petite anglaise

The rational part of my brain was berating me for letting a a seemingly insignificant thing overwhelm me. The rest of me was a quivering mass of panic, Panic, PANIC, pulse racing, adrenaline flowing, feeling utterly, terrifyingly helpless.

The weekend began with the purchase of a new computer. Something that had been planned for a while, as my trusty companion since 2000 was not even compatible with XP. Or Ipods. And was starting to labour a bit if I tried to use anything remotely interesting like Dreamweaver or Photoshop. And so it came to pass that I added a a powerful but not too expensive new toy to my shopping basket and Frog, Tadpole and I went to collect it from Surcouf in a borrowed car this weekend.

Surcouf is a computer warehouse shop, located in the seventh circle of hell. Vast, intimidating and filled with swarms of teenage boys with skin problems at the weekends. The salespeople are young, incompetent and - apologies for the generalisation - mostly de la caillera (backslang for racaille: literal meaning = scum; commonly used to describe young folk from the dodgier suburbs, who may or may not be dressed like British ‘chavs’).

I marched straight to the collection room brandishing my internet receipt and queued up in front of a large printed sign which read ‘desktops’. Charming young gentleman at the desk, growling: ‘C’est là -bas, vous savez pas lire ou quoi?’ (’the queue is over there, can’t you read?’) Ah yes, a handwritten post it note attached to the ‘laptops’ sign did indeed read ‘internet orders’. Cheeks flaming I fled. French customer service: an exercise in humiliation.

Home sweet home and several hours of saving things from the old computer later, I emerged from a spaghetti of computer wiring, covered in the clumps of fluffy dust you only find behind electrical appliances (rather appropriately called ‘moutons’ in French). And switched it on.

It sounded like a HAIRDRYER.

I began to wish I hadn’t made quite such an impulsive purchase. I dimly recall having read somewhere once that AMD processors can overheat and tend to need very strong fans to keep them cool.

Perhaps the fact that the computer was called Aspiro should have sent alarm bells ringing. Not Aspiro as in aspirational or something nice and positive. Aspiro as in ‘aspirateur’ (French: hoover, vaccuum cleaner). The smiling lady pictured on the box was probably wearing cunningly concealed earplugs.

Gritting my teeth, determined to pretend that it didn’t sound like I was sitting in front of a jumbo jet propellor, I loaded up the antivirus, spyware destroyer and firewall first, like the sensible girl I am. I noted, with annoyance, that XP was in French. A lovely language, but one which has no business to be on my operating system. Another point I had gaily overlooked while making my purchase.

I then spent the rest of the day duelling with a particularly resistant browser hijacker. I removed it, it came back. Repeat to fade. Each time the red spyware alert popped up to say that the little f*$@&r was trying to re-install itself, I edged one step closer to meltdown. A cool, white, padded cell started to look soothing and attractive.

And forgive me for sharing what could be seen as too much information, but I note that the laxative properties of viruses and spyware are really quite remarkable.

I think it’s gone now. Fingers crossed. But I have to admit I am dreading going home and switching on the hairdryer from hell just in case that pop up message comes back again. I simply can’t face wiping clean a brand new computer and reinstalling everything. I had nightmares about it last night. I’m an untidy bundle of nerves.

How is it that these machines are able to wield such power over us? And why didn’t I shack up with a geekfrog who could sort these things out. Why oh why?

How very inconsiderate of my boss to give me stacks of work to do. I’ve got a responsibility to my visitors to come up with a new post this morning. Really, it’s not on.

In the meantime, my virtual self is over at Rachie’s place at a party, and we need males. In fancy dress. Or a state of undress. We’re not fussy. (Well, I’m not anyway).

See you there?

I passed my driving test on the third attempt. Even then, I’m not convinced this was in the best interests of the residents of York.

The summer before going away to university when my mother foolishly insured me to drive her car, I managed to reverse into a Tesco trolley park and hit the brick gatepost in our driveway. My father spent most of that summer removing the bumper, hammering it back into shape and putting it back on again. In my defence, the trolley park in question was empty and in the blind spot in the rear window. This was in the days when car seats were not height adjustable. I remember vividly the day my long-suffering driving instructor told me to line up the curb with a sticker on the rear window when reversing around the corner. I had to break the news to him that I couldn’t even see the curb. I’m not called petite for nothing.

That was in 1991. I haven’t driven since. To complicate matters I am now living in a country where people drive on the wrong side of the road and change gear with their right hands. After a decade I still cannot get my head around this, so whether I’m in France or the UK I invariably head to the wrong side of every car when trying to locate the passenger seat. And whether I’m crossing a French road or an English road I inevitably look the wrong way first. To make matters worse, I live in a city where most people drive as if they have just snorted several grams of cocaine (arrogantly, aggressively), parallel park in miniscule spaces (ahem, parallel parking wasn’t even tested back in 1991) and disregard a different highway code altogether. You will be relieved to hear that I don’t plan to exchange my British driving license for a French one any time soon.

If you are foolhardy enough to drive in the French capital, here are a few tips on how to drive like a native Parisian:

• You know those lovely big French roundabouts with no lane markings whatsoever - like Charles de Gaulle Etoile, Bastille and Place de la Concorde? The rule for use of these roundabouts is under no circumstances should you use your indicator to show people what your intentions are. Instead, weave in and out of the ‘lanes’ in a random fashion, and then cut off several lanes of traffic when you reach your exit.
• Learn to park the French way! Nudging the bumpers of the cars adjacent to your space is perfectly acceptable, and indeed expected. I once spied four people lifting a Fiat Uno sideways out of a space it had got hemmed into.
• Ignore traffic lights. Give yourself an extra five seconds to drive across a junction after the lights have turned to red. Everyone else does. Or at the very least, brake at the very last minute so that paranoid, pushchair-wheeling pedestrians are unsure about whether you plan to stop, or not. That way they can only get to the traffic island in the middle before the lights change.
• If you drive a moped/scooter/motorbike it is compulsory to drive the wrong way around traffic islands in order to get ahead. It keeps pedestrians on their toes (except petite anglaise, who instinctively looks the wrong way and therefore cannot be caught out). Driving across the pavement to jump the lights altogether is also perfectly acceptable, on one condition: do not reduce your speed.
• The horn should be used liberally at all times, and not just when you are part of a wedding cortège. Rolling down your windows and swearing* is also highly recommended if you want to blend in with the natives. There doesn’t have to be any particular provocation. And don’t forget to accompany your tirade with a vigorous shake of your fist.

cut out and keep swearing vocab in French:

connard! - assehole!
enculé! - asshole!
fils de pute! - sonofabitch!

