nicely: Saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory today, and dear old Verca Salt uttered the words 'daddy I want another pony'. It made me laugh, but it didn't have quite the same ring as your wonderful phrase 'daddy, daddy, I want a pony, or I'll scream and scream until I'm sick'.

I'd also like to point out that contrary to popular belief (Craig Rumour Machine), I have NEVER uttered that sentence.

PS Jenny - 'The Hand That Rocks The Crab', just for you sweet'art!

comments

2005-07-31T08:27:00.000+02:00

Ok, have finally worked out how to let you all comment directly, without being a member. This means the email madness will stop, and also means that I have no editorial control over you lot....so comment away!

PS Craig, I hope you realise that this is all your fault!

Motivation Deficit

2005-07-31T04:50:00.000+02:00

Well, after managing to sort out hair (career, love life and future are all nuts-yet-to-crack), ran into town for rehearsal with The Band. It's not easy; the guitarist doesn't know how to swing (and that's kinda important, being a JAZZ group and everything) and one guy KEEPS asking me out (bless him, but considering the casual-sex proposal, somehow, I don't think it's going to happen). But we manage...tho' we are a little bit of a motley crue - or is that crew? Always get confused with eighties metal bands and homophones... Perhaps when we get our stuff together we will be successful and start throwing televisions out of hotel room windows whilst contemplating hare-brained vs. hair-brained....

The Chaps are back tomorrow, which will be a good thing, though Little Chap will certainly wreck havoc with the kitchen/spare room transformation process and the plastic sheeting...but it does mean that I should have cleaned and tidied by now.

So in true JQ form, have managed to procrastinate to an Olympic level.

Things I have done Today:

1) listened to my new Stevie Wonder CD so many times, and so loudly that the neighbour told me in no uncertain terms to shut my goddamn window whilst he washed his car

2) Mended 3 pieces of jewellery, spending an hour doing so, and then promptly decided they were too horrid for words, and I would have been better chucking them out

3)Realised flea market lamp is a terrific fire hazard, as it sent off sparks when I switched it on. Therefore wasted 4 euros, and an entire evening ruining the carpet (see Sticky Situation)

4)Changed outfit six times (conservative estimate), deciding what to wear tonight

5)Did 4 Guardian crosswords, and cheated outrageously

6)Phoned FAR TOO MANY PEOPLE to talk rubbish at them, and am now hiding from my phone bill.

Am currently trying to ignore the mess (and unholy smell emmanting from the bin) in the kitchen, and the dead spider on the stairs, telling myself that I will have plenty of time to get on with it tomorrow, before they get back.

Knowing my luck they'll change their plans and come back at sparrow's fart o'clock tomorrow morning......arrgghhh!

But on the bright side, did manage to do an enormous pile of ironing without burning my hand once! Hurrah! This is better than the last time spent ironing whilst watching a movie, and getting so engrossed in Gerard Depardieu that I ironed my entire hand without noticing (until, that is, the searing pain kicked in).

Quality Control

2005-07-30T23:17:00.000+02:00

Hurrah, hurrah, finally some pleasant, non-sarcastic feed back. Thankyou Anna:

" Have been reading your excellent blogg, love it love it love it, you really have a way with words"

THAT'S the kind of encouragement I need for my blatant self-centred rantings, you lot (Mark) take heed! Or I shall have to turn this into a propaganda driven machine, and start writing my own critiques, and I am veering toward demi-despotic tendencies on this blog already...

Oooh, the lovely Yannick (who, it turns out is actually an ARCHITECT, and not just a builder, so am dead impressed) has been wandering around the house with his top off, so I shall take back the comments I made about French builders having more sartorial feeling than British builders...

Altho' he switched the water supply off just as I was in the middle of my shower, covered in soap and squeaking like a demented lemming with shower gel in my eyes, which was highly embarrassing. I think more for him than for me.

Have to wait another hour before I can rinse off, and it's not a good position to be in, in this heat...have now got a shampoo induced dreadlock hair thing going on and I've lost my comb. Eek! Might turn into one of those pretentious, dreaded (boom boom) white rastas that hang out at the Uni here, discussing their Bob Marley collection...waiting for the day when they graduate, get a job and have to shave their heads...woe to the conformers!

Have an apology to make to my lovely sister (the really important artist), who took exception to the header 'disappoint all my family' - apparently she is very chuffed that I am in France, and I have to say that she is also very supportive. So three cheers to Birdie. And my Mum. And you lot.

Hello, is it me you're looking for?

