A Writer in Paris

This time last year, I was in Paris on a special trip. A special trip for me.















I mean, just for me.

I left on the Friday morning while my darling husband looked after our daughter and I came back on the Sunday evening.

Two whole days in Paris J

Just before I left, I had bought a little gem, pictured here. A Writer's Paris ­– A Guided Journey for the Creative Soul by Eric Maisel. A wonderful, perfectly produced book all about Paris and what a writer can do – must do – when coming to write in Paris, whether for a month, three months or a year (or anything in between), on a budget or not (though mostly it’s all about surviving on a shoe string in the City of Light, because ­– ahem – it’s a well-known fact that writers are broke half the time. Because writing takes time, usually time when you can’t work simultaneously, so one constantly struggles between time for writing and time for earning a bit of money). It has pictures and drawings, lovely use of attractive fonts, and the cover and glacé paper… wow! They make you feel like you’re holding a very expensive and very precious book. Which I guess it is.

Three years before that, I had read Eric Maisel’s A Writer's San Francisco (whose looks were unfortunately not quite as appealing – don’t you just hate that, not being able to get two similar books in the same collection?!) and compulsively turned its pages in the streets and cafés of SF. This time, I would do the same in the city where I was born, getting inspiration from reading Eric’s beautiful writing and from his ideas. Writing ideas generously offered by writers always get my creative juices flowing. (Eric’s even spurred me to write this post!)

I was born to write. Whether I’ll ever get published (other than electronically I mean, as will soon happen with my short stories, nearly ready for the iPad J) is neither here nor there. It’s increasingly clear to me that I absolutely don’t care what will eventually happen to my writing. As long as I keep writing (here and privately on my computer or in my numerous notebooks), I’ll be happy.

A Writer's Paris ­– A Guided Journey for the Creative Soul. So much promise.

And it delivered.

I wrote and wrote and wrote:

on the train

in a little café ironically named “Comme à la maison” (if I was going to end up at home, why go to Paris at all?! Or was that a hint – I was at home!? But I knew that anyway. I LOVE Paris. I do feel at home in Paris. But I also feel at home in Oxfordshire, thankfully!)

in my hotel room at the Hotel Acte V, in the 5^th arrondissement

It was an idyllic weekend in an idyllic city for a budding writer. It even snowed!

Thank you, Eric. Next time, I’ll do exactly as you say and spend at least a month in Paris and go to all the places you mention and I’ll even try to write a novella in four weeks!

Eloping to Burgundy

I am writing this post while sitting by the fire. While it is at odds with what I am going to write about, its heat does remind me of the warmth of the sun on my cheeks and arms just two months ago, when we were in France for our yearly holiday, having chosen completely by chance the best 10 days of the year to get away from it all.

As I hinted at in my previous post, my husband and I eloped to Burgundy for three nights, just the two of us. I had been wanting to show this part of France to my beloved for many years. Finally, we had organised a few days away so that he could see an area that you cannot not visit in your lifetime if you are a Francophile! Which is also a region I happen to know very well as my parents took me through and around it many times in my childhood and teenagehood. I even remembered the cellars my husband and I ended up going to, even though I hadn’t seen them for at least 20 years! Memories, memories!

From Chablis to Épineuil, from Marsonnay-La-Côte to Beaune, via villages full of significance if you are a wine connaisseur, for example Gevrey-Chambertin, Chambolle Musigny, Vosne-Romanée and Pernand-Vergelesses, then to Nolay and back towards Beaune, with one last night in Meursault, it was vineyard after vineyard; red, orange and yellow leaves after burgundy-red, ochre and golden trees; wine glass after wine glass; spit after spit; mmmmhhhh after mmmmhhhh; cash spending after cheque writing (way beyond our initial budget, but then again it did include a few Christmas presents, so…!); delicious meal after scrumptious meal; street visit after museum visit; warm night after sultering day; page after page in our respective books. Carefree, wind-in-our-hair holidays, just as we love them!