You’re good to go.

The text message on my mobile reads:

“Bonne Année. Je voulais juste avoir des nouvelles de [Tadpole] - Myriam”.

It is dated January 4th. Oh dear. I do dimly recall having read this some time ago and making a sarcastic comment to Mr Frog about how the babysitter was touting for business again, but then I promptly forgot all about it. I haven’t the faintest idea whether I replied. The post-partum brain is a fickle creature.

Tadpole has somehow unearthed this message while tappety-tapping on the keypad. It’s really quite impressive the way she holds the phone to her ear and strolls out of the room as if she is having a private conversation I cannot be privy to (”Allô? Allô? Allô Gram ma!”).

So now I’m feeling guilty. Both about the dose of radiation Tadpole may be self-administrating (justification: the mobile is the only ‘toy’ I have to hand here in the doctor’s waiting room) and also about my lack of courtesy to the babysitter. She is not someone we can afford to offend. Our very social lives depend on her goodwill.

When you live in a big city, many hundreds of miles/kilometres from the nearest relative, finding a reliable babysitter is a big deal. There being no teenage girls conveniently located in our apartment building, we asked the childminder if she could recommend someone. She came up with a friend’s daughter who lived a half hour walk from our flat and required chaperoning home at the end of the evening. On foot, as opposed to on the back of Mr Frog’s Vespa.

In desperation I put an advert in our local boulangerie asking for a student with childcare references - one of those little ads you see everywhere in France with tear-off strips bearing our phone number. I was prepared to take the the risk of receiving a few heavy breathing perv-calls from mac-wearing stalkers who happened to buy a baguette that day. It was for a good cause.

The advert disappeared, I suspect removed by our soon-to-be babysitter, anxious to eliminate the opposition. She was perfect: nicely spoken, lived close by and had been picking up a toddler from school and minding her every evening for three years. Her references were duly checked.

And she is reliable. But I can’t help feeling that we are not the ones who call the shots here. She charges € 7 per hour - equal to the minimum wage in this country, but non-declared and therefore tax-free. That’s pretty good television watching/internet surfing/cupboard exploring money, by anyone’s standards. As we never seem to have any change when it comes to the crucial moment of paying her, the amounts inevitably get rounded up in her favour. Just to rub it in, she shows up carrying a different genuine-looking Chanel/Dior/Gucci handbag every time, her hair styled as if she has just come from a salon, her clothes pristine. I leave the flat feeling dowdy, in spite of my glad rags and make-up.

And then there is the guilt factor. Our ad said we would require someone about once a week. This was in the optimistic, naïve days before the reality of paying someone and then also paying to go out had really sunk in. You have to read really good reviews of a film before you want to spend €100 paying the sitter/seeing the film/buying Mr Frog the obligatory bucket of salty popcorn/having a bite to eat before/after the film. As opposed to renting the DVD for € 3. But occasionally Myriam adopts a petulant tone in her texts and implies she had hoped to work more regularly, so like the mugs we are we end up booking her just to keep her sweet, so that she will be there for us when we really do need her.

I suppose we should count our blessings though. A friend of mine uses an Orthodox Jewish girl whose family live in her apartment building. She has a bizarre set of rules about babysitting on the Sabbath. She can’t be paid on that day, nor can she do anything which constitutes ‘work’. The mother in question returned from a night out to find her children still wide awake and bouncing off the walls at midnight. Their bedroom light was still on, as the babysitter wasn’t ‘allowed’ to turn it off.

I try not to dwell on what our young lady gets up to when we go out. I know that when I babysat in my early teens I pretty much cased the joint for films with ‘rude’ scenes or mildly titillating literature (Women in Love, Tropic of Cancer). God only knows what I’d have got up to if I had broadband internet access.

I only hope she never stumbles across Mr Frog’s fluffy baaing sheep thong.

If ever I decide to kill two minutes at work surfing Blog Explosion (usually between 17.58 and 18.00 when the countdown moves even more slowly), I invariably spend a few seconds of quality time in the company of 3 Republican wannabe pundits, 2 Democrats, 1 prairie apologist (whatever that means?), 2 knitting bloggers, and an animal lover. I am aware of the fact that this many sites = >2 minutes, but I do not count patience among my qualities.

Last week I stumbled across a blog (which sadly I can no longer find) which helpfully listed a great many figurative phrases and proverbs in the English language referring to cats. This set me off on a train of thought (m’a mis la puce à l’oreille) about similar expressions in French involving animals, and how these are translated into English. Just the sort of thing which keeps me awake at night.

After extensive research (i.e. looking at four or five entries for animals in the Collins/Robert dictionary and brainstorming with Mr Frog, for all the good that did me) I now share the fruit of my labours.

It transpires that French people do indeed shed crocodile tears on occasion, can be as stubborn as mules (personally I know of no-one more stubborn than my partner, so perhaps it should be changed to ‘as stubborn as a frog’?) They are wont to stick their heads in the sand (faire l’autruche - literally, do the ostrich). French females often eat like birds/sparrows (don’t believe any of this nonsense) and an unattractive person may be compared to a toad (être laid comme un crapaud).

However, for a French person, the day that pigs fly will be the day that chicken grow teeth (quand les poules auront des dents). It never rains cats and dogs, but like a pissing cow (pleuvoir comme vache qui pisse). Petite anglaise minus her glasses is as short-sighted as a mole (myope comme une taupe) rather than as blind as a bat. When French people feel a bit chilly they develop chicken skin (chair de poule), which is similar, but not identical to, goose pimples. The Gallic equivalent of having ‘other fish to fry’ is having other cats to whip (d’autres chats à fouetter). I’m not sure what the RSPCA/SPA/Brigitte Bardot would have to say about that kind of behaviour. A French person with a croaky voice has a cat in their throat, as opposed to a frog. (I can’t help feeling that the latter is a good thing and has probably spared me exposure to some rather unsavoury Mr Frog/throat jokes.)

But by far my favourite phrase, because of the lovely image it conjurs in my mind’s eye, is the French expression enculer des mouches. Which can be translated literally as ‘to bugger flies’.

In English we use the rather less colourful expression ‘to split hairs’.

…is hearing indirectly that petite anglaise has been nominated for a 2005 bloggie in the Best New Weblog category, but not actually being able to access the site (bandwidth limit exceeded).

Sincere, heartfelt thanks to anyone who nominated me. You have made my day!

In the meantime, if you are privy to info about who the other nominees are among my blogfriends, please let me know via the comment box. The suspense is killing me!

