Rocky Road

When will my support for people's right to strike start to wane?
Now, as we enter week 2 of school closing early, or not opening at all?
Tomorrow, when I have to explain to my boss why I'll be leaving at 3.30 p.m., and why I can't come to work on Tuesday?
The middle of next week, when the Post Office is closed again, and my Recorded Delivery awaits - inaccessible - under a pile of unsorted mail?
Or perhaps next weekend, when the oilworkers' strike has succeeded in making petrol a rarity, and we don't have enough of the stuff to go on the holiday we have booked and paid for?

I get that it's a good thing to defend your rights. I agree that capitalism is unfair, and it's probably a short-sighted and questionable strategy to increase retirement age.
But after a while, I can't help but wonder: who is really paying the price of all this striking?
Not Nicolas Sarkozy: he can probably afford a nanny.

My dear France, we're in this for the long haul, so there's no doubt I'll stand by you, but really: sometimes you make it so hard for me to love you!

Interlude

I was planning a heartfelt post about something that happened on the way to Rome, but somehow can't quite muster the energy for heartfelt this evening.

So instead, here is a little LB interlude.

After a few weeks of regular grouchiness, LB has suddenly blossomed into a happy, mature (well, you know, "mature" in comparison to - say - a 12-month old..), autonomous little boy... who can feed himself.

We look on as the sense of pride glows from all his features... and it is his evident delight that curtails our urge to clean up, wipe down, help out.
After all, as every parent knows, a happy baby is well worth a bit of mess...

A Roman-tic Tiff

I don't think Rome is to blame, but I don't think it's all my fault either.
The two of us simply didn't hit it off.
I guess you could say we're just not on the same wavelength.


Rome is beautiful, sexy and charming, and it has a great body. Of course, I see that.

Rome is trying really hard to impress me... but that kind of in-your-face flirting just doesn't do it for me.
"Look," I sigh, "I know you have history. I know the treasures you're offering are unique. I can even see the success you're having with everyone else around here. But... don't be offended, OK? I just think we're not suited, you and I."

For the sake of politeness, I hang around a while and chat. I try to be open-minded, I listen to what Rome has to say, I nod politely and smile.
I dig a little deeper, searching for the common ground that will cause us to click, lock eyes and fall in love.
But the sparkle doesn't seem to materialise.
I'm just going through the motions: my heart is untouched.

Finally, Rome shrugs its shoulders, lets me go.
"No hard feelings!" it promises cheerfully as we say goodbye over a last ice-cream.
When our bowls have been licked clean, I weave my way gratefully through the crowd of admirers, searching for the train that will take me home.


Still, Rome's pride has been hurt by my gentle letdown: it spitefully declines to display the platform number for my train, forcing me to rush, panic and finally leave in a flurry of uncertainty.
Hum, that wasn't so very Christian of you now, was it?

The thing is though, it was never really going to happen between Rome and me.
The fact is, there's someone else.
An old flame, if you like. Someone who, when I saw him again after my brief flirt with Rome, seemed only to have grown in charm and attractiveness.

Ah Paris! My dearest France! The years pass... and yet my heart still pounds when I see you again.

Time Out

I'm going to Rome for my wedding anniversary.
Unfortunately, FH won't be joining me.

The romantic destination belies a mundane purpose: another 3-day language conference, in the company of semi-strangers I meet up with twice a year.
Still - to a certain extent - it will be nice for me to celebrate eight years of marriage in the eternal city. And, encouraged by my recent viewing of "Eat, Pray, Love" with Julia Roberts (she goes to Rome for 4 months... and eats), I have vowed to eat as much pizza, pasta and pastries as The Firm's budget will allow. I'll even sacrifice a few taxis if need be.

I'm a little concerned however that the wedding anniversary won't be quite as much fun for FH. He'll be household manager for the whole of next week, a gruesome job involving lots of responsibility and few perks.
LB is going through a - how to put this? - difficult stage.
Despite my deep aversion to the categorisation of kids (I don't think any kid should be stigmatised this soon with a label like "Shy", "Boisterous" or "Difficult"), over the past few weeks I have actually found myself uttering the treacherous words "I think LB might be a difficult child."
As soon as I find myself sharing this disloyal thought with another compassionate human being, I quickly backtrack and re-define "He's a good child going through a difficult stage."
Yes, this is a far better way of looking at things. And also, there's a pretty good chance it's true.

Stages can just seem so long when you're in the thick of them.

And without putting too fine a point on it, the original title of this post was "Is it OK to drink whisky at 2.30 pm on a Saturday afternoon?"
You'll be pleased to know that the title got scrapped at the last minute, and the urge it conveys was replaced with a chocolate biscuit.
So all in all, though I'm teetering on the brink, I'm still sort of this side of sane. Sort of.

And P.S., if you're wondering how I'm getting to Rome tomorrow, please don't imagine that I'm taking the simple route.
OF COURSE there is a direct flight from Toulouse!
And OF COURSE I am shunning it in favour of a night train. From Paris.

All roads lead to Rome. Eventually.

See you in a week!

