petite anglaise

Choosing ‘writer’ from the drop down list of professions when I came to fill in my online dating profile was a decision I would come to regret. It seemed to bring out the very worst in my suitors. A couple of hundred extremely verbose, overwritten emails later and it’s no wonder I found The Boy’s one-line dig about my taste in TV so refreshing.

That makes a change from ‘j’ai cru voir un ange passer en regardant ton profil’ I thought to myself, enjoying the sensation of not feeling like I was going to throw up into my mouth, for once. I clicked through to my provocateur’s profile and took a look. There was a single black and white photo: short hair, six o’clock shadow. Either squinting into the sunlight or frowning. Or both.

I found his profile blurb amusing. Using the simple ‘j’aime/j’aime pas‘ format was not wildly original, but the things he professed to like were random and thoughtful enough to pique my interest. Among them were: penguins and otters; bananas flambéed with rum; raw scallops; curling; bad jokes; magic; history books; Desproges (plus several other writers I’d never heard of); bad weather when I’m warm indoors; sleeping; my apartment; living in Belleville…

I replied to his email, defending my taste in TV and noting that we appeared to be neighbours and ought to maybe meet for an apéro Aux Folies sometime. I had this vague idea that it would be nice to make a friend in my neighbourhood. Nothing more than that, because my head was elsewhere. Over the past few weeks I’d made obsessing about a frustratingly elusive man I’d met on the same dating site almost a full-time occupation. Going out to meet him, refusing to read the billboard-sized signs that he just saw me as a friend/drinking buddy, making excuses for his rebuttals (’he’s damaged, he has issues, I’ll overcome them…’) and generally breaking every single rule of ‘He’s Just Not That Into You’. (Another thing I can’t read without a little bit of bile creeping up my throat).

I finally set up a date with The Boy after a resounding rebuttal involving a fruitless sleepover. Time to diversify, I said to myself. And so I dug out The Boy’s MSN address and popped up on the screen of his work computer late one Wednesday afternoon.

Almost a year later, and a little over a month before we say ‘I do’ (or, to be more accurate, ‘oui‘) I’m struck by how true everything in his dating profile was. I’ve witnessed the bad jokes firsthand, adopted him an otter for Valentine’s day, inspected his bookshelves and marvelled at his ability to sleep through just about anything. It’s all true. Every last word.

So this week I shall be adding rum to the shopping list. It’s about time I tasted those bananas.

‘I’m going to miss you while you’re staying with mamie and papy‘. I snuggle into Tadpole’s back, trying to inhale and exhale in time with my daughter, willing my runaway heartbeat to slow.

At lunchtime I’ll collect Tadpole from the Centre de Loisirs, leap into a taxi, and deliver her into the waiting arms of Mr Frog’s mother at Gare de Lyon. She’ll trundle off with her wheelie suitcase for the second leg of her school holidays.

The panic attack began, inexplicably, on Tuesday morning and shows no signs of abating. My body has slipped free of its moorings, drifted out of my control. It’s a law unto itself. My mind races in pointless circles, skittering from worry to worry. I know my sense of perspective is warped. I know, from experience, that it’s a temporary state. In a few day’s time, when I’m back on an even keel, when I can sleep through the night, I’ll have trouble even remembering how this felt.

‘Don’t worry mummy,’ Tadpole says earnestly. ‘You’ll be with [The Boy].’ She grabs my hand and plants a tiny kiss on the inside of my wrist.

‘And mummy, si tu t’ennuies, and you don’t want to go in your office…’

‘Go TO my office.’ I’m pedantic about prepositions, even at 7.45 in the morning, mid panic attack.

‘If you don’t go to your office,’ Tadpole continues, ‘then, you can play with my toys if you want. You can build some things with my pink Lego, or watch one of my DVDs.’

The back of her pyjamas, where my face is touching them, are now damp. Thankfully Tadpole doesn’t notice.

‘But mummy,’ she says in the bossy voice she usually reserves for her collection of soft toys when she’s pretending to be la Maîtresse. ‘Please don’t forget you have to tidy them up again afterwards.’

‘Look at my big nichons mummy,’ Tadpole shrieks, fingering her (papier mâché) breasts.

It is 10.30 am on Saturday morning and Mr Frog and I have come to watch Tadpole’s annual school carnival, while The Boy, not wishing to step over any invisible lines, remains at home. This year the children are all dressed up as works of art and the overall effect is a joyous riot of colour. The costumes, made out of stiff paper, are worn like pinafores, covering the children’s clothes and turning them into walking sandwich boards. As we stand at the edge of the school playground, behind improvised police-tape style barriers, rubbing sleep from our eyes, the children file past hand in hand.

Tadpole, unable to keep a secret, had whispered to me weeks earlier that the costume she was making was a Niki de Saint Phalle sculpture. I’d recognised most of the names she’d been bandying about over the past few weeks - ‘we did a painting just like Pollock mummy, we put the paint on the paintbrush and then did throw it in splodges onto the paper’ or ‘I did a picture of a lady with a very wide face, just like Fernando Bottero’ - but Saint Phalle was not a name I was familiar with. ‘I’m going to be a sculpture,’ explained Tadpole helpfully, as I waited for the relevant page to power up on Wikipedia. ‘A sculpture of a lady with great big nipples and a big fat bottom wearing a swimming costume.’

It was The Boy who, at the mention of Niki de Saint Phalle, pointed out that the fountains in place Igor Stravinsky, in the shadow of the Centre Pompidou are Saint Phalle sculptures. I knew them well, but never would have put two and two together.

‘Shall we go on the métro on an adventure?’ I suggest to Tadpole on Sunday afternoon.

‘Ooh yes, I love the métro,’ she replies, darting across the room to fetch her shoes. If only everyone were so easy to please.

When we reach our destination, Tadpole shrieks with delight and I catch The Boy’s eye, silently thanking him for coming up with the idea. We make several tours of the huge rectangular bassin, Tadpole racing on ahead, examining each sculpture in turn, trying to decide which one she likes best. My personal favourite is the reclining mermaid with water squirting out of one huge, multicoloured breast, but Tadpole is just as amused by the huge pair of lips, the spinning bowler hat, the Elmer-like Elephant and the majestic crowned bird, wings spread, reminiscent of a Mayan condor god. We take a few snaps of Tadpole, posing by the sculptures, squinting into the sun and grinning like the Cheshire cat.

When the skies darken and the first raindrops fall, we hurry into the Marais to find a restaurant where we can grab a bite to eat. Tadpole doodles on the back of a napkin with a biro unearthed from the bottom of my handbag.

Elbows on the table, chin cupped in my hands, I look from The Boy to Tadpole and back again, marvelling at how simple and how right everything feels.