Ahem. If like me you are unable to get on the bloggies site, why not exercise your voting finger here (in three categories) in the meantime? If I win anything, I undertake to post a picture of self wearing satin pyjamas to mark the occasion.

I also won €2 on a St Valentin scratchcard and received my £16.00 Ipod today. I don’t think things could get any better. Unless JonnyB finally relents and puts me on his blogroll, that is.

In a novel I read recently, ‘Notes on a Scandal‘ by Zoë Heller, there was a passage that leapt out of the page and struck me forcefully. It has come back to haunt me many times since. Usually when I am reaching for the Teletubbies video. Again.

One of the protagonists expressed an unpalatable truth that I know I was already aware of on some level, but prior to actually seeing it in writing, I would never have dared admit it, even to myself.

“It was so much easier being a parent when one was performing for another adult… Dealing with her daughter is never easy, but it’s pretty much impossible without the motivation of an audience. If there’s no one about to witness her patience and kindness, she finds herself too weary to tackle Polly’s sullen mystery.”

I don’t think I’m a bad parent. But I know for a fact that I am a better one when someone I seek to impress is within earshot. If Mr Frog is in the next room, regardless of whether he’s actually paying attention, I am much more engaged with Tadpole, far more likely to try to teach her a new word, or invest some energy in eliciting a giggle. So that Mr Frog can hear what a good mummy I’m being. It’s a form of showing off: ‘Hey, look what a wonderful parent I am!’ Or of competition: ‘look how much better I am at this than you!’

When daddy’s not around, I may, flying in the face of all those principles I had before Tadpole was born, let the TV murmur in the background while Tadpole is eating her dinner (or smearing it all over her clothes). I may even leaf through a magazine while she splashes around in the bath with her toys. What can I say? I’ve been at work all day, and although I’m thrilled to see Tadpole, I have bathed her more than 500 times in the course of the last year and a half and there are only so many games you can play with some cups and a few plastic animals with holes in (although I dread the day that she learns how to squirt me back).

We have some amazing moments, Tadpole and I. There are instants which are indescribably precious to me, where she gets a particular sparkle in her eye and I just know that she’s going to give me one of those precious little kisses that she rations so carefully. But there are also moments when she is insufferable and frustrating (”no No NO NO!”) and I yearn to skip the evening routine altogether, put her to bed and close the door.

When the audience in question is the mother-not-in-law or the childminder, then I am all the more motivated to play the role of ‘perfect mum’, because with these women, not only do I seek to impress, but I feel I have even more to prove and my abilities are under constant scrutiny. With my MNIL, I feel the need to demonstrate that I am irreplaceable. It took her a while to adjust to behaving like a grandmother (as opposed to a mother) with Tadpole, and initially I felt threatened, and indeed wounded, by her behaviour. This feeling has subsided, but I know it has had a lasting effect on our relationship, at least from my point of view. And I know that it has affected the way I behave with Tadpole around her. I will also admit that I am not above using bilingualism as a weapon to exclude her when it suits me.

With the childminder I am understandably a little insecure. After all, this woman spends more hours per day with my daughter than I do. She is much older than me, and has a huge amount of child-rearing experience which it’s difficult not to resent sometimes. I sense that it will be she who decides when Tadpole is ready to be potty trained, just as it was she who suggested to me that Tadpole was ready for solid foods or a pair of ‘proper’ shoes. So when I arrive to pick up Tadpole and she hurls herself into my arms I experience a mixture of genuine glee at seeing my daughter, and a satisfaction at being preferred. Followed by the perfect mummy ‘act’, wholly for the childminder’s benefit.

Now that I am now conscious of this tendency to play to an audience, it is impossible to gauge for myself where the natural ends and the performance begins. The borders are blurred; the colours weep into one another.

I try to convince myself that it doesn’t really matter at the end of the day. Tadpole will simply be happy that I’m drawing or singing songs with her or reading that extra story. But then again, children can be terrifyingly perceptive. The miracle of speech is also a looming liability.

I fear it is only a matter of time before I overhear Tadpole explaining to the (anti-TV) childminder that she often watches the Teletubbies while she eats her breakfast. Or asks me in front of grandma why we only ever read more than one story at bedtime when we stay at their house. Or worse…

Marching season has begun again, despite the rather cold weather we are having.

Public sector employees (fonctionnaires) from the SNCF (French railways), EDF (Electricity board) and La Poste are striking this week in protest against the right-wing government’s ‘policies of economic liberalisation’. Or rather, they are protesting about how the policies may affect them. More specifically, they would like higher wages and reassurance that the government’s loosening up of the 35 hour working week legislation will not apply to them. Well, wouldn’t we all?

Call me selfish, but I find it hard to have much sympathy for French civil servants. Not because when they strike it is a battle to get to and from work and I don’t receive any post. Althought that clearly doesn’t put me in the most sympathetic frame of mind. Not because in general they work far fewer hours than people employed in the private sector, have a job for life and get to retire at least 5 years earlier, on a better pension. Even though they make smaller social security contributions.

The thing that really gets on my nerves is the fonctionnaire attitude I have had to deal with time and time again. Public service would appear to be a misnomer. Take the lovely staff of the main Préfecture in Paris whom I first encountered when applying for my carte de séjour (residence permit, no longer required for EC residents, and not before time). I presented my paperwork, with the requisite sheaf of photocopies, at the front desk. This hurdle down, I was allowed to take my numbered ticket and move into the waiting area, where I soon realised that there were approximately fifty people in the queue before me. I wished I had the foresight to have prepared a packed lunch, a thermos of tea and a good book.

Of the ten booths, two were actually manned (or womanned) by sour faced civil servants, and the simple form filling procedure appeared to be taking at least ten minutes to complete. And the other members of staff? Well, they were out of sight, but within earshot. I could hear one lady talking about her holiday plans, another moaning about being overworked, and the tantalising sound of a packet of biscuits being passed around. It was 10.30am. The department had been open for half an hour. And they were already having their first coffee break of the day.

When my turn finally came, two and a half hours later, I was bemused by the suspicious attitude of the person who received me. As a citizen of the EU, it wasn’t strictly legal for the French government to demand that I carry an ID card of any kind, and my right to live and work in France was indisputable, card or no card. However that didn’t stop the lady across the counter from being snappy, impatient and downright unpleasant. I think she enjoyed wielding some sort of (imaginary) power over applicants, making them sweat a little at the prospect of being escorted onto the next flight back to their native country because they only had two passport photos instead of three, or their utility bill was not recent enough. I hardly dare imagine how the people in the adjacent room (for applicants from African countries) were being treated.