BB: Bilingual Boy

Warning: this is a geek post about language, so probably only of interest to Anita, and possibly Ingrid, who share - or pretend to! - my fascination with all things language-related.
The rest of you can feel free to skip it, I won't be offended.

I have never read any books about bilingualism (I prefer novels to pretty much any kind of educational or psychological guide, though I did enjoy "Eat, Pray, Love": sorry, I digress...), so I'm basically just following my instincts as far as my boys are concerned.
I always make sure I speak to them in English, and I hope this in itself will be sufficient to ensure a very high level of bilingualism.
Beyond that, I haven't given a lot of thought to the the actual process of language acquisition by young kids. But I listen and observe, and it's all turning out to be pretty fascinating (to a language geek like me).

Up until now, I guess what has struck me most is how instinctive it all is. BB will use the word that comes into his head first: so some things he says in English, others in French. I see that there is little reflection involved; it's a pick n' mix based on personal preference and familiarity (for example, some words he hears more often from me, so it's logical he'll repeat them in English. Etc.).

So my ears really pricked up yesterday afternoon as we watching Fireman Sam together in English. The episode in question was that "renowned classic" (what? you don't know it??) involving a faulty van, a homemade cart, a naughty boy called Norman and a dummy.
The dummy being an inflatable doll, of course: used by Fireman Sam in his safety demonstrations.
Anyway, as the plot thickened, BB piped up "Look Maman, the sucette has gone!"
The sucette??
Ah, suddenly I got it. "Sucette" is dummy in French, but in the sense of a suckable object for babies of course.
So I realised that in fact, rather than simply associating a word with an object in an instinctive manner, BB was actually translating in his head from one language to another!

Imagine my excitement (if you can). This puts him on a whole different intellectual plane, as far as I can see. Because sure, even though his translation was wrong (a dummy in the sense of inflatable doll would be called something entirely different in French), the fact he could actually do it amazed me.

Amazed as I was though, I still found it quite tricky explaining why a dummy was not a "sucette"... Not sure he's quite up to comprehending multiple translation possibilities... (a four-year university degree suffices for most people, though).

You take the high road & I'll take the low road...

What does it say about me that, in a traffic jam involving at least ten cars, I was the only person who got out, assessed the situation, spied the fire engines up ahead, sussed out that none of us was going anywhere fast if we didn't back up, walked from car to car explaining the state of play to each driver individually, then supervised the entire "rescue" operation??

As I strutted from car to car, explaining to each occupant that the road ahead was definitively blocked, I saw as many profiles as there were cars:
- Mr Stressed (anger, impatience, steering wheel gripped in fury)
- Miss Cool (couldn't care less, would sit and wait all day if need be, took advantage of the imposed break to reapply make-up)
- Mrs Anxious-but-wishes-she was-cool (tense forehead, cigarette in hand, fingernail clicking against steering wheel)
- Miss Timid (sub-consciously leaning back as I approach, feels like any confrontation with a stranger is an infringement of her privacy)
- Mr Arrogant (tie knotted tightly, ruddy face, refuses to believe that the road will not magically empty for him, despite evidence to the contrary).

So who am I? Of course, I would like to think that my actions prove that I am
Mrs Self-Assertive.
Either that or Mrs Control Freak, right?

Anyway, it's back to cycling for me. Driving is far too much responsibility.

Ten Years On

Ten years ago, FH and I were a young, carefree couple who lived in the trendy Marais district of Paris.
The life we live today probably bears little resemblance to that (aside from the fact we still cycle), but does that mean we are different people on the inside? Where it matters?

These were some of the questions I was asking myself this weekend, as we headed to Sète and Montpellier to meet up with friends of ours from that Parisian era: an Australian couple, who'd also been living and working in Paris in the stress-free, economically booming year 2000.
We hadn't seen them in exactly - er - ten years, but when they contacted us to suggest a meet-up on the French leg of their European holiday, we said OK.

We were open-minded and - in that typically 2010 Facebook-esque manner - curious to see how they'd "turned out".
The saving grace was, of course: they've also had two kids since the Parisian era.

So ten years on, there were not four of us, but eight, and we didn't go to an expensive bar at 11 pm... we went for an early bird supper in an appropriately down-market beach restaurant that we wouldn't feel too guilty about messing up.
We didn't manage to sustain a longer-than-three minute conversation... but we smiled with empathy and affection as we watched each other jump around trying to coax wily kids back into their seats or (as the case may be) admonish brazen little boys who enjoy whipping their trousers off on the beach and peeing into the wind.

We were all different and yet, all so very much the same as we were.

So I wonder if we ever do really change all that much? Maybe - as two good friends and I mused lately - we simply grow more into ourselves as we get older.

And - call it politeness if you will - we all gushed as truthfully as possible that none of us had changed physically in the past ten years.
"But," pointed out Dan, "that's probably normal. It's the 35 - 45 leap that'll be most shocking!"

Time will tell.

*Dan is a semi-professional photographer, which somehow seemed to intimidate FH and I into leaving our phone-cum-camera in its case for most of the weekend. The only shots we have (below) are the ones from Sunday afternoon, after they left.