Half a chicken, part 3

This French/Russian guy was certainly keen to start a language exchange. During our first phone call he'd suggested meeting up in a bar that same evening, but I, feeling vaguely horrified, had hastily invented an excuse. I needed more time to prepare myself.

It was clear from our halting telephone conversations that we had a lot of work ahead of us. I'd begun learning Russian only two years earlier, on a 'start from scratch' university course, and what I had learnt had been eroded by two months in France. I was finding it almost impossible to unpick the dense stream of gobbledegook that washed over me. How could I have doubted him? He was as Russian as the goose-stepping soldiers outside Lenin's Mausoleum.

By this time I had fallen back on saying 'da' (yes) in any pauses and listening intently for the general tone of the response. It was only when he switched to French and said, 'A tout à l'heure' that I realised that I had agreed to meet up in a bar that evening, and not the next evening as I had thought. This time it would be harder to back out.

Two hours later I was hurrying along the Boulevard de Strasbourg in Toulouse towards the centre of town, wearing my huge sheepskin coat, purple jeans with one arse cheek hanging out of a large rip at the back, and a black chunky jumper to cover the arse cheek up. Let me explain. For recognition purposes, I had described what I would be wearing based on my predicted wardrobe for the following evening. I thought that promising to wear my favourite purple jeans would force me finally to mend them. But on hanging up, I had had to haul tomorrow night's wardrobe out of the laundry basket, scrape the food stains off it, and pour myself into it. Nobody in the house had a needle and thread.

Nobody tells you about this kind of potential misunderstanding in language lessons, nor have I ever found it in any text book. As I felt the draught gusting around my nether regions, I questioned what the hell I had got myself into. I was sure that my flatmates were also doubting my sanity. It was about that time that one of them, a buttoned-up type with an obsessive cleaning problem, started avoiding me.

I was nervous, which surprised me. At that time, in my first months as a foreign student in a large town, I was meeting new people every single day. I had already met other French-English conversation exchanges, and was used to taking things like this in my stride. The morbid way my flatmates waved me off, goggling at me as if they might never see me again, didn't help. This was before the days of mobile phones, and if someone didn't want to be found, it was pretty much adieu.

It was already dark as I approached the fountain in the town centre. The place was badly lit but I could see someone sitting there. It was a man, but he hadn't seen me. I slowly walked towards him, unsure of the etiquette in these situations. Then he turned, stood up, and hesitantly began to walk towards me...

I'm going to hell in a handcart

That's according to Carole Malone in the Sunday Mirror, running Britain down as only a British person can. The problem? Nothing works and everybody's leaving the country (according to her, 5 million people have already left, so thank me for bringing in another Eastern European and two dependents to fill the gap).

To blame for bringing Britain to its knees is a certain EDF (I sit up with a jolt of recognition) whose alleged incompetence plunged half of London into darkness during the heatwave last week. Understandably, the acronym was not expanded (Electricité de France -easily translatable too!). That would have added an inconvenient nuance to the general 'Britain is crap' gloom.

This is not going to turn into a rant about EDF, as they are one of the few organs of the French state that I have not had the pleasure of shouting across a perpex screen at. But that is my point. EDF* is an organ of the state. Its employees are fonctionnaires, with all of the delights (for them and not generally for the 'clients') that entails. What is such a company, that should have liberalised but has not, being allowed into the free market of another country to mess about with its energy supply? Trust the Brits to miss the point and end up blaming themselves. Although we are to blame of course, for being suckered. The last sentence had me hooting with laughter. 'If all else fails, emigrate!' Good idea. I think I will.

And it's nice to know my functional relationship with EDF will continue in the land of fair play. I think I'll pack a generator** for my handcart, just in case.

*ILLEGAL AID FOR EDF
On 16 October 2002, the European Commission ordered Electricité de France (EdF) to repay 900 million Euros (US$877 million) in unfair state aid. EU Competition Commissioner Mario Monti said that because the French government has guaranteed that EdF will not go bankrupt, EdF has profited from below-market interest rates. The French government, however, has rejected the allegations. State-owned EdF has bought up utilities in many countries, seeking to position itself as a global leader before its home market in France opens fully to outside competition.
Forbes.com, 16 October 2002; Newsday.com, 14 October 2002

**Extract from last week's Daily Telegraph. The last paragraph is particularly intriguing:

Energy companies are back in the firing line with an acceleration in the pace of price increases in the middle of a heatwave.
French-owned EDF Energy has followed Scottish Power with a third rise in the cost of gas and electricity - 19pc and 8pc respectively - in less than a year.