For Gonzales (aka fella?).

It is Sunday morning. After a friend’s birthday dinner at Le Chapeau Melon the previous night and a few glasses of wine, I’m feeling sluggish. It’s been weeks since I’ve managed to sleep in. When I’m feeling stressed and highly strung I wake early, my overactive brain skittering uncontrollably from worry to worry until I can’t bear it any more and have to haul myself out of bed to escape my own thoughts. But today I’m so snug, my head’s so empty, that I just want to savour the feeling of warm bed, the back of my hand grazing The Boy’s smooth buttock.

The problem, of course, is that I’m supposed to be taking Tadpole to her water play session (I hesitate to call it swimming class, as there is still no sign of any teaching element whatsoever). I have to go: it’s paid for, she loves it and I even made the mistake of mentioning it when I got up to make her breakfast a few hours earlier. She’s watching a DVD at present in the next room while I drift in and out of sleep, rain pattering comfortingly against the windowpane. There’s no way she will have forgotten.

I hear a noise, and it takes me a while to register whether the culprit is the doorbell, the alarm clock, or one of the four mobile phones The Boy and I have lying around the room. By the time I work out what is going on and have crawled across the room, a message has been left on my phone. The number is an unfamiliar land line, and I contemplate replacing phone in handbag without investigating further. Then again, maybe someone somewhere has just answered my prayers. So I dial “888″ and clamp the phone to my ear to listen, a smile slowly spreading across my face.

‘Bonjour, je vous appelle de la piscine Grange aux Belles,’ says the voice. It’s the jovial lady with a poodle perm who guards the swimming pool entrance, usually armed with a large tin of assorted sweets. ‘La séance de 11h30 est annulée,’ she says breathlessly, probably making her twentieth identical call. ‘En raison d’un caca dans l’eau.’

‘Hallelujah,’ I say, glancing at the clock, which reads 11.15 am. I slip between the covers, unable to believe my good fortune.

I’m inordinately proud today at having written a piece in French for Rue89 about the sacking and book deal.

The Boy was asked to re-read it before I submitted it to the editors and, to my delight, only moved two commas. He did however mutter something about the length of my sentences (very British, apparently).

It was an enjoyable experience - I don’t get nearly enough opportunity to write in French these days - but it has convinced me that I’ll leave translating “petite” into French to the experts.

As a rule, I don’t much enjoy memes and usually pretend I haven’t noticed when someone tags me. But Meg and I live on the same street and run into each other practically every day, so I didn’t fancy my chances of successfully dodging this one.

I’ve dutifully picked up the nearest book, Une Pièce Montée by Blandine Le Callet, turned to page 123, skipped to the fifth sentence and below are the next three. Note how differently the French punctuate speech.

-Jean-Philippe, on ne peut pas continuer à se couper de tout le monde comme ça…
-Tu sais bien qu’on ne va pas se sentir à l’aise.
-Parle pour toi!

I haven’t started yet, I must confess, but page 123 catapults the reader straight into the midst of a domestic dispute about wedding arrangements, albeit a somewhat restrained and polite one.

Le Callet’s novel, the cover blurb of which describes her pen as “acerbic”, apparently sets about mocking the rituals of bourgeois weddings. I stumbled across it while seeking an anti-Valentine’s present for The Boy, then ended up popping it in my virtual shopping basket for myself.

Because one thing I love about the French is their ability to couch the most bitter of arguments in the most irreproachably polite language.

The Boy’s Valentine gift, in case you are wondering, was an otter adoption package, complete with soft toy otter and a packet of ‘otter droppings’, aka chocolate raisins.

We might be eschewing most of the more traditional wedding day customs when we tie the knot, in late spring, but I do plan on having a pièce montée. Whether it will be made of macarons or a choux pyramid coated in caramel, remains to be hotly disputed.

And now I get to tag: so, ams tram gram or however that French eeny meeny miny mo(e) chant goes… Tim and Lucy. You’re tagged.

This almost feels like cheating, and I’d certainly categorise it as lazyblogging. But if Anna can get away with it, why the heck not… Plus, it’s a neat way of dealing with a lot of queries in one place instead of firing off emails or replying to individual comments. (Obviously the questions do not have to be book related.)

So. Ask me a question, and I will answer the first fifty. Everything you (n)ever wanted to know (and that you hadn’t already read here, here or even here…)

Fire away!

I’m posting the answers here.

To say that Tadpole rarely shares insights about her secret life in the moyenne section of our local maternelle would be something of an understatement. Invariably, on the way home from school, we have a conversation which goes something like this.

Me: “So, what did you do today?”

Tadpole: “Just some things.”

Me: “What did you have for lunch?”

Tadpole: “I can’t remember. But you can look on the computer, mummy, can’t you…?”

Which is why I was rather taken by surprise when she randomly launched into a playground anecdote over dinner yesterday evening. An anecdote which concerned a boy who was in her class last year. I am still at a loss to understand what caused the memory to surface just then.

“Mummy?” says Tadpole between mouthfuls of canneloni (from which I have scraped all trace of bechamel sauce, at her behest). “When I was three years old and I was in the other class at school…” - she holds up three fingers in case I need help understanding the concept - “…one day I did go in the playground with Youssouf while the other children were doing music.”

“Mmhm?” I repy, stabbing several green beans onto her fork, because for some reason, even though Tadpole is perfectly capable of feeding herself, she generally loses the will to eat after approximately five mouthfuls in the evenings and I have to step unwillingly into the breach.

“And I did ask Youssouf ‘tu es mon amoureux?‘ and he said ‘oui‘ and we did hold hands for a little while,” Tadpole continues.

I like the word ‘amoureux‘. The Boy often uses it when introducing me to a friend of his for the first time. I like to think of it as a combination of ‘beloved’ and ‘lover’ - literally it means ‘the person I’m in love with’. It’s so much nicer than ‘ma copine‘ (too impersonal, it could designate any female friend) or ‘ma petite copine‘ (even if I am used to answering to the name ‘petite‘). What the term ‘amoureux‘ implies to a four-year-old though, I’m far from sure.

“Is Youssouf still your amoureux now?” I enquire, setting down the fork for a moment.

“No. He did have the nez coulé and it wasn’t very nice,” Tadpole explains with a grimace. I freeze. Just how close did my daughter get to that runny nose of his?

“And, um, do you have an amoureux now?”

“I play with Dinah now,” Tadpole replies. “And Youssouf, he plays with Hicham.” This, I surmise, could mean one of two things. That their short-lived relationship was so traumatic that it drove both of them into the arms of a same-sex partner, or that amoureux, to Tadpole, simply means ‘best friend’.

“So, who is mummy’s amoureux?” I ask, keen to test my theory immediately.

