Saturday 10 January 2015

Little things

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjFzLVKeRV4
One thing I'd really missed since moving here had been the new years celebrations. Edinburgh's Hogmanay is something every one should experience at some point in their lives. This year I was determined to be there and already started planning in July. Despite the winter weather doing it's best by forcing the cancellation of a flight, we arrived in Edinburgh on the 27th of December only 9 hours later than intended. We've left Edinburgh only 4 years ago, surly not much would have changed?
The streets were indeed very familiar, but now a shiny new tram ran along it. The tram works are a thorn in many an Edinburgher's side as they ran horrendously over budget and time, but I think they are an improvement, they give the city a transport system fit for the 21st century. (They shouldn't have dug them up in the 60's, but what's done is done and I say 'welcome back trams')
The next day we didn't notice any changes, but plenty of things we never noticed before. It had us turning to each other and remarking 'well we're not in France anymore'
I'd forgotten how cold the wind could be, it cuts right through you. I don't think I'd ever worn a hat and gloves were we live. (I'm actually writing the blog on the balcony in my T-shirt)
Traffic lights take an age to change, leading to impatient pedestrians to take their lives in their hands by dashing over the road in front of traffic. Here the green light often coincides with the pedestrian light being on green too.(so take care when you go around a corner in France!)
Bit obvious but nobody says 'bonjour'. We had become very used to greeting everybody when entering lifts, busses and shops. If you do that in Scotland people think you're a complete idiot.
It felt very wrong to leave a pub without paying. Of course we had already paid when we placed our order but we had to keep reminding our self because we had become so used to a waiter coming to your table to serve you and then leaving a wee dish with the bill.
Maybe it was because of the huge influx of tourist over Hogmanay, but suitcases were everywhere. In the morning they rattled behind a tired looking tourist towards a tram or bus stop and in the afternoon they rattled cheerfully behind a fresh faced tourist looking for their hotel. I even spotted one rattling along a cinema isle. Probably someone with a long wait between checking out and checking in for their flight.
All in all we had a lovely time catching up with dear friends, but now I'm pleased to be back in the sun again, but now and then you need to do the things you miss and be reminded why you moved away in the first place.

Tuesday 23 December 2014

So that was 2014 then...

Firstly I would like to wish all my readers a merry Christmas. I hope you all have a wonderful time. I'll be starting work at 6am on Christmas day, selling booze and perfume to all those last minute shoppers.
I'll be thinking of the extra wages and the mince pie that awaits me when I get home.

Nearly the end of 2014 and I hope it has been a good year for you too. As we ponder our new years resolutions , I thought I should have a look at the ones I made last year:
  1. Finish that second book. Done, Published Something Short in April and Language in the blood 2 will be published shortly, just a few things to finish.
  2. I don’t want to, but I better get a good CV out there. Done, must have written a good one as I got 2 job offers by February.
  3. Do reviews of self-published free books. I believe in paying it forward, if I’m expecting people to do reviews of my book during a giveaway I’d better do a few myself. Not done so well on that front, would like to do a few more in 2015.
  4. Weather permitting, have a daily swim. I did have a swim on most good days even in the early spring. This Autumn has been awful and rainy, so resorted to a gym membership instead. Going about 3 times a week, so pleased on the fitness front.
  5. Actually use some of all my cooking books and try some new recipes. Tried about 3 new things, mostly recipes taken of the internet as that is a lot quicker than searching through cooking books.
  6. Read all the blogs I’m now subscribed to as there are some good ones out there with some great tips for writers. I've just not had the time but I need to develop a strategy for promoting the first book. Haven't had time, still at a loss for a strategy.
  7. Figure out how to improve my blog and what the hell Pinterest actually is and then linking the two. Need to get more web savvy. Oh dear, I'm about as web savvy as I was in 2013, but ask me anything about perfume.
  8. Unrelated, but I really need to throw out some of my make-up. I know my bronzing pearls are at least 15 years old, how could they have lasted that long????? I did throw some out, but my stash of make-up has now doubled due to all the free samples I now get from work. But thankfully, some of the really old stuff is gone.
  9. Improve my French.(I say this every year and I'm sure there is improvement, but my inner teacher keeps telling me: 'must do better!') It is still nowhere near perfect, but communicating at my work is going fairly well. However, sometimes it is better not to know what is being said. With so many people working together a conflict is never far, ignorance can be a good thing:)
  10. Let all good intentions go to waste by getting a kitten which will no doubt distract me from doing all the things I set out to do.Oh yes, Clicquot has definitely been the biggest cutest brake on productiveness, but he has also been very inspiring. I'm currently working on a series of short stories featuring a ginger tom....but I'm not making any resolutions this year, I'll just plod on and see what I'll get done in 2015. Que sera, sera.Happy new year.

