A different kind of crap

Since I decided to leave France, my idealistic streak has gone into overdrive.

I am upbeat about going back home, and my apprehension is fading by the day. But all the same, what if? Specifically, what if the problem's not about France, but all about me?

What if after all this England turns out to be a horrible disappointment? After all, I have never lived a grown up life there, having left the day after my University finals in 1998, when the nation thought Tony Blair was a good thing, Posh and Becks were love's young dream, and Big Brother was but a twinkle in Channel 4's eye. Much has changed since.

I know what my Francophile friends think. 'Poor thing, if she can't be happy in France, country of savoir vivre and I've lost count of how many days holiday I still have to take this year, then what hope is left for her?'

This doesn't worry me. France, after 8 years, still leaves me empty. This is not where I belong. I can't bring myself to mind that my children will be bilingual, not trilingual. In fact, I'm relieved in a way. Keeping up three languages through childhood is a logistical nightmare, not a breeze. And let's be honest, although French is a beautiful language, what is it going to be useful for in 20 years? Beyond impressing your girlfriend, and then its quicker to learn the guitar (now there's motherly wisdom for you).

People remind me that there are problems aplenty in England. I know all that. But I am ready for a different kind of crap. English crap. I am ready to trade French dog shit for English litter, open rudeness for surreptitious snottiness, irrational driving for irrational train delays, café society for soggy barbeques. Lazy bastards for workaholics.

I am ready to trade this most desirable and iconic of world capitals for a small shire town most famous for its power station, where hideous, thirty-something reincarnations of people I went to school with plod the streets pushing buggies.

And perhaps most importantly, I am ready for binge drinking.