“You have two,” says Tadpole, with a triumphant smile that means she is convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt she knows the correct answer. “Daddy… And Meg.”

I heave a sigh of relief.

It has been suggested in my comments box that my margin for manoeuvre, in terms of the subject matter I can post on petite anglaise, may have been seriously reduced since I was divested of my anonymity last year. I think it’s a question worth delving into, given that, while there may be some truth in this, my reasons for self-censoring (and ultimately writing less) are actually far more complex…

Having my name “out there” doesn’t make me feel any different. I’ve yet to be recognised by a complete stranger in the street (well, okay, I was once, but said person was too shy to approach me and I’m only aware of our near miss because he sent me a bashful email afterwards). In the past, I always said I cared only about what my friends and family thought of me, so does it really matter whether the host of faceless readers who visit this blog now know my name? Most are still just as unlikely to cross my path.

What has changed, however, is that there are a few people I encounter in my daily life who have read an article in a newspaper, or who saw me on the French TV news, and know of the blog, even if I doubt they continue to read it now. My bank manager, the estate agent who sold me my flat, a woman I once spoke to at the tax office and a few fellow parents at my daughter’s school, some of whom I’d quite like to befriend. When we mutter our sleepy ‘bonjour’s in the morning, the uncomfortable thought crosses my mind from time to time that they may or may not know all sorts of things about me. And composing posts about Tadpole’s exploits, I have, on occasion, found myself changing her classmates’ names.

Then, of course, there is the effect my name being public can have on my family. I’m even more reluctant to allude to my sisters, as their friends will know exactly who I’m talking about. And when my mother pops into the village shop for a bottle of milk, there is every likelihood that she might run into someone who knows someone who knows someone who reads petite anglaise, given the Yorkshire Post ran several stories about me in the course of the last year. I strongly resent the idea of having to sanitise my content just because of “what the neighbours might think” but on the other hand, I don’t want to upset my family.

Some people have suggested it would be prudent for me to avoid what Mr Frog calls “crispy subjects” (the French phrase “sujets croustillants” can be used figuratively) because I have, or will have, a raised public profile come book publication. The thinking goes something like this: I’ve already committed the cardinal sin of being a happily unmarried mother, in the eyes of the Daily Mail, and look how the Sunday Times chose to take my “bad mummy” posts at face value, reading them as admissions of parental inadequacy. My ex-employer demonstrated at tribunal - albeit with limited success - how easy it is to pluck random quotes from my blog and make it look as though they mean precisely the opposite of what I originally intended. So, if I write about recovering from a rather vicious hangover once every six months, will I be portrayed as an alcoholic? If I allude to a runny nose, will someone infer that I have been snorting fat white lines off the Boy’s bottom?

Which leads me neatly on to the subject of the Boy, why I have deigned to share so little information about him with my readers. The answer is, I think, a combination of superstition (not wanting to jinx things when they are going so surprisingly well) and a genuine desire not to repeat past mistakes. I’m painfully aware that I’ve had a tendency to use my blog as an extra layer of communication with boyfriends in the past. Writing posts which were, in effect, open letters to one person in particular doesn’t seem like the healthiest way to behave. Using words as weapons to manipulate, to make someone feel guilty, to apologise for some wrongdoing and beg for forgiveness - these are all roads I have previously trodden. The fact that the Boy seems to have been blessed with emotional intelligence in spades and would immediately see through these kind of ploys makes this new resolution easier to keep.

Last, but not least, I hold some stories back because I want to use them in the writing which constitutes my day job; my bread and butter. Book Two is a fiction project, but I’d be a fool not to write about what I know and draw heavily from my own experiences. So, when something happens which is too good not to use in some way, I now have to evaluate whether I should hold it in reserve.

So, while I have no intention whatsoever of giving up on petite anglaise, the rules have changed, the goalposts shifted. And at the very least, I thought this was something I should acknowledge.

Anonymity is the personal blogger’s best friend. Lose it at your own peril.

In the course of our holiday we spent a few days on four islands in the south of the Cyclades: Santorini, Naxos, Ano Koufonissi and Amorgos. Each island was very different in terms of size, landscape and the nationalities of the tourists we encountered, and every time we boarded a boat to move on, it felt as though our holiday was starting all over again. Multiple leaps into the unknown added to the excitement. Never before had a two week holiday felt so deliciously long, so limitlessly elastic.

Some things, however, were constant wherever we went. Villages, their white buildings like cubes of feta flung from the sky by the gods, clinging to the slopes of mountains, teetering on cliff edges, nestling in arid inland valleys. Hundreds of chapels with dark blue curved roofs and a collection of different sized bells hanging from a frame adjacent to the entrance. Stray cats of all sizes and colours begging for scraps from our plates when we sat down to eat. The ubiquitous greek salads, saganaki, moussaka, stuffed tomato and aubergine which cropped up on every menu.

And the fact that the further we drove away from civilisation on our rented moped to seek out ever more secluded beaches, the likelihood of encountering people wearing little more than sunscreen increased proportionally.

Having led a somewhat sheltered life, I’d never taken my bikini top off in public before, let alone watched a man snorkelling in a tiny bay, his scrotum bobbing insouciantly on the surface. Under cover of my sunglasses, peering over the top of my book, I looked around with interest at naked bodies of all ages, shapes and sizes.

Once I’d finished marvelling at how asexual this public display of nudity seemed to be, I began conducting informal surveys. My conclusions were as follows: female nudists tend to go for the natural look in terms of pubic topiary, rather than reaching for the wax; elderly people do not necessarily have matching collars and cuffs; absolutely everyone, however skinny, gets folds on their tummy when sitting; there is a very disturbing breed of Italian women who have the lithe bodies of twenty-year-olds, but sun damaged, puckered faces which look decades older.

As for yours truly, my bikini briefs remained firmly in place, which means I am now in the possession of a glow in the dark bottom. But even though my bikini top spent most of its time in my beach bag, I never quite got over my innate British prudishness, nor did I manage to overcome my morbid fear of burnt nipples. (The only flaw in my other holiday book, in my humble opinion, is that a character uses beer bottle tops to protect her nipples while sunbathing on a Greek Island. Surely, being made of metal, they would heat up in the sun and turn into branding irons?)

And so it was that even on day fourteen I found myself instinctively crossing my arms across my chest as I emerged from the water and stepped gingerly across the pebbles to my beach towel, much to the Boy’s amusement.

You can take the girl away from her island and transplant her onto the “continent”, but you can’t, it seems, flush the prudishness out of the petite anglaise…

… you decide to remove the year of your birth from facebook.

The boy and I nearly didn’t make it to the Cyclades at all.