The Irish girl in the next booth to mine was told by a weasel-faced man that she didn’t have enough photocopies of her utility bill. The solution to this insurmountable problem? As the coin-operated photocopier in the waiting room was out of order, she was dispatched off find a functioning copier elsewhere in the building (without directions), and then she would just have to take a ticket and wait her turn all over again. She left, close to tears.

As for me, my application was processed. The next step was that I would have to come back again, in two month’s time, to take another numbered ticket and wait my turn to actually receive the attractive, plastic covered card.

After this and countless other soul-destroying exchanges with French civil servants, I find myself struggling to have any sympathy for the ‘plight’ of the nation’s fonctionnaires.

How heartless of me.

The tiny lift wheezes and groans its way up to the fifth floor, where the doors open with an unpleasant sound reminiscent of a cat’s claws being sharpened on a school blackboard. The pre-pubescent estate agent is already unlocking the door to the apartment. There are four locks. I picture the previous occupant, possibly a spinster with several cats, peeping through the spyhole suspiciously.

Young Mr Estate Agent hurries us past the windowless, unventilated bathroom and its odour of damp. It possesses one of those short Parisian baths in which even a ten-year old child would be unable to stretch out his/her legs fully. Something about the appearance of the toilet sets alarm bells ringing in my head, but before I have chance to investigate further I am cut off mid-thought. Tadpole has escaped my grasp and is making a bee-line for an interesting looking bouquet of dangling earthless sockets and exposed wires in the living room.

Returning to the task in hand, I note that the kitchen wouldn’t be out of place in a student house shared by four impoverished boys and no cleaning products. What plumbling is visible looks decidedly ancient and is likely to be lined with toxic lead.

Monsieur Agent Immobilier ingeniously diverts my attention away from this unappealing sight by throwing open the windows in the three main rooms, creating a situation where Tadpole can potentially defenestrate herself if my attention lapses for a moment. He studiously avoids the issue of central heating (and the lack thereof), but he does concede that the apartment probably requires € 35,000 spending on it in order to realise its full potential.

The main rooms are lovely, with wooden floors, high ceilings and original fireplaces. Winter sunlight pours in through the (non-double-glazed) windows and bathes the walls in a warm, buttery light. Leaning out of the fifth floor window and craning my neck to the right, I can just spy the Buttes Chaumont park.

I prod a wall-mounted electric heater suspiciously. It wobbles. I have never understood the French fondness for a single, tiny electric heater, positioned on an outside wall under a window, intended to heat a large high-ceilinged room.

Sensing that the heating issue is causing my enthusiasm to falter, the estate agent makes the mistake of opening a panel next to the front door to demonstrate the existence of a gas pipe. The rusty old pipe he wiggles at me could be anything for all I know, but whatever it is, it evidently hasn’t been used since the 1920’s and seeing this does nothing to reassure me. Nor does a glimpse of the fusebox (a single old-fasioned wire fuse). Hardly a desirable original feature.

We mumble the usual meaningless niceties about how we’ll have to discuss it but, a priori it is a little out of our budget range considering the amount of attention it needs and our patent lack of DIY skills. Mr Agent Immobilier promises to contact us if anything similar comes on the market (he won’t, in two years no-one ever has) and we take our leave.

It dawns on me later that day what was wrong with the toilet. It was low and small like a bidet with a lid. There was no visible connection to a water supply. I don’t even think it was a sani-broyeur. Could it be some sort of chemical toilet?

Call me fussy, but for the sum of £ 200,000 (€ 317,000) I am not prepared to relive my worst experiences of the Glastonbury festival. I’m too old for that.

Back to the small ads.

‘Weee weee!’, announces Tadpole, finally tiring of the tissue she has been shredding into fifty-seven tiny pieces for the past five minutes.

‘You want a wee wee sweetie?’, I ask, having acquired the annoying habit of repeating everything Tadpole says in order to reassure her that she is being understood and improve her pronunciation. ‘Well, if you don’t want to do a wee wee in your nappy, why don’t we try sitting you on the potty?’

Tadpole is nineteen months old and I am in no hurry to go through the inevitably messy process of potty training, but as she has suddenly become very aware of the workings of her bottom (i.e. shouting ‘big poo’ while we are having a leisurely brunch in a local restaurant) a potty has been purchased and sits expectantly next to the toilet waiting for her to take an interest in it.

‘No potty. Wee wee!’, repeats Tadpole petulantly, as she doesn’t like not getting what she wants immediately. I sense that the rising intonation of her voice may indicate an imminent tantrum.

‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you want me to do,’ I reply, bracing myself for the piercing screams which are sure to follow. ‘Do you want me to change your nappy? Is it dirty?’

‘No dirty. WEE WEE!’

Tadpole glares at me, a glare which can be translated roughly as ‘mummy I can’t believe you can be so stupid. Are you sure you speak English?’ and storms off to her bedroom. She returns clutching a book, which she thrusts into my lap.

‘Wee Wee!’ She cries triumphantly.

It’s an Enid Blyton book. Noddy. One of the modern Golliwog-free ones where Big Ears and Noddy sleep in separate beds and Mr Plod does not make quite such liberal use of his truncheon. Known in France as ‘Oui Oui’ ( ‘Yes Yes’). I manage to suppress the urge to bang my head against a wall repeatedly. But only just.

Raising a bilingual child requires levels of patience I am not sure I possess.

Drifting across the raised stage area in the nightclub, my body is at boiling point, butterflies thrash around in the pit of my stomach, tall, roaring, violent waves surge through me, a panic attack, tachycardia, I’m going to explode any minute. But I know it won’t last. This chaotic, out of control sensation will bottom out and soon my mind will relax into, lock onto the music and my body will dance as if on autopilot for hours on end.

The dj is mixing seamlessly, playing his signature brand of uplifting, hypnotic music with minimal singing, but layer upon layer of gorgeous, echoing sounds which vibrate deep inside my body, and build to crescendos so indescribably gorgeous they are almost unbearable. There is a whooshing sound and I’m soaring, hands reaching upward, body tingling all over, arms bristling with goosepimples, thighs teased by the touch of my gauzy dress which glows under the UV lights.

I’m oblivious to the other people around me, whether they be friends or strangers. Some guy whispers incomprehensible words in my ear and I flash him a beatific smile as I turn away, close my eyes and carry on dancing, locked inside my own private world, mesmerised by my own eyelids, heart racing, chest a little heavy and tight…

…and then my bulky cd walkman falls out of my bra, yanking the headphones out of my ears, forcing me brutally out of my flashback and back into the disappointing reality of my bedroom.

