parismarisamadonna

Non, je ne regrette rien – Edith Piaf 1956

Just over 8 years ago, my father slid from this mortal coil and into the arms of whatever you believe exists after death. Dying, as he did from mesothelioma, asbestos induced lung cancer, the Dust Diseases Board of NSW awarded compensation to his living family members. It wasn’t a lot of money, but it was enough for me to sell up, break up and embark on the dream I’d held close to my heart for a lifetime.

Seven years ago, I took the blood money and I moved to Paris.

Bastille Day 2011

 

The Art-sist-ologer and her share of the bloodied pot came along for the ride and we lived for three months in a garret^ on Rue de Rennes. It was on the 6^th floor of a typically Parisian Haussmannian building with no lift. It was so small and so sparsely furnished, I didn’t even sleep on a proper bed. Our ‘kitchen’ was a piece of furniture in a tiny hall between the bedroom and the salon. Between us we could stretch our arms and touch the walls on either side. We laughed a lot, we drank a lot of very cheap wine and she painted between her French language classes. Meanwhile, I was given the chance of a lifetime. 

The American, a man wise beyond his years, wickedly smirking at the world from under a heavy but mirthful brow, hired me to lead his team of Paris based recruiters at the Search Engine. I’d never been a recruiter in my life, I’d actually never worked anywhere that didn’t serve food, but he trusted his instincts and he trusted me. I did what he asked of me, very well I think, for just under 12 months, at which point the world economy vomited chaos from within its Goldman’d over-Sachs-ed walls and I again found myself without gainful employment. 

Shortly thereafter, the Fruit Company came a-knocking and I was again busy from 9 to 5, albeit with a sister who’d deserted me for Sydney, a crappy leg and an even crappier French boyfriend.

Three months after we arrived in Paris, I was run over by a bicycle and broke both bones in my lower right leg. I learned that the Art-sist-ologer was a dab hand at painting lichen but a little less at ease jabbing needles into her older sister’s fleshy thigh. I subsequently learned how to ascend and descend 6 flights of stairs on my arse as she held the plastered limb aloft. I also learned that the French Administration as it relates to public healthcare (in fact most everything) is an unmoving colossus reminiscent of the Woolly Mammoth; huge, hairy, slow and best left buried under 2 millennia of pack ice. Bureaucracy is, in case you didn’t know, a French word.

The following 5 years, bursting with Fruit flavour, were among the best I’ve yet lived. I travelled the world. I’ve seen San Francisco sparkle in the sunshine, I’ve seen Warsaw radiate the history of a thousand atrocities in the rain and I’ve seen the ancient stones of Rome coated with a blanket of historically unprecedented snow. My most treasured experience occurred only last summer. Wandering the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul on a Friday I stumbled upon midday prayers at the city’s largest Mosque.  The moment of peace I experienced as the incomprehensible words of Mullah rang out across the shiny minarets and blue-tiled alleys will stay with me until I take my last breath.

I became friends with some of the best people I’ve had the good fortune to know. The Body, The American and The Fashionista with whom I’d travailed at the Search Engine have kept my weekends filled with prattle, pranks and Pinot. While my fellow French Fruits, New Girl, The Painted Saint, The Butcher and Braveheart have eaten as many home-cooked meals in my flat than I have.

These new friendships, born within the walls of the 75^th department of France have proven to be among the strongest I’ve known. Their steadfast support over the past few months cannot go unacknowledged. They’ve also got exceptionally strong livers and tolerate my habit for crying at the most inconvenient moments or singing out loud, in the street, in front of other people. They’ve also borne witness to the many crushes, the 12-month relationship with the Internet Lover and they don’t mind hanging out with a middle-aged, straight woman who wears Doctor Marten’s boots. They’ve proven to be pretty decent, open-minded friends indeed. 

Through it all, Louis XIV, King of France, has ably squired me. Despite his changing paramours, his frequent absences, first to Evian and then to London; his advice, his love and his intimate knowledge of the French tax system have kept me out of trouble, out of debt and lightheaded with Champagne. An alcoholic beverage that he claims has the least calories but I maintain has the most alcohol.  

Mad Cow. The view from my table at Le Miroir

 

Back on the red dirt, I’ve become an Auntie three times over; Sapphire, Smack and Squeal were all born in Sydney’s autumn while I meandered cobbled streets and drank Rosé in the sunshine in Paris’s springtime. I lost two grandmothers. I mourned most keenly the departure of Gramma, who left me only 48 hours after I left her in Sydney. Cousins are engaged, weddings are missed and Motherbear has been awake at 3am to listen as I wailed, lamenting this and that, always by my side in spirit even if she couldn’t be in person.

In Paris, I’ve had the chance to reconnect with The Academic, the exchange student who lived closest to me when, as teenagers, we were both flung into the far south of France. I’ve watched as her little family in the northern suburbs of Paris has grown in number. I’ve been treated to not one, but two, secular baptisms in her local town hall, a ceremony that I didn’t even know existed; a ceremony that most French people didn’t know existed.

I attended the wedding of The Stylist and The Samurai, an Australian woman and a Japanese man who met in the City of Light before returning to Melbourne and having two little girls. Two micro-Melbournians who both have French Christian names in honour of the place their parents fell in love.

I spent weeks drenched in duck fat, Roquefort and Madiron with my wonderful French family in the south and rediscovered a love for a man who doesn’t love me back, but who will one day realise what he’s missed and lament my departure. I was also briefly engaged to be married to another French man, The F-Word, who dumped me rather unceremoniously when I was visiting him in Bologna. That happened 3 years ago, I’ve never fully recovered, I probably never will, but I’m stronger and wiser and drunker for the experience.

Through it all, I’ve lived in a little flat on the hill that looks down over Paris. I tread the streets in shiny red boots in the winter or shiny red ballets in the summer. Everyone, including the homeless dude with ever-changing puppies around the corner, knows who I am; I am L’Australienne.

Azzam the Pizza man downstairs who has fed every member of my family with really bad pizza and expensive wine will be sad to see me leave. He’ll have no one to flirt with, although he did give me a lift home one day when he saw me on the street in town. His countrymen, who own the 8 à Huit* a block below will miss questioning my preference for buying fresh milk rather than the more popular UHT variety. I’ve never understood why a country that is so widely known for what it can do with lactose prefers to drink heat-treated milk.

Down the road, the Pharmacist and his wife, have sold me everything from the needles I jabbed myself with during the Broken Leg saga, to the control tights I’m now obliged to wear in the summer to keep the busted foot from swelling to alien proportions, to my anti-anxiety medication and most memorably, the 4 litres of liquid one is required to imbibe before a colonoscopy. With every transaction, they’ve asked after my wellbeing, taught me how to self-inject and questioned the health of my Godmother, for whom I also purchase a particular mineral salt in massive (no doubt illegal) quantities, a mineral salt not sold in Australia.

Just next to the chemist are Samir, his brother and their myriad sons. A bevy of well built Tunisians who sell the best fruit in the 18^th Arrondissement. They’ve given free strawberries to Sapphire & Smack, they’ve spoken in broken English to everyone who’s ever stayed with me, they’ve had the unique pleasure of selling me grapes that don’t come in a bottle.