The night before we were due to leave, I was wrenched out of a deep sleep by the sound of my mobile phone vibrating loudly against the dining table in the next room. The Boy shifted, muttered something inaudible, then resumed his gentle snoring. I was in two minds about whether to bother hauling myself out of bed. The odds on Mr Frog calling with some sort of Tadpole emergency in the middle of the night were very slim, I reasoned. It was, most likely, a wrong number. I would check in the morning…

Five minutes later, resigned to the fact that sleep would only elude me if I didn’t solve the mystery of the nocturnal phone call, I blundered through into the kitchen without my glasses, swearing as I stubbed my toe on the door frame.

Flipping open the phone, holding the screen the requisite five centimetres from the tip of my nose, I read “Missed call: G7.”

“Merde MERDE MERDE!” I yelped. “The taxi company… Oh Jesus, it’s 6.52! We were supposed to be downstairs five minutes ago! WHY THE HELL DIDN’T THE ALARM GO OFF?”

Sitting in a(nother) taxi fifteen minutes later, unwashed, dishevelled, heart still racing, I gave the Boy (he who had been entrusted with the task of setting the alarm) a sidelong glance, and wondered whether this stressful start augured ill for the rest of our holiday.

Tadpole scowls at me across the dinner table. She hasn’t touched her food, despite the fact that I let her choose the dinner menu. Instead she pushes it around her plate listlessly, scattering baby peas and grains of rice onto the tabletop. Every few seconds, it seems, I have to ask her to refrain from pushing with her legs against the wall (after an incident earlier in the day when she ended up on the floor, howling, with the chair on top of her).

My patience, if I could see it, would probably resemble the ketchup on the table in front of me. A few dregs remain, coating the sides of the squeezable plastic bottle, but they are congealed and almost impossible to reach.

I spent the best part of the afternoon standing on a stepladder and scraping paint off the bathroom ceiling with a kitchen spatula. Flakes of slightly soggy paint collected in my hair, fell down the front of my dress, and welded themself to my arms as I scraped. Occasionally, when I pierced a water bubble, a trickle of water ran along the spatula, down my arm, and into the crook of my armpit, making me shiver.

The upstairs neighbour didn’t even have the good grace to look sheepish, let alone apologise, when the plumber sent by the copropriété concluded that a leaking tap in his apartment was the cause, and not the communal downpipe which runs through our bathroom wall. It will probably be months before I manage to get the requisite quotes to fix the warped window and fill in the pitted ceiling and have them approved by his insurance company. The drip drip drip had gone uninterrupted for two whole weeks while Tadpole and I were away in Yorkshire. Perfect timing.

Now my head is throbbing, an insistent dull pulsing which echoes the drip drip drip in the bathroom as the last of the water works its way through the ceiling, and the glass of wine I poured myself a few minutes earlier does not appear to be helping.

I heave myself out of my chair and curl up in a ball on my bed. Tadpole appears by my side and puts her face close to mine. I open my mouth to ask her to sit back down again, then close it. She has begun stroking my forehead, ever so gently, and it is so soothing, I don’t want her to stop.

“What’s matter mummy?” she says softly. “Are you ever so slightly extremely tired?”

My lawyer confirmed to me yesterday that my ex-employer not only does not intend to appeal, but has already paid up.

What a relief to see good sense finally prevailing, albeit later, rather than sooner…

NB: Me Eolas has written about his interpretation of events here, with useful links back to his previous posts about the case, as an impartial legal expert.

Tadpole and I are in a taxi, speeding along the A1 on the way to Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport. Tadpole is chattering away, nine to the dozen, and I am marvelling at the ease with which she has slipped back into English after a three week holiday spent entirely in French mode with mamie and papy.

“I’m so excited to go to see grandma and grandad,” she says, her eyes sparkling. “Grandad, he does always call me ‘long skinny banana legs’ and ‘curly top’, and he make me laugh…”

The previous day, when Mr Frog answered the door, I was overjoyed to be greeted by shrieks of “mummy, mummy, you’re here… I did miss you!” as a blurry, long-limbed figure with honey-coloured ringlets launched herself across the room and into my arms, nearly toppling me with the force of her hug. Usually it takes her a few hours to acclimatise herself after a prolonged absence, with me speaking English in the meantime, but Tadpole replying in French. Mr Frog, I noted, looked as surprised and pleased as I did to see her plunge into her mother tongue the very moment she clapped eyes on me.

“Mummy?” says Tadpole, putting a hand on my arm.

“Mmm?”

“When I’m thinking,” she says slowly, “on top of my head there are some clouds.” Her hands motion in the air above her curls. “A little cloud here, another little cloud on top, and then a big big cloud that touches the ceiling of the taxi car… Like in a bande dessiné. Can you see my clouds, mummy?”

I pretend to study the air above her head before I make my answer. “No,” I reply with a frown. “I think they must be invisible.”

“In the big cloud,” she says confidentially, “there is a picture of a teddy. Because I thinking that I would like to buy a new teddy.”

I grin, then lean across the leather seat of the taxi and cover her face with impulsive kisses.

That evening, chatting to my boy on MSN, I tell him about the thought bubbles, knowing that he will be suitably impressed, being a typical Frenchman with a sizeable collection of BD on his well-stocked, slightly intimidating bookshelves.

“If I had a bubble over my head right now,” I write, returning to the subject later, when our conversation has veered onto other, more adult, topics, “it would probably be prefaced with Viewer Discretion Advised!…” This elicits a virtual chuckle. My boy, who has been immobilised for a few days with a back pain of mysterious origin (for which I intend to take full credit in the absence of any compelling medical evidence to the contrary), pauses for a moment before replying.

“J’aurais peur de lire ‘previously on the world poker tour’ au dessus de ma tête,” he confesses sheepishly.

When I meet someone special, someone I can conceive of being with not just next month, but far, far beyond, the initial euphoria invariably begins to mingle with a morbid fear of capsizing the boat. “Please don’t let me fuck this up” becomes my mantra.

It’s a vicious, vicious circle, because this terror breeds a pathetic neediness. And neediness is the biggest turn off; the thing most likely to send any man/boy running at top speed in the opposite direction. So mostly I try to conceal it, to shrug it off, to pretend that it’s not there. As one of my commenters once said, “you have to hide your crazy”.

But when he shows up, exhausted, and looks straight through me, oblivious to the efforts I’ve made (new underwear, freshly washed hair, discreet make up), throws himself down on the couch and closes his eyes, something inside me withers. “You’ve been spending so much time together lately that look, he’s taking you for granted already,” the demon on my left shoulder hisses into my ear. “He’d rather you weren’t there at all,” he adds for good measure. “You might as well just go home…” My lower lip begins to wobble. I hate myself for being so weak and contemptible.

