France 1 Ireland 0

The title of this post suggests I may care about football. It's wrong. The only reason I know who won is because of the horribly loud cheers of the French neighbours when they scored. Loud enough to drown out the 30th birthday party noise coming from the 2nd floor. This may have been a blessing in disguise as the guests decided to sing "Appy Birssday" in English to the unfortunate man. He'll be going far away to celebrate the 31st one I imagine.

It's been so long since I posted on the blog that I couldn't remember my password and had to beg Gmail for another one. They must have been as interested in my life as you are as they sent me one immediately and so here I am. Yay.

The main reason for the blog revival is to share my good news. Remember the terrible saga of the neighbours, children with toolkits, multiple showers and flooded bathrooms? Well, after a 3 year wait, the bathroom is looking new and shiny again! I've had to wait this long for the insurance company to fork out the money (or at least agree to in writing, I still haven't seen any yet...) I moved into Hotel Susan 3 weeks ago and handed my keys to a Polish decorator who promised he could have the work done within a week. Yeah right. Rule number 1. Never believe a decorator. On the Friday he phoned to tell me it wasn't quite finished and ask did I want him to do the toilet as well. I pointed out that this was on the estimate and, therefore of course, yes, I wanted the bathroom doing. To this he replied "No it's not. I don't remember talking about the toilets. If you want that doing too it will be another £250. And It's a bit annoying because if I'd known I could have prepared it earlier and now it will take me until Wednesday." This irritated me A LOT as I had a copy of the estimate where it was clearly marked what he was going to do, to me telling him to do the toilet would have been like asking him to repair the bathroom ceiling, unnecessary since that's why he was there in the first place.! Anyway, I showed him the estimate, he agreed and did it, I stayed at Hotel Susan another few days...before finally coming back to my lovely little flat on the Wednesday. In fact it was unrecognisable as mine, as everything I own was covered in a layer of plaster dust, yes, the perils of living in a one-room flat.
So, I decided that, now the bathroom was looking much better, I would have a bath. Discovery number 1. The man has dripped paint in my bathtub. Excellent. I then thought I would do some rearranging in my cupboards and throw some old stuff away. Discovery number 2. The man has painted one of my cupboards shut. Fortunately it's not one where I keep important stuff but is still annoying as I don't have a scraper and can't unstick it.
On my way out of the flat on Monday last week I saw a notice, put up in the hallway for all to see. It politely informed us that Cédric would be having a small gathering on Friday, that he wasn't sure how many people would be coming but that he preferred to warn us in advance about potential noise and that, if there was a problem, we shouldn't hesitate to go and let him know. What a nice, considerate neighbour. Alas, it seems fun is frowned upon in my building and by the time I returned home that evening, someone had scrawled "Not after Midnight!!" across his nice little note. Party poopers. (or lampshades, as my friend Maureen once called them, confusing "rabat-joie" with "abat-jour") That same evening I was cooking dinner when my doorbell rang. For those of you who have never had the pleasure of hearing it, my doorbell is louder than a fire alarm in a giant public building. Regular visitors are asked to knock rather than use it as it scares me to death, and no one else ever comes to visit me. Imagine my surprise and fear, then, at that particular moment. Armed with my wooden spoon (you can never be too prepared) I headed quietly to the hallway to peer through the spyhole and see who dared to disrupt my evening. Discovery number 3. The man had painted my spyhole shut. Grrrrr. I opened the door anyway - after all, I did have my trusty spoon, who could harm me? - and there was the famous Cédric (of potentially noisy party fame) He was doing the rounds of all the neighbours trying to discover who the rabat-joie was. I quickly assured him that it wasn't me, that I wished him a Bonne Fete and hoped he made lots of noise. He thanked me and invited me to said party. I considered it but when I got home on the night of the party, there wasn't a whisper to be heard from his flat so I was a bit suspicious and decided to stay home and watch Grey's Anatomy instead.

No notice whatsoever was given about tonight's party, which is very loud and likely to stop me from sleeping for a good few hours yet. Humph.