A bit further down Rue des Abbesses are Jacky and his Butchery cum Sweeney Todd slaughter chamber. When they aren’t doing unspeakable things to the gutted remains of a pig, they revel in the delight of harassing L’Australienne as the Wallabies continue to lose rugby matches in all corners of the globe. Guillaume, the hot one, is married, but like all married French men, continues to seek the pleasures of the flesh beyond holy matrimony and winks artfully at me as he minces my steak or slices my sausage.

Keeping this Goliath of a woman clean in her all-together are Laura and Muriel who paint my feet and do delicate things to my delicate parts on the Rue des Martyrs. Along with Stephane & Muriel who bleach and frizz the hair on my head to keep it in the electrified, kissed-by-the-sun mop of a Medusa that tops my grey matter below. They’ve all suggested that I continue to return to Paris to maintain my treatments, because where I’m going, women don’t care about that kind of thing the way parisiennes do.

Most of all though, I’ll miss my friends at Le Miroir. Seb, Julien, Kathrine and the team have always greeted me with a smile. They’ve put up with my dining alone every Saturday accompanied only by a computer. They’ve watched as I wrote the many thousand words that you’ve read on these pages. They’ve kept my glass full and they’re going to help me throw a party to celebrate my ‘exit stage left’ from Paris. They’ve always been so very kind to their singular Australienne.

A title I won’t hold for much longer.

I’m about to embark on another adventure; I’m reclaiming my birthright and moving to Great Britain. My father, who never lived to see me live my Parisian dream, would be proud as punch to know his daughter is taking advantage of the greatest gift he ever bestowed on his three children, a British Passport. He’d also take advantage of a free place to stay…

I never expected to see my Parisian dream become a reality; I never really expected it to end quite so abruptly either. But most of what happens to me is unexpected. It’s often the result of chance, of being frustrated, of being happy, of being inebriated or a blinding hangover.

I’m off to discover what its like to live in a single city that houses the same number of people as the entire continent of Australia. I’m off to be berated up close and personal every time we lose the cricket. I’m off to learn how to say Aubergine or Courgette instead of Eggplant or Zucchini; but in English and not French. I’m off to learn how to use 5 vowels rather than the single ‘eh’ that Australians use. I’m off to live in the same city as Tom and Benedict.

After seven years of kissing frogs, it must be time to kiss a Prince.

 

A Paris, nous avons vecus des belles moments ensemble, nous avons rigolé, nous avons pleuré, je vous aime tous, et non, je ne regrette rien.

  

MM at Madeleine. Week 1 2007

 

 

^In French, these type of flats are known as chambre de bonne, meaning housemaid’s room. Think Downton Abbey, where Anna lives 

*In France, we don’t have corner stores open 7-11, they prefer the more manageable hours of 8 to 8

Gypsy – Lady Gaga 2013

Staring down the very real possibility of leaving France sooner rather than later, I’m taking the time to review my Bucket List. 

Louis XIV has already taken care of No 1; the King is whisking me away this spring to see, and smell, the Lavender Fields of Provence.  I can’t remember if it was My Mother’s Castle or My Father’s Glory or Jean de Florette or Manon des Sources, but it was in one of those romantic, sun-drenched films I was forced to watch in French class. When I was a teenager, I first saw a screen filled with lavender flowers as far as the eye can see, feathery mauve blankets draped across the sun bleached yellow clay of France’s hottest corner. Ever since, I have wanted to throw myself onto that purple pillow and slip into a luscious lavender coma for at least as long as it takes for someone to proffer another glass of ice cold Rosé.

So the first item will be ticked in May. For January, I settled on Bucket List No 2; the Fish Market at Marseille.

A long time ago, while disinterestedly flicking through food channels on a rainy Saturday afternoon, I happened upon the High Priest of Pisciculture, Rick Stein, banging on about the Fish Wives flogging their husbands’ treasures on the shoreline of the Old Port at Marseille.

You may not know this, but the phrase, to swear like a Fish Wife was actually born in the salty port of France’s second largest city. Should you ever visit, your sense of propriety will remain perfectly in tact; you won’t be able to understand a single word they say. The accent of Marseille being so stained with the broguish tongue curls and nasals of nearby Italy and Africa, you can barely make out their bonjour, let alone their merde or anything remotely crude. In addition to the accent is their incomprehensible slang, a hybrid of French peppered with words they stole from the Maghreb as the human stream of immigration sailed, and continues to sail, into the limestone harbour of France’s largest passenger terminal. 

Beyond the romance of salt, of sea and of ships, Marseille is, on the whole, unimpressive. Perched between the fashionable French Riviera to the right and the family friendly holiday resorts of Languedoc to the left, Marseille is a working city studded with chimneys that spew grey smoke into the grey sky and stain the facades of the chalky houses a dirty, smoggy grey. Much like the working harbours in Northern England or Newcastle north of Sydney, the city is undergoing a bit of renovation around the docklands. Disused crumbling brick grain stores are being transformed into very fancy apartments that will be filled with ridiculous lengths of Italianate marble kitchen bench-tops as the Nouveau Riche take over walls their ancestors would have scoffed at.

MuCEM and the Villa Mediterranee. Black Lace Box and Precarious White Box

 

There is however, a pretty damn impressive brand spanking new Museum.

MuCEM is the museum of Mediterranean Culture inaugurated last year as part of the celebrations to commemorate Marseille being the European Capital of Culture for 2013. Before you get all hot and sweaty with excitement, I will add that this year, Hull, of Northern England, is the European Capital of Culture. The overpaid Bureaucrat that is being paid his weight in gold to decide where the European Capital of Culture is must have a penchant for dusty, dirty, industrialised cesspits in need of a facelift. But anyway, back to this fancy new museum. 

If you’ve ever wanted to see just what a clever man can do with concrete and a touch of creativity, the building is really, very impressive. Unlike Gehry’s Aluminium Vomit in Bilbao, MuCEM is a gigantic black concrete lace coated box, designed by a French-Algerian with an Italian name and a wee bit more respect for the existing landscape than the bloke who destroyed Bilbao. From atop the Chantilly Cube stretches a fine black footbridge onto the ancient Fort of St Jean, one of the two that guard the entrance into Marseille’s Old Port. Wandering along the medieval terraces of ochre granite and staring back into the computer generated black concrete masterpiece is a visually extraordinary feat of architectural harmony. Gehry may want to visit.

There are sunlounges dotted everywhere, long benches and designer gardens perched on top of rooms filled with ancient artefacts and a very good restaurant. The views up to the hilltop basilica of Notre Dame de la Garde, Mary standing up high on a hill to protect the mariners, not not the poor fish) are worth the visit. On our chosen day, the only thing we could see was the violence of the gathering storm that dumped enough water to flood most of southern France.

Napoleon's Fancy House on the Hill - Pharo

 

I was far less impressed with the exhibition inside; a visual history of the Mediterranean peoples and how their mastery of agriculture, invention of citizenship, desire to discover new worlds and creation of the three religions of the book means that they are the most advanced people on earth.

Yeah well, they also discovered how to harass, torture and kill each other in the name of afore-mentioned cow, colony, passport or theological fairytale. Not so advanced the way I see it. Although there was a very interesting section about the Death Sentence. I’ve now seen, with my very own eyes, an actual Guillotine that actually killed someone. France, the ever so advanced nation of the Rights of Man practised the death penalty until Mitterand abolished it in 1981. In France, they executed the poor souls with a Guillotine, until the very last one was beheaded, in Marseille, in 1977. My French family assure me that the guillotine is far more effective method of execution as death is instantaneous, unlike the barbaric anglo method of hanging. I suppose I’m just a bit squeamish about the idea of removing a person’s head when not in the context of Tudor marriages or Game of Thrones.