I have had a stressful day, I tell myself. A procedure at the doctor’s. Some family friction which has been preying on my mind for weeks. A final deadline on my manuscript. So of course, there are other, legitimate reasons why I can, almost should be feeling wobbly right now.

I leave the room, fetch myself a glass of water, stare blankly out of the kitchen window into the night, willing myself to relax, pleading with the demon to leave me in peace. I don’t want to cause some sort of ridiculous, pointless scene. I don’t want to be a neurotic, over-sensitive, nightmare bitch from hell. Please don’t let me fuck this up.

“Honey,” he calls from the sofa, “okay if I play a game on the computer for half an hour?”

Something inside me snaps.

I let my third blog birthday slip by uncelebrated on July 7th (well actually I celebrated, but enough about that already), but I see that right about now it is a full calendar year since my world went utterly stark raving mad.

Starting, if I remember correctly, with a phone call from Radio Five Live while I was in the middle of signing up for unemployment benefit at an ASSEDIC office near Père Lachaise, the day Colin published his scoop in the Daily Telegraph.

Colin, my friend and mentor throughout, has written a post about it all here. What a difference a year can make, indeed.

In a couple of weeks’ time I should know for sure whether the legal battle is over, or whether I’ll be limbering up for round two sometime next year. As for the press madness, I suspect I should brace myself for a not very low profile 2008.

But in the meantime, I can be found lounging by the pool enjoying what anonymity I have left, in style. And that sure beats typing dictations and formatting accounts, I can tell you…

I’ve never been very good at the business of being a proper girl.

Let’s take the example of hair. When I go to the hairdresser’s, my first words are invariably: “under no circumstances do ANYTHING to me that will require some sort of styling or - god forbid - blow drying. I’m incapable of blow drying my hair. No. Really. I can’t do it. At all.” Memories of my late teens, when I foolishly attempted to carry off a shortish bob, still haunt me. One side curled under, while the other kicked outwards with a stubborn willfulness. Congenitally unable to do anything with a curling brush and hair-dryer which would remedy this sorry situation, I had to resign myself to only looking halfway decent on the days when I managed to bribe my younger sister to do the honours.

Needless to say I shiver in anticipation of the day when Tadpole will beg me to put her hair in plaits, or even demand pigtails which are not of hopelessly different sizes. I’d rather not imagine how I will respond when she asks me how to apply nail polish without liberally smearing it on her cuticles (I can only manage nearly nude colours without mishap), how to wield an eye liner pencil, or how to tweeze her eyebrows into symmetrical submission. None of these things seem to be programmed into my DNA. I’m starting to wonder if my X chromosomes aren’t a little bit, well, wonky.

But over the last couple of days I have truly excelled myself.

It all began when I purchased a dress for the soirée I’m attending at the weekend. Said dress involves displaying my white legs, including the attractive array of bruises (of uncertain origin) on my left calf. Or maybe it all began when I reluctantly agreed to receive a trial free subscription of Elle magazine and idly skimmed through an article in which self-tanning products were proclaimed to be so much improved these days that only a fool could apply them badly.

I think you can see where I might be going with this, no?

After a careful exfoliation session using an abrasive mitt I bought under duress in the Marrakech souk, I decided to apply the self-tanning lotion to my legs only. My arms seem to be a tone darker anyway, and conscious of my limitations - despite whatever claims of foolproofness Elle were advancing - I wasn’t about to start on my torso, even if the dress is strappy and exposes a fair bit of back and shoulder and skims my cleavage. I washed my hands carefully afterwards, even scrubbing my fingers with a nail brush. Then, dressed only in my bathrobe, I busied myself making Tadpole’s dinner, pottering about my apartment and waiting for my dinner guest/babysitter to arrive, periodically surveying my legs and finding their colour unchanged (despite the claim on the tube that results would be seen after only one hour).

At some point in the early hours of the morning while I was dancing to Tiga in a dimly lit nightclub and vehemently regretting my choice of footwear - the only pair of high heeled sandals I have ever possessed, which I can just about manage to walk in, although flights of stairs can be problematic - the product must have worked its magic. Magic which I didn’t notice until this morning due to a combination of vodka and tonic and poor lighting conditions.

Verdict: amazingly my legs look okay! Not a streak in sight, only a slightly darker tone around the knee area, but not so as you’d notice. However I am now the proud owner of a pair of streaky, mismatched, dirty-looking feet with an odd albino patch in the middle of my right foot. This is not catastrophic, as I have learnt from the previous night’s mistake and will not be wearing strappy, foot-exposing sandals to my soirée.

It is in the bath, vigorously scrubbing my feet with my exfoliating mitt (to no avail), that I notice a strange patch on one side of my stomach. I frown, wondering how on earth the lotion could possibly have transferred itself onto my belly. Onto just one side of my belly. But it is when I spy the triangular patches on the undersides of my forearms that I begin to howl.

Replaying my movements the previous night, try as I might, I cannot for the life of me remember sitting with my arms wrapped around my knees before the lotion dried. Nor can I work out how a small amount of said lotion managed to find its way onto my left breast.

This afternoon, having made the unwise decision to apply more of the offending autobronzant to my arms, in the hope that this would somehow dissimulate the offending triangles, I am feeling not a little apprehensive, and wondering whether it might not be wise to go into hiding for a few days.

I seem to have tempted fate and spoken a little too soon. I have some further edits to do, after getting some helpful feedback from t’other side of the Atlantic, and I will be tweaking and fiddling for another couple of weeks before I allow myself a few days away in Lucy Pepper Land (also known as Lisbon, Portugal).

Which means I’m a little too busy to tell you about the Arctic Monkeys at the Zénith last night, the rave I’m going to at the weekend, the picnic on Sunday during which Tadpole put her foot (quite literally) into an exquisite Dalloyau chocolate cake, the loveliness that was a visit from Mr and Mrs Little Red Boat…

so, um, sorry folks… Will try to write more soon.

So, if I were to be planning a sun, sand and (ahem) sex getaway in late August and was considering the Canary Islands as a possible destination, what would my dear readers suggest? Any info on tourist traps to be avoided, well-equipped but untacky hotels, most picturesque spots etc would be extremely welcome.

We (ah yes, we) have a pretty decent budget, don’t drive (I daren’t, he can’t), are keen to take in more than one island over a 10-14 day period, and we’d rather book it ourselves than get some sort of horrid package deal.