I open my eyes and see the pile of ironing on the bed, groaning as I slide off the exercise bike to pick up the walkman.

I wonder when my Ipod is due to arrive.

This post is not intended to address the subject of whether certain recreational activities are right/wrong/ill-advised/dangerous. It is simply me trying to put into words how my body remembers certain feelings with the right musical stimulus.

Hello, my name is petite and I’m a fully recovered shopaholic.

The New Year sales started at an unfeasibly early hour yesterday morning here in Paris (which felt odd, considering some had begun before Christmas in the UK). I for one will be scrupulously avoiding any form of retail therapy for the duration. I can think of few things worse than braving the Galéries Lafayette or Printemps department stores only to have to fight my way through hordes of middle aged women in tasteless (fake?) fur coats and trowelled-on make-up to ferret out ‘une bonne affaire’. I observed, with detached amusement, the women in the Monoprix next to my office sourcing and even trying on items on Monday and Tuesday in preparation for the hallowed opening day on Wednesday 12 February. But I realised I had no desire whatsoever to join them.

BT (Before Tadpole), shopping was a hobby which took up a fair amount of my time. The whole point of Saturdays was to spend hours scouring my favourite shops with Mr Frog for items of clothing and shoes to buy. We shopped at an eclectic mix of stores: from H&M to Kiliwatch, Zara to the Agnès B, as well as in Dior, Givenchy and Louis Vuitton private sales (when I worked for a luxury goods empire and could get hold of invitations). We were young(er), on decent salaries, mortgageless and had nothing better to do than spend money frivolously. The sales were an opportunity to lust after reduced (but still obscenely expensive) Marc Jacobs ballerina pumps or Miu Miu handbags at Kabuki.

Mr Frog possesses a quality rare in men: he likes shopping. Not just for his own clothes (where he is fastidious to the point of being impossible to buy for), but he actually enjoys shopping with me/for me. He would give me advice on what to buy, and tried to take all the credit for my gradual transition from a doc marten wearing grunge goddess (when we met) to whatever I have now become. I did on occasion have to be firm, because being a woman I instinctively know when something which looks very attractive on a coathanger will be ill-suited to my hourglass figure. On the whole though he excelled in his role of guru and partner in crime. This is an unusual quality to find in a heterosexual man (I have always joked that if he left me, it would be for a man), but I wasn’t complaining. It was good fun shopping together.

It was the arrival of Tadpole which cured my shopping habit overnight.

I can now no longer endure weekend trips into central Paris, knowing that this will first entail negotiating several flights of stairs with a pushchair, then ramming said pushchair into fellow traveller’s shins in a crowded, airless metro carriage. Several more flights of stairs and long underground corridors later, we will finally emerge onto a congested, and often dirty pavement where the crowds do not magically part at the sight of a pushchair. And where hundreds of lighted cigarettes are brandished at Tadpole’s eye level.

Although I had never noticed this previously, I can count the number of Parisian shops equipped with a lift on the fingers of one hand. To my amazement I have shopped at several stores where infants’ clothes are located on the first floor, accessible only via a single flight of stairs, with neither a lift nor an escalator in sight. Should we need to make a Tadpole pit stop, restaurants with baby changing facilities or high chairs are few and far between. So shopping with a child is only for the ferociously motivated. It’s a parcours du combattant I can well do without.

The alternative is a relay-race dash to the shops. First I snatch my couple of hours while Mr Frog entertains the Tadpole, then I pass the baton to Mr Frog and it is his turn to ride off into the smog on his Vespa. It’s not half as much fun as shopping together. I miss Mr Frog’s company and feel a pang of guilt at squandering some of the precious time Tadpole and I have together, which means that leisurely browsing and actually trying things on has been replaced by a one-stop lightening visit to Gap every few months from which I bring back every item I like in my size, fervently praying it will all fit.

So, if you came here expecting extensive coverage of the glamorous Parisian sales, sorry to disappoint.

I shan’t be crossing a stream carrying a cat any time soon. Or treading on any cats’ tails. This is because I don’t own a cat. Not out of a healthy respect for French superstition, which dictates that these actions would bring me bad luck, or worse still, in the case of the latter, prevent me from finding a husband this year.

I came across the aforementioned French superstitions on a catblog (and yes, I admit it, I was surfing on blog explosion at the time. Where else would one find such a thing?) These expressions excepted, it occured to me that most of what I had assumed to be English superstitions are actually shared by the French and have direct translations. The French are as prone to finger crossing (croiser les doigts) and wood touching (toucher du bois) as the English. They avoid walking under ladders, breaking mirrors and opening umbrellas indoors. Horseshoes and four leaf clovers are thought to be lucky. As are rabbits’ feet. So far so good.

The number 13 is considered unlucky in many cultures. There is even a very long word meaning ‘fear of the number thirteen’: triskaidekaphobia. More specifically though, it is deemed bad luck in France to have only thirteen people à table when sitting down to dinner. Apparently the thing to do in this situation to keep bad luck at bay is to set a place for a fictitious fourteenth person.

Friday 13th is also considered unlucky, but I think this date is only seen to be ‘unlucky for some’, not least because the French national lottery (Loto) always holds an exceptional super-cagnotte Friday 13 draw.

Apparently, in French folklore, breaking a white glass brings good luck (for as long as a year). Sadly we don’t own any white glasses, only transparent ones. I think it might be worthwhile checking whether I can source some white wine glasses in the sales this week, as a little extra luck couldn’t go amiss. And, judging by the number of glasses Mr Frog has managed to break this past year while washing up, we could be onto a winner.

Vying for the number one spot in the most bizarre superstitions I have come across today are the following:

Treading in a crotte with your left foot is considered to be lucky. Pardon? I’m sorry, but I fail to see how by any stretch of the imagination treading in dog excrement can be A Good Thing. I cross-examined to Mr Frog about this belief, and he said it didn’t matter which foot you did the treading with, it was lucky to tread in dog poop no matter what. Well, I suppose us Parisiens can count ourselves lucky as we must have a very high luck quotient.

It is allegedly bad luck to sneeze while lacing your shoes. Hay fever sufferers beware! It may be advisable to invest in a pair of slip-on shoes, or alternatively, footwear with a handy velcro fastener.

That is if you subscribe to any of this charming nonsense.

