Some parenting quotes:

Back in February 2016 I wrote a post about French parenting. Since then I think that there has been a change and that chidren now have much more influence over their parents. Nonetheless, my daughter and I find it amusing to take notes of some of the comments that we hear parents saying (or rather, shouting) to their children.

I’m by far a perfect parent and can totally appreciate that there events that I am unaware of that preceded these comments…and that such things are no doubt said beyond the borders of France but here are some of the quotes anyway with English translations:

-Vous ne savez pas vous comporter. Pire que des animaux! You don’t know how to behave. You’re worse than animals!
-Bon arrêtez maintenant, sinon il n’y aura pas de Noël – OK stop right now or there won’t be any Christmas.
-Non non non non non non non non non non, non c’est non, c’est non. – (self explanatory)

-Vous êtes pire que des enfants. – You are worse than children!

-Arrêtez, sinon je me fâche! STOP NOW or I will get angry! (I’m not sure how the parent could become more angry than the tone of voice already displayed)

-Je, quoi?…Je m’en fous! – What ?… I don’t give a shit!

-Arrête, arrête, arrête… Tu vas le casser… Et voilà, tu l’as cassé.  Stop, stop, stop! You’re going to break it. There you go, good job!… you broke it!

-Reste dehors ou ne bouge plus. Wait outside or stop moving!

-Enfant: “Je peux rien faire!” Parent : Exactement, tu ne peux rien faire! Child: “I can’t do anything‘ Parent: EXACTLY, you can’t do anything!

-Tu ne facilite vraiment pas les choses! You’re really not making this easy!

-Tu vois bien que tu fais exprès d’être chiante. It’s obvious that you are deliberately trying to be a pain in the arse.

-During the Summer holidays: Il va travailler pendant deux semaines, il va se coucher tôt et se lever tôt. Je vais le dresser, il va faire la différence entre l’école et les vacances. He’s going to work for two weeks: he’s going to go to bed early, get up early. I’m going to tame him! He’s going to make the difference between school and holidays.

-Ca fait trois fois que tu tournes dans le même sens! Tu ne sais pas rouler à vélo. Ca fait des années que tu roules à vélo! Ce n’est pas possible! This is the third time that you’re turning in the same direction. You don’t know how to ride a bike. You’ve been riding a bike for years now! It’s unbelievable!

-Fais pas la beta! Tu peux parler normalement. Gne, gne, gne, gne, gne. Parle normalement! Don’t be an idiot. You can speak normally. Nuh, nuh, nuh, nuh, nuh. Speak normally!

-T’es une feignasse! You’re a lazy pig!

-Sois pas content, c’est pareil. Be unhappy. It’s not going to change anything!

ps. As I speak to my kids in English… I simply can’t add any of my comments to this list 😉

What?!

I opened the door, I looked to the right….my bedroom light was on. I looked to the left, the door which leads into the garage was open. I looked again into my bedroom and clothes were tossed everywhere. I ran into the bathroom and saw that every single piece of jewelry that I had was no longer there and in the office my computer had gone – as well as my son’s computer. We’d been burgled! While I was running around the house screaming, my daughter calmly asked : ‘Shall I call the police mum?’

I can affirm that being robbed is not pleasant, but even more annoying is the fact that just prior to this event (which is now stuck in my head, heart and stomach), I’d read the following: “Unrealistic optimism is a pervasive feature of human life; it characterizes most people in most social categories. When they overestimated their personal immunity to harm, people may fail to take sensible preventive steps.” After seeing this description for the first time in the book Nudge (by behavioural economists Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein) I immediately thought that I must be unlike most people on this earth (as I do tend to be a half-empty-glass kind of person). But when I was flicking through the book after the burglery, I suddenly realized that it was true that I HAD felt rather immune to being robbed. After all, I had lived for over half a century in over 20 different locations without ever having lived this experience.

Whilst my objects were precious to me, the majority had very little monetary value which is another reason I’d felt immune. However, the burglers didn’t take the time to open boxes and toilet bags to realize that there were things like: broken watches, a little personal diary of my mother’s , band-aids and expired diarrhea medication.

The book Nudge also points out that losing something is less attractive than receiving something. I can confirm that it’s painful not being able to admire the childhood bracelet with my name engraved on it; the gold pocket watch that my grandparents had sat me down and presented to me as a teenager; the silver necklace that my aunty and uncle gave me for my 18th birthday (which I was going to put on the morning of the robbery, but I ended up wearing a roll-neck jumper); the necklace that my uncle had made with his own hands, the leaping cow broach that my sister bought during our round-the-world trip in 1992; the necklace with hundreds of little beads that a friend had made for me and also………the necklace that my father offered just months before his death with the words “…as a memory of me”. Whilst I certainly won’t forget my friends and family members, these items refreshed precious moments in my life….and I have to admit that my memory is declining.