Of course, if any of my dear readers has a 5* villa with pool and would like lend it to me…

Now all I have to do is keep all my most horrifying and repellent character traits well and truly under wraps for the next month or so…

update:Gave up on the Canaries and am going to Greek Islands instead. Have only booked flight so far, so all advice still welcome…

A good friend of mine emailed me a link yesterday to the indie film “Four Eyed Monsters” suspecting it would appeal to me. He was not wrong. I just watched all 71 minutes of it before my first cup of coffee of the day. It’s honest, quirky, touching and occasionally hilarious. And as someone who has lived out an entire relationship over the interwebnet, ça me parle…

So, in short, I have no qualms about using whatever internet influence I possess to promote it.

The filmmakers are distributing it for free on youtube for a limited time only, and are asking for your help to pay off the credit card debt they incurred to make it by joining spout.com (who will make a $1 donation for every signup), buying a DVD or a legal download of the film ($8).

I’ve been having so much fun with these of late that it seemed remiss of me not to link to them. I mean, who else makes cards with titles like “Our safe word scares me” or “You’re single because you use emoticons”?

Take a look. The juxtapositions of the texts with the most unlikely images kills me.

update:

How do they know?

I made this website today, for a friend, and am still marvelling at the wonderfulness of iWeb (which I’d never used before, but it was soooo intuitive, like every Mac app I’ve ever used, that I didn’t have to look at a single help page…and the whole thing only took about two hours.)

And yes, the irony of me spending time on designing a site for a play all about unrequited love does not escape me. There are so many layers of irony here (the Amélie character being a writer, or so I’m told) that I’ve lost count.

Sadly, my three week holiday (mostly spent on facebook/lastfm/myspace and sleeping off nights out on the town) is now over, and it will be back to serious editing work for the next month as I race towards the 4 July deadline.

Wish me luck…

Having written an article for Comment is Free back in April about internet footprints and the danger inherent in leaving personal data all around the internet for future employers/parents-in-law to see, what have I gone and done? Enlarged my trail from its previously modest sparrow-like proportions into an elephant-sized paw print of worrying dimensions, that’s what. A week of enforced inactivity in a Yorkshire village was all it took to unleash my inner 2.0 monster.

The eagle-eyed among you have already noticed the petite myspace link in the sidebar, to your right, along with my facebook profile and associated non-official “fan” site, with its own cafepress merchandise store (I shan’t link to these as they are not my own creations). I’ve been scrobbling away in LastFM and joining groups with names that made me snort my Yorkshire tea down my nose. The only thing I have so far managed to resist - and I must, because it is the internet version of crack cocaine - is twitter. But I fear it is only a matter of time.

Where will it all end? Will I find myself unable to engage in any form of communication which does not involve a keyboard? Will my MacBook become welded to my satin pyjama clad thighs?

I fear for the future.

So, um, petite in jimjams? Anyone?

Cast your votes here.

And don’t forget my dear friends anna boat (personal) - eek, and Lucy Pepper too in same category, how is one supposed to choose? - jonnyb (UK), Le Blagueur à Paris (expat, writing) and nardac (underappreciated) …

update: results are available for viewing here.

Am I the last person to find gizoogle?

I do like the title chosen for my one off column at the New Statesman.

Hurrah!

Dashing off to Switzerland to visit a friend, but before I went, just needed to post this link:

I was standing in the queue for passport control at Marrakech airport when my mobile phone started to purr in my pocket.

“Sorry, can’t meet you for dinner tonight. Reservation problem.” Mr Frog

I felt like a balloon, slowly deflating. My first day. Out of the aeroplane not five minutes, and already some bad news.

“Shame,” I texted back. I thought that was suitably ambiguous. He could read into that whatever he wanted. It could mean “Oh, okay, never mind, that’s cool” but equally “Oh what a terrible shame. I’m gutted. You have ruined my holiday. And how much notice did you need that I’d be joining you, anyway? Was a month not enough?”

Later, as I meandered through the souk, hopelessly lost, wondering if I would ever find my way back to my hotel, my phone stirred in my pocket once more. This time it was a call. From Mr Frog. Goodness only knows how much Orange would be charging me for the privilege, but I sighed and picked up anyway.

“Hi, how’s it going?”

“M’kay. I’m lost. I have no idea where my hotel is. But apart from that, fine… You?”

“Good. We’re just leaving the medina actually. Heading back to our hotel for a massage.”

“Ah. Happy finish?”

“Sorry?”

“Never mind,” I said, wondering if it was really possible he could have forgotten the Christmas dinner at my parents’ place where I had one too many G&T’s and somehow ended up on the subject of Prince Charles. I don’t recall the exact definition I supplied to my confused grandma, but I’m surprised the scene was forgettable.

“Listen,” he said, “I’m sorry about tonight. N had made a reservation somewhere really posh, and he tried to add you on, but couldn’t.” I made a face which I was glad he couldn’t see, and refrained from stating the obvious, i.e. that he had known I would be joining him for A Very Long Time and this was rather A Weak Excuse.

“No worries. I’m fixed for tonight. I’m eating in my hotel. Which is lovely, by the way…”

“Oh. Right. Because I was going to offer to come out with you instead. Just the two of us.”

I ponder. A ploy to get me on my own? No. I doubt it. We lunch on our own all the time. A ploy to not see me with his friends to minimise embarrassment and awkwardness? Perhaps. Utterly pathetic organisational skills and a rather half-hearted attempt to make amends? Most likely explanation.

“No. It’s fine. Really. You go out with your friends and I’ll eat in my hotel. Have a lovely holiday. And tell me if you get anything for Tadpole, so I don’t end up buying her the same thing.”

So folks, I’m afraid that is the story. A bit of an anti-climax for all concerned. And proof, if such a thing were needed, that people never change.

Mike Troubled Diva has had a Very Good Idea. He is compiling an anthology of funny blog posts written by UK based bloggers (and expat Brits) which will be assembled in one week flat, then sold via Lulu in honour of Comic Relief (all proceeds from the book, minus lulu print on demand costs will go to charity).

It’s a very good cause indeed and one which I am only too happy to support. So, I’ll have to dig out a post where I’m hopefully at least moderately funny (and not too long-winded) and get it sent to Mike quick smart. If you are a British blogger and would like to participate, details can be found here. And I’ll put up a link to the book as and when it’s finished.

Breakfast is served on the roof terrace of the Riad Watier. I emerge, still groggy from sleep, at around ten, and make my way upstairs. I have my book and my sunglasses but immediately regret not bringing my camera. The sky is a beautiful shade of periwinkle blue, the view over the rooftops to the Atlantic is spectacular, and the trade wind for which Essaouira is famous, the Alizée, is mercifully absent. The only other people at breakfast are a German mother and daughter; one scribbles, the other reads.