Friday 5 December 2014

Now I'm really ill

Common sense dictates that if you're ill from flu or a heavy cold, you should crawl into bed until you feel well enough to go back to work. But common sense is not always the French way. When my husband took ill last week he fired off a barrage of emails and phone calls. Surely that would be everyone who needed to be informed, be informed. Just to be sure he added to call or email if anything else was required. Exhausted he crawled to his bed.
He had a nagging feeling that things couldn't be this straight forward, we had heard that doctors notes need to be presented a bit quicker here than in the UK. He checked his emails at regular intervals and therefore didn't get the rest he so desperately needed.
At 4pm we received an email outlining all the hoops you have to jump through if you have the misfortune to be ill.
1. You need to visit a doctor within 48 hours.
2. The doctor will give you a form and tell you until which date you are signed off.
3. You need to fill out this form and dispatch a copy to your employer and the CPAM (The state health care department)
My husband could therefor not go into work the next day, but instead had to visit the doctor. She gave him a bewildering array of pills and potions.
"What! All that for a cold" I exclaimed when I got home from work. My husband was now very ill indeed, stressed out by the trip to the doctor, the pharmacy and the filling out of forms. Just as well she signed him off for an additional day. He's now back at work although still under the weather, but I think another trip to the doctor and additional forms would just about kill him. Dragging yourself into work seems the easier option.
Then I did some more digging and cheerfully told my husband all this was just for the sake of bureaucracy, the first 3 days you are off here in France are unpaid anyway. (It's just so all your social securities etc continue to be paid)
So in France one doesn't take to ones bed to get better, you take pills and fill out forms. No wonder there is a pharmacy on every street corner.

Monday 1 December 2014

Mortified

During my visit to Holland I was talking to one of my relatives. I was updating her about my life in France and to finish off I turned to her boyfriend and added:
''So you'll have to come along next time and see where we live too."
He looked at me for a brief moment before adding dryly;
"Well I can't have made that much of an impression on you that you don't remember me visiting you last year."
I wanted the ground to swallow me up and mentioned jokingly something about old age and onset of Altzheimers, meanwhile wracking my brain about the when and how. They had stopped by on their way to Italy and we had gone out to dinner, but even now I'm a bit hazy on the details. When I asked my husband if he remembered he replied bemused;
"Of course I do and we went there and then to dinner."
I forget things, always have, always will. It isn't something that concerns me as it isn't due to old age, it is just the way my brain functions. Something new needs to be remembered, so an old memory gets wiped.
When I taught jewellery classes I had to learn 45 new names each term. Wiping the names of old students from the memory bank was almost instantaneous. Very embarrassing if I walked into a former student just a few months after the course.
Now my brain is trying to get to grips with 5 different professions in 4 years. A new language and the names of all the new colleagues I need to know. How do people have photographic memories and remember everything to the smallest details? (Are they maybe not using their brains to their full potential?) So apologies to my friends, family and acquaintances; my in-build memory card leaves something to be desired.

