The Apartment

FP and I followed the estate agent closely as she clonked up the wooden stairs in her chunky heels. Was that the fashion now? Chunky high heels? I looked down at my own scaffy flip-flops and realised that I was no longer able to afford to keep up with the fashion. I was a bohemian with ripped jeans and flip-flops now; destined to be warming tinned baked beans every night for dinner for the next few years. That's what happens when you get your first real job and decide to pay the majority of your measly income on rent just to live in Versailles.

I held tightly onto FP's hand as we climbed the steps, the lady in front of us making chit-chat in fast French that made my brain tumble. The stairs curved and spiralled their way up several levels but she stopped outside the main door on the second floor.

I held my breath as she pulled out the keys and jingled them in her hand, trying to find the right one to match the keyhole. The words, please be good, please be good, please be good, repeated themselves like a mantra inside my head. This was the last apartment we had scheduled to view. But I had a good feeling about this one.

"Normallement il y a un petit chat qui habite ici, donc on doit faire attention," she warned us as she stabbed the key into the lock, turned the door knob and peeped through the gap in the door.
Hmmm, a cat lives here? I'm taking that as a sign. If a cat lives here then it's cat-proof. No worrying about Ollie finding his way into holes in the walls or up fireplaces.

I squeezed FP's hand tightly. The door swung open wide and the cat was nowhere to be seen. The family who were living there at the time were en vacances. We stepped into a roomy hallway in a short corridor with parquet flooring and white walls. FP and I made our way cautiously along the corridor, as though we were uninvited guests, awkwardly wondering which of the many doors on offer to us to open first.

We warily went through the apartment, drinking everything in. There was a WC with a sink and a covered kitty litter tray with a cat poo peeping it's head out of the swing-door. Don't let that put you off, I said to myself.

Next there was the kitchen. Big, roomy, cupboards, hooray! I could already see myself in there stirring those baked beans in a big pot on the cooker.

The salle de bain was large too, and the woman who lived there had, for some unknown reason, put her fridge in there, next to the shower. She also had several pairs of underwear hanging out to dry but again, I didn't want to let the bordel put me off.

And then there were the two bedrooms. Glorious things they were. Big, with lots of room for a nice big bed and a wardrobe, something I was afraid I would have to live without. The first bedroom was for us. The second would be a chambre d'ami, a guest room, with enough space left over for an office in the corner. There was also...dun dun duuuuuun...un dressing! (For non-francophones un dressing is a room where you keep all your clothes and perhaps things to do with clothes like a dirty-wash basket, or a sewing machine. But a whole room to dedicate to your clothes and shoes and getting dressed up! An entire room!! It's the best invention ever!) (Should probably add that the dressing in our apartment couldn't really be classified as a room as it is more like a walk-in cupboard but it's still space solely dedicated to clothes and shoes and if the estate agent said it was un dressing then in my book it's un dressing.)

And then the living room. On the phone the estate agent had said the living room was small but compared to all the apartments we had seen this was big! It was bright, airy, clean (depsite all the clutter) and there was a set of beautiful french windows that opened out onto ...could it be? Yes! A balcony!

I was elated. I wanted to grab hold of the estate agent and tell her to give us the keys right then and we would just throw the crap belonging to the messy woman and her kid out of the balcony. But no, I restrained myself.

After we said goodbye to the estate agent outside, FP and I looked at each other and burst into laughter. Loud laughter. So loud that people walking by in the street stopped and looked at us with their eyebrows raised quizzicaly.

"I love it!" I squealed.

"Me too!" He squealed (but in a manly way).

"Avec le parking sous-sol et le cave et tout ça, on est vraiment tombé sur une vraie perle!" He was right; what with the underground parking space and the cellar that were included in this apartment, we really had found something rare.

There were only two problems; one was that there was no bath. But I could live with that. I don't much like sitting my bare bum on something that's been sat on by hundreds of naked strangers before me anyway. The other problem? We couldn't move in until the beginning of June.

But some things are just worth the wait, n'est ce pas?

*The picture is obviously not our apartment. It is La Cathédrale Saint Louis in Versailles.

The Good Side

We lay in bed for as long as possible, making the most of a Saturday morning when neither of us had to get up at 6.30am. Our bodies were entertwined, my head on his chest, our limbs entangled, and his hand softly stroked my lower back.

"Are you happy here?" his voice broke the silence.

I moaned and turned to face him. I was still too sleepy to speak. Without opening my mouth I replied, "mmhmm".

"Are you homesick baby?"

My hand searched for his under the duvet, and when I found it I squeezed his fingers reassuringly. "Not yet."

He laughed, turned onto his side and planted thousands of tiny kisses all over my face. In return I gave a delighted squeal.