Essaouira is a breath (or gust) of fresh air after the dry heat and bustle of Marrakech. On the bus drive to the coast, parched earth gave way to greenery, red and ochre tones were replaced with whitewashed walls and blue shutters. The medina is small, helpfully laid out in a grid so I can’t get lost, and every single alleyway is named. I still attract a fair amount of attention when I wander around alone, especially in the evening when I eat out, but it’s tame in comparison and deliciously relaxing. I doubt the same can be said for the town in the summer months, but in March, it’s perfect.

A young woman with glossy dark hair brings my breakfast. Pancakes with syrup, yoghurt, freshly squeezed orange juice, bread, butter, jam and coffee. I tuck in, even though my stomach still feels leaden after the previous evening’s tajine. I don’t eat a lot of meat as a rule, but Morocco has been the exception. Lamb with prunes and almonds. Lamb with figs and walnuts. Chicken with lemons. Repeat to fade.

I pour coffee, and take a bite out of my first pancake, wondering what to do with my day. There isn’t much to visit in Essaouira, it’s just an attractive place to stroll around. I had been plotting a trip to a hammam, but I have a little sunburn on my neck and shoulders (which I only bared on the secluded roof terrace of my Marrakech hotel, I hasten to add) and the last thing I need is an over-enthusiastic scrubbing down with scratchy black olive soap and a sandpaper mitt. Other than that, my only firm plan is to eat lunch at one of the stalls by the port where you choose a freshly caught fish and take a seat at a trestle table while it is gutted, grilled and brought to your table with salad, bread, water and a handful of grilled prawns.

A flapping noise to my left startles me out of my food fantasy, and a seagull the size of a cat settles on the roof terrace wall, not a metre away from me. He (for the sake of argument, I’m no birdwatcher) calls to a friend in a raucous voice and is joined by another, slightly less attractive mottled seagull with a mean face. They stare at me, or at my breakfast, to be more accurate. I feel less relaxed. How fearless are they? Bold enough to snatch a piece of pancake from my plate, or indeed my hand? Those slightly hooked beaks look rather intimidating close up. The German ladies and their breakfast don’t seem to have attracted a seagull fan club. Don’t tell me even the seagulls single out lone female travellers in this country?

I pour myself some more coffee, hoping that the clanking of the thermos might frighten them away. It doesn’t. I try muttering “bugger off” under my breath, to no avail. I stare into the seagulls’ beady eyes with my very best Paddington stare. None of this makes a blind bit of difference. In fact, as soon as I set down my cup and open my book the seagull seizes the opportunity to up the ante, hopping onto the railing which tops the wall, opening his wings for a moment and striking a pose which looks decidedly more threatening.

Yikes.

I try flapping my book in his direction. The seagull stares at me scornfully. He mutters something uncomplimentary to his scraggy friend, who joins him on the railing. I take another bite out of my pancake. Somehow, under siege, it doesn’t taste quite so good.

It is when I glance over at the German ladies, casting around for backup, that he leaps onto the table. He lands squarely in front of my plate, only centimetres away from my face and that’s it. Enough. I panic.

“FUCK FUCK FUCK!” I cry, leaping out of my seat, my book raised in front of my face, knocking my plastic chair over backwards in my haste. The German ladies look up, impassive, then carry on with what they are doing as though nothing had happened.

Half and hour and three repeat confrontations later, I conclude that maybe Essaouira isn’t such a relaxing place after all.

I pour my second cup of mint tea. I haven’t quite mastered the technique the waiters use, pouring it into the glass from an impressive height without dripping scalding hot tea all over the table, so I adopt a more British approach. The tea is so sweet that I can feel the sugar coating my teeth. It’s lovely though. Very refreshing.

There aren’t many tables in the museum’s tearooms, so tourists cosy up next to one another. I am soon joined by a French family - a sullen teenage girl, her hen-pecked father and short-haired, leather-skinned mother. From their tans, I suspect they have been here a while, soaking up the sun by a pool in one of the hotels in the Ville Nouvelle, or perhaps at the Club Med just off Djemma El-Fna. They look as shell shocked from the souk as I felt on my first day. I’ve got a little more used to it now, especially since I learnt how to say “no thank you” in Arabic. But I still got lost again today, and when an alleyway brought me unexpectedly to the museum, I couldn’t resist making one last pit stop.

“Oh là là, partout c’est de l’arnaque,” laments leatherface to her husband. “Everywhere we turn people are trying to fleece us. In the souk. In the taxis. Even the mint tea here, I mean, 15 dirham is expensive.”

I hide my smile behind my guidebook. I suppose it’s all relative. 15 dirham (€ 1.50) seems a lot in comparison to a 3 dirham freshly squeezed orange juice on the main square, but really it’s peanuts. The taxi drivers are a pain, I’ll admit that. In the past three days I’ve only met one who was willing to put on his meter, as the law dictates. The trip to and from the Supratours coach station, where I bought my ticket to Essaouira cost me 20 dirhams one way, 30 dirhams back again. On the meter it would have cost 10. But I can’t be bothered to work myself into a lather about it. The sums involved are to small.

“Et puis le Monsieur là, le vieux, qui nous a reclamé de l’argent quand nous l’avons pris en photo…” continues leatherface. I take a sip of tea. I’ve had this experience too. People ask for money, or object strongly when you point a camera in their direction in this country, even if you are just trying to capture a busy street scene. Those who object do so on religious grounds, I think, although an exception seems to be made for the king, whose photo hung on a wall at Supratours. Now I think about it, the poscards I’ve seen for sale here all show close up views of mint tea glasses, details from buildings or pyramids of spices. Only in the modern art exhibition in the museum did I see some paintings of veiled women. I don’t want be accused of disrespect, so I’ve put my camera away.

My ears prick up when I hear English spoken on the table to my left. So far I’ve seen mostly French tourists, although there are lots of German couples in my hotel. A grey haired, linen-clad couple are seated at the next table sipping mint tea. The voice I heard belonged to the woman who has just zoned in on the spare seats opposite. Her husband approaches, brandishing two cans of coke with straws.

“What a relief to find this place,” he says as he plonks himself down. “How anyone can manage not to get lost in that souk I don’t know…” He voice has a faint Scottish burr.

“I can honestly say,” says Mr Linen, who sounds like a BBC broadcaster from the forties, “that I haven’t lost my bearings once.”

Either he’s lying, or he has a far better map than I do.

“Where are you staying?” says Mrs Linen in a friendly attempt to offset her husband’s smugness.

“Oh, out towards the Ville Nouvelle,” replies Mr Scot. “It’s a lovely place, but they lied about how far it is from the main square. You can’t walk it in ten minutes, it’s more like forty. Not that we mind though, the walk here takes us through the most beautiful gardens, it would be a shame to miss those.”