Here are a few pictures…

Our chambre d'hôte in Marsannay, "Sur la route des Grands Crus" (and may we recommend the delicious restaurant Les Gourmets, just down the road!?)

















The castle of Givrey-Chambertin

Millions of those, close by and in the distance















Beaune Hospices

















































Collégiale Notre-Dame












Les Halles of Nolay










Meursault
"Les Charmes" hotel











Our room

Our bathroom






The gardens (with private swimming pool at the back)








The main square









Domaine Bouzereaux

Cinema

The clouds are crying again. Endless tears, and quite violent. And so it’s made me cry... Today, Monday, was going to be my day. My pilgrimage day. My trip to Nice, on my own, with my memories, my travel diary to write down all my feelings and emotions about it, and my camera, to finally take digital pictures of the place that holds most of my childhood memories (I do have a few pictures from my 2004 trip, but they were taken on film – I hadn’t entered the digital age yet). However, even just lying down in my warm bed before getting up, I could tell that this was going to be a ‘bad’ day (un jour sans, as we say in French). At first, I didn’t have the strength to wake up properly and get up to say goodbye to B before she set off to work. But when I finally did, I nearly fell over as I was so weak and dizzy. I said ‘Bon courage’ to B, then looked out the window and saw the grey sky. Another crap day... ‘Oh it will probably get better later, don’t worry.’ Yes, I thought, but perhaps I won’t...

I went back to bed but couldn’t fall asleep again, so after an hour, I gave up and got up for good. I didn’t feel any better. When I got into the lounge, what I saw made my heart sink. Sheets of rain, and a blocked view, yet again.

I sat at the table before starting eating my breakfast, and all I could feel was exhaustion and sadness. Then I tried to stop feeling miserable and said to myself that realistically, I would not even be able to walk to Monaco's train station, near the Casino, let alone traipse around Nice. In any case, I wouldn’t be able to take pictures, the weather being so awful, so there really was no point. And even if the sun had shone and the sky had been blue, I would have forced myself to be reasonable and stay in the flat, at least in the morning. Because if tomorrow I feel like I’m feeling right now, travelling back to England will be nearly impossible. So I must gather some strength.

Tonight, hopefully, if I’m not feeling too bad, we’re going to see a soon-to-be French cult film: Bievenue chez les Ch’tis. In its third week, it’s already immensely successful. Fingers crossed, not many people will want/be able to see it today at 6 p.m., and we’ll have most of the room to ourselves. It is Monday after all, and 6 p.m., even for the rich Monegasques, is too early to leave work and have a leisurely couple of hours in front of a big screen...

EDIT: The room was only half full and we had a great time. We laughed out loud many, many times and came out feeling like we had had a good abs workout! I definitely recommend the film to all Francophiles out there – but especially Francophones, as the language is very hard to understand, even for French people!

Roquebrune

What a pretty, picturesque village! And at this time of year, it is very quiet, so wandering around its streets was most enjoyable. We started with the 10th century castle, well worth the 3-euro ticket as the views from the top are breathtaking. Especially when the sun shines, which, amazingly, it did today, for about an hour, just as were walking up and down the village. THANK YOU! I got tired quite quickly, though, so after admiring the views from various meandering streets, we took the car and drove to the centre of Monaco, where we had planned to watch a film. But it wasn’t to be – the queue was huge, B completely put off, and myself disappointed but glad to go home to a warm cup of tea and a nice sofa to lie down on. The film would have to wait till Monday evening.

Fog

This is the picture-perfect view (courtesy of B) I would have been able to photograph this morning, had the weather been idyllic. But today, if I had taken a picture of the scenic view from the balcony, you would only have seen white. It is foggy like it has never been. We can’t see further than 2 metres away. No yellow or orange specks on the trees across the hair-pin bend today...