"Now you've gone and woken me up!" I said in a mock-cross voice.

"Mais bébé, réveille toi! Il est 9 heure."

"Nooooooo, it's too early for a deep conversation!" I tried to turn, to get away from his grip and to hide my face in the pillow, to shut out the light. I still had another hour of sleep in me. But he wasn't having it. He threatened to tickle me until I couldn't breath.

"Answer me and then you can dormir jusqu'à 9 heure et demi, sinon je te chatouille."

I looked at his face. He was so sexy first thing in the morning. He had a 5 o'clock shadow covering his jaw and his upper lip, making his lips appear even more deliciously kissable than usual. His eyes sparkled at me, working their magic. Leaning forward I kissed his forehead, then his nose, his cheeks, his chin and finally those lips.

How is it possible that I can love someone so much? I never knew I was capable of having this much love, of ever feeling this happy with anyone. But there I was, in bed with the love of my life, elated.

"Am I happy here?" I repeated, settling back onto the mattress and staring up at the ceiling. "We are moving into the apartment of our dreams in just a few weeks, I love my new job, I've made some friends here already, you have just graduated with the best mention possible, and best of all babe...I'm living in Paris with you, l'amour de ma vie. So, you ask am I happy here?"

I paused for breath and glanced at him. Joy was written all over his face.

"Yes, I'm very, very happy here with you. Sans aucun doute."

He grinned back at me, I knew that he, too, had found a routine in our new life together and was enjoying it all as much as I was. He reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear.

"Okay mon lapin, just as long as you are happy then I am happy. You can go back to sleep now."

"Where is the punchline?"

This is so hard.

I knew moving to France would always have it's ups and downs but...man, I feel like such an eejit here. Life as a foreigner is difficult; way more difficult than I ever imagined.

In Britain I'm interesting, funny, amusing, worth listening to... But here, in France, I'm nobody. I'm certainly not funny; when I eventually get to the genius punchline of an anecdote that I find to be be hilarious I am greeted with an empty silence, punctuated with the bored sigh of someone sat at the dinner table waiting for me to get to the end of my dull story. I actually have to announce to everyone that 'that's the end, j'ai finis' and even then they don't crack a smile. I'm rewarded with nothing, no laughter, no polite titter, no fake smiles, nothing. Sometimes someone utters, 'c'est où, la blague?' but really, that's all I get.

Theres nothing fake about the French. If they don't find your story funny, they won't crack even the tiniest of smiles. At least, at home, people will smile and nodd, even if they had no idea why they were doing so. Not here.

In France, I'm evidently not worth listening to either, because everybody just cuts-off my words, as though I don't even exist. Countless amounts of times I have opened my mouth and begun to say something, only to be interrupted by someone else. Apparently they do it to everybody, but it doesn't make it any less rude. I have now found the courage to stir up a big long, fed-up sigh whenever I am cut-off, but no! They can't even take a hint!! They ignore me totally and carry on with whatever they were talking about. SO RUDE!

Another thing about being a foreigner is being the brunt of every fecking joke. Twice a day I sit at the dinner table with FP and his family and I allow the piss to be taken right out of me. Just because I come from a dfifferent country with a different culture and language does not mean I should be laughed at. I have feelings too, you know! Just because I happen to cut the skin off my cheese a different way from you does not mean I should be ridiculed. And yet, they find the simple differences, between my culture and theirs, a riot. So, I place my cutlery facing away from me when I've finished eating, and they place their cutlery on the right side of their plates, facing left; big deal! Who cares? And yet this simple difference finds them convulsing in guffaws. Why? Why can't you laugh when I tell a good story? Why must you laugh at me rather than with me?

Yes, mes amies, 'ridiculed' is a very good word to explain how I feel right now. I am the jester; I am placed there to make people laugh at the way I do things. "Hahaha! Regardes comment la Petite Ecossaise fait ça! C'est bizzare, non?" "Leeeeensè pourquoi tu le fait comme ça, c'est pas normal, ça..."

Did I mention that in France I am also considered super-dumb? Again, lots of laughter involved, aimed at me. The thing is, we didn't all follow the same systeme scolaire, but some people tend to forget that. Okay, so I didn't know anything about 'les hippies, Woodstock' but I
a) am only 22 years old,
b) am not American and
c) learnt history in a Scottish school which really only taught us about William Wallace and the assination of JFK.
I was never a smarty pants, even in Scotland, but I was never 'simple'. Here, it's all so different. I am just a dumb blonde here, I really am. Just like they always said at High School. Even my university degree apparently counts for nothing. It makes me wonder, did I work that hard for all those years, just to come over here and become the eejit at the dinner table who has a weird sense of humour and laughs at her own jokes?