The End

The greatness of lists.

As my resolution for 2008 I decided that I should travel more. Nothing too big or far away, but just to see a bit more of this beautiful country I live in and maybe some more of Europe. The aim was at least one day or weekend per month to visit somewhere new. I cheated slightly at the start with one weekend in Toulouse and one chez my friends in Normandy; both great places but ones I already know but finally, at the beginning of March, I headed off at stupid o'clock in the morning to Lille in the north of France with my friend Susan (she of broken bones fame, see earlier posts!) Lille is one hour from Paris by super fast train and in 2004 was voted European Capital of Culture. We took the cheapest train tickets we could find, which meant that we arrived in time for breakfast and left at supper time. In between meals we managed to sightsee, shop, walk, visit museums, eat a bit more and even see a film. It's a very pretty city with lots of nice buildings but not a place which needs 11 hours to see!

After this adventure we got together with our friend Sam and made a list of all the places we wanted to visit, prioritising places none of us have been before (upsetting as the two of them have done a fair bit of travelling between them and I haven't!) We finally came up with Lisbon as our April destination and 2 weeks ago headed off in search of Portuguese sunshine. We found a little too much of that...
Whenever I've travelled in the past it's been either to an English-speaking country or to one whose language I've been studying. Lisbon was a whole new experience as the only word I knew how to say on arrival was "obrigada" and, as polite as it is to say thank you to everyone you meet, it doesn't get across that you have no knife and fork to eat your dinner with, or that your metro ticket which you charged five minutes ago is refusing to let you through the barrier! I discovered how frustrating it is when you don't even know basics like how to count or say Good Afternoon and started to feel much more sympathy for my elementary students. It was stupid to go there without a phrasebook but with a lot of smiles and sign language we managed to get everything we needed for the weekend. I thought we had got up early to go to Lille but that was nothing compared to the 4am start we had for Lisbon!! Despite not knowing how to ask for tickets on the bus, going a stop too far and getting slightly lost, we STILL arrived at the hotel before our room was ready. Here, fortunately the staff all spoke English and were super efficient - we hadn't even finished asking if we could leave our bags and they had already been whisked away by the porter! We did lots of sightseeing, rode on a mini train, took lots of photos, ate some VERY good cakes, spent a little too much time in the sun, turned a bit red and then went back for a well deserved sleep. We had found a street in a guidebook which promised lots of nice restaurants serving regional specialities such as cod, cod and more cod, but we were surprised to discover a narrow, ugly street empty of people except the slightly strange men lurking in doorways offering drugs to anyone who happened to pass! We finally found a place with some nice welcoming fairy lights and managed to order some cod. Or rather, Sam ordered and Susan and I added "dois" and "tres" The waiter seemed to find this funny until Sam asked him which wine went well with the cod...at which point he shook his head and practically ran away. He did come back later though and helpfully taught us how to say knife, fork and spoon, and then bill and money (he even wrote them down and drew helpful diagrams) Sunday and Monday we did lots of visiting too - Lisbon is really beautiful and I could easily have spent a week there. All in all a great weekend - thanks girls! Bring on the next one...

After the travel list came the TO DO list. I've been extremely lazy recently and have been ignoring all kinds of problems in my flat, mainly because I hate the telephone and don't want to call the necessary people to sort things out. But as I've discovered over the past 3 years of living alone, problems rarely sort themselves out so on Saturday I made a list and have been forcing myself to work my way through it. It's ridiculously easy in fact. In 3 days I have discovered that I'm not, as I feared, flooding the man downstairs each time I run water in my bathroom (who knew you could fix a plumbing problem with a jar of coffee!?), I have arranged an appointment for the insurance company to come and examine the damage from the last flood, I've got a new TV box thing on the way to replace my broken one, and have done a whole host of other small things I've been putting off. It feels great. It's amazing how much difference a list makes.

Just for you, Sam!