Money can’t replace these things, which is perhaps why the insurance company isn’t even going to try!

I won’t even mentioned the complications of ‘losing’ a personal/work computer, nor the feeling that I have now every time I open my front door etc, etc, etc… BUT as the title of this blog indicates, it is my intention to nurture joy, lightness and space. So if I search REALLY hard, I CAN find some positive outcomes of this event: There is a strong sense of bonding and support in the family (and with friends and neighbours); It reminds me that I was very so happy travelling for 9 months with just only the contents of my backpack (though my sister reminded me that wearing the same jeans and shoes for this length of time was a bit tough); My collegues lent me a computer and I’ve changed all my passwords, which was a task that was long overdue; my son showed sweet empathy when he offered his only watch to us to compensate for our losses…and he is not spending time watching YouTube videos anymore!

ps. Putting jewelry in a shoe box at the back of a cupboard is not sufficient to avoid theft. But I suppose I don’t need to worry about this anymore. Perhaps another positive outcome? Hmmmmm?

Sitting quietly in a room alone.

I came across this quote when reading The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, written in 1956 by C.S. Lewis: “…Lucy felt running through her that deep shiver of gladness which you only get if you are being solemn and still’. I thought that it was an interesting, as I do enjoy meditating (on the rare occasion I take the time to benefit from it)

“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone” (“Tout le malheur des hommes vient d’une seule chose, qui est de ne pas savoir demeurer au repos dans une chambre”.)- this quote comes from Blaise Pascal who was a French mathematicien and philosopher from the 1600’s.

I was surprised to find that spending time alone was identified as being a challenge centuries ago. I thought that it was a modern behaviour, especially due to excessive screen-time. So I interpret this as a need for humans to learn to be alone. If we don’t manage to spend time alone, we will only know how to be lonely…or bored.

Also, according to Pablo Picasso, solitude is necessary for creativity: ‘Without great solitude, no serious work is possible’.

Interestingly, the French language doesn’t appear to make the difference between * ‘solitude’ (a positive experience) and ‘loneliness’ (a negative emotion) and it uses the word ‘solitude’ to describe both situations.

Stephen Batchelor appears to be an expert on the subject and is the author of a book called The Art of Solitude and he writes: “By withdrawing from the world into solitude, you separate yourself from others. By isolating yourself, you can see more clearly what distinguishes you from other people. Standing out in this way serves to affirm your existence (ex-[out] + sistere [stand]). Liberated from social pressures and constraints, solitude can help you understand better what kind of person you are and what your life is for. In this way you become independent of others. You find your own path, your own voice.”

I think that solitude could be a good resolution for 2024!

Happy New Year everyone.

_{*Solitude is defined in the Cambridge dictionnary as ‘the situation of being alone, often by choice’.}

Accidental French recipes?

During our stay on a little island called L’Ile aux Moines in Brittany (a penisula region in the north-west of France) last summer, our children discovered the kouign-mann, which is a form of bread-cake-pastry made with bread dough and layers of butter and sugar. It is a bit like a croissant, but sweeter and denser. They were appreciated and it was difficult for me to take a photo of them before the kids devoured them

According to the myth, the first Kouign-mann was the result of an unintended recipe: it was created by a baker who had run out of his usual ingredients and so decided to make a cake with the those that remained. It has since become a well-known specialty in the Brittany region.

Apparently the famous tarte tatin (an upside down apple tart) was also a twist of fate. In the hotel Tatin (in a region known as Sologne in north-central France) on the first day of the annual hunting period, one of the hotel’s cooks was so busy that she inadvertently forgot to put pastry in the tin and when she realized her error, she decided to simply add the pastry ontop of the apple slices and continued the cooking process. The guests enjoyed it so much that it became one of their staple desserts. It is popular across the country these days.

According to another legend, the famous blue cheese, Roquefort, was also unexpected creation: A young shepherd in a town called Roquefort in the Aveyron region, was eating slices of bread and sheep’s milk cheese for lunch whilst watching over his flock when suddently he spotted a beautiful girl in the distance. He decided to abandon his lunch in a nearby cave to meet her. When he returned a few months later (no idea what happened during those couple of months!) the cheese had succumbed to the mold which is found in the soil of the region. He must have been hungry because he ate the cheese despite the blue mold and liked it so much that he started to produce and sell the it.

There are no doubt many more similar myths behind the endless number of French specialities. I can’t confirm the truth of these episodes, but they make good stories… and good food.