Och I don't know, I suppose I still have adjusting to do; after all, it won't be the French who change, it will be me. I just don't appreciate their rudeness right now. The fact that they can't open up and accept that I am different because I am British is really 'getting on my tits' (and I almost never say this phrase it's so revolting, but that shows how pissed off I am). They can't even find it in themselves to laugh a little when I tell a joke, or to let me off when I don't know something that they do. They can't see that it's hard enough as it is for me, because I have left my country; my home, my family and my friends. They don't see, somehow, that with a little understanding, with a little more room to manouevre, I would adjust much better to their culture, to their ways.

Despite what 'they' say (always wondered,; who are 'they'?), everyone in this world is not the same. So many differences, so, so many differences. I know only one thing; I'm going to stick it out; because it would be way too easy to give in right now.

Thank God I love that French man of mine...

I dread to think what would happen if I didn't.

La Belle Saison Part Two - Cracked

I've now been 'living' in France for one week. I won't lie. It's not all been croissants and chèvre and wine. If I'm completely honest with you I'd go as far as to say it's all been rather difficult actually.

I was doing really well, holding onto my sanity and the like, until last night when I totally cracked and started crying into my vodka and orange juice while we were having our apèro. It's not that I'm missing home or anything like that, it's just that FP and I haven't managed to get ourselves an apartment yet and let me tell you, French apartment owners (or landlords if we are going for the 'proper' term) hate foreigners. Even though I've used italics to convey the amount of hate they have for us, I don't feel that it demonstrates just how much they hate having foreigners renting out their property, so I shall repeat myself; French landlords HATE foreigners. There that's a little better.

I won't back up my statement with any evidence, because, frankly, the story is boring for outsiders and it also gets me very, very cross when I think about it and then I go off on a tangent, but take it as a solid hard fact. The gist of it is that there are hardly any apartments for rent in the Versailles area where we want to live (actually it's where we need to live, we're not just being choosy) and when we find one that we want they all have a problem with me.

It's all very sad. I'm someone who really wants people to like me, I can't stand knowing someone has a 'problem' with me. But they do. It's because I'm Scottish and it's because I haven't been working in France for the past three months and also I'm beginning to think it's because of my hair which has gone a wee bit frizzy in the warm weather and can admittedly scare people off. But there we go, no one wants us to live in their apartment. How sad.

This is no new saga by the way, this has been going on for a good few months now; searching and eventually finding one niceish apartment, getting attached to the photos, saying 'yes! this is our home!', sending the application away, and then being told 'nah feck off mate, don't want the likes of you here. Riff raff.' Meanwhile I've already mentally moved in, have even bought some pot pourrie maybe, and have made it all cosy. Then I have to mentally move out and begin the search again. Tiresome, people, very tiresome.

But wait, there's something else that's making things a little complex. We are living with Mr and Mrs FP.

First thoughts;

• great!


• big house


• garden


• great food


• free


• clean

Reality;

• French 24/7 is necessity


• Quiet sex


• (just kidding about the above by the way)


• Exhausting

So there I was lastnight, after having just poured myself a wee vodka and orange, sitting around the table looking at the plan of the apartment FP had just been to view. I wanted it desperatley; it's got a roof hasn't it?! But everyone else was quite sure we could find better. They said to me, "Oh attends un petit peu. On vas visiter Vendredi," (Oh wait a wee bit, we'll go view it on Friday) (should mention apologies if there are French mistakes, am parrot phrasing here.) I said, "But I don't need to visit it, if we wait again we will lose it like last time..." then everyone disagreed with me and then my body failed me. The tears escaped and I totally humiliated myself in front of Mr and Mrs FP. oh la honte.

I just want my own chez moi!!

I also want my cat who is stuck back in Scotland waiting for his mistress to find him a home in France. I miss my cat.

So it's nice to be here, it is, it's really great, but there are difficulties too. And if there is a french person reading who rents out apartments, please tell me why you hate me and would I have any better luck if I were taller and thinner?

J'habite à Paris

I emerged from Charles De Gaulle Airport lugging my largest suitcase behind me. It was stuffed to the gills; full of everything but the kitchen sink (although I can assure you that if the kitchen sink were a packable item I'm quite sure I would have given it a go - I got a bit carried away with the packing and wanted to take as many home comforts as possible. Sadly, kitchen sink not an option though). The ridiculously massive backpacker's knapsack that was upon my back was similarly stuffed and was so heavy that my arms kept turning a grey-ish blue shade as the shoulder straps dug so deeply into my flesh that they cut off my circulation. But you can't move to another country and travel light, can you? C'est juste pas possible.

