After my most serious parenting fail to date I feel that, at this time, the very least I can do for my poor traumatised Chou is to make a note of yesterday’s date (Monday the 25th of March, 2019) so that he will be able to provide his future therapist with the exact moment his carefree childhood came screeching to a halt, his innocent little … Continue reading Chez le médecin: trial by vaccination
A couple of days ago, whilst enjoying possibly the most middle class sandwich ever made – hummous, morbier cheese and smoked trout, with a squeeze of lime juice on top (naturally) – the satisfying result of rummaging in the fridge for leftovers from a ‘picnic lunch’ held to introduce my daughter to her grandfather, I was reminded of the mental list my husband and I … Continue reading La grossesse et la gourmande: Rebonjour, forbidden food!
On Tuesday the 29th of January, at 3:21 pm, and at 39 weeks’ gestation, my little family welcomed its newest member, in the form of one small and beautiful Chou-fleur, who hurtled into the world so quickly that her sage femme had to make haste to catch her. My husband and I had waited a long time for her arrival, so naturally we were thrilled … Continue reading Chomeuse with a Chou…and now a Chou-fleur!
Stepping down, down, down into a subterranean labyrinth beneath the calm and pleasant streets of old town Buda, one bitterly cold morning in February, two years ago, my husband and I had just made the rather questionable decision to take our then one-year-old son on a quest to see the prison where Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, was detained for an indeterminate amount of time … Continue reading Under house arrest in Budapest: A tale of holiday woe
Happy Épiphanie to one and all! Since my Chou has now reached the practically adult age of three, and nursery restarts tomorrow (where, no doubt, Epiphany will be a major topic of conversation, Christmas having taken place so long ago), I decided that it was time my family participated in the time-honoured (and much-loved) French tradition that is “tirer les rois”. In order to “draw the … Continue reading Epiphany and la galette des rois
Book of the Day: Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen. Two weeks ago I accompanied my Chou on his first ever school trip. It was a grand occasion – eighteen small children and nineteen adults (sixteen volunteers and three conscripts) heading off to pastures new attached to a farm so far away as to require the additional excitement of a short coach trip. This was … Continue reading A Sortie Scolaire to the Farm
Sitting next to my husband as we drove along the sensational coastal road on a long-promised trip to Monaco (our first venture ending abruptly after a freak hailstorm crushed my dream and my husband’s motorbike) I felt as though we could almost have been Cary Grant and Grace Kelly in Alfred Hitchcock’s film, To Catch a Thief – I am, after all, a native Bristolian, … Continue reading A Monégasque Adventure
Within an hour of our arrival at the seaside resort of Menton my over-excited Chou had managed to fall face-first into the Mediterranean. Luckily we came prepared for such inevitabilities (I had risen at six o’clock that morning to start the arduous task of packing, mainly comprising as much of his wardrobe as I could find clean). Having laughed unsympathetically and picked him up out … Continue reading Menton: The chin of France*
Les vacances de printemps have arrived in France, hot on the heels of the two week ‘skiing holiday’ in February (in lieu of the British half term) and the long Easter weekend. All the usual toys and schemes having been either thoroughly exhausted, lost or broken I found it necessary, some weeks ago, to resort in my desperation to improvisation. An impulse purchase of questionable … Continue reading Comment s’amuser avec a cardboard box
Looking for Adventure is like playing a game of ‘Hide and Seek’. Sometimes it is my turn to seek, and Adventure hides herself away in the most unlikely of places. Sometimes Adventure looks for me. I may think that I have found the perfect hiding spot, and am sitting tucked up in a ball in the dark, with my arms wrapped round my knees, giggling … Continue reading The Chou and la grue
Chomeuse with a Chou 