It’s just gone 8am and I’m speeding towards the Channel Tunnel at 221 km/h. I have a whole carriage of the Eurostar to myself - talk about social distancing. The journey marks the end of a two-week trip back to England, the most time I’ve spent in my native country since I emigrated to France... Continue Reading →
Top Marks For Adulting
Search Google for anything remotely related to repatriating in France and you will find a wealth of accounts whining about testifying to the nightmarish near-impossibility of navigating french administration/bureaucracy. In my mission to prepare myself as fully as possible for my new life, I read many (oh, so many) of these myself before I moved... Continue Reading →
Profiting from Paris
*DISCLAIMER* If you're viewing this on a desktop, the formatting might be a little... erratic. It would appear to be a WordPress bug and I can't do anything about it. Sorry. On to the blog post. There is a genuine possibility that I have just had the most enjoyable Monday that anyone, anywhere has... Continue Reading →
Confinement Crazy
I’m starting to wonder if there’s something wrong with me. We’re 26 days into the official confinement in France, it’s been 27 days since I had a conversation with another human face-to-face, and 29 days have passed since I saw anyone I actually know. Not that I’m counting or anything. But if I was, I... Continue Reading →
Winter Wistfulness
I know you’re not supposed to wish your life away (a favourite admonishment of my mother) and you’ve got to live in the moment, etc. etc. But right now, the moment is cold, wet, windy and grey, and franchement, I’d much rather think ahead a little. So I thought I’d put my wistful spring-and-summer daydreams... Continue Reading →
NYE à la Française (and A Beginner’s Guide To Raclette)
Bonne année! A new year, a new decade – though the same strikes, if you’re a Paris-dweller. Appropriately (and for the first time), I brought in 2020 in the most fantastically FRENCH manner possible, between NYE and New Year’s Day – both of which I spent in French homes, speaking predominantly in French, and enjoying... Continue Reading →
Paris is Broken (obligatory post complaining about les grèves / the strikes)
Forget the weather, the only acceptable topic of small-talk in Paris for about a fortnight now has been les grèves – aka the strikes. You don’t have to be living in France to have heard about them; it was via my family in England I first found out there’d been any kind of violence from... Continue Reading →
Single in the City of Love
Single for the first time since the age of 19, I recently ventured onto the dating scene in Paris - via the weird world of dating apps. And it really is a bloody weird world.
La Felicità: Literally, Happiness.
I want to tell you about one of my all-time favourite 'hidden gems' in Paris: La Felicità, at Station F. It was introduced to me last year by two of my closest friends (and fellow foodies) and if you are at all acquainted with the adventures of this anglaise, you won't be vaguely surprised to... Continue Reading →
Breakfast in Bordeaux
As part of my 2019 quest to take advantage of being based in Paris by exploring other parts of France, I spent last weekend in Bordeaux. I have actually been before, so it wasn’t exactly expanding my French horizons the way the “quest” is supposed to be, but my last (and only other) visit was... Continue Reading →