Paris had made sure I received a warm welcome. She had chased away the clouds and the sun was shining directly upon me , making me sweat as I navigated my way out of the terminal building and through the crowds of business travellers and holidaymakers, to a grassy knoll (this word tickles me) highlighted by the sun.

Sitting down, I pulled out my book (Marian Keyes' "This Charming Man") and settled myself on the grass, mentally preparing myself for a good two hour wait before FP would be able to leave work and come pick me up.

I couldn't quite believe that I was here; that this day had finally arrived. FP and I were finally going to spend extended amounts of time together, not just a fortnight here and a long weekend there. And finally those emotional goodbyes at the airport were over. I was finally here. To stay. And just as a smile spread across my face thinking about this, I looked up and saw him walking towards me.

FP stood before me on the grass, his smile wide, my mouth agape (attractive!) (sarcasm) in surprise.

"What are you doing here, you're early!" I squealed.
"I came to take you home," he said, scooping me into his arms in one fell swoop.
We kissed and it was delicious.
"Home..." I mulled the word over for a moment or two.
"Tu es prête d'aller 'home', ma princesse?" My hands cupped his face, his jaw felt smooth against my fingers (he had shaved!) he gazed deep into my eyes and I felt the warmth of his familiar smile radiate throughout my body.
"Yes," I smiled up at him, "take me home, baby, I'm ready. Take me to our home..."


End of La Belle Saison Part One

The Dentist will see you now..mwhahaha

Sometime last week I found myself in the dentist’s chair. I say I found myself there, but I hadn’t really lost myself to begin with, and the visit was a planned appointment so I suppose I shouldn’t start off this post by making out as though I somehow awoke in a dentist’s surgery, with some pure mental dentist coming at me, laughing hysterically, his head back, mouth wide open, chainsaw buzzing away in his hand like the stories you read in Chat Magazine (“Chiselled to death by mad dentist!”). Nah, this was just an average routine check-up in which I knew exactly where I was and why. (But if you were looking for that kind of story I'd highly recommend Chat Magazine.)

Now, I have a theory about dentists and I’m not just saying this because I really can’t understand anybody who actually chooses a profession where you spend 6 hours a day peering into people’s mouths nor because they still don’t seem to realise that we can’t talk when they have our mouths cranked wide open and their fingers and tools rooting around in there.

I think dentists and dental assistants have ulterior motives. I’ve narrowed it down to them being either
a) aliens sent to study human life form here on earth or
b) secret service agents working for the government, collecting DNA information while simultaneously implanting bugs in our molars to listen to every word we say.

You see it’s the secret language they use to talk to their assistants that gives it away. They talk perfect English to you, making polite conversation, asking how you are, to which you can only reply “nghyaaa” because they have your mouth stretched wide open. But then they turn to their assistant and start reeling things off like, “upper left twenty-three posterior lower bruxism twelve.” And the assistant nods her head, taking down notes. Sometimes I spot a furtive glance between the two, and I wonder what it all means. I try to look for hidden messages, and once – although I may have misunderstood – I thought I heard the words “the orphan’s tears of destruction will come to haunt you” but as I say, that is unconfirmed and it could have just been me getting carried away with my imagination.

So there I was, sometime last week, lying on the dentist’s chair, head back, mouth open, trying to answer the dentist’s questions while she dug about in my mouth with a metal tool that I like to call ‘The Claw’.

“Are you comfortable there, [Princesse]?”

“Nghuyu,” I replied.

She then began the secret dentist speak, while a little pool of drool formed under my chin. “Lower right fifteen, upper calcumite stanta, maxilla and mandila five, nill occlussal quadrant upper right and lower left bravo oscar…third molar nill, endo fleurides, anterior gingival twelve lower left…”

She paused for a moment, before making eye contact with the dental assistant. A small smile began to spread across her lips as she said slowly and clearly, “virgin teeth.”

Virgin teeth?!

Now that’s what I’m talking about! Scary dentist language!

Scotland I'm going to miss you

Last night, while chillaxin' (hint: use this word if you wanna be seen to be 'down' with the kids) in the living room with the family, I looked out the window and was struck by the beauty of the sunset. It's really not often that we see a cloudless sky in Scotland, but we do get beautiful sunsets fairly often, especially in the summer months. I had to jump up and immediately take some snaps before the colours evaporated into the darkness (although this was 'frowned upon' by the other residents in the street as they peered out their windows at me in disgust, thinking I was taking photos through their net curtains like some paparazzi kid. I mean does my camera look like binoculars to you?! I wasn't spying! Anyway...). They came out pretty damn well even if I do say so myself. Just wanted to share them with you.










And in other news, I have booked my one way ticket to Paris. Oh la la la la. C'est parti!