Driving Home

Rainbow
Originally uploaded by oiseau.

You really know it's the end of the holidays when this is the sight that greets you as you approach home!

So a Top Ten (in no particular order) from nearly three weeks holiday:

- Having the family summer house and pool to ourselves in 30° heat
- Not getting up before 10:30am
- Nigel's Baked aubergine with pine nuts, feta cheese and mint
- Reading through 10 books provided courtesy of Reims public library's foreign literature shelves
- Catching up on the celebrity gossip courtesy of Voici and Public
- Ice creams at La Rhumerie on the port of Cavalaire
- Reading my first French book from beginning to end
- Jumping from the car on the motorway, near Lyon, before it burst into flames, conveniently close to Frog's best man's home
- Staying with friends for a weekend in Amsterdam on Prinsengracht
- Cycling along the canals of Amsterdam in the last cooler rays of the summer sun

Packing

Sundial Var
Originally uploaded by oiseau.

After a lazy couple of weeks in the heat, a cooler breeze has arrived just in time to send us off on holiday. We'll be leaving tonight for two weeks in the Var. It's a long drive through the night to reach the south-east corner of France and Frog is currently napping in preparation. I am meanwhile avoiding the last of the ironing and wondering if the ten books I took out of the library will be enough to keep me going, when farniente is the only plan we have for these vacances.

I also have Kristin Espinasse's Words in a French Life included in the tower of books. I'm a fan of her website, A French Word A Day, even though I do sometimes wonder if we are living in the same country, given that the differences between our regions are often larger than the similarities. I like her style of writing and the fact she doesn't rely on oft-used cliches to conjour up Provence. I also have a little feeling of smugness when I realise I know most of the words now, which I didn't a couple of years ago.

I'll just remind myself that the last report on the family house pool was a temperature of 31°. That will be my motivation for the last of the T-shirts awaiting the iron.

Bonnes vacances à tous!

Match Report

Friday was hot. Thirty-six degrees kind of hot and the only question was not, will there be a storm but when will there be a storm.

Frog called me during the afternoon and asked if I wanted to go to the stade tonight. Father Frog had just got his annual abonnement and the first match of the season was kicking off in a friendly derby against Sedan.

Now, I don't know much about football. Of course, I follow the international matches but that's not the same as following a Ligue. Especially a Ligue 2 team. Stade de Reims was once a mighty side. That was in the days when Father Frog would cycle the 20 kms from the village to the stade to watch the games. Yes, that'll be over 40 years ago. Having gone bankrupt in the early 90's, the red and whites now languish in the lower end of the second division and the times I've seen a match covered on TV, even I can recognise the low, painful standard of football.

But with one free ticket and the cost of an accompanying ticket priced at €5 (yes, five euros) who's going to pass that one up?

It ended up being one of the best evenings out we've had in a while, and certainly one of the cheapest! The new stadium is half built and we had seats right next to the pitch. Reims' opponents are local rivals who were promoted to the First Division last year, so there was some tension at this derby. But imagine everyone's surprise when the new signings showed some real mettle and at one point Reims was leading 2-1!

By the final whistle it was a draw 2-2 and everyone was thrilled with the result. Even me. Yeah, I know, shocking.

We'd sat watching with Father Frog's friend who recounted the glory days of the club and said he felt that there might be a chance again in the future. For my part, I was very happy to sit in an open stadium on a sweltering hot evening but trust me, I won't be out there once the winter begins. That's for the passionés!

As Far As The Eye Can See

Vines
Originally uploaded by oiseau.

Yes, it's hot here too. 36° yesterday, but I'm not finding it too hard this year. Reims is a small city and the flat seems to be bearable if you keep the shutters down . Of course, venturing outside is like someone turned the hairdryer on you. But at least there aren't the pollution levels of a larger city. Having survived summers in Paris 2003 and Manhattan with no aircon, Reims seems like a doddle.

They say if you want something done, ask someone who's busy. I'll go along with that. My key accomplishment this last week was the weekend's walks with the Frog. We took an evening stroll late Friday afternoon and then on Sunday night took the 4 x 4 out into the vines. All the local villages are linked up through stony tracks that run alongside the parcels of vines. We visited the various vines that are Frog Family's to see how they're doing. If 2003's summer is anything to go by, the heat will mean a slighly lower volume harvest but an excellent quality. Well that's what I'm told anyway.