Efficient..unlike everything in France since.

 

During my short stay in Marseille, I didn’t see a man beheaded, but I was witness to a live Sea Bass being hung, drawn and quartered, upon a small plastic table, in the open space just above a busy Metro Station.

Unburdened by the mundane criteria of anything like a health code or hygiene standards, in Marseille, after the Fish Wife has harassed you into purchasing the frolicking fish in front of her, her knife wielding husband will happily prepare your piscatorial delicacy for cooking. The Sea Bass, as alive as you or I, was rather annoyed at being removed from his tray of seawater and refused to lie still on the scales as he was weighed. He jumped onto the ground at least three times before Madame was able to price him. Sea Bass seasoned with the smoke and shizzle of a pedestrian zone must be delicious. 

Go Fish.

 

More spectacular than the aqua acrobatics was the knife entering the belly of the writhing fish and the scarlet sensation of his insides spilling over the table followed by a crimson tide of blood gushing onto the pavement below. A quick wipe over with an oil-stained cloth and the gutted guppy was thrown into a plastic bag in anticipation of a generous bath of garlic and parsley.

For two hours we stood and watched as tables were set up and filled with gasping fish of all shapes and sizes. Crayfish pricked at the eyes of the wiggling fish and squid stared up as they were poked and prodded by customers assessing their freshness. Being winter, there was a fishy frenzy for the Monkfish; the ugliest things you ever did see, so ugly that they are usually sold without their giant toothy heads. Echoing their compatriots of 1789, we observed the beheading of a hundred or so of the tasty little buggers, albeit with a giant knife that slammed down onto the plastic bench, hammering out the rhythm of repetitive death, rather than the slick squeal of Lady Guillotine herself.

The Fishwife.

 

After observing the mass murder of a whole lot of fish in a whole lot of increasingly brutal ways, it was time for lunch.

The second reason I wanted to visit Marseille was to eat Bouillabaisse. The dish, a stew of the various fish native to the rocky, salty shores of the Mediterranean is flavoured with saffron and garlic and served with garlic bread and rouille, a sort of mayonnaise thickened with potato. Garlic, bread, potato, fish, mayonnaise…fancy French fish and chips? Possibly… but most definitely one of the most delicious plates of food I have ever eaten.

Sailed right into my mouth...

 

Wet through after three days of torrential rain and freezing temperatures, it was time to head back to the southern French House on the Prairie, the place I’ve been hiding out these past few weeks. The recent crush has ended with a colossal slap to earth. If only I was as adept at selecting the qualities of the opposite sex as I am at combining words to describe food?

Today, I’m off again. The red Swiss Army suitcase will roll into another city, for another adventure. I’m not sure what this one will bring, but I know that I’ll never, ever stop moving, searching and seeing…or falling stupidly in love with inappropriate men and ridiculously handsome British movie stars.

 

After three months of anxious panic and crippling stress, it is definitely time I got Loki.

Marseille.

 

 

 

Final Observation - Proof positive that men are ENCOURAGED to piss outdoors.

 

Happy – Pharrell Williams 2013

I’ve been awake since 3am, I’ve been wearing the same flannelette pyjama pants for 3 days, my flat looks like a photograph bomb exploded on the living room floor and I’ve eaten versions of a cheese sandwich at every meal since 2014 began. Even so, I’m deliriously happy…and it is not only because I’ve watched Death at Pemberley six times since it screened in the UK and Matthew Rhys makes a damn fine Mr Darcy especially towards the end of episode three and Matthew Goode might be the most perfect Wickham ever and… yes, so anyway, deliriously happy.

The song after which this is named features in the film Despicable 2; if you haven’t watched it, you should, I did, several times, on the planes between Paris and Dubai and Sydney. Watching cartoons makes me happy; recently I’ve had the time to do that, time I didn’t have before. I introduced my niece to the Little Mermaid and I watched Toy Story a few more times than might be medically advised. Sapphire and Smack are fanatical for Woody and Jessie so I needed to scrub up on my quotes. “There’s a snake in my boot!”

I’ve had a lot of time recently.

 

The Ancient Carbon Ritual of the Australian Male

 

Huge expanses of hours and days and weeks stretched out before me with no diary, no calendar, no appointments, no beeps from the phone; just wake up, throw on a linen dress (record was same dress for 5 days) and mooch about the world reflecting on my past, my present and of course my future.

Several days were spent in my Godparents’ backyard sorting through the contents of twelve boxes that represented my life until I left Sydney. Love letters spanned two decades covering passionate missives written by the man I left to move to Paris 7 years ago to the torn pages from schoolbooks listing the seventy reasons I was in love with a teenage boy named after a classical composer. I found the ATM receipts from every single time I withdrew money from my French bank account, in 1992, when France still had the Franc. I found letters in the scrawled handwriting of two dead people; my beloved Gramma and my father. Each time I came across their familiar cursive I wiped away my tears with one of the 78 T-shirts I have kept from the dozens of live shows I’ve been fortunate enough to see. I also found the tickets, hundreds of them, dating back to the 1980’s. I found a lock of brown curly hair belonging to I-have-no-idea-who; the teenage Composer? The French Homosexual? Me?

It must have felt important at the time..

 

Reliving my past was a very cathartic way for preparing for my future. Realising what I’ve lived, where I’ve been, what my hopes and dreams were, that I had achieved my lifelong goal; I lived in Paris.

When I wasn’t shoulder-deep in boxes and garbage and memories and treasures and locks of hair, I was knee-deep in toddlers; Sapphire, Smack and Squeal. Three little people who can say my name, who are ambulant and who are blonde semi-satanic angels. Presents were opened, screams echoed across the suburbs of Sydney and the kids liked their gifts as well.

 

Mum's Car, Kangaroos, Uncle's Front Yard..Australia.

 

There were hours that passed neck-deep in water. I swam, the little ones swam (look at me, watch me do this, I can jump) and the big ones prayed for a precious minute of silent floating free from tiny feet kicking into fleshy womanly thighs (it really hurts). Water has the elementary power to wash away the salt and sweat of months of tears and weeks of panic and anger. Swimming in pools, stomping on wet sand, splashing in puddles; there was water everywhere and I was happy.

Finally, there were the hours, the days and the weeks spent with the people who are my sun-bleached anchors. Tears were shed, and not just by my High Visibility Godfather. I laughed so hard I split in half and even spat out mouthfuls of wine. I was with my family, the handful of people who’ve kept me going. We also ate a lot of food; prawns by the kilo, oysters, roast beef, barbecued everything and smoked salmon prepared in my brother’s new home smoker. I spent time, unscheduled time.

2013 ended unexpectedly and has blown open a world (literally) of possibility for 2014. Two months from now I have no idea where I will be, what I will be doing or who I will be with. Many gained husbands and children and jobs and dogs in 2013; my life has been stripped back to the very barest of basics. But even so, I am excited, I am scared shitless and I’m happy.

Thank you UPAD, AG & Big Al, The Smartarse, the Motherchef, The Professor, The Art-sist-olger and my rightest of arms, Motherbear, for the love and the strength to see me through 2013, ready and armed to fight my next battle. 

And thank you BBC1 for Matthew Rhys in britches.

 

Those arrows singed onto my feet are definitely pointing forward.

