11th March 2012

We're back!  I'm seeing our French home with different eyes.  Come, follow me in. First, notice our new front door with its secure 5-point locking system. (The last owner must've been more paranoid than me - 4 separate locking bolts.  Him indoors always tells everyone that my blood group must be B-negative!). Anyway, into the hall and a workman is still hammering away at our new kitchen. I can't wait. White stone, irregular floor tiles, and special antique-looking kitchen units. He greets me with a cheery wave. Always cheerful. Must learn from him somehow.  Continue down the long hallway, and there's our new bathroom on the left. This had to be modern. Never did like those old Victorian hip baths plonked in the middle of the room. Hip they're not. Prefer plumbing that works! Anyway, hurray it's almost finished.  Thank God the fashion for avocado baths went out the window. We've dressed up a simple new white bath witih large dark blue floor and wall tiles, coupled with a streamlined white vanity unit. And yes, we've also got a bidet.  Well, c'est la France.  Now cross over, through the lounge, and out onto the balcony. Out of shot of the picture, amazingly we've got palm trees. Still alive after the most bitter winter I can remember over here.
I touch the warm mellow stones of our home and feel a sudden rush of gladness in my heart. Oh how far I've come from the austerity, inbuilt guilt and shame of growing up in 1950's England.

25th September 2008

When you leave Dover for France, the last thing you see is the famous White Cliffs. Then, if you haven't collapsed from seasickness en route, the first thing you sight on approaching Boulogne or Dieppe is similar white cliffs. This means that in prehistoric times England and France were one country. Today they are separated by a channel 18 miles across at the narrowest point. This has proved such a formidable barrier through 18 centuries of mutual invasion that when you land you find yourself in a foreign country, the architecture and language being totally different. And even the roads: the French were the first people after the Romans to make national roads as far back as the 17th century. But, other than that, what else is different? Well, the French seem far more cheerful to me - something that attracts me enormously. So, don't make the mistake of listening to international news too much: too depressing. Those politicians! They are themselves so indifferent to enjoyment that they are sincerely convinced that enjoyment is a disease from which their fellow citizens must at all costs be saved! But for hypochondria: no-one suffers from this more than the average Frenchman. The standard treatment for un crise de foie or liver crisis is the suppository. French doctors love to proscribe it for every ailment under the sun. Of course, the average prudish Englishman (as with the ubiquitous French bidet) would never stoop so low as to actually use it!!!