The set of photos can be seen here.

My only other news is of my afternoons spent locked in a classroom with a bunch of French teenagers, all taking classes in the highway code. It's becoming unbearable. And having started with decent marks, I have to be the only student who's seeing a deterioration in their scores. 35 degree heat, no ventillation and French pedantry. Yes, that seems like a decent enough excuse.

Qui ne saute pas...

Since England went out, I have been standing beside my husband and supporting France. I wouldn't if England were playing against them - but ummm they're not - and it seems the right thing to do. The way I see it is if the French keep me up until 2am with their celebrations, I might as well join in. And I have experience in supporting a non-winning side to draw from should everything go wrong.

I've also come to understand why the first summer I met Frog he woke up one morning, beaming to tell me that he'd had the most wonderful dream. He had been playing football and he was Zinedine Zidane being cheered on by the stadium. That is every Frenchman's fantasy.

However, whilst les bleus have my support tomorrow there are some limits.

Frog (chanting): Qui ne saute pas n'est pas Français, -ais!
Qui ne saute pas n'est pas Français, -ais!

Do you understand what that means?

Oiseau: Do you see me getting out of my chair?
Frog: No, do you understand what that means?*

Oiseau raises eyebrows

Frog: Oh.


* Whoever isn't jumping, isn't French

Q.E.D

I have lived long enough now in this country to stop getting wound up about everytime French customer service is lacking. There are so many other benefits to living here, you just have to live with the fact that the customer is very, very rarely right in the minds of those employed in the French service industry.

However, I do have to share with you a couple of pieces of recent communication courtesy of Air France and American Airlines. A perfect case study, some might say, in the extremes of these two nations.

I had contacted both companies to request a name change on their frequent flier programmes that I belong to. The American Airlines process was completed online. Air France, having failed to reply to my intial online query of what documentation was required, are replying to a letter that I sent along with a copy of my marriage certificate.

Both replies were received on the same day.

Madame

Nous avons bien reçu votre demande.

Pour nous permettre d'effectuer cette mise à jour, nous vous invitons à nous retourner un justicatif d'identité.

Nous vous remercions de votre fidélité et vous prions d'agréer, Madame, nos
salutations distinguées.

(Quick translation: Thanks for your request, in order to complete this update please send us a piece of identification. Yours sincerely.... )

Good Morning Mrs. Lxxxx,

Thank you for your e-mail. I'm delighted to help.

Congratulations on your marriage.

As requested, I have changed the name on your account.

Again, thank you for giving me the opportunity to respond. I look forward to assisting you in the future.

Have a great day and nice holiday.

Regards, Ms. P. Lee AAdvantage Customer Service American Airlines

P.S. I noticed that you're not earning AAdvantage® miles for your creditcardpurchases, which is so easy to do. For a limited time, with the Citi® PlatinumSelect® /AAdvantage® World MasterCard, you will earn 25,000 bonus miles after you make $250 in purchases with the card. And you will earn 1 AAdvantage® mile for every $1 spent on purchases up to 100,000 miles per year towards award travel on American Airlines flightsor with AAdvantage® program participants. To speak with a Citi representative about enrolling, please call 800-640-1517 (be sure to have your AAdvantage number handy). Or use this link to visit the Web site: www.fly25.citicards.com.

Oh, how I chortled... then cursed as I had to trot off to the Post Office and send another letter and photocopy to Air France.

Supporters

We knew we had to plan a weekend in London soon. There's a lovely pile of wedding gifts to collect from John Lewis, an ailing relative to visit and a friend's birthday to celebrate, so after many emails and text messages flying across the channel we organised this weekend away.

When we found out that England would be playing their quarter-final match on Saturday afternoon, our schedule became a little clearer. What better than to watch the game in a London pub with our friends.

We never even contemplated that France would have any more games after last night's Spanish game. However, after a nail biting game (well for the Frog at least) I'm pleased at France's result: my husband is happy, the city of Reims is happy (if the procession of noise and cars into the early hours of the morning is anything to go by) and even Zizou's goal made me smile.