So we stayed in all day, processing, editing, deleting photographs (for me) and making a photo album (for B). If we had been able to set up the wifi connection on my computer, I would have started creating a photo album with MyPublisher too (either the three weddings we went to in September, or our honeymoon in Sri Lanka), but we are not internet-connection savvy and so after many trials and errors, we gave up. Never mind. At least I have now edited three folders of pictures – yippee! Only 24 to go!

Down and up

Specks of yellow in the trees on the opposite side of the corniche – could these be lemon trees?











When I’m ready to go out, the clouds finally containing their tears, it is midday. I start my one-hour journey by walking down towards the town centre of Beausoleil and Monaco. I follow the first hair-pin bend and arrive at the specks of yellow: they are indeed lemons. But right next to them are also mandarin trees, orange spheres dotting dark-green and brown leafy branches. Fruit trees on tiny terraces, lodged between the road above and the paths below, no houses, just rocky and pebbly balconies, with the force of life growing on them. Such a surprising sight!











The morning traffic has finally died down. The view I behold when I round the next corner is breathtaking. The sky is lighter in places, so I can finally distinguish the sea. The line of the horizon is black, then the white clouds take over and lead to further, dark-grey dense cotton balls. The sea is peppered with white boats. Above, the cliffs and hills of the coast, with tall apartment buildings, not very pretty but typical of the area, in tones of yellow, ochre and light pink.

When I get to the escalier de la noix (walnut stairwell), my calf-tightening and knee-breaking journey begins. I go down the stairs carefully, as the surface might be slippery. It has been raining hard and each step is sloping down a little – a treacherous combination. When I reach a crossroads of sorts, I choose the wrong path and end up trespassing on to someone’s grassy alleyway and more terraces of lemon and mandarin trees. I retreat and get back on to the tarmac. My shoes and trouser hems are soaking wet, the chill from the ground going straight up the front of my legs, travelling to my arms, sending a shiver down my spine right back down to my heels. Brrrrr. Shouldn’t have made that mistake.

When I finally get to the bus stop, I can see The Casino. The famous casino, where millions of visitors come to lose their money, very few making winnings and departing straight away. I was one of the latter, though, nearly ten years ago. I came with my grandfather in September 1998, having never been to Monaco before, despite my years of coming to the area. My grandmother had just died, and so we did things that we had never done before, the spirit of my granny hot on our heels, following our every move from way above, or so we felt. He gave me 50 francs and off we went to the slot machines. After putting a few one-franc coins, I suddenly found myself with an overflowing plastic goblet. My granddad said: ‘Oh you should see your eyes! You look like Picsou [Scrooge McDuck]! I can almost see dollar signs in your pupils!!’ I put a bit more money in the slot machine but I wasn’t getting anything in return, so I said ‘No more, I’m stopping, that’s it. I have made money, that was my intention, I’m not trying any more. Let’s go.’ My granddad was impressed. I got 120 francs back from the man at the tills. That was a 70-franc gain. I was very proud of having resisted the urge to play all my coins. I am no gambler. I am a saver. No surprises there. (Incidentally, when Monsieur l’Anglais and I went to Las Vegas two and half years ago, I didn’t win a thing. Luck doesn’t follow me everywhere I go, at least not the financial kind of luck...)

From the Casino stop, I take the bus to Fontvieille, the financial and commercial district of Monaco, where B and R work. Monte Carlo is the richest part of Monaco, with the Casino and the grandest hotels and houses, and sprinkled with lavish boutiques such as Dior, Vuitton and Dolce & Gabbana. Larvotto is the area with all the beaches and further buildings hiding sumptuous flats and expensive shops. La Condamine is the northwest section of Monaco, which includes the expensive-yacht-filled port. Finally, Monaco-Ville is the part that boasts the palace. It is the old city, placed on a rocky promontory extending into the Mediterranean, known as Le Rocher (the Rock of Monaco).