 

 

 

 

One – U2 1991

If I was anywhere near Australia today, I would be in the gymnasium of Blue Mountains Grammar School. I’d be staring into the aged faces of some-people that I used to know. I’d be maudlin; hovering by the bar, if there was one, which there might not be, because it is a private Anglican school. I’d be wondering how much more they’d achieved than I, explaining that I, like some of them, have one less parent. I’d be remembering how much I hated ironing five yellow blouses and one pure wool navy blue skirt every Sunday night. I’d be looking around the gym, partly for deadly spiders, partly remembering the times I stood trembling before an audience as I sang and danced or the time I skidded half the length of the netball court on my arse. 20 years later, bruises on both knees, I’m still as clumsy as a newborn foal and today is my 20-year High School Reunion.

I am not there because I live 16951km and approximately €1500 from Sydney. I’m also not there because the last two years of my high school life weren’t the most fun; even if they did make me the woman I am today. I spent one of those years in France, which afforded me the opportunity and skills requisite to live in Paris today. I spent the other avoiding/shouting at/being traumatised by, a very tall boy who filled his days calling me fat…loudly...in public.

I decided, by myself, when I was 15 that I wanted to go and live in France. I wanted to discover the world, I wanted to learn another language and I wanted to extend beyond the realm my suburban Sydney life presented me. I did not want to grow up and get married. I wanted to grow up and get away from my parents so I could live my life.

In the intervening years, I’ve done all kinds of crazy things. Some of which were the result of excessive alcohol consumption; my first long term relationship, the scars on my knees and feet from swimming in an oyster farm and more broken shoes than a blacksmith. Few of which were truly physically dangerous because I’m a colossal scaredy-cat; no bungee jumping, no shark diving, no illicit drugs and no tattoos. Many of which make no sense at all; living in New Zealand, 3 years of intimacy with a sociopath and the inflated alien foot. And a handful of which I am ferociously proud; writing and reading the eulogy at my father’s funeral (without crying), Sapphire knowing three words in French, filing my first French taxes and not quitting the whole shebang when I was passed over for a promotion. But much of which involved long hours spent alone on board aircraft, alone inside trains or alone walking the ancient cobbled streets of some ancient cobbled town.

I almost never travel with another person, a fact that has recently proven quite fortuitous, business class upgrade anyone? But equally, requires the gumption and creativity to fill endless days, alone. A couple of weeks ago, I woke up in a bed that could have comfortably slept four adults. I was curled up on one side, wrapped in a giant quilt, a quilt big enough for a family and stretched out in the empty space beside me was a computer, a phone and a tablet. Yes, I’ll admit it. I’m having an affair with my Mac, my iPad is jealous and my Phone feels inferior that he was passed over for a bigger model. The scene beside me served only to remind me that this loneliness, while self-inflicted, is my only life companion. So why do I do it?

The left, superstitious side.

When you are by yourself, every single decision you make, you make. You do it because something inside your head tells something else inside your head that you should, that you must, that it will make you feel better or not doing it will make you feel worse.

Every single morning, including weekends, my alarm goes off at 6.15am. The following 30 minutes are locked in mental armed combat as I physically hover between awake and asleep. My multiple personalities argue as to whether I’ll go running that day. “It is good for you”, “but I’m so tired, I went yesterday”, “think of the too-tight red dress in the wardrobe”…etc, etc. There is no one lying beside me telling me to get up, no one nudging me out of bed. There is no approaching wedding/pageant/latex-fashion-show that I’m desperately trying to slim down for; I do it only because my inner strength (or not) tells me too.

I face the same battle every time I’m presented with a restaurant or café menu. If a cheeseburger and fries is placed in front of me, it is because I put it there. Equally, if there is a filet of steamed fish and flavourless vegetables, I chose it. There is no smiling man opposite me to guilt, or inspire, my choice. There is nothing inside my belly prompting me not to order the sushi. It’s just me and my subconscious nutritionist (who is chronically underqualified) debating the calorific merits of foie gras. 

What will I wear today? The same thing you wore yesterday, you aren’t seeing the same people and it saves time washing. What will I do today? A manicure, that uses up a good hour or two and you can’t answer the phone or read email at the same time. Will you answer that text? No, I don’t feel like talking to anyone. But what if someone is inviting you out for the night that will change your life…who cares? I rented a Colin Firth movie and home cinema doesn’t require makeup or a bra.

Having no one else to blame, no one else to consult, renders the most basic of choices riddled with guilt and self-hatred. If the house is a mess, I did it, and worse still, I was too lazy to clean it. If there is nothing in the fridge, I have to get dressed, go out and get something, part of which I inevitably throw away because I don’t have time to eat it before it goes bad. Then I feel guilty about wasting food.

There are simple impracticalities to being alone. There are moles on my back that I can’t see well enough to diagnose melanoma. I can’t purchase a six-pack of milk, or water, or wine (oh, the humanity!), because I can’t carry it home. Buying theatre tickets, only to give one away.  Having to take my entire luggage into the loo and get it all out again, because I can’t leave it with someone else. Most embarrassingly, the recent sunburn scandal; result of the anatomical truth that I can’t reach far enough over my shoulders to apply sunscreen, stamping a giant white hand in the middle of two scarlet scapulas.

And…I always have to finish a bottle of wine…by myself!

 

The right, artistic side

No doubt, many of you will read this, if you made it this far, and label me selfish, or self-indulgent, or arrogant, or f**k you, you live in Paris and your life is dreamy and smells of coffee and croissants; hashtag first world problems. Others will be shouting, wait until you have a child, then you’ll understand what life is all about. Let me make one thing quite clear, I do not hate my life. But I do hate people telling me how amazing it is when they have no idea what it’s like. While I did choose to live in Paris, I didn’t choose to be alone; I’m just made that way. 

I live in the same city as the Eiffel Tower because I am employed here. I’m one of those insane people who think you should work to earn your living rather than expecting someone else to pay for your choices. I live in Europe for many reasons, mostly connected to my recent family history (and that’s all I’ll say about that). I’m still here because the increased value of the Australian Dollar in the 7 years I’ve lived away would render me bankrupt if I moved home.

I also stay here, alone, because most of the time, my personalities and me are really not sure what else to do. Leaving would be admitting defeat… and if there is one thing that fuels most of my decisions, it is the desire to win, to triumph, to be better than I am, better than I was. It is hard; I only have myself to blame and only myself to congratulate when things go unexpectedly well. 

On the mornings when I roll over, those days when I can’t find the strength to stand up, let alone run, I close my eyes and remind myself of the singular truth that keeps me sane.

I chose this life; me, myself and I. I did it by myself. I’m still here, waving not drowning, the Aries Warrior, I won. I’ve got my share of cheerleaders; some of you, who read this and give me a virtual thumbs up, the Art-sist-ologer, The Smartarse and the ever present Motherbear, my champion. But ultimately, if I am what I am today, I put myself here.

I chose, I fought, I survived…and for that, all of my personalities cheer, together, as one.

Solsbury Hill – Peter Gabriel 1977

The first time I ever went to Bath, I was ten years old. I had not yet read Pride & Prejudice, that came 2 years later. I had not yet seen Colin emerge from within the pond at Pemberley, his white shirt drenched to highlight the curve of his strong shoulders and each individual lock of curly wet chocolatey brown hair dripping over his dark and serious eyes as he wandered over the hill toward Elizabeth and into the hearts of every woman on earth and the birth rate across Britain skyrocketed and I was only 19 but I can still remember his wry smile and the video tape wore out because we rewound that bit so many times. But I digress…I first went to Bath as a little girl accompanied by Motherbear and the man who gave me the right to my little maroon book and a flag with no stars.