“Ah. You see, my wife and I don’t have time to waste walking,” says Mr Linen. “We’re staying in a riad, a traditional townhouse, right in the middle of the medina.” He pauses to pour his wife more tea, and frowns at the coke cans on the table as though they offend his sensibilities.

“Been on any excursions?” asks Mr Scot, undeterred. “We’ve just come back from a trip into the country. We went as far as the bottom of the Atlas mountains. Very impressive…”

“Yes. We went to the mountains too,” Mrs Linen says quickly, jumping in before her husband can answer. But there is no keeping this man down. He has to go one better.

“We went up as far as the snow,” he announces, smiling broadly.

Mr and Mrs Linen drain their glasses and take their leave, murmuring the usual meaningless pleasantries - “hope you enjoy the rest of your stay” “lovely to meet you,” - and leaving the Scottish couple alone to finish their drinks in peace.

I get up to go to the toilet, but as I pause to push a postcard into the letterbox by their table, I can’t resist a show of solidarity.

“I couldn’t help overhearing,” I say. “I’m surprised those two didn’t climb the Toubkal mountain! But then, he and his wife don’t have time to waste walking, do they?”

“Traffic’s diabolical,” says the taxi driver, by way of apology when he shows up ten minutes late to take Tadpole and me to the airport. “It’ll take us a good forty-five minutes to get to Orly…”

“No problem,” I reply, as though butter wouldn’t melt. “I’ve allowed plenty of time.” Forty-five minutes will give us an hour for check in, shopping for coffee and pain au chocolat, baggage scanning and temporary boot removal. I am a seasoned traveller. My feathers remain unruffled.

“Mummy, my tummy is hurting,” says Tadpole tugging at her strap.

“I’m sorry honey but you need to keep the strap fastened,” I say, convinced it is simply a thinly veiled escape attempt. Tummy ache is also her strategy of choice when faced with a plateful of broccoli. I know better than to take such complaints seriously.

* * * * * * * * * *

“My tummy is still hurting,” moans Tadpole.

“I’m sorry my sweet, but we’re nearly there. You’ll feel better soon. When we get out…”

The traffic on the motorway is fluid, and after crawling along the péripherique for the last fifty minutes we’re finally nearing the airport. Our driver is busy murmuring sweet nothings to his girlfriend. Or at least I assume that’s who he’s talking to. He’s wearing a headset. The car radio is tuned into Skyrock, a radio station which appears to consist of lots of shouting and very little music. A presenter with approximately two brain cells and a vocoder is calling random phone numbers and trying to frighten any small children who pick up the phone by pretending to be a monster. How irresponsible, I think to myself.

Tadpole coughs an ominous cough.

Some surprisingly efficient reflex kicks in and I grab the water bottle out of my open rucksack and remove the plastic bag I’d wrapped around it as a precaution, mindful of the fact that macbooks and moisture don’t mix, holding it just in front of Tadpole’s face.

Not a moment too soon.

The next ten minutes are spent trying to remove a foul-smelling paste consisting of bile, partially digested cornflakes and curdled milk from Tadpole’s jumper, dress and tights using one mini packet of Kleenex and a small amount of water. Miraculously the driver, deep in conversation, does not appear to have noticed our little mishap.

At Orly we pay, leap out of the cab and dash, heads down, through the driving rain into the terminal building, skidding to a halt in front of the bank of screens showing departure information.

Doncaster 10.15 desks 79-81. Embarquement!

Boarding? But it’s forty minutes until take off? Nonsense!

We dash to desks 79-81. That’s odd, there’s nobody there. Back to the monitors. Which definitely say desks 79-81. Huh? I flag down a nice uniformed lady who informs us that no, the information on the monitor is not incorrect. The reason there is no-one there is that check-in has CLOSED.

I hear a ringing in my ears and feel rather unsteady on my feet.

At the Thomsonfly desk a few moments later a nice uniformed man rings up to see if there is any way he can get the desperate lady with the dishevelled hair and wild eyes and her slightly puke-encrusted toddler onto the flight.

He cannot.

“MumOhMyGodWe’veMissedTheFlightTheyWon’tLetUsOn,” I howl into my telephone. “AndThere’sNoSpaceOnTheNextOneTomorrowWhatAreWeGoingToDo?”

If Tadpole were older she would know that when mummy is hysterical (and yes, I love the etymology of that word, which plants all blame squarely on my womb) she needs to be slapped smartly on the cheeks in order to be brought to her senses. In the meantime, I just have to Get A Grip. All On My Own. Deep breaths.

One change of clothes for Tadpole, one double espresso, several hundred euros and an airport transfer to Charles de Gaulle later and Tadpole and I board a flight to Leeds. I spend the entire journey fighting off the urge to order a stiff drink (lest my readers stage an intervention and commit me to the Priory) and trying not to be convinced that since bad things always occur in threes, my luggage is unlikely to be on board.

“Mummy, can you make me some couettes?” Tadpole pleads.

As I part her curls into two vaguely similar sized bunches, I notice a partially digested piece of cornflake I had missed earlier.

It is heart-shaped.

Once upon a time I had a schoolfriend who was incapable of eating bananas in public without first breaking them into small pieces with her fingers. I remembered that rather random fact today when describing my antics in the Club Med Gym (which I still call the Gymnase Club, because I’m old school, me, and set in my ways) to a friend over lunch.

“So, how often do you actually go?” she asked, picking at the huge slice of apple crumble she’d ordered. I nursed my espresso, feeling virtuous for turning down dessert, but also rather jealous.

“Oh, three times a week at the moment while I ease into the routine,” I replied. “Then I’ll see if I can bear to go more often, maybe take some classes.”

“Bear to go more often?”

“Well yes, it’s not exactly a pleasure. More a necessity. I’ve always been rather anti-sport, as you know…”

Anti-sport may be something of an understatement. I haven’t changed much since I vowed never to enter the sports hall at sixth form college. Or university. The rubbery odour of a sports shop is enough to make me wrinkle my nose in distaste, so crossing the threshold of the Club Med changing rooms requires a supreme effort of will. The only thing which makes the whole entreprise remotely bearable is my latest purchase: a tiny, clippy iPod shuffle, which makes it possible for me to block out my surroundings and lose myself in electronica while I cross country ski or climb seventy flights of stairs.

“The worst thing,” I confided, “is cleaning off the machines after you’ve used them.” Unable to restrain myself any longer, I seized my coffee spoon and stole a mouthful of crumble with crème anglaise.

My friend looked rather puzzled. “But surely it’s your sweat you are wiping?”

“Yes, but that’s not the problem” I said, setting down my spoon so I could mime the cleaning action with my right hand.

Imagine, if you will, a petite anglaise who has just finished her fifteen minutes on the stepper machine. Not just any stepper machine mind, but the one directly located under an air conditioning ven