B and I meet up in front of her office and go for lunch at La Salière, a very Italian restaurant at the port of Fontvieille, with staff who speak at least French, Italian and English, some German too, and that serves a selection of four or five main dishes which changes every day. It makes choosing my lunch very easy (I tend to agonise for hours over several types of dishes – I don’t have that luxury today). I go for the asparagus and blue cheese risotto, B for the grilled seabass with tomatoes and potatoes. Within minutes, our dishes arrive. That is the other advantage of serving only a few dishes at each meal – they are nearly instantly ready, the busy businessmen don’t have to wait and you can endlessly say ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’ to satisfied customers (there is enough time between 12 p.m. and 3 p.m. for probably four or five seatings!). It makes complete commercial sense, bravi!

After lunch, I walk B back to her office building, then I walk up the stairs to the next street level and look at a shop called Loisirs Créatifs – scrapbooking items, paints, paper in all colours, pens, paintbrushes, books about painting and scrapbooking, and many other arty items. A nice little shop. I then go to its counterpart – the Loisirs Créatifs Maison, back down the next street level, a few metres away from B’s office. Candles, hand creams, pots, vases, photo frames, rugs – a bit of everything for the home. If I wasn’t flying, I would buy a thing or two in here...

After ambling around the small shopping centre a two-minute walk away, I’m at a loss. Not a nice little café in sight! It’s raining again, it’s a bit cold, and my only options are a smoky café in the shopping centre (there is no smoking ban in Monaco, as yet) or a café outside in the cold. I’m a bit disappointed.

I start walking away from the shopping centre, hoping that there will be more choice near the port of Fontvieille. I walk towards the port of Cap d’Ail, through empty streets and unable to dodge the raindrops, and finally spot a café: the Brasserie Le Cap, part of the Marriott Hotel. This will have to do. And it’d better be open. I pass by the swimming pool – desolate, grey – then the empty terraces, the tables covered in rain puddles, sad, longing for sunshine and people sitting behind them, and I finally reach the entrance door. It’s open!

I sit down and order a green tea. It turns out to be very strong and a lot less enjoyable than I have anticipated. Nonetheless, finally sitting down, resting, in the quiet (only three tables are occupied!), reading and writing my travel diary, the green leaves perk me up and the tiredness manages to leave me alone for a while.

At 5 o’clock, I leave the café and go to the 10th floor of B’s building for a quick tour around her office. From now on, I will always be able to picture her at her desk, where R sits, where her boss’s room is and where her other colleagues are in the room compared to where she is. I am starting to know a bit more about my friend’s life and it feels nice and cosy.

We drive back home in yet more rain – the Monegasques panic at the first drop, and the traffic is at a standstill near enough immediately – and sit down to a long-awaited cup of tea. Toes to toes, we are facing each other on the sofa and finally catch up. The last time we were able to talk for uninterrupted hours was in August 2002, before B jetted off around the world on a cruiseship, with R in the top offices of the kitchens, a welcome kind of déjà vu (this is how and where they had met 5 years before). Now we’re making up for lost time and it feels wonderful.

Atypical

I hesitated a little before I included this picture in my post. The view is most atypical. Probably because I'm not supposed to do too much, it's raining (you understand – if the sun was shining, I would be walking everywhere and exhausted for the rest of my stay here). It was 17 degrees on Monday and bright sunshine. Today: 13, low clouds, rain. The sea was ink-black yesterday afternoon. I had never seen it this colour before, in the 50-odd times I saw it in my life. This morning, it is light grey, reflecting the sorry colour of the sky. In fact, I’ve just looked up again and I can no longer distinguish the sea from the sky (you can just about on the picture). The earth is at one with the heavens. And it’s still raining...

After reading my book in bed and listening to B’s music on her iPod station, relaxing, musing, I thought some more about my trip yesterday.

‘Hey everybody, this is the land of my childhood holidays!’ I wanted to shout to all the passengers when we started descending. ‘Hey, listen all! I know this area so well! You’ll see, when we get closer to the airport, suddenly we’ll go out towards the sea and the view will be breathtaking! It’s my favourite part of the trip! The beautiful Med!’