One superstition which I do plan to take seriously from now on (I suffer from very selective scepticism) is the French notion that it is dangerous to ‘passer le balai une fois le soleil couché’. Now that is good advice. The sun sets at approximately 5.30pm at this time of year. So I shan’t be allowed to reach for a broom on weekdays. And, as I feel it is appropriate to apply a modern interpretation to such old-fashioned expressions, that goes for the hoover to.

If you live in Europe, why not bid in my charity ebay auction. There are four separate lots of perfume (for men and women). All proceeds will be given to Oxfam to aid victims of the Tsunami. I will post a copy of the donation receipt to the seller.

update: € 130 have been donated to Oxfam. Thank you for your generosity. There is still a Michael Kors for men perfume up for grabs. It hasn’t sold on Ebay, but please contact me directly if you are interested in buying it.

Thank you
Your transaction has been processed on behalf of OXFAM.

Thank you very much for your generous gift of EUR130.00 to support Oxfam’s work throughout the world.

For more than 60 years Oxfam has been turning donations such as yours into positive action which is transforming the lives of some of the world’s poorest people. Together we have helped farming families to get more from their land; given children the chance to go to school; and ensured that opportunities are open to everyone - even the most vulnerable - in a community. We’ve also campaigned for changes in policies, both locally and internationally, which will ensure that poor people’s efforts are properly rewarded.

To read more about what we do and find out how you can get more involved, including making a regular donation, just click here: http://www.oxfam.org.uk

If you’d like to talk to someone about Oxfam’s work, please call 0870 333 2700 and we’ll be more than happy to help.

Thank you once again for your valuable support.

Barbara Stocking
Director, Oxfam

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This is not a tax receipt.

I have a busy morning ahead so I hope to write a proper post later in the day, but I wanted to share a quote from the book I am currently reading - Non-Fiction by Chuck Palahniuk - which I think has some relevance to anyone out there who writing about their life on a daily basis, whether it be in screenplay, book or blog form. The following excerpt is taken from the essay {You are Here}, and it echoes some of the concerns I expressed here.

“..maybe we’re headed down a road toward mindless, self-obsessed lives where every event is reduced to words and camera angles. Every moment imagined through the lens of a cinematographer. Every funny or sad remark scribbled down for sale at the first opportunity.

A world Socrates couldn’t imagine, where people would examine their lives, but only in terms of movie and paperback potential.

Where story no longer follows as the result of an experience.

Now the experience happens in order to generate a story.”

I’m not selling anything here (apart from possibly my own soul). In fact I pay for a domain and an ISP, carry no google ads, and write purely for my own pleasure and amusement. But I still sometimes wonder how healthy it is…

I think the deluge (not to use the expression ‘tsunami’ because I fear it is now an ‘off limits’ word in any context other than 26 December 2004) of new visitors yesterday sent by Michele needs some explanation. It is a game played on Michele’s site to send her visitors off to discover a new blog every day. They came, they saw, they commented. Maybe some of them will even come back. But I notice my regular blogfriends were very quiet throughout. And I missed you. Come back!

As I trudged up the stairs to our office this morning at 9.07 am, wearing my habitual pre-espresso blank expression and grunting at colleagues who unwisely attempted to engage me in conversation, for some reason I was reminded of My Most Embarassing Office Moment.

Rewind to a couple of years ago, when I had been working for my current employer for six months or so. Our office is in an old Haussmannien building in an historic, chic part of town close to the Louvre and the old Opéra Garnier. It consists of two floors which were originally separate offices, linked by a staircase which was added by our company. The staircase looks perfectly normal: carpeted stairs with a metal lip (a nez de marche in French, although I am unclear about what noses have to do with anything), with a 180° turn at the halfway point and some triangular steps around the corners.

Despite their innocuous appearance I have watched and heard many people fall up and down these stairs. Most just stumble noisily, often as they run up too fast. Quite how anyone can muster enough enthusiasm to run anywhere whilst at work is beyond me. Unless an announcement has just been made that there is cake or chocolate to be found in the upstairs kitchen. My desk looks directly onto the staircase, so I am often to be found trying (and failing) to supress a snigger as yet another colleague falls flat on his/her face.

One fateful day, when I was wearing rather high heels and was asked to take some documents down to a meeting on the floor below, I too fell victim to the curse of the stairs. I think I missed one step altogether, and I found myself plunging forwards in slow motion. For some reason my instincts were not all about self preservation, because instead of dropping the papers and using my hands to grab a bannister, I hung onto the papers for dear life and just fell headlong. The documents, unsurprisingly, did not break my fall. Result: two shins gashed open on the metal stair edges before I came to a halt on a wide triangular stair. Although I don’t remember hitting my head, I fainted and was out cold for a couple of minutes. In the meantime, a gallant colleague had rushed to my aid and it was his face I saw as I came to my senses and started pulled at my skirt, my first thought being that I might be flashing my knickers. And I couldn’t remember which pair I had on.

I was half carried downstairs to the kitchen where sweet tea was administered and a doctor called to take a look at my legs. The senior partner popped in to see me, but whilst he was talking to me I became I aware that his gaze was drifting under the table. Apparently it wasn’t the gash on my leg he was inspecting, it was my frivolous choice of footwear. Just in case I might be contemplating suing the firm on account of their dodgy staircase, he was assessing the unsuitableness of my shoes. I was on the verge of asking him if he wanted a photograph, but decided against it.

The next month was spent filling in forms and bouncing back letters from the French Sécurité Sociale, because even though I was only signed off work for a measly half day, the fact that it was an accident de travail meant that a particular protocol had to be followed. I was supposed to see a doctor just after the event, and another to pronounce that I was fit to work again. Which clearly I didn’t do, as I could hardly summon over two doctors in the space of one afternoon.

It’s not difficult to see why the French social security system is billions of euros in the red. I was bombarded with letters from an over-zealous fonctionnaire (civil servant) for six months because that missing piece of paper from the doctor’s visit I didn’t make was preventing her from closing her file.

You may be wondering why this episode qualifies for the prestigious title of Most Embarassing Office Moment. Well, the following day, upon returning to the office, it became apparent that my knight in shining armour was not so gallant after all.

He had kindly made public the fact that for the entire duration of the two minutes I was out for the count, I was snoring. Rather loudly.

I abhor the way so many French people think drinking and driving is acceptable behaviour.

Mr Frog rolled in merrily at midnight the other night, after dinner with a friend, reeking of alcohol. He claimed to have drunk only a couple of glasses of wine. I will concede that he is the only person I know who after drinking one beer often smells like he has knocked back an entire bottle of whisky. There is apparently a phrase for this in French, avoir l’haleine qui marque facilement (breath which ‘marks’ easily), which I’m not sure has a direct equivalent in English. This means that I never really know whether he has had two drinks or ten. But on many occasions I have witnessed the difficulty he has turning the key in the front door lock, heard him crashing around the apartment like an injured rhinoceros, and seen how ropey he is feeling the following day. So I suspect that his definition of ‘a couple of drinks’ differs quite radically from mine.