EDF with 5m customers, largely in the South, has now raised gas prices by 52pc and electricity tariffs by 25pc since August last year. From July 31 customers will be paying an average of £971 for their lighting and heat.

They resulted from the faster-than-expected rundown of North Sea production and the failure of continental suppliers to take advantage of a more favourable British market.

EU officials are investigating what they have described as a "dysfunctional market" after raiding energy companies in the search for evidence that supplies were deliberately withheld from the British market to avoid shortages in their own markets.

Le bedside manner

I took my son to the doctor's today, to have five stitches taken out of his knee. The stitches were the legacy of the swimming pool stairs at Q. Plage, which had an exposed sharp edge. The pool remained open following the accident and the dramatic intervention of the pompiers, complete with fire engine (shame hubski and not I was on duty that day). I asked a lifeguard a few days later if the stairs had been fixed, and was told that it was 'impossible' to repair them before the autumn as it would mean draining the pool and just in case I got any funny ideas 'c'est pas moi, c'est la direction qui prend responsabilité'. To my surprise, the next day the pool was closed and the stairs were replaced. I don't think it was my intervention that prompted the change of policy. Probably someone cut an artery.

This morning I noticed that two of the stitches had become infected, and when we got to the doctor's surgery I saw that he was being replaced by a stagiare, who looked to be about 21. My first, uncharitable, thought was that she didn't look up the task of doing battle with my son, who is a formidable opponent for any doctor even without infected stitches. I sat hesitating in the waiting room for a few minutes, and then, remembering how I resented the judgements that were handed down to me when I arrived in France, aged 24 but looking 17, decided to go through with it.

My heart sank when it came to our turn. She had the standard French doctor's unsmiling formality, which to them projects the message 'Trust me I'm a professional', but in practice means 'I am always right and you are always a cretin.' Sure enough, my request for a painkiller was brushed aside. So was any suggestion that the wound was infected. To the operating table!

To her credit, she did attempt a little English. 'No! It don't 'urt.' The only reward she got for this added service was 'Yes it doooes!' Never work with children or animals.

She resorted to the tried-and-tested way of calming a hysterical child that I remember so well from the halte garderie - shouting. "Eh! Oh! Il faut arreter!' I was irresistabley reminded of the way my 15-year old stepdaughter talks to my son when a playfight degenerates. She then did my all-time least favourite teen-queen gesture. She blew at her fringe. Then, with one stitch to go, she jumped up and said 'Je peux plus là'.

Finally it was over and I got him down, trying to ignore the 4-year-old-size ring of sweat (that's his entire body) that had been left on the table as we pinned him there.

The parting shot? 'Well, we could have given him an an anesthetetic, but it's a patch and it would have taken an hour to work.'

Thank you so much for discussing all the options with me.

All was forgotten ten minutes later thanks to the gift of ice-cream, and a beer for mummy (thanks for the disapproving glances, I'm sure it was the wrong time of day for a beer).

Only three weeks to go until the ferry.

Half a chicken, part 2

The French voice at the end of the phone threw my brain into reverse gear. Emergency lights flashed and cogs ground against each other as I jettisoned the vocabulary stashed under 'basic telephone Russian'. The 'basic telephone French' taking a holiday in a distant lobe was displeased at being summoned back at short notice, and pointedly took its time. Meanwhile, I could only utter inarticulate sounds.

I don't know what I had been expecting - but not a cocky sounding Frenchman without a trace of an accent. He claimed to have answered the ad, and claimed to be learning English. But meeting an imposter was out of the question. I decided to play along and draw him out a bit. 'How long have you been learning Russian?' There was a silence at the other end of the line.

'Franchement?'
'Oui.'
'Vingt-cinq ans.'

I couldn't believe it. The guy was taking the piss.

'Je suis russe' the French voice continued.

'What's your name then?' I flustered.