I shed a few tears, overcome by emotion. I hadn’t flown to this part of France for nearly four years...

However, to my astonishment, we arrived at a strange angle, and so instead of circling wide towards the sea just before we could see the landing strip, it was as if we were heading straight for the north of Africa, passing the south coast of France on our way to, dare I say, more beautiful, certainly more exotic, landscapes. For a long time, all we could see was the blue of the sea (along with some jellyfish, if you had the imagination of the brats at the back of the plane) and the white of the boats bobbing seemingly gently below us. Then suddenly, mountain peaks appeared, white as coconut ice cream, their edges rugged, grey, raw. I had never seen the Alps while hovering above the sea. The best of both worlds right here, one below me, one ahead of me, nearly reconcilable. I was mesmerised. Apparently, we went as far as Menton and Monaco, then we started flying lower and back towards where we should have headed in the first place – Nice airport – going along the coast. We passed Cap Ferrat – so distinctly a cape when you’re flying above it! – the port of Villefranche, the Promenade des Anglais, and finally the strip of land where the plane could be put down, after a two-hour journey. Within minutes, we were at our gate, disembarked, and five minutes later my suitcase was rightfully mine again. B’s partner, R, arrived as I was busy looking at Stelios and the man next to him, both being welcomed by a handsome French man, and all was well in the world. I had made it safely to the land of my childhood holidays. My present holiday could start!

Ironically, an English voice on Riviera Radio was the first sound I heard when I got to R and B’s flat. ‘What is this? I’ve come to France and I hear an English voice on the radio?!’

‘Ah! This is Riviera Radio, for all the Brits who’ve settled in the area.’

Unbelievable!

But indeed, the ads are all about buying and renting flats and houses, with a splendid 360-degree view of the Med, a huge balcony and two or three bedrooms, of course at an exorbitant price. For a minute during our scenic drive from the airport to Beausoleil, I imagined myself living out here, but now I understood why B and R hate the whole Monaco experience. The glamour is only superficial (though the wealth of the people is quite real). It is a million light years away from my life and what I like in Life...

Travelling

At first, it felt a little like being in a farm, stuck with herds of strangers. I just wasn't reassured. It all felt cheap and cheery and 'what does it matter if we crash and you die?' An old Indian woman next to me in the queue about to board the plane had told me, just ten minutes before, that Stelios Haji-Ioannou, the founder of EasyJet, was going to be on the plane with us – she had seen him hanging around. I suddenly remembered this interesting information and told myself that surely if the boss is going to be on board, they will have triple-checked everything and so we would be fine. In any case, my lucky star is always there with me. Nothing to worry about. I have never had any problems travelling, it wasn't going to start happening today.

The first flight of my life was when I was six months old, ironically to Nice, just like today (though, of course, from Paris, not London, and [perhaps shockingly] in the care of an air hostess – not because my mum was one, not because I was an orphan or in foster care – no, simply because those were the times when you could entrust your infant with a hostess to deliver her to her grandparents at the other end of the country, which thus freed you to set off on your own travels, whether it be India or Senegal or any country in between). So yes, I was practically born on a plane. I'm used to flying. I must have flown more than 100 times in the thirty-one years I've been using this means of transport. It's just that, this afternoon, I didn't like the feel of the whole experience.

Now that I've read a few pages of my book (Alias Grace) and an article about Petite Anglaise (alias Catherine Sanderson) in the Daily Telegraph, and chatted a little to my neighbours (thankfully, by some sort of miracle, there was a seat towards the front of the plane and I didn’t have to sit down right in the middle of the twenty-strong group of secondary school students, acting like brats), I feel a bit more settled. It's not the nice, relaxing, quiet atmosphere of a British Airways plane, but for 56 pounds, it will do I suppose. I'd like to snooze for a while, but I don't seem to be tired enough.