So now our Saturday evening is booked to watch France play Brazil. Frog already knows some French friendly corners of the English capital which is where we'll move to after the England game.

It's highly unlikely that both nations will make it through those matches. But. But. If they do it's an England vs France semi-final.

Bugger! Or to quote Frog:

"That's not something that would break our marriage up is it?.... Is it?"

Reunion

We were the last to arrive and the first to leave and still we spent nearly ten hours at a family reunion in the Ardennes. It was Frog Father's cousin's 70th birthday and about 30 of the family members had gathered in a small village sports hall for lunch. We were a motley crew, including a snail farmer, two wine-makers and several farmers. Plus a young French girl just back from her agricultural work experience year in Australia, love sick for her long distance boyfriend and desperate to practice her English.

Anyway, I'm not sure when I'll stop listening to Frog who says, "We'll just stop by for lunch and then we'll..." and instead remember the truth which is that this is a day long affair!

So "lunch" yesterday consisted of:
===========

Champagne & Petits Fours
Melon* with Dried Ham
Filet of Pike Perch
Apricot Sorbet
Beef en croute with asparagus, dauphinois potatoes & tomatoes provençale
Selection of Cheeses & Salad
Plate of 4 different desserts

Coffee

Accompanied by three different wines and two different champagnes.

* a whole charentais melon each

===========

A few hours later this was followed by a cold buffet, including a choice of six different homemade desserts.

So. What happened outside of the six hours of eating? Well, I suddenly found myself nursing my coffee, looking up to see everybody around the table waiting to hear my answer. The question that had been posed was from Father Frog and his son who were looking for my back-up . "You really want to watch the football don't you?" and as an aside to the other family guests "Well, England's playing, you know".

So I provided the cover (and yes, I did want to see it but no, my mother brought me up with better manners than that) for the trio of us to head towards a distant cousin's house in the village.

Within twenty minutes, Father Frog was asleep on the sofa and Mother Frog had joined us since she was too embarassed to venture into the village fete with her red wine splattered white trousers.

The English team might have provided us with an extremely boring match but it was a refreshing interlude from the humid foodfest going on a few hundred yards up the road. Additionally, since we hadn't seen Mother and Father Frog for the last week (whilst they were on holiday) it gave us some time to plan Father Frog's dinner schedule for the next five nights whilst Mother Frog is in hospital for a shoulder operation and afterwards when she's recovering at home.

My services duly loaned out, I'll be planning my own dinner menus for the next couple of weeks when the family will have to get used to cooking English style!

French Male Pride

I wrote a post about Frog's French male pride and the bumps it's taken this week from a couple of incidents. Nothing serious at all - just the stuff that puts a Frog in a huffy mood for a few days and had me pondering a little.

Then, I re-read what I had written and decided he wouldn't be happy if I shared those thoughts on a blog.

So, whilst I don't usually support the French national football team in any shape or form (The Socceroos are proving to be the only side I'm willing to loan my allegiance to) I do hope that the team (sans Zizou) walk off the pitch tonight with an ounce of pride. If only to make this weekend a little lighter in mood chez nous!

"Allez les bleus" Shhhhhhhh!

Newly Weds

Newly Married
Originally uploaded by oiseau.

So at first I put my blogging activity (or lack of) down to how busy I was organising the wedding and newly set up working consultant status.

I'm not one of those bloggers who enjoys using the 'personal' dramas as stimulus for writing. Things were all going to plan in the wedding preparations, however, if I'd blogged I would have focused on the inevitable parts that don't quite go to plan.

So, now I'm back and happy and enjoying getting life together in Reims... And I still haven't blogged!

Petit à petit I will get back to some routine. For now enjoy a few photos from the many (300!) that were taken on our road trip.

And I'll also link to this fantastic singer, Pierre Lapointe, that we discovered whilst tuning into Québécois radio. He'll break France soon so have a listen first!

Somewhat Occupied!

Yes, I've been somewhat occupied the last month or so but I'm back! At least for just a few minutes to present the first photo of the new Madame & Monsieur.

Truly a happy, happy day. Our wonderful families and friends joined us and after days of torrential rains even the sky cleared to give us some precious sunshine as we exited the church in Reims. Friends from across six continents joined us back in the village for food, champagne and lots and lots of dancing!