It’s finally finished…

Four years on and our house is finally finished…..ha, ha, ha. Just kidding. No it’s not!

But I can share with you a small collection of some of the reasons (excuses🤨) we’ve had over the past years from craftsmen and women for not completing their tasks:

Our dog died.

My workshop was robbed and I am missing tools.

My van broke down.

One of the employees fell off a roof. (…don’t worry, he’s OK)

I’m sick.

My child is sick.

My mother-in-law is sick.

We miscalculated quantities of supplies.

Certain parts are not available.

We have lost some parts.

We are waiting for confirmation about ……

Covid 19.

Ukraine war.

It’s too wet.

It’s too dry.

It’s too cold.

It’s too hot.

We are waiting for the other trades people to complete their work first.

We don’t have a solution to that problem.

…and the list goes on.

But the most common and least professional excuse has been the one that is not offered at all: Nothing! Ziltch! Complete silence! The ‘ostrich approach’. Which is by far the most frustrating.😩

No-choice menus

One of our birthday gifts at our 50th birthday party (2 blog posts ago) was the opportunity to enjoy a Dégustation menu at a *restaurant étoilé. I don’t really eat often at restaurants because, to be honest, I’m often disappointed – but that was definitely not the case this time :

*La définition des étoiles (the definition of restaurant stars) :

• une étoile  : une très bonne table dans sa catégorie (1 star = very good, high quality meals);
• deux étoiles  : une cuisine excellente, mérite un détour (2 stars = excellent meals that are worthy of a detour);
• trois étoiles  : une cuisine exceptionnelle, mérite le voyage (exceptional restaurant that is worth travelling to).

The menu at this one-star restaurant, En Plein Nature, was fixed which was an approach that I didn’t think much of in the past but which I really appreciate nowadays. Obviously, it’s only a good option for those – like my husband and I – who are more than happy to try everything (although restaurants will always provide options for specific dietary requirements). Why do I value no-choice menus? Well, first of all, there is no time spent looking through the menu and wondering what to order (which can save a lot of time in my case given my problem with indecisiveness/analysis paralysis). Then, the dishes are specially selected by a talented chef to accompany each other perfectly and are balanced so that despite eating several different dishes (we had at least 9 on this particular occasion), you actually feel satisfied rather than bloated at the end of the meal. Each guest at the table is served the same dishes and can enjoy the same things together which avoids the painful experience of plate envy and ensures that everyone is served at the same time. You also find yourself trying dishes that you might not have chosen but which you don’t regret tasting (this was the case for me when I was served summer truffles: because I am not a fan of traditional truffles I wouldn’t have been tempted to try these milder versions had I not been served them). Then if you wish to accompany the meal with wine, it is easier to share a suitable bottle with everyone. And finally, the service is perfectly timed so that the meal is neither rushed nor slow which enables you to really enjoy sharing not only a meal with others, but also sharing a special and memorable moment. Thank you Patrizia and Pascale!

When my cousin Simon and his wife Lisa were over from Australia this month (thanks cousins for fitting us into your busy itinerary!) they also appreciated the idea of a fixed menu which we discovered when we went to the little village of Simorre in the Gers department where a fabulous little restaurant called the Bouche a oreille (Word of Mouth) is situated. The chef here creates an original 3-course menu each day using ingredients either from her own veggie patch or from local farmers.

After a three-hour walk and a visit to the Abby in Boulaur on this sunny Saturday in the square in the center of this gorgeous village we enjoyed melon gaspacho with goats cheese and tilleul oil followed by roasted lamb accompanied by pureed carrot with ginger, einkorn and a black sesame paste and for dessert, a choux pastry filled with coffee cream served on a caramel sauce. Yum!

Up, up and away

Whilst I invariably find getting out of bed early a difficult task, I never regret the opportunity of watching the sun rise. Last Sunday I was on the road by 4:45am in order to be sure to arrive in the Tarn Department on time for the departure of the hot-air balloon adventure that my brother and sister had offered me for my birthday. So not only did I witness the beautiful rising sun, I also had the opportunity of taking in the lovely landscape from the silent clear blue Summer sky. There were so many pretty church steeples in the little towns scattered around the countryside and we even saw wildlife like hares and deer jumping through fields.

Due to a breeze, the take-off was a little scary and the quick landing between two clusters of trees also got the adrenalin pumping – which only added to the adventure.

Along with the pilot, his assistant and the other 7 passengers I also had the opportunity in taking part in preparing and packing up the incredibly enormous and beautiful balloon and sipping champagne – which was really quite fun and unlike my former balloon experience (featured in my Myanmar post from February 2015).