People keep buying stuff – mini pizzas, red wine, bottles of water, scratch cards, tea, chocolate bars, lip gloss, collagen eye masks... You wonder why they bother getting cheap flight tickets to then buy lots of expensive extra things they don't need. I, for one, made my own salad last night and, along with a yoghurt, a banana, an apple and plastic fork and spoon, stuffed it in my already-bulging travel bag. Admittedly, I did buy a small Toblerone bar and a packet of Polos when I arrived at the airport, for a grand total of £1.42. Reasonable, wouldn't you say? Go low-cost airlines! At least, thanks to the likes of Stelios, we have a choice: fly as cheaply as is possible, then spend, or not, extortionate amounts on tat. Oh and it's quite safe – I arrived unscathed in the land of my childhood holidays, in and around Nice. I am ready to start my pilgrimage proper.

Norman nostalgia

(This is an entry that should have been posted at the end of September 2006!)

We reached Caen on Friday evening at about 6pm. The rain in Deauville hadn’t followed us and the sun revealed the rich, creamy colour of the stone of the castle around which Caen is built. We parked the car in the Libération car park and walked to our friends’ flat, a stone’s throw away.

Even in their flat in Caen, our friends’ taste and passion for antique furniture was obvious. A few years ago, they bought two flats and converted them into one, and throughout they decorated it with old fireplaces, antique beds and 18th century banquettes and armchairs. The only piece of furniture that was old but battered and ugly was the kitchen table and chairs. ‘While waiting for something better to come along...’ our Australian friend, A., said. Then she explained: ‘Actually, F. [her husband, who is French] wanted me to go and get a cheap table; I got so fed up with the chore of buying furniture that I bought the cheapest and most horrible table. That taught him a lesson.’

We were soon joined by our third friend, D., and an hour later by F., who came back from work and greeted his three children, his wife and his friends with joviality and immense pleasure. Our evening could finally start properly.

For dinner, A. prepared fresh mussels that she had bought from the market that morning, with freshly made... French fries from the local McDonald’s! A Franco-American combination that made the traditional Belgian moules-frites not as delicious as it should have been, but the conviviality of the meal made up for it. We then had a selection of French cheeses and a delicious salad made from proper French lettuce (they just don’t know how to cultivate round lettuce here in England – it just never tastes the same), followed by apple crumble. F. served some divine wine (wine and calvados are his other passions) and I started feeling quite at home.

Oh but hang on a minute – that’s right, I was at home! I was in France! But this is what’s been happening in recent years. I consider myself English and when I go to France, I don’t quite feel French any more. One day soon, I’ll take the test of British citizenship and become a British citizen. How will I feel then?

We spoke a mixture of English and French and I realised, once more, how pleasant it would be if we could do the same at home, Monsieur l’Anglais and myself. But his French is just not good enough. We say a sentence or two, and then have to revert to English if we want to have a proper conversation.

At midnight, after much eating, drinking and laughter, Monsieur l’Anglais, D. and I headed for the car park to drive to our friends’ country chateau, 20 minutes outside of Caen. But the metal doors were well and truly pulled down, our car imprisoned underground. There was no way of getting to our car!

‘I knew it! I should have checked! A 24-hour car park in a small French town? No way, not possible! I knew it! I should have listened to my instinct and double-checked!’

D., who had parked his MG in another part of town, had already left us to our own devices. Luckily, we had arranged to meet up at a crossroads in town, because we didn’t quite know how to get out of Caen to reach the chateau. We waited and waited, and waited some more. I was getting cold, so we decided to call A. and F. and explain the situation rather than wait another minute – who knew how much longer D. would be...