Must dash now to pack for the honeymoon. We leave tomorrow morning and I'm looking forward to sleeping on the plane and then spending two weeks driving through Quebec with my husband and reliving the last few days' memories.

It all starts here!

Spitting

I've had a post boiling up inside for the last few days. I'm full of the frustrations of the ongoing CPE saga, trying to register to work independently and discovering it would be far easier to declare myself unemployed. Poor Frog has been dragged to four different Government offices to try and ensure that this is dealt with quickly and efficiently, which was his own idea (though he's fast trying to disown it). And I have been standing, glowering at the view of 1000's of students marching past the flat because they think they deserve not to work whilst the rest of the country goes on strike.

I'm cynical and bitter and I'm in despair for the future of this country I've chosen to live and work in.

But I won't write that post. Instead I'll give you my other favourite complaint of the moment: my hair!

I can't cut it until just before the wedding. It's driving me crazy, I have no style, the grey is showing (I'm a mousy blonde, brown; how can I go grey?!) and it is daily scraped back into a ponytail with a sigh.

One day I will have this type of good hair day again... we'd just moved into the flat it was sunny enough to wear sunglasses and our Swedish friends were visiting. Roll on May 20th!

Happy Sigh!

Today I finished my job in Paris. What began as a two month contract in September 2004 ended up becoming an 18 month position. I had a lovely lunch with the people I like and then I hoofed it out of there!

I already have a freelance project beginning on Monday. It will be a fairly intensive 12 day delivery but I (for once) negotiated a fee that I'm happy with and can do the majority of the work from home. I just need to find out who to talk to set up a TVA number. Any help appreciated!

After that ... well, the wedding will be on the horizon and then... who knows what!

I feel like I'm on the edge of something very exciting, a new start, the next phase in my life. I think I'm going to take a nap and then enjoy a coupe or two when my man comes home.

Unrest

When people have asked me about the CPE demonstrations in Reims, I've joked that this is a very bourgeoisie city and there are no burning cars here.

Well, I still don't think there are any burning cars yet but Mother Frog was stuck in a rather scary situation this morning.

I'd been sat waiting for her to drop by the flat, in order to hand over something that Frog had forgotten when he left this morning. She was popping into the city to run a couple of errands and I sat tapping my heels as I waited. And waited.

Finally, this afternoon I got a call from Frog to tell me that his Mum had returned about half an hour earlier in tears. She'd driven around a corner just as today's manifestation was starting up. The crowds surrounded her in the car and began to shake it. Frog family suspect she was a target of the group as she was driving their rather large shiny Mercedes.

I don't know anybody who has sympathies for the CPE demonstrators anymore. There's a large national strike today and I find a certain irony to the fact that I can't get to a Government office in order to learn about I need to begin work as an independent freelancer in this country.

Addict

One of my favourite bloggers is this guy. His link to Google Idol today has gotten me addicted to new global lipsynching talents.

Genius. Sheer Genius.

Spring View

Spring View
Originally uploaded by oiseau.

Just one week until spring officially arrives but this weekend already felt like a huge heavy weight was being lifted from our shoulders.

Blue skies, cafés, people watching, long lunch, walking, snowdrops, photos, vines, museum, viticulteur plans and lamb dinner.

The set of photos from this afternoon's drive out to Verzenay can be found here...

Sign of the Times

I confess that I haven't been endlessly practicing my new married signature. I did however check that I could "upgrade" from my firstnamemaidenname@hotmail.com account if the firstnamemarriedname@hotmail.com was available.

I should probably make sure I'm not like a friend of mine who had a mild panic when she went to sign her new married name at the bank. She couldn't remember how to spell it.

I also have to work on the pronounciation and not hacking up a large amount of phlegm when I roll the 'r' in the the "gr" of the name. That could be embarassing.

Protest

Protest
Originally uploaded by oiseau.

I was at home yesterday in the back of the flat, attempting (and failing) to focus on a piece of work I've been avoiding for days when I heard noises from a crowd coming from the front of the flat.