World Heritage Listed..Bath.

 

As we meandered along Landsdowne Crescent my father, obsessed with the musical film Oliver!, threw his arms out by his sides, started a series of pirouettes and a pitch perfect rendition of Who Will Buy. I’ve since learned that the famous scene, featuring little Oliver Twist at his bedroom window, was in fact filmed on a sound studio in London two hours from Bath. Motherbear, the more literary of my parents, was excited to be in Bath because it is Mecca for anyone who loves Jane, former literary megastar, now the face of the ten pound note. Motherbear is also a fan of Georgette Heyer, a very prolific author who made a living filling the void that remains for any adult women who has read Jane’s six novels and needs to feed her addiction.

Pulteney Weir..Seagull Paradise.

I’ve since been back to Bath a couple of times. I’ve visited the Jane Austen Museum, I’ve peered into the windows of shops that sell bonnets and bayonets, and I’ve walked every street of Somerset’s capital desperately hoping to run into Colin. I’ve sat by the Pulteney Weir* surveying the Avon waiting for any human man with a wet white shirt to surface, but alas, screeching seagulls are the only errant bachelors to be found in modern day Bath.

My most recent visit was for a weekend with friends, a couple of days rest and respite in the countryside. A couple of days R&R that coincided with what the English call a heatwave and what Australians call ‘thirty degrees in a country with no air-conditioning’. It also coincided with Australia losing the first test of The Ashes. Not exactly the best weekend to be on that side of the Channel.

The Avon

Unfortunately, most people who visit Britain rarely get to see much more than London. That may be down to the diamond-studded price of a train ticket anywhere past Clapham. Given the exorbitant price, I was surprised not to be assisted into the carriage by Darcy himself. Or possibly it is because the purchase of a full tank of petrol requires a meeting with your personal financier and a loan from The Queen. Either way, visitors to Britain should do their best to get as far away from London as possible; the grass is greener, the beer is cheaper and there is a noticeable absence of soot lingering 200 years after the demise of coal-burning chimneys, soot that lingers for the sole purpose of rendering the interior of your nostrils pitch black. 

Sydney Gardens...a bit different to the other Sydney Gardens

While the capital is an impressive metropolis where every available space is crammed with theatres, museums, restaurants, pubs and a giant Palace whose monolithic presence at the centre of London reminds one that the United Kingdom is a Kingdom first and United second, London proper is not my favourite part of Britain. I would happily trade in the sardine-can Tube for a leisurely stroll through the Parade Gardens and pass up on the cacophony of curry for a mature-cheddar and pickle sandwich. But even more importantly, my chances of being whisked away from my boring Bridget days by a man named Darcy increase exponentially as I approach Somerset. Well…a girl can dream.

I didn’t find my Darcy, but I did see find some Morris Dancers. They were the only people on Earth who, covered in black velvet, flowers and bells as they were, were hotter than me on that Saturday afternoon. They are also the only middle aged men on Earth who can dress up like Russian grandmothers, shake sticks at each other while slapping their thighs and not be whisked off to a sanatorium.

Morris Dancers..or Pride.

Bath, named as such for the magical powers of the magical waters below, has for centuries been the place where English people go to drink water that magically restores all of one’s ills. Gout, a cold, acne, lacklustre sexual performance, anything can be cured in Bath. Everyone from the Romans to the Georgians and Victorians has been making the journey west of London to restore themselves to magical-water induced health and vitality.

Perhaps I should have drunk more of the water and less cheap French Rosé. Returning to London on Sunday with 48 hours worth of sunburn and a first class hangover, I felt decidedly less vital than when I arrived. 

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single woman in possession of a good fortune (a career, a dodgy foot, a big mouth and 38 rented square metres in Paris) must be in want of a husband.   

Or at the very least… very expensive French Rosé.

Better than Vegemite?

 

*Random trivia moment, Pulteney Weir doubled for the Seine in the recent film version of Les Miserables. Russell threw himself into the Avon in Bath, not La Seine in Paris. I’d have happily settled for Russell in his wet white shirt, but only dads and geriatric tourists were available that day

Finally, another semi-related random trivia moment, semi-related because in Jane Austen’s time the women wore corsets and we all know that Georgian corsets were strengthened with the bones of a marine mammal. The French word for underwire is the same as the French word for whale. Baleine. Isn’t that cool!

Stars – Alan Boublil 1980 (from Les Misérables)

...Just after Javert finishes singing this song, he throws himself in the Seine…

This week, I woke up on a sunny Monday in London. I was sleeping peacefully upon an inflatable bed, dwarfed, only just, by the Queen Mary II; the Cristal quaffing King of France doesn’t do anything on the cheap, not even blow-up beds. I woke up to what I expected would be a typical week of phone calls, emails, office politics and the requisite dose of Rosé to keep my head out of a gas oven.

Had I have known how my week would unfold, that Monday morning, I might have pulled King Louis’s quilt over my head, hid in the dark upon my inflatable life-raft, dreamt of floating across oceans and pled non compos mentis for 5 days.

Just when you think the sun will come out tomorrow and that everything old is new again and it’s getting better all the time and somewhere over the rainbow and the winner takes it all and the tide is high and everything’s alright and every other cheerful song you know, life deals you a big dose of steaming hot Vegemite to the nostril and you open your eyes to see that sh*t just got real.

The Mall. Rhymes with Pal not Paul. Because in England they can.

 

Last weekend, I shed the orthopaedic boots and the sheepskin layers, slipped on some ballets and wandered the cobbled streets of London. I, sprayed with a rare mist of luck, happened upon the Trooping of the Colour. I stood alone in the park, among thousands of tourists, many of whom approached me to ask what was going on. One American espied the suited up soldiers on horseback and asked me if ‘Kate’s baby’ had been born, which, even by precise British Military standards, was incredulous and ‘Kate’s baby’ is actually the heir to the throne of the Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, #justsayin.

I explained that the Trooping of the Colour, not color, is the annual celebration of The Queen’s Official Birthday. Liz and the rest of the gilded family frock up, then rock up, to watch the Duke of York’s ten thousand men march to the top of the hill and down again, showing us all how deftly they can change their assault rifles from one hand to the other^ and how well they can‘t prevent their horses from pissing all over the palace pansies.  The Queen waves at them, they stomp loudly and the one at the front with a big gold stick gets a bit shouty. Liz thanks them all for spending the past 12 months standing still at her front door while Americans Instagram their fluffy bearskin hats, and then one goes home to drink one’s refreshing Pimms proffered by one’s manservant upon one’s silver tray. 

Rule Britannia!

I watched as carriages bearing Camilla, Harry, Kate and Her Majesty, trotted their pastel Phillip Treacy fascinators up The Mall. Then I shopped, I had my nails done, I looked up at the sun, I watched Star Trek and gaped at The Cumberbatch’s sexiness…even in outer space where no man has boldly gone before…but where every woman would gleefully, un-boldly, go…as many times as physically possible. On Saturday night, I even got boldly gussied up for a fancy, jazzy Gatsby themed party. It wasn’t remarkable, but I was happy.