Apologising profusely, I explained the problem to F. – we were stranded in the middle of Caen, waiting for D. who wouldn’t be able to take us both in his little MG. The solution imposed itself: it was half past midnight and our host would have to get out of bed, put some clothes on and drive us to the chateau, after drinking we were not too sure how much alcohol. He assured us that he was fine and that he hadn’t drunk much at all. It was obvious to me that he had drunk well over the legal limit, but we decided to take our chances, since there was no room for us to sleep in their flat. Well, there was, but F. wouldn’t let us sleep on his banquette or floor, ‘Come on!’.

Anyway, F. and I arrived at the chateau, unscathed, 20 minutes later, and Monsieur l’Anglais and D. another 15 minutes later (D. is a bit of a slow driver, and things haven’t changed since he bought the MG a few months ago!).

What I had only been able to imagine these past three years suddenly came to life in front of my eyes. The lighting was subtle, the night very dark outside the huge, floor-to-ceiling windows, but I could tell that I was in truly special surroundings.

‘I don’t see it any more – I know it’s beautiful, but I don’t notice things any more,’ said F. when I uttered a few words of wonder, amazement and awe at the old windows, the original stone fireplace, the shiny parquet and the wood panelling.

‘It’s all 18th century. Even the parquet. I managed to find just enough to cover the floor in this room.’

The bedroom we would sleep in for the next three nights was also 18th century. It was pale yellow with hints of pale green, from the fireplace to the wood panelling to the windows, right down to the bed frame. By comparison, the adjoining bathroom was ultra-modern, but even there, there were hints of history – the tall windows, the antique mirror, the imposing wooden cupboard.

I felt like Marie-Antoinette must have felt when she first entered Versailles.

Monsieur l’Anglais and I slept soundly through the silent night and woke up at 10, after opening our eyes briefly at 8 and thinking that it was far too early to get out of bed. Getting up late is so unlike us, I couldn’t believe we had overslept so much! The sun was shining and it was a very mild air that meandered its way into our room when I slowly, carefully drew the curtains and opened the large, 17th century windows. We were going to have a fabulous weekend!

We had a cup of tea on the terrace next to the kitchen, then Monsieur l’Anglais and D. left in the MG to go back to Caen and collect our own MG from the car park, which hopefully would be open by then and be able to release our little car.

F. disappeared somewhere in the huge grounds that surround the house to do a spot of gardening, while I... set off on an exploration of the park on my own.

I started with the orchard, populated by 5,000 apple trees. In my search for the best pomme for my breakfast, I got very wet feet and trousers but I enjoyed the silence, the low sun rays on my skin and the fruity smells all around me. I ate three apples during my walk, and gathered a few for the men.

When I went back to the house, I took off my drenched shoes and let them dry on the double staircase at the front of the house, which the sun splashed with its rays. I then went around all the rooms in the chateau and relished looking at such gorgeous walls, furniture, paintings and floors. Rameau’s harpsichord music, which F. had put on in the living room, resonated in the whole house – perfect melodies to accompany my tour.

It was so peaceful, I nearly didn’t want Monsieur l’Anglais and D. to come back. As it turned out, they didn’t for another hour, during which I discovered the literature of Anais Nin. Our Australian friend A. had one of her diaries stashed away in the library corner of our bedroom, and I found out a thing or two about this amazing writer. Her diaries will sure be part of my next Amazon order! I had vaguely heard about her, but didn’t know who she was, nor that she had actually spent some time in France. I can’t wait to read her books now!

A scrumptious apple in one hand, the delectable book in the other, I settled myself on one of the front stone steps and let my trousers and shoes dry in the sun and gentle breeze. I was in heaven.

When my husband and D. finally came back, I had a hot shower and delighted in changing my clothes (in which I had spent 8 hours sitting in the car and another 9 hours sleeping in the bed – the heating wasn’t on in the chateau because the weather was still mild, but not quite so mild at night as to sleep with nothing on!). Half an hour later, the three of us were in a little town 5 kilometres away and sitting down at a table in a typical small Norman restaurant. Although D. is English, he is treated like a local when he arrives in that eatery. He has, after all, been coming to the area for 15 years because he also owns a chateau 5 kilometres away, though in the other direction. A place I had been longing to see for three years too and couldn’t believe I was roughly two hours away from discovering.