I had actually been thinking over the weekend that now the weather is more tolerable it must mean the beginning of manifestation season. We're situated slap bang opposite the Palais Justice which means that every time there's a demonstration it passes by chez nous.

Then yesterday, as you may have read in the news, more and more students have been taking to the streets to protest against a new employment law, the CPE:

• This is a good source to understand what is happening.
• This is The Guardian's Leader piece today.
• She writes about her experiences as a student in Le Havre.

So, as I watched the students file past the flat I grabbed my camera to capture today's events to show Frog when he came home.

The photo is technically pretty poor but I did capture the mysterious smoke that appeared as they all clustered in the centre of one of the main thoroughfares. It looks more dramatic than I think it was. The police were already around and everyone dispersed very quickly.

I got an email this morning from NowPublic, a public news service that uses stories and footage from non news sources. My bad photo has been published by them (on my permission) to accompany a story about the CPE and riots in Paris.

Things clearly were a little more volatile in the French capital.

Pill Popping

My new morning ritual is to stand in the kitchen and slowly count out an array of tablets whilst I wait for my coffee to brew.

Frog stood watching me and exclaimed, "Ahhh, now you're becoming a real French woman".

The French take more medicines than anyone else on earth. To be fair the larger part of the tablets are vitamins and supplements. These are a combination of wedding vanity (please will my nails stop breaking!) and trying to promote joint health without resorting to aggressive anti-inflammatories every day.

I now know my way blindfolded around the local medical centre and they say hello to me in the pharmacy. My physiotherapist is now 'tutoying' me* (as is my hairdresser but that's more an intimacy that he obviously feels has been created by his far more regular and original client, my gossiping mother-in-law to be).

As much as my back's health is a source of frustration it has proved to be my first real recce into the local community.

* Read her explanation about this French formality rule...

Chuffed

I'm feeling rather pleased with myself. I have not only survived the journée de préparation au mariage with the priest but I rather enjoyed it!

Frog and I trooped off to the new parish centre at 10 am yesterday. Frog and been sent to buy a baguette and we had a carrier bag with food that I'd been cooking till midnight the night before. The invitation had said that we needed to bring something savoury and something sweet to share as a picnic with the other young couples who would be gathering to spend the day together.

My first fear had been that during this day with the Catholic priest, older married couples from the church and other engaged couples, I would stick out as the non-Catholic (and foreigner). My second fear was that we would have to bear our souls about our faith and our relationships. My final fear was that I was going to have to do all of this in French.

So. Working backwards ... I am extremely proud of overcoming my final fear. I spoke in French all day, I participated fully (and as Frog said, 'If you spoke that much in French, I can only be glad that it wasn't in English. You'd have never shut up'). It helped that we were a smallish group of seven young couples and two older married couples. The only time I really found difficult was right at the end, when we were asked to sum up our thoughts on the day. This meant I had to, on the spot, pull together some fairly complicated thoughts into French. I don't think I've gone so red in the face since my A-Level French oral exams.

Second fear - that we would have to bear our souls. Well, yes ... compared to stories of fairly muted preparation days in the UK (both Anglican and Catholic) we did have to talk about how we met, explore our fears and worries about the endurance of marriage. But that was okay, and even Frog 'fessed up. The matter of our personal faith was left very relaxed - the line given was 'we are all on our own separate paths, some in different places than others'. The role and importance of the Christian church in our marriage was discussed - and that is something Frog and I already knew we were both in agreement about.

Phew.

So, finally, I wasn't the only non-Catholic. There was another Protestant, originally from Strasbourg who confessed that he was also terrified about a day with Catholic doctrine. And I wasn't the only foreigner. There was a Lebanese guy and a woman who was half American, half French and had only moved to France, from her life in Connecticut, when she was 20 years old.

We finished up by going to the evening Mass and then almost all of us went for a drink afterwards. There I discovered there are others who are new to Reims and don't know many people (of the whole group only Frog and one other guy were originally Rémois, the other, an arrogant lawyer type, of whom I may write a story another day when I'm feeling a little evil again).

So, we're all meeting up again next Sunday evening at Mass.

Who would have thought it, eh?

And finally - my chicken dish was the hit of the picnic. Thanks to Nigel, I overturned at least one stereotype about the English!