Spending so much time in London is never easy on my nerves. I feel more normal in London…but Paris feels more like home. In London, I can buy shoes and shirts in sizes that I understand and that fit. I can watch telly for hours on end. I can make jokes at the expense of the locals about our current cricket and rugby clashes. But Paris is where I live, where my friends are, where the urin-oma of the Metro is more welcoming than the barbarian hoards of London’s Tube. First-world problems indeed; I’ve got two arms, two legs, a good job, brains, unlimited broadband Wi-Fi and a dodgy right ankle. I’ve got nothing to complain about. 

Still, not content with photographing someone who is named Elizabeth*, and partnered with a Phil, that is not related to me, I sought out homelier, relative comfort.

On Monday evening I met up with my second cousin, visiting from Sydney, whom I hadn’t seen for at least five years. KB is my mother’s cousin and when I was about 7, I was Flower Girl at her wedding. Having recently lost her husband, a passing that darkly coloured my May weekend in Burgundy, we spent many hours reminiscing and updating each other on the goings on in our respective families. 

Our respective families…

Her father was Maltese, mine was English, both are on the other side of the Pearly Gates, we share Polish connections, Thai connections, Irish connections, German connections and even a bloody Freemason! KB was accompanied by her granddaughter, who shares her first name with my great-aunt (you following??), a wee girl of 11, who will go down in history as the funniest person on earth who doesn’t know it.

I was explaining tax and citizenship and why I can’t vote. She asked me why I haven’t become French so I told her that I’ve not lived in France long enough to apply. At which point she asked if I would then remain “a normal person”, her definition of Australian but, for her grandmother and I, a moment of hysterical laughter. 

I don’t often think about Dad, but when I returned to Versailles-upon-Thames that evening, I felt like the wind had been taken from my sails, forced up into the clouds and then blown down upon me, full force, an explosive fart in the face. In fact, a fart in the face may have been more fun. I do such an excellent job of remaining frenetically occupied and avoiding anything that even mildly dampens my high, that when the crash comes, which it inevitably does, I’m always taken a little off guard.

So as the week progressed, and an invisible man continued to smack me across the head with an invisible baseball bat. I came to wonder if there was enough alcohol in the 18^th arrondissement to see me safely through to Friday. Then Tony Soprano died. 

I stared up at the sky and begged Venus to stop beating up Mars, but she didn’t listen.

Summer Solstice is a time of year when the inherently beautiful people of Sweden take a day off, drink beer and eat dill-seasoned potatoes, unlike Christmas when they take a day off, drink beer and eat dill-seasoned potatoes. Summer Solstice is the longest day of the year. It marks new beginnings and everyone shags each other raw while dancing around a Maypole; sort of like Vegas only with natural blondes.

It must be because I am Australian.

June 21^st was, for 31 years, the shortest, darkest day of my year. My body, still not accustomed to summer when it should be winter, has an innate need to lie low in June, to don my very own bearskin, to crawl into the dark and hibernate. It could also be that despite my calendar reminding me that the date is June 21^st, the torrential rain, the hailstorms and the slate grey skies tell me that it is still September.  

Javert, recognising that the stars have more to do with his fate than his own actions, opted to end his breathing days and jump in the Seine. This week, realising that no matter what I did, the whole world was going to hell in a handbasket, I was tempted to go all Russell and if not throw myself in a river, at least throw someone else in one.  

I’m proud to say I didn’t. I shouted a lot at people who didn’t deserve it. I spent a couple of hours sobbing on video calls. I shed the Artemisian armour and told an actual human man how I felt about his actual human self. Still, I’m not sure what will happen next week, but I’ll have a new hairdo to defend myself.

The answer is in the stars.

 

London. No Stars.

 

^ I mean really, when you are in the Afghani desert and a mujahedeen is coming at you with a machete, being able to switch hands should not require a choreographed movement of 25 seconds.

 

*Yes, I know intimately an Elizabeth who is with a Phil. She doesn’t troop the colour but there are plenty of colours in the poop she washes off her Dauphine.

Hurt – Christina Aguilera 2006

…I started to write this on National Sorry Day.

 When I tell people in Europe that I am Australian, and not American, and not English, and not German (it’s the thighs) they invariably ask one question first, do you eat Kangaroo?

I have eaten Kangaroo on several occasions, rarely because I actually chose it on a menu and even more rarely because it, like duck in France, is considered a local speciality. If I have eaten Kangaroo, it was out of necessity. As in… I was in a restaurant where they only served lamb or veal and I don’t eat babies. 

When I tell people in Europe that I am Australian they often ask me why I would leave the sunshine and move to a continent prevalent with snow and ice. I tell them it is because I an arachnophobic and there are no huntsman spiders in France.

When I tell people in Europe that I am Australian they never ask me why I sought refuge from the immigration riddled population of Australia, the indigenously overrun social state that is Australia or the boat people infested shores that are so eponymously associated with Australia. They don’t ask me because it is a question based on an idea that is largely unknown beyond the shores of the Great Southern Land or the pages of her populist media.

All white...

 

And trust me, if you want to live in a social state, France has you covered. In France, you can claim unemployment benefits of about 70% of your salary for up to two years. You can claim this from the government even if you resign from your job…willingly. You can also be given a couple of grand to start your own business, while you are unemployed. You can also go to the dentist without paying and get a new pair of eyeglasses every year. In fact, the fancy, lacy stay-ups that I am wearing to keep my tortoise blood running up and down my legs were largely paid for by someone other than me. Well not exactly, because I pay about 50% income tax, so I figure, I have earned some sexy, lacy stay-ups, even if it does feel a bit outré that the decidedly unsexy François Hollande gave them to me.

In Australia, there are essentially two media companies, Rupert Murdoch owns one, and the only information that is disseminated is information that will guarantee ratings, shock, horror and a knowing grimace from betwixt the brows of Tracy Grimshaw. There are only 22.3 million Australians, so alternative news agencies don’t flourish in quite the same way that they do in the UK or even the US. Unless you watch the Chaser, it is hard to access any kind of journalism that isn’t trying at the same time to encourage you to tune into the latest episode of The Voice.

So, in the interest of the public good, all the way from Paris, let me shell out some home truths. *

Unlike Turkey, Australia does not share a border with Syria. Australia shares no borders with anyone. People do try to ‘invade’ on boats, but they are not invading with rocket launchers, bayonets or mustard gas. They are ‘invading’ on dilapidated and unarmed fishing boats. They are ‘invading’ and duly met by the full force of the Royal Australian Navy with her warships, her uniforms and her orders to get thee to Christmas Island. As yet, I’m unaware of any boat people taking down the population of Northern Queensland with a suicide bomb. So let’s not call in the Starship Enterprise just yet.

Unlike Europe, Australia is not beholden to a common economy that hinges upon the financial well being of Portugal. In fact, thanks to the terrestrial resources of so much uninhabited space, Australia has remained relatively untouched by the economic woes of the older, Northern economies. Australia has not known such wealth in my lifetime; Australia can bake its gluten-free cake and eat it too. So why not share?

Unlike Korea, where native Koreans actually shoot each other across their own Korean border, the indigenous people of Australia have not yet taken up arms in defence of their native land. Unlike much of the old world, where praying to God, or Allah, or Buddha, or a statue of Liberace, warrants arrest, or ostracism, or torture, or death; originating from somewhere else dictates only what your last name is, rather than your right to be considered an Australian.