After our delicious but simple meal, we went to the borough where D.’s chateau is. It is not even a village – it’s just a cluster of five houses, and then it’s fields and national forest all around. While there is a 1-kilometre track to get to A. and F.’s chateau, there is no such path to V..., D.’s chateau. Nonetheless, the view is no less spectacular. It is an imposing mansion, very long and quite high, at the bottom of a grassy slope that you have to negotiate with care when you drive an MG as the path is uneven.

But inside! Inside! I was shocked! D. and his partner have had this chateau for 15 years and practically nothing has been done. Well, everything that has been done is invisible – the electricity, the plumbing, structural work, the taking-out of the mud and soil between the beams in order to relieve them from the weight bearing on them from one floor to the other, and of course, the roof. But there are still rooms with no floor or no ceiling! It’s all still an empty shell, anxiously waiting to be filled with all the things that D. and his partner have bought over the years, themselves waiting patiently in storage.

I soon made myself at home, however. I just ignored the naked walls, the dirty floors, the dusty shelves and furniture items, and sat down next to the floor-to-ceiling fireplace, on the 18th-century rocking chair. Once the fire got going, I stopped shivering from the cold and started relaxing properly.

Soon, it was dark and the fire was roaring, echoing our laughter and D.’s lengthy diatribes about French taxes, the United States (one of A.’s friends there was American) and the awful European laws. We left at 8.30 p.m. and then ate pain perdu for dinner at A. and F.’s, a typical French dish (which I believe translates as ‘French bread’, ironically!) that you usually make when you don’t know what to cook – a mixture of eggs, milk and sugar, in which you soak slices of (usually stale) bread, which you then cook in a frying pan until golden. Absolutely delicious! Because of its unhealthy, fattening quality, my mum never made it for me, but my nanny had a few times, in the many years I had spent at her house, between the ages of 3 and 10.

On the Sunday, we got up at 9 a.m. and joined D. at his chateau at midday. For the next two hours, we prepared bowls of lettuce, some vinaigrette, a kilo and a half of green beans, small potatoes, a two-inches-thick côte de bœuf and the fire to cook it over – an indoor barbeque of sorts!

When guests started to arrive (the American lady and her French husband, A., F. and their children), I felt quite at home cooking, boiling, tossing, marinating, cutting. I was the lady of the house and assumed my role quite seriously. I also took a few pictures. The one of the dining room, with the low rays of the sun illuminating softly the long 17th-century table and benches, is my favourite and became my computer background as soon as I came back home.

The ensuing lunch and afternoon were just heaven. I felt completely at home and realised the chasm that separates the English culture from the French one. Even with English and American people in the house, the simple fact of being in France changes how people eat, act, interact and think. We were truly living how the French live – how I used to live when I was in France full time. I felt so relaxed and so happy, yet at the same time I longed for the possibility of doing this in England and wondered why it just wasn’t possible, even in my own home. It’s all down to the produce (no English butcher will ever sell you a piece of meat like the one the French butcher had sold D.; the green beans do not look, let alone taste, the same [although I have since found some excellent ones at Waitrose, exactly the same as the French ones I’m used to!]), but also, I believe, to the conviviality of the French style that tends to be copied while in France – because it would be an offence not to live as the French do, even when you are a foreigner. The American lady had even made a macédoine de légumes, just the same as I used to have at the school canteen, with a little home-made mayonnaise. You can’t get more French than that!

I felt incredibly good but also incredibly nostalgic. I was this close to wondering why I have lived in England for the past 11 years when life could have been this good all along, in my own country... A bad case of ‘the grass is greener on the other side of the fence’ – of the Channel in this case. Literally, the grass is greener in England, because of the weather – but metaphorically? Sometimes I’m not so sure...