2005-07-30T09:58:00.000+02:00

A slightly bittersweet evening, spent with friends who are leaving Lyon. Such is the ex-pat life, friendships made and ended so quickly. Everything crazily intense, because time is short. On a friendship level, this is difficult enough, but friendships always last the distance if they are good enough (Dimitri, Bristol gang, all of you)...Temporary relationships that strike a more personal chord are even harder to withstand, but I'm learning!

Had an audition with a crazy pianist today. He was looking for a singer to fill in for cocktail evenings in various hotels, and was very enthusiastic. I, on the otherhand, have to admit that the life size model of an alien in the living room kinda took away my urge to sing. Safe in the knowledge that if this guy turned out to be an axe murderer, Lotta would come over and axe murder HIM (while I, I assume, would thank her from beyond the grave, or from underneath the floor boards), I braved yet another lightning storm to go strut my stuff.

We chatted for a bit about what I'm used to (jazz standards, big band, swing etc.) and he seemed happy with that. So then he gets me to sing 'Hello' by Lionel Ritchie. I'm not sure what part of 'Duke Ellington' he didn't understand, but I nearly died from laughter. Not that it's a bad song, or anything, but just because I couldn't stop thinking about that AWFUL video dear old Lionel made....the blind bird and the clay model...It's hard to do it 'one more time, with feeling' when you're close to corpsing it, and are sharing space with the chap from the Roswell video...Poor guy was so enthusiastic as well.

But you gotta be professional at all times, eh?!

The Squat Toilet Awards

2005-07-29T04:04:00.000+02:00

For those of you here in Lyon with me, you already know that I have some kind of crazed reaction to the squat, or Turkish, toilet. Some of you (Lotta!) have accused me of having no balance and refinement (surely not!), others of you avoid them like the plague too. And yet, everyday, in Lyon and all over the hexagon, women manage to use these particularly revolting species of bog to relieve themselves.

How?

Perhaps the start of this journey was in December, when I fell flat on my arse, and landed in a pile of dog shit that someone had thoughtfully left nestling on the porcelaine. (In fact, this may also have spawned my hatred of the small dogs here, and my incessant rantings about the crap on the pavement). The fact that a whole load of frenchies were waiting in line, and pissed themselves laughing at my plight on exiting said bog, really didn't help my dignity.

As a result, for the benefit of you lot who haven't yet heard a crash, a despairing yelping and an over enthusiastic flushing noise, to which my friends here are party to everytime I need a pee in public, I have created the Squat Toilet Awards, a weekly appraisal of the best squat toilet experienced that week, and an appraisal of my particular performance (The Wet Shoes/Clothing Score).

I will crack them one day! (If only by falling over on the porcelaine).

Squat Toilet Experience Of The Week...

On a boat, in 1m squared space, whilst boat rocked vigorously. I like 'La Passagere', it's a sweet little bar on a boat on the Rhone, and a great place to guzzle beer in the sunshine. But NO! It is physically impossible to use the loo there. Unless, of course, you are a bloke. And I don't qualify. Didn't even try this time.

Squat toilet score 0/10
'Wet shoes/clothing' score 10/10 - but only because I chickened out.

Customer Service

2005-07-29T03:36:00.000+02:00

Ok, have been chastised by you lot for moving away from the superficial 'me me me' format to the 'trying to make a cultural statement' format...obviously these thoughts are not for the general readers of the tabloid press, and I think Mark has summed it up nicely:

'Arrgh! What the fuck? Yes, you really have excelled yourself with the latest
entry. I think you may have a thing for ballet
dancers'

Or monkeys.

So will resume random gibberish, as my public desires...

monkey see monkey do at the ballet

2005-07-28T10:12:00.000+02:00

Glorious evening spent with the lovely Paul, watching Sylive Guillem dance. It was moving and poignant on so many different levels for me, not least seeing the grace and strength that the human body can display.

It was at the Roman theatre by St Just, and just as I had had shivers sitting in the arena in Nimes last year, felt very odd to be sitting watching a spectacle where people had sat thousands of years ago.

Also (because you just can't keep a good palaeontologist down) started to be astounded again by the miracle of bipedalism....no joke, am honestly not drunk this evening. To put it into context, here were human beings in all their glory (and in FCUK clothing, according to the programme) moving flawlessly in ways that a humble maladroite can only dream of. Which got me thinking of my research, and the minutae that I deal with trying to work out how primates started to move fluidly on two feet. Let alone the reasons behind the move to two-footedness. We shall never know why they started to do it, but perhaps we can determine how primates began the long locomotary journey that ends with such a fantastic display of movement as I witnessed tonight. Am feeling profoundly touched.