What Australia is, is a melting pot, a paella of myriad nations heralding from myriad places that has afforded her people, myself included, the opportunity to go and live elsewhere and discover what it is like beyond the sandy shores of the world’s largest island nation. Australia is indeed the Lucky Country. Australians are by nature of their remoteness upon this orbiting mass of silicon and iron, lucky not to be shot at on a daily basis. They are not beholden to a dictator or a religious zealot or a military regime or even Simon Cowell.

In a few weeks my third cousin, a cousin born in Australia, will marry his sweetheart in Malta, a country that not he, nor his father, but his grandfather was born in. My other cousins refer to their grandmother as Babcia, because they, like she, are part Polish. I live in another country thanks to the nationality that my now-dead father bequeathed me by chromosome; no guns, no war. That we are allowed to honour, respect and acknowledge our heritage and our ancestry is a right that we take for granted. And it is still far more honest than the thousands of Europeans who marry in Cyprus to better show off their tans in their Facebook photos.

But Australians in general are pretty shit at recognising this.

What Australia is, is the only nation in the commonwealth, now, or before, to have achieved Federation without civil war. What Australia is, is a nation made up of many, from far and wide. What Australia is, is unfortunately, a nation that initially flourished on the bleeding backs of its indigenous people and went on to ignore their very existence.

So it made me sad that this week that the totality of the “Lucky Country’s” media was wallpapered with a story that made my heart bleed redder than the shirt of the indigenous man concerned.

I am from New South Wales. I don’t really understand the game they play in Victoria that involves jumping on top of each other without the refereed order of a scrum. I am an Aussie who has never watched a complete game of Aussie Rules. But I know who the Sydney Swans are, I know that they won the Premiership and I know who Adam Goodes is.

 

Adam Goodes

 

Adam Goodes is an Aussie Rules player, he plays for the Sydney Swans and he is an Indigenous Australian. And this week he has become the poster boy for Australia’s new breed of bloke-y, mate-y, joke-y racism that makes me more afraid than huntsman spiders.

If you want to know what happened, Google his name.

After half a lifetime of explaining Priscilla Queen of the Desert, I am proud of my heritage. After seven years of defending the cultural significance of Crocodile Dundee, I am proud of my country. After years of being corrected for not using the word ‘shall’, I am proud of my dialect. After every Ashes loss, after Port Arthur, after the non-Kyoto treaty, after Baz Luhrmann making Great Gatsby in Sydney and not New York, after it all, I’ve held my head high. But this week I felt a bit shit…and not because of the 13 year old girl.

I felt a bit shit because everyone focussed on the girl…and everyone forgot that what she did was symptomatic of a much bigger Australian drought than a lack of water to feed the sheep.

So far away from the daily hell of so many impoverished others, so rich with reasons to be happy and so blessed with sun-drenched BBQs by the beach, Australia is starved of perspective.

Australians should be glad that they, and Adam Goodes, live in a country where he can become a national hero. Australia should be grateful that when people go to a football match, they aren’t X-rayed on entry, that women are allowed to watch… or even play. Australia should stare up at the steeples and the minarets and the Westfield branded towers and thank their lucky Southern Cross stars that until now, insults are devoid of fatality.

And like the little girl, Australians should focus on experiencing something that educates them, rather than reading their newspapers.

 

 

Not in bloody hell...

 

 

 

*I’m well aware that I will be criticised for having an opinion considering I don’t live in Australia, but in the same way that absence makes the heart grow fonder, seeing how the other half live makes you realise that maybe the grass isn’t greener…and a hundred other clichés to validate my argument.

Red Red Wine – UB40 1984

Usually, May is the best month of the year in France. Usually, the sun shines brightly as the days lengthen. Usually, the four public holidays* that we jam into the first three weeks of May allow for balmy hours spent lying on your back in blossoming parks (but not on the grass) sipping ice cold Rosé and reminding ourselves of how lucky we are to be in France. Usually, the strawberries that carpet every flat service by the door of every purveyor of fresh food are sweet, and red, and surprisingly cheap, because the little spotted hearts of juiciness have had months to ripen while lying under the sun of Southern France while Southern French farmers lay beside them drunk in awe at how lucky they are to be in Southern France in May. 

Usually.

This year, after the coldest March on record and non-alpine snowfall in April, May 2013 is proving to be rather unusual. There is heavy rain, brief spurts of sunshine, sub-zero mornings and rather notably, freakish hailstorms. This May, the weather is more than a bit shit. This May, anyone with more than 20 Euros to their name has booked a last minute flight to anywhere in search of sunshine and a temperature slightly above 10. It is even warmer in Edinburgh than it is in Paris.

So, wallowing in a slightly deeper sun-starved depression than I usually swim in, my May has become the month that everything broke…including me.

I have been visiting a blood doctor to try and ascertain the root cause of the alien foot’s propensity for remaining, at all times, 20% larger than the other, visibly more terrestrial foot.

First, a woman covered me with lubricating gel and ultra-sounded my legs; it would appear my veins are a bit slower than they should be. Officially, I am circulatory challenged. Then a man laid me down on a table and started jabbing a needle into my thighs. You see I have recently learned that you can make veins disappear. I always thought I was made that way and walking upon legs that resemble topographical maps of mountains were as much me as the googly eyes and the big mouth. In any case, do you think anyone is going to notice that my legs are veinless if one foot looks like it belongs to a rhinoceros? Still no cure for the foot, but I now own rather raunchy lacy stay-up support stockings.

While my blood might now speed like Lewis Hamilton, the bank cancelled my credit card. So again, everything stopped.

My bank, the world’s local bank, the one from Hong Kong and Shanghai, have cancelled my card three times in the last 8 months. They keep doing this, they have explained to me, because I have a ridiculous habit of spending my own money. More specifically, I have a ridiculous habit of spending my own money in countries that are not France. Sacré Bleu!

I’ve been told that I am a high-risk client because I travel so much. I am a high-risk client because I buy so much online. I am a high-risk client because I earn money, pay my bills on time and work very hard, often overseas, hence the requisite online purchasing. I just don’t have the time or the energy to go shopping. I am a high-risk client because I don’t write cheques. I am a high-risk client because I rarely pay with cash. High-risk, in France, means 21^st Century. 

Based on recent events, I am a high risk client when I am in a foreign country and my bank has cancelled my card, leaving me with no money and no means of paying for my hotel. I am a high-risk client when I am forced to go to the HSBC and scream at someone until they help me. I am high-risk because if I had a weapon of even microscopic destruction, I’d happily smash windows and break every single poster of a smiley HSBC person helping someone else because they don’t bloody help me. I am high-risk because I’m a little bit stressed, very overworked and without any access to my own money, I cannot feed my two glasses of wine a day habit. The very high-risk habit I have that affords me the placidity required to operate in normal, low-risk society.

So I have fibre-optically fast blood, but a slow, medieval, bank.

Then…on a sunny day in the countryside, my computer broke. After 5 years of faithful service, my little silver folder of love that keeps me company every day just would not wake up. She went to sleep grasping within her aluminium hands my photos, my music and most importantly of all, every word I’ve ever written. I’m not a complete fool, and am blessed to have The Painted Saint among my circle of intimate friends. When he talks tech, I listen, and when he said I should have a back up, I made sure I had a back up. But I still had to buy a new lighter, slimmer silver backed confessional…online. Just don’t tell HSBC.

One good thing did happen in May.

We had so much fun..we didn't even go there!

