There are three chickens in the garden.
But not for long.
sabbatical
Thoughts on happiness from a hospital canteen
[A story with a happy ending]
What a teeny tiny difference between the words well and unwell.
Just two letters of the alphabet. Continue reading
Chickens vs fox: the prequel
I was against having chickens for obvious reasons.
Unfortunately no one else in the house understood any of them. Continue reading
Questions raised by cable car rage
How did I end up on top of a Swiss mountain, feet planted, pistol-ready hands, blocking the entrance to the cable car in which I am standing?
The man and woman facing me cannot wait.
They must get onto the cable car.
Yet I don’t seem to be letting them.
Looking for trouble in Marseille
Marseille: smile for the camera
Marseille is just 30 minutes’ drive south of Aix-en-Provence – but it might as well be Baghdad as far as many locals are concerned. Continue reading
Ditched
The quality of this photo reflects the mental state of the photographer
“Opp.”
That’s the soft little exclamation many French people make at those unexpected wee moments in life.
A coin slips from your grip. you spill a little wine, you crash your car into the ditch…
Opp.
That was the sound of Sabbatical Man’s perfect driving record evaporating in one teeth-suckingly embarrassing moment when our leased car nudged, teetered, then hurtled off the road, scraping, banging and crashing its way along a steep trench.
Yes, the very road referred to in an earlier blog.
Perils of the home straight
Nerves of steel are required to drive this road every day
Whoever dares to question French courageousness needs to drive on my road.
Countless fearless Aixois commuters do it every day of the week. Twice. At speed.
The road is as wide as a catwalk model’s ankle.
Steep ditches line each side of it.
Huge trucks travel at ferocious speeds on it.
Tractors and trailers, graders and even horses and carts can be seen on it.
Yet the only one who is terrified is me – leaning pointlessly toward to the centre of the car where it feels a tiny bit safer.
De-texting in France
First it was the horror of data roaming charges that stopped me texting home.
Bah non
Then the time difference set in – when I am free to text, my friends and family are often asleep or busy.
And now? Well, now it’s a French conspiracy to cure me of my texting addiction altogether.
There are 65.7 million people living in this country and not one of them wants to text me.
Best cure for misery
Pavillon Vendôme, Aix en Provence. Hard place to be miserable.
Tissues, nose drops, paracetamol, lemons, ginger, honey – a shopping list of misery.
Now, pack your miserable self, your miserable list and your miserable head cold to the centre of Aix-en-Provence on a sunny day and do your shopping.
Continue reading
The 10 sweetest French phrases you’ll ever hear
C’est ça – sweet as
Some French idioms are guaranteed to bring a smile to your dial.
They’re not fancy, you probably won’t study them in French class and the person saying them to you will think nothing of it.
You, the novice French speaker, will notice because at their heart these phrases all mean one thing: “You are making sense to me”.
Continue reading