And exceptionally clod footed.

Picture of Pronconsul basal primate courtesy of www.mc.maricopa.edu

sweat

2005-07-28T02:17:00.000+02:00

hhmmm have spent day hefting boxes around helping nicki pack up her apartment, and acting as grateful recipricant of
stuff that i don't need that nicki couldn't chuck out...

altho' that includes one pair of fab black shoes (that don't actually fit me, but, hey when did i ever buy/get sensible shoes other than flip flops), half a bottle of Issy Miyake perfume (not bad) and an old filofax, scientific calculator, and half used makeup. WHEN WILL I LEARN TO SAY NO?

Bloody hot hotness today, sort of sweat dribbling, sticky thighs lethargy that everyone is suffering from. But nevertheless, got back this afternoon, and gung-ho builder is still up and at it, demolishing rooms and using a pneumatic drill in a rather creative manner. I wonder if he wants to join the SAS and is on some kind of training programme? Glad he's getting on with it (whilst turning house into the dust bowl of America), but does he have to make me so exhausted just watching him?

Have also realised that french builders DO NOT suffer from that lovely 'builders arse crack' that has spawned the joke in our house;

Is your arse insured?

No, why?

Because there's a bloody great crack in it!

Ha ha ha ah, much hilarity ensues.... oh no, french builders are very well-dressed....I'll have to check it again, but I have the sneaky feeling that Yannick is actually wearing a Ralph Lauren polo neck whilst he creates a mess.....

Sloth

2005-07-27T18:54:00.000+02:00

ouch.

was woken up at seven this morning by Yannick, the builder, who has come to demolish the spare room and turn it into a kitchen. That's the idea at any rate. I hope it works, because right now there is no spare room, barely any dining room, and the whole place is bedecked by plastic sheeting. This has turned the whole upstairs into the scene from ET where those dodgy medics insist on giving ET a thorough 'investigation'. I hate this film, it's far too creepy, and last night kept freaking myself out - imagining that there were some sordid, slightly illegal alien investigations going on behind the dining room table. Which I suppose would be a good place for them.

Have to say that he is working pretty damn hard...here at 7am, he left last night at 8pm.......he is the only french bloke I know who doesn't have a girlfriend, and is a self-confessed workaholic.

So am pottering about in my pyjamas, feeling guilty that I seem incapable of doing anything useful before 10am, whilst others in this life can bring down a whole wall before 9am.

Sticky Situation

2005-07-27T06:32:00.000+02:00

ah ha ha hah ahahaha! Does anyone know how to get PVA glue out of a carpet? Thought it was some magical formula using ice, but remembered that's actually for chewing gum, then tried some unidentified solvent stuff dating from about 1932....carpet looking a bit ill....erm....

all due to the fact that I baled out of a lawyers dinner thing with my friends, who have just become a cohort of avocats (felicitations tout le monde!), to redo a lampshade I bought at the flea market on saturday.

I love the flea market, full of fantastic things; hand embroidered bedsheets from the 1900s, old, moth eaten suitcases, stuffed squirrels, old boots, seventies furniture and an assortment dodgy electrical goods. Once found a deer's head that had been converted into a somewhat elegant occasional-table-come-light-fitting, but couldn't justify the five euro price tag for the monstrosity. So of course found fab lamp that just needed a little bit of alteration...

Two hours later, glue slick spreading over carpet like an mobile-exxon disaster (though not so many bedraggled sea gulls)...

Slightly concerned that said lamp refuses to work unless I flick the bulb....which is not really a good reflection on french wiring, even from the fifties.

Am just glad this evening that PVA glue isn't flammable.

I think.

Lovely, Lovely Friends

2005-07-27T02:49:00.000+02:00

Oh, jolly good....twenty four hours later and you are all responding nicely to my exercise, a bit like pliant lab rats. Here's a few examples of supportive friends:

"Please keep it coming. I'm finding your wonderful
bread buying exploits a cultural revelation!!
I hope you never get a job so you can continue to tell
me about what it is you are buying in the way of food
and what the weather conditions are during said food
buying." Mark

"are you going to include the part about your clumsiness, inability to cook, but impeccable fashion sense?" SE

"I have not yet visited Jonquille's "blog" (what the hell is a "blog" anyway?) but it is next on my list of things to do whilst avoiding doing any work" Colette

"Have been to your blog JQ dear, all seems very wonderful and self
absorbed" Craig

"Sweetie, what's this about bread - thought you were on the Atkins?" Tina

So far, so good. Will continue to publish your warm best wishes and kind thoughts on the joyous occassion as and when you mail them in. Glad to know am helping more and more people spend the remaining minutes of their lives productively.
Love you all (cheeky grin).