It’s not the drinking that worries me. It’s the fact that he cheerfully rides home on his Vespa when he’s had a skinful. It’s the fact that when I wake up briefly in the night and see that it is 4 am and his side of the bed is still cold and empty, I am filled with terror at the thought that he might be lying in a hospital somewhere, or, worse still, undiscovered at the side of the road. It’s the fact that he is a daddy now, and I wish he were a little more aware of his own mortality, not to mention the damage that he could do to some innocent pedestrian or driver if he loses control of his scooter.

And let’s face it, vintage Vespas are not the most stable of vehicles. It’s easy to tip over, especially if the road is slippy or wet, and he has already had one accident (sober) which involved the wearing of a very attractive leg brace (une attelle in French) and receiving early morning visits from a nurse for injections to prevent blood clots caused by wearing said brace.

My own experience when living in the UK was that although we Brits do drink to excess, and indeed have an alarming tendency to consider getting drunk as The Whole Point of an evening out on the town, the person driving usually doesn’t touch a drop. Not even one measly little shandy. Despite the fact that it is a shockingly expensive business buying soft drinks in a bar. If there is no ‘designated driver’, we get taxis. Or a night bus. Or walk. If anything, the younger generation tend to be even more sensible about this than our parents’ generation.

Ever since I’ve lived in France, I’ve been consistently dumbfounded by the amount of drinking and driving I have encountered. Which includes middle aged people driving 80 km home from weddings and New Year celebrations, a doctor and father of two driving back from an extended drinking session which had been rounded off with several tequila slammers and Parisian friends driving from restaurant to bar to home on a night out in Paris. It’s true that the French tend to drink in moderation and at a wedding, for example, eat a four or five course meal over as many hours and don’t tend to get as inebriated as a British person would, but I think that this is precisely where the danger lies. Because someone who has had three or four drinks is simply not qualified to make a decision about whether they are fit to drive or not. Short of taking a breath test kit with them (and I did once see these handed out at the end of a wedding celebration to all drivers) it is not a judgement they can make. Moderation can be a treacherous thing.

There have been some hard-hitting television ad campaigns over the last few years targeting this problem, and statistics show that these have had some success in increasing awareness and reducing the number of casualties. But I think there is still a long way to go. Articles I have read point out the French (along with some other European nations like the Germans and Austrians) do not believe in ‘designated drivers’, they believe in drinking up to the limit (which some think should be increased) and crossing their fingers that they won’t get stopped for a random breath test. A Frenchman’s right to a glass of wine or two with his meal cannot be challenged.

Who am I to challenge this very different drinking culture? I will simple continue to pray, every time Mr Frog goes out with friends, that he won’t have to learn his lesson the hard way.

• Playing on my Ipod: nothing. I haven’t received it yet. And when I have, I won’t be telling you, so there.
• Missing Blighty: Bez on Celebrity Big Brother. Can someone tape it for me?

I’m wondering whether my compulsory responsabilité civile vie privé insurance will cover the injury caused to an innocent passer by while disposing of our oversized, and now rather flaccid, Christmas tree.

The phrase in my contract reads:

Nous indemnisons à votre place les dommages causés à autrui dans le cadre de votre vie privée et engageant votre responsabilité.

The exceptions listed include accidents involving a car/boat/my job/transmission of an illness. Nothing is said about lopping a Christmas tree which has outstayed its welcome off a fifth floor balcony onto the pavement below in the dead of night.

I am starting to wish now that I had opted for a cute, bonasaï-style tree, rather than a monstrosity as tall as myself. It looked reasonable enough in its mesh wrapping, but once unsheathed the lower branches sprung out at right angles and its true, gargantuan dimensions were revealed. The tree took over more than a square metre of our small living room and furniture had to be moved around in order to accommodate it.

The lift in our building measures approximately 60 cm by 100 cm and can hold two slim people provided they know each other well (preferably carnally). The washing machine was a tight squeeze and I fear that the tree is now too wide. Add to this the fact that the lift is entirely carpeted in a fetching shade of brown, including the walls and even the ceiling, and you can imagine the fun to be had hoovering needles off all those surfaces if the tree were to be coaxed into said lift.

And as for the five storeys of staircase, they are also carpeted. I don’t think the nice man who hoovers the stairs on Saturday mornings would be very appreciative if I left a trail of needles all the way from my front door down to the lobby below. However as the flex on my hoover doesn’t stretch as far as his I would have to purchase some kind of extension lead if I wanted to remove the debris.

Hence my current dilemma.

If I had been frighteningly efficient and organised and actually aware of the existence of such an invention, I would have purchased a special tree-bag (pictured), which I’m told can be opened out under the tree to catch all falling needles during the Christmas period (as opposed to picking them out of our bare feet with tweezers from now until next December), and then lifted to envelope the tree and facilitate its disposal. I optimistically asked after these at three shops yesterday only to be told that these were sold out long before Christmas. I see no alternative but to fashion myself one using the limited means I have at my disposal.

So, if you happen to see/hear a swearing English person in the vicinity of the Buttes Chaumont tonight wrestling a person-sized bundle wrapped in a duvet cover out onto the pavement, do come over and introduce yourself.

I’ve come to the conclusion that being bilingual is not just about speaking and thinking in two different languages. It’s about having two distinct personalities.

When I first moved to France, despite my twelve or so years of French lessons at school, culminating in a university degree in French and German, I found it horribly difficult to express myself in French. I could get my point across, make conversation and understand what was being said around me, but I struggled to translate my actual personality. French people I met thought I was rather reserved and shy, quiet and not particularly opinionated. As painful shyness was something I had suffered from as a teenager and subsequently conquered, it was intensely frustrating to relive that awkward phase all over again in French. Another sticking point was humour: any attempt to communicate a dry Northern English sense of humour into French tended to result in disaster. What I had intended as sarcasm was often taken literally.

Ten years down the line I am far more comfortable in conversation in French am often mistaken for a native (a compliment I never grow tired of). Nonetheless I have realised that I am a slightly different person when I speak French. I think this is due in part to a conscious or subconscious desire to conform to French expectations of what it is acceptable for women to say (which means, for example, less swearing and crudity, even after a few drinks). Whatever the reason, my French alter ego is undoubtedly rather more polite and deferential than my English self.

