In the midst of all the prevailing strain at the moment is a huge event to look forward to.
I have just heard from my Californian friends that they are back on for their Paris trip this Autumn. There was some doubt because friend’s husband had a serious back problem. However, some cortisone injections have given temporary relief and in September they leave for a three month stay.
And I am going to join them for seven weeks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I leave on 25 October and will be popping home for a weekend on a cheap Eurostar ticket for son’s 40th birthday, but otherwise I am going to live the dream for a while.
This will be fulfilling my life-long dream of spending a lengthy time in France again. In my childhood I lived there, in Brittany, for 18 months and have such fond memories: I was treated so kindly and love the French anyway, despite what the supposed Anglo-French relationship is ‘meant’ to be. I have never met with anything but unfailing politeness and consideration in France.
In my teens I had several exchange visits with a French family which involved living near Rouen, mucking about with a lovely group of French boy scouts (!), getting thrown out of a fun-fair for rowdy behaviour, secret rendezvous, wonderful family celebrations, visiting a Chateau where my friend’s Aunt was the Chatelaine, staying in a huge family group in a school for the Easter Vacation for a Christening which involved a feast for 70 people which lasted 7 hours, being given presents for my Trousseau by friend’s mother who was horrified that my own mother was not already laying down my ‘bottom drawer’ in preparation for my marriage, I could go on.
Then there were the holidays on a shoe-string in which my parents drove through France in a beat-up old car, staying in village Guest Houses. The memories of Morning Glory flowers and Geraniums growing in old oil cans, fresh bread and fresh butter with apple puree and milky coffee for breakfast in local cafes, pain au chocolat eaten on the beach under pine trees smelling glorious in the heat on the Atlantic coast in the south. Visiting the Chateaux of the Loire, seeing the ‘son et lumiere’ which did not then happen over here in the UK, trying out my schoolgirl french, flirting with the french lads, trying out the new fashions, buying a silk scarf, it goes on and on.
Then the times we went over from school to stay in a French school at Versailles: no English spoken. Everything in French- sooo strict. Metro trips into Paris to see our set plays for A Level, Versailles itself with all the gardens, mirrors, fountains and historical associations. Madame de Maintenon and the Sun King. Often bewildering, frightening even, but so stimulating and it improved my french so much. Being able to dream in a foreign language, and speak to strangers, be understood and to understand. Such a new freedom, that of being comfortable in a different language.
Two years ago my friends made the same trip but I could not go over for long: I visited them on two occasions for a week each time. After a few days the shopkeepers would wave as we walked by, the restaurant patrons gave us a kiss when we entered, the Boulangerie knew what our daily order would be. The Chocolatiere round the corner with its wonderful, exotic stock: boxes made of chocolate and painted to look like bamboo and then filled with chocolates. The Patisserie with its special cakes and gateaux for celebrations, all gold, cream, chocolate, and luscious. The hot chocolate beside the Opera, to die for, served with tiny almond cakes. The music in the large churches, the kind Priests and nuns who understood my slow french when making enquiries about Christmas services for my friends. The lovely lady artist who I used to chat to when she was painting in the Place des Vosges, or just selling her pictures: likewise the lady who used to walk her German Shepherd regularly and I used to chat to her, me trying madly to remember the french for arthritis when talking to her about my dog back home! That is not to mention the man who took his rabbit for walks in Place des Vosges, on a lead. All so kind and patient to me with my quixotic, halting French. And nowadays we are talking a middle aged woman, not some young slip of a thing!
I love the Marais district of Paris and that is where we are going back to. So that is where I am going to in my mind right now, when not working madly on my music. Am I conveying my excitement?
My laptop and camera will be going too, so from the last week in October through to December 13 I will be your foreign correspondent in Paris. Do come along with me!
That is great news! I can’t wait to read of your adventures and see all the great photos! 🙂
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Thank you so much for posting about my blog and mentioning my travels. It is thanks to that post that I was taken back mentally to my trips earlier this year and hence forward to sharing my friends’ flat in Paris, and thence back to my childhood travels. It has given me such a fun few hours remembering everything and renewed energy to cope with the present: thanks so much!
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No….Thank You! Have a great trip! 🙂
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Yay for you!!
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Yes, yes, yes.
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Your memories of France are wonderful; true, the Anglo-French relationship has always been fraught with misunderstandings (at the very least) and conflict (la guerre de 100 ans); the two cultures are so very different.
Yet your descriptions point out the delightful aspects of French spirit and I, for one, am very sensitive to the charm of it all.
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Lovely to see you hear from your own great blog! I love the cross-fertilization of different cultures, the richness it brings to life.
In some ways the channel is too narrow, in others too wide: it seems to have made for a difficult relationship for so long between the two countries. But as I usually find, once past the generalities and preconceptions, individual people are kind and generous the world over.
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