The reply - one of the most popular Russian boys names - reassured me somewhat. Maybe the guy really was Russian. The only way to find out was to start speaking Russian to him. But the basic telephone Russian had taken off in a huff, and I felt suddenly overcome with shyness. I still suffer from this inability to switch easily between languages.

Ten years on, the rest of the conversation escapes me. But I was sufficiently convinced to agree to meet him in the centre of Toulouse for a drink the next week. My flat mates thought this was a Very Bad Idea...

Half a chicken, part 1

I started this blog to move on from my French experience, put the past to bed, and start to write. What does this have to do with half a chicken? All will become clear. But be assured that if I had not risen to the half-a-chicken challenge, I would not be where I am today.

Let's go back to my ad on the notice board in the Russian department of Toulouse University, with the strip mysteriously torn off it. I am an avid leaflet and strip collecter and rarely follow anything through.

So I wasn't expecting to arrive home later that day to find my flat mates agog. A man had called. A man! The score was one-all with my Bulgarian flat mate, who was planning her lesson for her first ad respondant.

I had four flatmates, two English girls, a Norwegian girl and a Bulgarian girl. The reason that we were all foreigners will be obvious to anyone who has lived as a foreigner in France for any length of time. There are certain things reserved just for us. To put it another way, not many French people would have agreed to pay that much to live in the damp, cramped basement of a town house with hessian on the walls, the better to see the snail trails. We even had our very own pervert who would make stealthy visits to w**k over our post, and any laundry we were foolish to leave hanging out of our windows. Lovely.

Our first contact with the locals came through the French girl who rented a room on the light, airy first floor of the house. All we knew about her was that she was preparing a state 'concours', and needed peace in which to work. This translated into her banging on the floor everytime she felt we were in danger of pouring a third glass of wine. In extreme cases, where talking or worse, laughing, persisted beyond about 10 in the evening, she would (metaphorically and physically) descend to our level and knock on the door, provoking hysterical giggling, shushing and dares. I first learnt of the fierce French desire to enter state service from this young lady.

Anyway, I took the number, dialed it, and was puzzled when a French male voice answered the phone...

News flash: I'm an idiot

Oh happy day when the penny drops. Here I was, battling paranoia over my barren, comment-free blog, when the answer (12 wonderful comments, 11 positive, and only 1 critical, and even that was a fair comment) was just a click away. Thank you for your comments, which are all now published, and yes, I am an idiot newbie who didn't know I'd set my blog to moderate comments rather than publish them straight away.

Thanks to Sarah Hague for taking the trouble to e-mail me to say that she'd sent comments, and where were they. I' m proud to say I got the hang of e-mailing several years ago. And now I've found the 'moderate comments' button, the sky's the limit as far as I'm concerned. I can see it all, a 'categories' links, links to other blogs, different colours, images even. Hold on to your seats folks.

One of the reasons why I didn't start my blog until April 2006 was because despite reading hundreds of articles about how easy blogging was, I somehow didn't believe that a technophobe like me could manage it. I would be bound to balls it up somehow.

How pleasant to be proved right yet again.

Hellooooooo-oooo!!??

Look, I know you're out there. I have an invisible stat counter. And I note with pleasure that I have a small but ever-growing band of followers (still in double figures, but give it time).

So I can't help suffering from blog envy when I read other people's blogs and see they have comments on theirs. I did have one comment, but it was an ad for penis enlargement...

So please don't be shy. Delurk yourself. Slip me a comment or two, say what you think, share your experiences, what makes you laugh, what you like, what you don't.

Life meets blog. B-booom!!

A cruel reminder today from Petite Anglaise of the quicksand combination of life plus blog. No doubt it will send a shudder through employed bloggers everywhere because, let's face it, who can resist a public dig at the horned one (I love those Dilbert cartoons) after a long day in the cubicle?

Bloggers who blog too much often have enviable stats (Dooce is one example, Petite will surely follow). But at the end of the day, the crowds move on and forget, and the blogger has to pick up the pieces of their life. I'm not knocking it, but it's not for everyone.

Sometimes, too much information can be dynamite. I, like Petite Anglaise, learned the hard way. Now at least, I can write whatever I want about whoever I choose, and nobody can sack me. Yes, this blogger had the foresight to get herself sacked, from her Paris-based employers, before she started her blog.