It's a while since that eventful Saturday night which I had intended to blog about but I'll give you a brief recap anyway. It was the weekend that my friend Lisa came to visit. I met Lisa whilst on holiday with my family in Portugal aged 11. We parted at the end of the week promising to write to each other when we got home. And we actually did it. 14 years later and we're still in touch, mostly by Facebook these days but there's an occasional letter and a Christmas card in there too, and we met up again for the first time since Portugal in March of this year. As if that wasn't enough, she came back to Paris in November so now I can say that I see her more than I see some members of my family! Anyway, we had arranged to meet outside the FNAC at Bastille and I arrived slightly early. I was standing minding my own business when a man came up to me and starting speaking in extremely rapid French. This happens regularly (being approached by random strangers) and each time I try a different tactic to get rid of them. What follows is an approximate transcript of my conversation with this man...

Him: mdjkfndkfjnfkjenfkjbdakjbdwakbkwdbhbfrhsdk (actually French but I didn't understand anything because he spoke so fast)
Me: Sorry, I don't speak French.
Him: Oh. cfndjkfnewkibkfjbdkdjbaskajbfkbfkehfde....
Me: I'm sorry, I don't understand you. I'm English.
Him: Ah, Engleeesh. I am speakin ze engleesh. I want to no, do you 'av cat?
Me:No, I don't have a cat.
Him:And I ask you, are you ever loving your cat? are you in love wiz your cat?
Me:No, I don't have a cat and I've never been in love with a cat. I don't even like cats very much.
Him:So you are not wanting to buy my book, i sell a book about a woman who is in love wiz 'er cat.
Me: No, thank you.
Him:Sank you, no problem, 'ave a very good night.

And then he moved on to the next person. Hope his sales technique was better in French than in English!
That was crazy man number one. The other one was in the bar and isn't even worth talking about. We had a nice evening despite him.

ARGH!!

Have just spent 1/2 hour writing a new post and my computer crashed before I saved it. If I can be bothered to rewrite it later I will. If not, no one will ever know about my Saturday evening.

Back due to popular demand!!

Actually it was just my Dad who asked why I don't write on the blog anymore...but in case anyone else is interested it's because I'm too lazy. Lots happens, I plan to write, I get sidetracked (usually by Facebook) and before I know it it's last week's news. But since I'm not working today I thought why not? Beats going to the launderette anyway.

A quick update: still have 2 shower possibilities in my bathroom but generally only take one a day. My neighbour, contrary to common belief, is an extremely clean French girl and had 3 showers yesterday. I was very annoyed. We've had plumbers back, we've called, we've written letters, we've got other people to call on our behalf, and STILL the drip goes on dripping.

So you might be wondering why I'm not working on a Wednesday in the middle of November. No, not because I'm ill, not because it's yet another French public holiday or because my students are on all holiday. It's because there are no trains. There's a national strike which started last night and could go on well, forever it seems. Train drivers are protesting that Sarkozy wants to cut their retirement privileges and bring them in line with those of the civil service (who already get a quite cushy deal by the sound of it) Clearly they're not going to be happy about having to work longer but their job isn't quite the coal shovelling nightmare of their predecessors. Why should they get special treatment? Besides which, the French voted for Sarkozy hoping he would do something to change the mess that France is in. How can he do that if there's opposition every step of the way? In fact I heard that the public are generally mighty unhappy with the strikes, even talking about an anti-strike protest on Sunday. Most people, including myself, actually want or need to go to work and this open-ended strike makes it very difficult. I'm seriously considering joining the protest on Sunday.

In other news...my Christmas holidays are now officially booked - from 20th December until 5th January. Hurrah!

Last week's news.