Take answering the phone for instance. The English me is congenitally incapable of uttering the phrase “your welcome”. My mind goes blank when someone says ‘thank you’ and I mumble a bashful “no problem” or “that’s alright”, only to remember the existence of the phrase “you’re welcome” as I replace the receiver. My French self, on the other hand, adopts a syrupy sweet voice not unlike the invisible anchorwoman on the Arte channel (think the Cadbury’s caramel squirrel and you get the picture) and never ceases to amaze me when “il y’a pas de quoi” or “je vous en prie” trips effortlessly off her tongue.

In previous jobs, where I was the only native English speaker in the office, I often found it frustrating to be trapped in my polite, too nice French self all day long. I longed to let down my guard and relax into my English personality, and to have honest dialogue with my bosses and even inject a touch of humour once in a while. Eventually I made the move to an English firm where I really could be me all day long: the sarcastic, occasionally subversive, mercilessly piss-taking and smutty (after a beer-or two) me. It was the best move I ever made. My very mental well-being depended on it.

I doubt I would have ended up living with a Frenchman if he hadn’t been fluent in English. In the case of Mr Frog, I am not his first petite anglaise, so he already had some experience in that department, and in the early days he saw me mostly in the context of my group of heavy drinking, bar-hopping friends and definitely fell for the English me. I honestly don’t think I could have had any sort of meaningful relationship with someone whom I only ever spoke French to.

At the end of the day, although I did move to this country with the aim of becoming fluent in the language, and to live a French life, I am adamant that I don’t want to lose touch with the English me within. My French personality doesn’t feel quite genuine, it’s more like a mask I wear sometimes.

And it gets a bit uncomfortable after prolonged wear, not unlike my contact lenses.

I just won a 40gb Ipod for £16.00 in one of the Guardian charity Christmas auctions! I don’t know why, but I was convinced I had won from the moment I sent off my five little bids on 27 December and I’ve been checking my gmail every day ever since.

If you fancy a shot at an Ipod whilst also giving money to charity (including tsunami fund) then click here!

I think 2005 is going to be a good year after all.

I only have one New Year’s Resolution for 2005 and that is to find a way to reduce the size of my blogger’s bottom. While it may be very comfortable for sitting purposes, I caught sight of it in a 360° mirror in a changing room the other day and it was looking a little too J-Lo esque for my liking. So out with the pasta, in with the watercress soup and on with the old Renaissance cd’s while I pedal away on my exercise bike. Which is pretty much the only exercise I can do these days given that my only free time is in the evening while the Tadpole sleeps.

I don’t think Mr Frog has got around to making any resolutions, so here are a few of my recommendations. Not that I’m trying to change him or anything. But should he wish to make amends for New Year’s Eve…

1. Stop smoking. It doesn’t smell very nice. It will likely send you to an early grave. And it makes you snore.
2. When you go out drinking, please leave your Vespa at work and get a taxi. And don’t give me any of that ‘I only had a couple’ nonsense. I struggle to believe that between the hours of 9pm and 3am you ‘only had a couple’. Even if you are French, and therefore a bit of a lightweight.
3. Buy flowers for your [insert pet name here]. Often. Or at the very least on her birthday.
4. Come home from work before 10pm. It would be nice to see you on weekdays. However, arriving during Eastenders is ill advised.
5. When you phone to say you will be home in half an hour, do not turn up two hours later. There is a chance (however slim) that I may have taken it into my head to get some dinner ready for your ETA. If you do arrive 2 hours later, see recommendation n° 3.
6. Practice reciting the following indispensable English phrases:

   ‘Would you like a cup of tea, luv?’
   ‘No, wait, let me do that ironing.’
   ‘Don’t be silly, you’ve done enough today, just put your feet up while I fetch you tea/chocolate/cake and I’ll wash up.’

7. When buying the mother of your child a gift of underwear, please ensure that the pair of pants you use as a size guide do not strongly resemble maternity pants.
8. If your better half is blogging with headphones on, refrain from disturbing her and simply place the tea/chocolate/cake you are holding next to the computer.

On second thoughts, please replace tea/chocolate/cake above with tea and one stick of celery. How depressing.

I am wondering whether the way I saw in the New Year augurs well for 2005.

It all started well as Mr Frog and I, accompanied by my sister and her fiancé, had a civilised meal in a gorgeous Thai restaurant we had been itching to try for some time. The food was amazing, if a little fiercely spiced, and with each successive dish our lips and mouths burned a little hotter and we felt obliged to extinguish the flames with large quantities of wine. We drove along York’s scariest pub crawl street (Micklegate) on the way home in order to point and laugh at all the girlies with their mini skirts on tightless legs, strappy tops baring arms and shoulders, glad to be inside a heated car muffled up in jumpers and coats.

And then it all started to go wrong. Shortly before midnight after a couple of G&T’s, petite anglaise decided that New Year or no, it was time to call it a night and lie down, stomach churning with spicy food swimming in a vinegar coulis. I am not proud of my early departure, but at least I know when enough is enough. Mr Frog, singularly unimpressed and fired up on Chimay and assorted spirits - which I think you will agree do not generally sit well with wine, champagne and Thai food - dragged my father down to the village pub to join my siblings and watch the fireworks. And continue drinking. I half awoke when he slipped into bed and I gather my first words to him in 2005 were ‘WTF are you doing texting at this time of night?’ as I became dimly aware of a tappety tapping noise and saw the backlight of his mobile gleaming in the darkness.

Some time later I was roused again, this time by a hand touching my forehead. I made out a shadowy figure crossing the room. Then I heard a coughing noise I know only too well. Mr Frog did not make it to the bathroom.

And so it was that my first deed of 2005 was dealing with a soiled towel and bedclothes - which would not have been out of place in the film ‘Trainspotting’ - using only the bathroom sink and toilet. I couldn’t even get downstairs to the washing machine as I knew the burglar alarm would be switched on and couldn’t for the life of me remember the code. After leaving an embarrassed little note for my mum instructing her to touch the pile of festering bedlinen in the bath under no circumstances, I went back to bed and called Mr Frog every nasty name I could think of in a very angry whisper.

This morning on the metro I finally got around to switching on my mobile phone, which had gone down with a nasty case of flat battery during my stay in the UK as I had omitted to pack my charger. And found a text from Mr Frog written at 1 am on Saturday 1 January 2005 which read:

‘Je t’aime [insert secret pet name here] et je te souhaite une merveilleuse année 2005′

I’m feeling a little guilty now.