Being sacked taught me several useful lessons - all common sense really, but as the Russians say, some people don't believe in the brick wall until they've hit their head against it (sounds a great deal pithier in the original). Lesson one, don't happily share your innermost thoughts, dreams, pregnancy test results and other highly personal details with friendly colleagues. Lesson two, don't believe that just because you generally wish everybody well that the feeling will be reciprocated. Lesson three, sometimes, standing up for what you know to be true does wonders for your self-esteem. Lesson four - and this is the really good news - if you are going to be sacked, do it in France. Those labour laws are dynamite.

Everytime I have spoilt myself in the last few months (new watch I had my eye on for ages, party dress and studio photo for daughter's first birthday, full set of family camping equipment (hmm, time will tell if that wasn't an investment too far)), I have mentally blown a kiss to my former employers. So long guys, and thanks for all the euros!

Seriously, I have become a lot wiser. It's because of my sacking experience that this blog has no photos, no names, no locations. Nobody in my circle of friends and family (apart from hubski, who is sworn to secrecy), knows about this blog. Francesca Tereshkova is a pseudonymn.

Because maybe, one day when I grow up I'll have a real job, as opposed to odds and ends of freelance work. Now that would really be something to blog about.

The nine circles of homeworking

1. E-mail dring. Must disable that, is very distracting. But it might be something important. Must just look.

2. Dang! Which folder did I put the images of last year's holiday in to reply to friend's joke e-mail?

3. It's no good. The kitchen floor is a disgrace. In the next house I buy with all the money I am earning doing editing work at home, I will buy dingy ochre tiles for my kitchen floor. Why did I get a flat with white tiles on the kitchen floor?

4. Where can I get a replacement bladder? Must look into getting a catheter. It would increase my output and pay for itself within six months. I could also probably offset it against tax.

5. Now I'm standing up, I may as well put the kettle on. Very important to get as much fluid as possible during hot weather.

6. Run out of sugar cubes again. Must just fire off a quick shopping list.

7. How many times have I told hubski he has to scrub really hard to get the burn marks off the hob?

8. Quarter to the hour, must just get the headlines on BBC News 24. That way I'll be informed as to world events and will be able to fully devote myself to being a good wife and mother this evening when hubski and kids get back from the park where they have been sent while I finish this urgent assignment.

9. My blog! My blog! It's dying! Quick! Write a post!

Battle of the sun-loungers

For me, the word 'sun-lounger' conjures up an automatic association with German tourists and their habit of rising at first light with their towels, and the gloriously un-PC Carling Black Label ad where a rolled-up towel is used as a 'bouncing bomb' to outwit Fritz as he sneaks out at dawn to the hotel pool. Makes one proud to be British.

I admire German efficiency, and I've found myself much in need of it since the artificial beach on the Ile of Q. in the Seine has become our second home. So this morning at precisely 10.13 hours, humming the Dambusters theme tune, I emerged from our apartment with the children, sun-creamed, swimming-costumed and lunch-box laden. Only one expletive-ridden trip back was needed, to fetch the blasted Carte Q. Plage.

Getting a sun-lounger was imperative, because my daughter needed somewhere to nap, or else the whole of the Ile of Q. would know about it. Getting a sun-lounger with shade was equally important. So was getting a sun-lounger next to the paddling pool where I could keep an eye on my son. On such minutae, days at the beach stand or fall.

The sun-loungers I had in my sights were under an awning, with a sign saying 'Espace reservée pour enfants de moins de 6 ans avec un adult responsable' (I know what you're thinking, I should get out more). We were one of the first to arrive, and we got our sun-lounger, fair and square. All was well, or so you would think.

I tried to ignore the the anger slowly rising within me as families began arriving, some with babies, all sweltering in the sun and forced to sit on the ground around us. There was no room left under the awning because two of the loungers had towels. The towels belonged to three child-free examples of what, since the rioting last autumn, have become known as 'disenfranchised French youth'. They were off enjoying themselves in the big pool, and had not been seen for at least an hour.

Perhaps it's obvious from the tone of this post why France and I don't get on. I cannot bear unfairness and selfishness. If there's a rule, backed up by a sign, and this rule is fair, then it should be respected. A couple of grandparents with a two-year old arrived, and looked longingly at the shade. At that point I knew I would have to say something or my entire day would be ruined.