Friday 21 November 2014

A stranger in the Netherlands

Today's blog is coming to you from the Netherlands where I'm visiting for a few days. While it is lovely to catch up with family and old friends, I'm feeling rather out of place. Not only is it a lot colder and greyer than the Côte d'Azur, but it feels just all round a bit alien. I left my native country about 24 years ago. I've visited regularly so all the changes have been introduced in small doses, but in the last few years I've come to realise that my own country is now firmly ''abroad''
I speak the language, apart from some new words that have joined the vocabulary like ''appen'' a verb meaning using an app(lication) but I'm not part of the culture anymore. I don't know the politicians, celebrities and current affairs. So am I still Dutch?

Working with many nationalities at the airport we often discuss national traits. During a training course the other week some of my french colleagues were lamenting the fact that Russian customers are so unsmiling and dour. One of my Belorussian colleagues explained that when you work you are expected to be serious and often her countrymen are taken aback by all these inane smiling shop assistants. Customs are changing as the world population travels more and more. Now and then these days you get a friendly smile back, but maybe just out of pity; ''oh how sweet this care in the community, letting these poor souls work at the airfield''

So what have I noticed here as a foreign observer? Firstly to take great care on the motorway, some Dutch drivers are the most reckless, impatient and aggressive drivers about. Don't be surprised to be overtaken on the left and the right at great speed while the motorist flashes their lights. Luckily there are also some light moments when I enjoyed the dry humour of the train driver. First he announced we were being delayed by a red sign. he finished by saying:
''we will be on our way when the light changes''
after a short pause he added
"that moment has now arrived" resulting in some giggles.
The delay was only five minutes on an hour journey, I shrugged my shoulders and thought this was not bad at all. (excuse the stereo type, but at least they weren't on strike! we are having our fill of that in France at the moment.) but for the impatient dutch this was already worth a sigh.
Yes I'm definitely a foreigner here, but nobody would know. I'm a tall blond alien observing your customs.

Wednesday 12 November 2014

You'll have had your rain

''You'll have had your tea'' is a wonderful Edinburgh phrase. It is said that if you turn up at a home in Edinburgh around tea-time (dinner-time) the reluctant host would say this to his guest, meaning; don't expect me to ask you to join me for dinner. We have adapted it here a bit to say, oh my goodness we had so much rain, we don't expect anymore this month.
After the floods of last week, we had another 3 days of non stop rain, bringing renewed chaos. I thought I would share a photo with you, showing the aftermath of last weeks storms.
A washed up light buoy and a beach covered in bits of wood and other junk. So if you think the Mediterranean is always calm and sunny, think again.



Thursday 6 November 2014

The weather

Unlike when I worked in the UK, my colleagues and I spend little time discussing the weather. Mostly it just to say 'il fait beau dehors, profite bien!' (it is nice outside, make the most of it!) to the fellow worker finishing his or her shift. With 211 sunny days a year we are blessed with an exceptional climate, so visitors were a bit surprised when they experienced some rather heavy rains, strong winds and thunderstorms last Tuesday. When things are bad here, they can be really bad and chaos ensued. Cancelled or diverted flights, mudslides, a river bursting it banks and traffic at a gridlock.

http://www.sott.net/article/288544-Floods-in-France-and-Italy-following-6-inches-163mm-of-rain-in-24-hours

We often say that we have so many good days as all the months rain is received in one massive downpour.


The beach here in Cros de Cagnes is an artificial pebble one. They build a wide promenade between the water and the old fishing village and most of the sand beach was taken up by the road. Every spring a few lorries bring some more pebbles to repair the beach. Autumn waves and storms all do their best to erase the small strip of land. Last years storm was spectacular and I've writen about it in my short story 'the wee baldy man, published in the e-bundle 'Something Short'
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Something-Short-Elspeth-Morrison-ebook/dp/B00K74XHZO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1400498745&sr=8-1&keywords=elspeth+morrison+something+short

High waves picked up the pebbles and threw them over the promenade, leaving a trail of destruction all along the coast. So yes, we don't talk about the weather very often, but when we do, it's the topic of conversation for many days.