Last Thursday was meant to be a quiet night - the first time in over a week that I spent at home, with just a quick stop off at the launderette and at Monoprix for a bottle of wine and some chocolate, and then lots of time to sort out all I needed to sort out before going home. If only. On the metro on the way home I asked Susan if she wanted to join me for dinner and watching Happy Feet. She agreed and we set off to do the important wine buying stuff. Those of you who know Susan will have noticed that she has been wearing a rather attractive sling on her right arm as a result of slipping on wet stone and fracturing her elbow last Sunday. Thursday was the turn of the ankle as she again slipped, this time breaking her flip flops and making her ankle swell to the size of..well, a very, very big ankle. I went running back into Monop to ask the sleazy security guard for help (which hurt me as much as Susan's ankle was hurting her!) and he came and carried her back inside, having made sure she hadn't actually fallen IN Monoprix and might, therefore, want to sue him.
A nice, helpful man who happened to be passing offered to call the pompiers. This brings me on to something totally French and illogical which I've been wondering about since I arrived here 3 years ago. The emergency services. In England, if you have a problem you call 999, you ask for the service you want and these people come to you as quickly as possible. This system operates perfectly well in many countries around the world, the only difference being the number you call. In France, however, there is no specific number to call for help. There are several numbers and no-one seems really sure which one to call and when. The nice, helpful FRENCH passer-by, for example, was nice enough and helpful enough to stop, but he didn't know what number to call, and asked us for advice! In fact, generally people call 18 which is the pompiers (firemen) , who arrive in an ambulance (?) and, in our particular case, didn't really seem to know much first aid. Not great when called to a medical emergency. It took 3 of them ten minutes to decide which inflatable splint to put on Susan's ankle and then another 5 minutes to take it off again and exchange it for the other one. In their defence, they were very funny and kind to her, and cute, although they did make us shout "Allez les bleus!" before starting the ambulance for the 50m ride to the nearest hospital! I still don't know whether we called the right number or if we could have had an efficient paramedic appear from somewhere, it all worked out in the end - Susan's ankle turned out not to be broken, just badly sprained, and she's now resting at home for a long time. Four flights of stairs is a long way to go on your bottom with only one hand and one foot to help you!

Home sweet (rainy) Home.

Here I am again, back in Bradford. It turns out that the know-it-all French people who say it rains all the time in England are right. This morning it was 30degrees in Paris, and the train to the airport was almost twice that and filled with the usual assortment of beggars, accordion players who only know one tune and smelly, hairy Frenchmen who love to chat to young foreign girls. Fortunately I've done this trip enough times now to know which seat to choose, the exact angle to hold my book to see these dodgy men approaching without looking too interested, and the right volume to have my Walkman so I drown out their heavily accented English chat up lines. Having said all this, it's quite entertaining to watch them work their "charm" on other girls...

Last time I came home I was stopped by the security people and had all my hand luggage searched. Not only did they take every single thing out of my handbag, but they also contemplated the idea of unwrapping my sister's birthday present which I'd wrapped myself only a couple of hours before. Who knew a big tin box covered in maps and a giant pencil could look like a terrorist threat?! Today they were a lot more relaxed - didn't even ask if I packed the bag myself (I had, who else would do it for me?) and whether I wanted an aisle seat (I did) They did, however, ask if I had paid for my bag. Since when do you have to PAY to take luggage on a plane. I was lucky, because I can speak French they let me off, the people in front had to go somewhere else to pay for theirs, despite having just queued for over half an hour. We took off 20 minutes later than planned and I found myself sitting next to a girl I was at uni with. She studiously avoided me, to the point of going to sit in the empty seat in front of me, so I read my book and drank PG tips to prepare me for being back in Yorkshire. One of my favourite things about arriving home is that my Mum and Dad come to the airport to meet me and stand at the window in the café waving like mad things as I walk towards the passport control. Today there was a slight change in proceedings; my plane arrived at the same time as several others and so there were a lot of people heading down the corridor with me. Mum and Dad were so busy watching other people that they didn't notice me at all until I hammered on the glass right in front of them, much to the amusement of the man sitting beside them. But they were there and it's always lovely to see them.

So, back to the weather...basically it's raining. It's been raining for weeks apparently, and shows no sign of stopping. It's mid-July but seems like October. Enough said.

I have so many more things to tell about my week - films, dates, parties, lunches, riding in ambulances...but they'll have to wait. I'm hungry and Mum is cooking. Yum.