The shouting lasted about 15 minutes, and attracted a crowd of onlookers (gawping being a national pastime). I, from the comfort of my sun-lounger (which I think confused a few people, why is the foreign biddy yelling when she already has a place?), blood ringing in my ears, sentence conjugation only just managing to keep up with the stream of invective, told the three aggressive, smart-arse teenagers what I thought of them. Eventually four security guards arrived and ordered them away, but not before they had tried to physically intimidate a man with his bewildered children. Their arrogance and indifference to the rules, even when printed on a large sign right next to them, was breathtaking.

Some might call it petty, but I call it a small victory. I'm going back tomorrow.

Goodbye my friends

If there's anything that has kept me going through the past eight years, apart from hubski (the reason I ended up in France in the first place), it's my friends. I'm picky about friends, but there are four or five people who have earned themselves this dubious honour. My only regret in leaving France is leaving them behind.

Today we had a farewell picnic in our local park. We are heading off in August (but this blog shall live on, as I'm only just getting into my stride) and today was one of the last times everyone could get together.

Friends are a reflection of ourselves, and during my time in France people have come and gone. When I arrived in 1998, I tapped into hubski's social circle, which consisted mostly of fellow 'cast members' - a phrase guaranteed to strike fear into anyone who has ever worked at Disneyland Paris. I spent the first six months in France officially homeless, illegally sharing hubski's room in the cast members' accomodation. I remember rooms crammed with various nationalities and varieties of alcohol. We eventually, tiring of the lack of privacy, managed, after a military-style bureaucratic campaign lasting several months, to rent a flat (the last straw was when hubski witnessed our Spanish housemate doing imitations of how I farted in the morning (the walls were thin) to an entire bus on the way to work. It was all in Spanish and hubski can't speak Spanish, but he assured me that he was not mistaken. There were sound effects.) Eventually, most people melted away or went back to their home countries.

Then I bumped into an acquaintance from university on my first day at work. A fellow language graduate, we both taught in a large private language school, EFL being one of the few work options open to us. Then a couple of people we knew from Toulouse turned up in Paris. After that, I got a job at an international organisation, full of other young foreigners, and before we knew it, we had an active social life on our hands. The only slight disappointment to me was that very few of our friends were French, and of those that were, all were men, usually my friends' boyfriends. Any fears I had that this was somehow to do with us vanished when I realised that nobody else, even the attractive, popular ones, seemed to know anybody French either.

Our first 'couple' friends we met in a bar on New Year's Eve 1998. Hubski, the worse for wear, staggered off to the loo and returned 45 minutes later with a new best friend - Jorge from Mexico. He called his girlfriend over, Cristina, a vivacious Spanish girl, who brought with her Sandro, 75 years old and slightly disorientated, but nonetheless thrilled to be there and be included (it was that kind of evening).

As the years went by, we both changed jobs again, and this time the workplaces were less friendly, more formal. One by one people split up, moved away. By then I was expecting my son, following a spell of soul-searching during which I decided that, at 26, life was trickling by meaninglessly (boy, was that a long morning at work).

The arrival of my son triggered a move to our current flat. I found myself in a new town, with a new baby and newly unemployed, knowing nobody. That year was wonderful, but lonely. My salvation came through joining a 1000-strong group for English-speaking mothers, and accosting anyone I heard speaking English in the park. After a year, I found out about the one playgroup existing in my town (state-organised, naturally), and got to know a few people through that. Four years down the line, I finally feel as if I have a little circle. And I'm leaving.

I somehow never thought that this phase in my life would come to an end. I thought I would always be able to call my half-French friend P., my American friend L., and my Hungarian friend N (the only friend I speak French to). Life goes by quickly, and every moment matters. But objectively, I can see that the time is right. Our children played together when they were babies, but now they are at different schools and are starting to choose their own friends. People have gone back to work, have less time, and might be moving on themselves.

I know that we are on the threshold of something new. And I have a feeling we'll have visitors.

You think it's all over, Zizou? It is now.

Zizou, have you been reading my blog? How could you have publicly humiliated me in this way? Don't shrug, you know what I'm talking about. I reach deep within myself to pull out a compliment and you fling it back in my face. You head-butted my girlish fantasies along with that Italian.