Thank you dearest siblings. The only thing that was missing, was you.

25, 50, 100

A year ago my husband and I decided to celebrate our collective 50th birthdays this May (just prior to his 50th birthday and 11 months after mine) and then we thought that we might as well celebrate the 25th year of our lives together at the same occasion – hence the title of this post (25 years together, 50 years each which makes 100..or perhaps the title should have been 125!)

We invited friends and family who have warmed and lightened our lives during our 50 (100!) circuits around the sun. Because guests came from many different parts of France and from other countries (Austria, Australia America, Saudie Arabia) we organised a whole party weekend in a beautiful location in the Haute Langdoc region. My sister gave me a wonderful surprise by being able to join us at the last minute and Rebecca, who introduced hubby and I twenty five years ago, was also with us which was really special .

We were blessed with good weather but most of all with some great friends who, despite not knowing each other for the most part, got along together really well. We had organized a game to help people connect but, unbeknowst to us, our guests had been in contact with each other via e-mails before the party and had arranged all sorts of things, including all turning up adorned with *silver accessories (and offering us some to wear too – hence my tiara), some games and a flash mob dance that I have to admit was the highlight of the night: It was truly incredible to watch our friends all of a sudden dancing in synchrony with eachother to a song from one of my favourite groups (Black Eyed Peas)

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Over the long weekend we all amused ourselves with swimming, playing tennis, petanque, billiards, pingpong, hiking, talking, mixing/drinking cocktails (thanks John!) and local wine and food, dancing , relaxing and more.

I have to admit that organizing such an event was not without some stress …but it was totally worth it.

A huge THANKS goes out to you Frank, Nicolas, John, Cathy, Arnaud, Julien, Mathilde, Reia, Anne, Valerie, Benoit, Maxime, Christelle, Jerome, Mael, Solenne, Catherine, Gabriel, Delphine, Arnaud, Fabrice, Estelle, Rebecca, Lyndelle, Karen, Fred, Nell, Joe, Martha, Stephane, Christelle, Paul, Gabriel, Oscar, Patrizia, Pascal, Ciara, Luca,

and to all of those who would have loved to have join us but for numerous reasons were unable to such as Yves-Marie, Rachael, Geraldine, Juliette, LiChin, Jo, Ian, Rob’n’Marg, cousins from Oz, Evelyne, Yannick, Sophie, Myriam, Claire, Fabien etc…

We’ll start planning our next party….entitled 250!

*(silver being the traditional symbol for 25-year anniversaries)

Where are you from?

The question “Where are you from?” is a seemingly simple and innocuous question but which my kids have difficulties answering as they were born in different countries, have two passports and have spent their formative years living in 4 different countries.* In fact, responding to it must be difficult for many people because just recently the questions ‘Where do you come from?’ or ‘Where are you from?’ were removed from the Cambridge English Qualification exams.

In her TedTalk ‘Where are you from?’ Taiye Selasi argues that a more appropriate question to ask people is: ‘Where are you a local?’. This question shifts the focus away from nationality to experiences. Taiye Selasi is writer and photographer of Nigerian and Ghanaian descent, born in London and raised in Boston, who now lives in Rome and Berlin. She states that “what we call countries are actually various expressions of sovereign statehood, an idea that came into fashion only 400 years ago“. This reminds me of the great quote that I posted after our trip to Norway in August 2020 from the Norwegian explorer, Thor Heyerdhal: “Borders? I have never seen one. But I have heard that they exist in the minds of some people.”

Asking “What are your personal experiences?” is not actually any easier to answer than “Where are you from?”, but it is clear that responding with meaningful human experiences is far more pertinent than with an invented country name.

*I wrote about Third Culture Kids – March 2015

Watch your language!

I ‘ve already written briefly about French wine in an earlier post (‘Classy’ – May 2017) but I simply couldn’t resist taking a photo of this wine bottle when I spotted it on the supermarket shelves recently. Difficult to walk past it!

When I first arrived in France, more than twenty years ago, the labels on wine bottles were very plain and all looked very similar. They typically had a creme background black writing – occasionally with a touch of red ink – and possibly a little sketch of a chateau or a bunch of grapes. Things have changed since then and all sorts of colours, images and words are used as you can see.

I might be wrong, but I doubt you’d find such a label in an English-speaking country and I’m quite sure that you wouldn’t find the same name- translated into French – appearing on bottles here in France.

It think that it can be easier to use rude words (‘gros mots’) in languages other than your own as they don’t carry as much weight and can even be a little amusing.

Mind you… the middle finger doesn’t need translating, in any language, and so I must say I found it a little more surprising to see it flashing boldly at all of the passing supermarket customers.