Singing In The Rain

2005-07-26T08:44:00.000+02:00

Ah! The joys of Summer....the metro that smells like a wet sheep, the steaming piles of dog crap delicately arranged on the pavement in an exciting fashion, and the Open Air Cinema.

Like most enlightened (and seasonally hot) cities, Lyon has a season of open air cinemas...free to all who don't mind getting third degree cramp sitting on a random assortment of plastic garden furniture whilst swigging warm-ish wine from plastic cups.

Ah yes, looked forward heartily to watching a badly dubbed version of Taxi Driver...where Robert DeNiro suddenly sounds like a french cheese advert. Arranged our little group on the plastic seats (managed to find a not half bad viewing point stuck behind a tree and a group of people wearing hats....WHY??!), with only minor wine spillage, ready to indulge.....

But no. That would be too simple. The sky, which had been sort-of blue (well, enough to convince some cynical, non-outdoors types to come with me) all day suddenly turned that inky black of STORM WEATHER. Sadly, no Robert.

I was wearing flip flops. It was muddy.

Have spent the last twenty minutes washing my feet...

Stiff Upper Lip

2005-07-26T02:32:00.000+02:00

It rains. It's a fact. I know it's July, I know it's Lyon, and I know that we couldn't see Mont Blanc from the terrace yesterday (always a sure sign of rain), but nevertheless, it's just a bit of water. And a couple of flashes of lightning, right?
So walked up to the village to get some bread (wonderful daily occurance), and was met by the greatest number of quizzical stares from people passing in their cars. Arrive at the boulangerie, where I was instantly subjected to an indepth inquisition....do I often walk in the rain? Does it rain this much in Scotland? Wouldn't I be much better off indoors?

One fougasse later (after a year and a half, STILL can't get my head around the fact that though bread is masculine - as are, bizarrely, breasts - DIFFERENT KINDS of bread are under strict stipulations of other harebrained grammatical regulations), and many sympathetic looks about the desparate situation of a girl who has to walk five minutes in the da duh da! rain, I walk down the road (no pavements necessary in rural areas) when a gendarme patrol car soaks me to the skin by some nifty maneuvering through a large puddle.

Should be nicer to the baker next time.

Lost in Lyon

Don´t mention Saturday...

Cycling is an extreme sport

Vive IKEA

Mea Culpa

All normal...

Bollux Pollux

Ice Cream and Bicycles

I GOT IT!!

Friday Flatlining

Nimes Photos

How long do we get for lunch?

'Ay am enn Luff'/Florence Nightingale

False Start...

Agde

nada

Stop Staring At Me, Nena!

Sweet September

La Rentrée

Ng Ngg NGGGGG!

Octopus-Octopi

Silver Lining, Sun is Shining

Trixie Pixie

la vida es normal otra vez

Titulo Tito

The Spanish Files a.k.a Bewildered in Barcelona

Words I have Added to My Mobile's Dictionary

I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike...

La Pissoire

Continental Kebab Van Violence

*blush*

Hurrah Hurrah

Eh?

n'importe quoi...mais, pour toi!

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!

Aunt Augusta - I Need Your Advice

26 ain't so bad

Birthday Suit

My Flat Mate Goes Greek

Consternation

Employment Bleus

I swallowed a Dictionary

courgettes 'R' us

1st of May (on the 2nd, of course...)

Jonquille Substitute

Back in the Saddle Again

Guapo y guapa

Monsieur Massembé

You wot?

Wish List

Sun Tan Sun Burn Sun Stroke

Flaaaaaap Jacks

Rant and Reward

Rome (for a slight subject change)

Standard Received Prononciation

Because it is February

January (Inspiration Deficit)

Early Resolutions...

I Take It All Back

It's just not cricket

Oh dear Lord

Ole

HERE I AM!!

La Rentree

The Lady Returneth

Check Mate

Men and Motors

Frenchies are Fun

Pine Fresh

Bach meets Boo

Dahl's Chickens...

Supply and Demand

On second thoughts

Consternation

The Horror, The Horror!

Eyes on the Prize

what is in a name?

I'll scream and scream until I'm sick

comments

Motivation Deficit

blush