Don't worry Zizou. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. You are not the first Frenchman who has disappointed me. But you are one of the few I have ever liked.

Oh, parting shot number 2 - I found out something new about you on BBC News 24 after the match. The Brits refer to you as Z. Z. That's pronounced "Zizi"*

Just fancy that!

* French slang for vagina

Ice cream wars

'Mummy, I'm not hungry anymore.' Son pushes rice away listlessly. Then comes the inevitable: 'Can I have an ice-cream?'

'Not until you've eaten everything on your plate. If you're not hungry anymore, then how can you want an ice-cream?'

Ha. Mummy is just too on the ball for him.

' No mummy, I don't want to eat anything. But I would like to lick something mummy.'

Only four, and already a mind like a steel trap.

He gets the ice-cream. I just hope he remembers me when he's a high-earning barrister.

The French social model in action

For the record, I am very grateful to the Maire of the town of Q., where I live, for blowing pots of 'her' taxpayers' cash on an artificial beach and swimming-pool complex just a stone's throw from Paris and just a five minute toddle from my door. Oodles of sand have been shipped in and deposited on the Ile of Q. in the Seine, a new Olympic-sized outdoor pool has just been opened, and only the lucky few in possession of a matching utility bill and carte d'identité bearing the name of the town of Q. are allowed in for free (otherwise 20 euros par personne! Aie!). It's a very French exclusivity. 'I have an EDF bill to die for, darlink'. God knows how much those things can command on the black market (hmm, interesting thought).

After the usual three hours of getting ready, I and the tots rolled up to the gates this afternoon, and having presented our papers, were told that this year, we required a special 'Carte Q. Plage', and until we obtained it, all six of the gatepeople (that's six times more personnel than gate) would bar our way to Eldorado.

I was assured that the card formality would take a matter of minutes, and when I saw the set-up, all my disbelief and sceptism (and I had it in spades) was banished in an instant.

In front of me was a crack card-assembling team of no fewer than six keen-as-mustard young folk. One person to direct me to the first person on the production line (let's call them the 'funneler'), two, someone to photocopy my carte de sejour and cut out the photo from it, three, someone, poised with the sticky-back plastic, to assemble the thing and hand it back to me. That still leaves three people; one to answer the phone, one to stare into space and another one to strut backwards and forwards between the two desks to make people wonder how her boob tube stayed up. (Tit tape? Or a command of gravity unique to French women and yet to be patented?).

The part of me that secretly admires Margeret Thatcher but would never admit it in polite company got thinking. First, we have an unecessary card. Then, we have unecessary staff, most of which are superfluous even to perform this unecessary task. All of which adds up to an incalculable (if you are idle and innumerate) waste of tax payers' cash. I need hardly add that the whole thing is state run. To be fair to the French, they are better at running leisure facilities than the Brits (or is that damning with faint praise?).

Then the large part of my brain devoted to conspiracy theories kicked into gear. I looked around the beach. It was awash with personnel, wafting about, inspecting their nails, having flirty play fights, playing beach volley-ball, playing with walkie-talkies. They were obviously all students on summer jobs. There's nothing wrong with the hallowed institution of the cushy summer job, but I have never witnessed so many people enjoying one in such an enclosed space.

Maire, she need votes. Student, he need job. Student's maman and papa, they need them out of the house, and with own cash, not their cash. State cash. You can't fool me, froggy.

Great pool by the way.

Just for you Zizou

Apart from the fact he plays football that even I can see is beautiful to watch, I have always had a soft spot for Zinedine Zidane.

I love the way that when you watch clips of him play, you can always tell what year it is by the size of his bald spot. I love his smile, which manages to be both shy and ear-splittingly genuine. I love his monotonous post-match dissections, so at odds with the poetry of his performance on the pitch. I love the fact that despite his modest bearing and origins (the son of an Arab immigrant from a rough area of Marseilles), he has acheived success through talent alone. He seems like a thoroughly nice bloke, and it must be said, very different from some of the England players that you wouldn't fancy meeting down an alleyway.

What a shame our lot can't move on from the penalty shoot-out death spiral. The first England team that manages it should all be knighted.

I never thought I'd say it, but I'm supporting France for the rest of this tournament. Just for you Zizou.

xx