 

Taking advantage of Jesus Day and War Day and Another Day, I took off for a couple of days. I had no idea where I was going; I just knew that I had to be at The Body’s flat at 7pm with a towel and enough clothes for 3 days. I did make a point of remembering that I would be in Burgundy, place famous for making wine. I prepared myself, and my liver, for my own kind of hajj. 

The Body, who is half English and half German, is a pretty fantastic friend to have. Not only has she been kind enough to go and live in Dublin and Florence, then invite me to come and stay for the weekend, she also drives a red mini. I think all my friends should go and live in places I want to visit and drive cool little British cars so that I have something to do every weekend.

The Body unwittingly lives in the great heights of Bestest Friend in the Universe and then takes it a giant step higher. She has parents who own a huge house in the countryside, in the middle of a shitload of wineries. If Ryan Gosling were her brother, I’d quit my job and never leave her side. 

 

The Scarlet Chariot!

 

The Fashionista is also a good friend to have. She always looks fantastic, she has more style in her little finger than I’ve had in my entire lifetime and she speaks so fast, an hour spent with her is like a day spent with a normal person. Her speech, like her person, are compacted into a smaller than expected space, everything about her is more intense, more concentrated and inevitably, more stylish.

The Body loves music, The Fashionista loves Food and we all love wine. Cram all of that love into a red mini for the two-hour drive to Auxerre, and you’ve got the ingredients for a girly mini-break…just add Ibuprofen.

He said something about having to keep it for two years. I didn't listen.

 

I break into a sweat when my phone has to be switched off during a 2-hour flight. Taking the Tube, with its lack of phone reception is so stressful that I would rather walk, even if it were snowing. Spending three days in a place so hidden away from the rest of the modern world that I was deprived of 2G, 3G or anyG, nearly induced cardiac arrest after 3 hours.

Astonishingly, when soaked in a heady mix of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay the human body can adapt to almost anything.

No phone, meh. Broken computer, meh. I was still smiling. In fact, you could have walked up and king-hit me and I would have laughed in your face.

But what was the reason for my delirium of calm and happiness?

There were of course the copious flagons of wine. The Fashionista became a sort of barometer of inebriation for the rest of us. Her being so much smaller, we knew that when she started to slur, we should all stop drinking, (even if I didn’t).

The Cottage in inverted commas.

 

There were also the long walks in the countryside, talking to donkeys, gossiping and chatting, staring into the fluorescent haze of Canola flowers. There is also a particularly fantastic house just next to The Body’s cottage. Standing at the end of a circular driveway between a tiny chapel and a dovecote, I nicknamed it Pemberley. I was completely convinced that Colin Firth was going to appear, white shirt drenched and hair all mussed up at any moment. Again, the brain can conjure up all kinds of things when marinated in fermented grapes.

Pemberley..no Colin.

 

After careful reflection and the appropriate amount of time to allow my liver to regenerate, I’ve decided that the main reason I was so easily able to turn off for three days was that I was staying in a family home with someone else’s family.

The Canola - No Filter.

 

The Body’s dad, like my own, is British. He, like my own, tells the most ridiculous jokes and has nicknames for everything; coasters are doofers. The Body’s mother loves to cook and cater and lay a magnificent table for breakfast and both of them work in music. Sitting around a family table, with a mum and a dad, even if they weren’t mine, felt normal. It felt like coming home after school and hooking into a bowl of Spag Bol, while watching Degrassi and talking about homework. It felt relaxing.

 

Dinner!

 

No phone, no computer, parents and washing up. We could call it a retro-holiday. Pretend that you are 15 yrs old and forget the troubles of the modern (high-risk) world.

Just add wine.

 

A wine tasting...those French fools throw it out! Not I...

 

* Labour Day – the day French people protest in celebration of their right to protest. End of the War Day – the day French people do all but say out loud, we laid down and let the Germans walk all over us. Jesus went up in the sky day – the day French people are happy to forget that the Republique is secular and enjoy a day off from their hardworking, 35-hour week. Jesus went to Pentecost day – the day French people look at each other and wonder what the hell Pentecost means, but not for long, because after all, we are on a day off and can’t work too hard.

 

 

 

The People in Your Neighbourhood – Jeff Moss 1969

For those of you that are not aficionados of all things felt, technicolour and googly eyed, this song featured on my all time favourite children’s’ television show, Sesame Street. Starring giant birds, talking frogs and microscopic people that live in a milk cartons in the window, Sesame Street is the second best thing to pop out of Jim Henson’s brain. Beaten only by the original The Muppets* and only marginally ahead of Fraggle Rock, Sesame Street was the home of the sexually obscure skivvy-ologists Bert and Ernie, a blue blob that stuffs it’s face with cookies, the numerophilic Count (mwa-ha-ha) and like their Muppets cousins, an anthology of catchy tunes.

To this day, as I count out 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12, I can still sing the rhythm of the song that plays as a giant ball jumps around some sort of psychedelic pinball machine. Joking with friends, I might spontaneously pipe a quick ‘one of these kids is doing his own thing’ when you see a weird looking youth in a pub. But the ditty that darts most frequently around my mind today is the one I hum as I wander up my local street. 

“these are the people in your neighbourhood, in your neighbourhood, in your neigh-bour-hoo-ood”

On the infrequent weekends that I am at home, my greatest pleasure is my Saturday morning wander. I’m happy for this to become my second greatest pleasure if the Butcher ever comes good on his salacious winks, but I will get to him in a moment. The day starts with about two hours spent in the lifting darkness reading the papers, reading blogs, watching videos, generally reminding myself that there is a world out there beyond the tip of my own nose… even if I experience it mostly in pixel rather than in person.

After I have managed to paint on the face that I washed way with Pouilly Fumé the night before, and wrapped something clean around my modesty, I head out into the wide world and I fais mes courses.    

As I wander down my local high street, the Rue des Abbesses, I wave hello to the same people at certain points along the narrow way. I feel like a little bit of a Rockstar as they wave hello, or on occasional, more intimate instances, kiss me on the cheeks. It’s always the same handful of people; they know me for the big hair and red shoes but most especially for the invisible Australian Flag that flutters above my head as I walk. I know them for the little pieces of sunshine they bring to my life, or at the very least for their contribution to my rounded tummy and wobbly thighs.

During this hebdomadal promenade, I am reminded that despite living in Paris, France’s largest city and Europe’s second, I am known, I am at home, I am safe. The faces are familiar, the repeated rhythm of my steps is comforting and the world is rendered a little less chaotic, a little less cold, a little less unbearable.

So here they are… the people in my neighbourhood.

 

Samir..working hard

 

First up, just as I pass by the Place des Abbesses and the metro station that spews hundreds of inert tourists proffering maps onto the little remaining open space, are the Tunisian brothers who own Au Verger des Abbesses. 

Samir and his brother and Tariq their cousin and the multitude of sons that work there during holidays when they are not studying somewhere, else are the second most famous greengrocers in Abbesses; the first being the fictional pair that featured in Amelie ^. Their family know mine intimately. They ask after my mother and my sister, whom they got to know during their stays in Paris, in fact they followed the Art-sist-ologer’s pregnancy with almost as much interest as I. More recently, they ask after Sapphire and Smack, the little people they bribed with free strawberries each time I went there to buy “kids bananas”.

 

Tariq..filling up my caddy for another week.

 

They’ve taught me what grows when, what it is called in french, which apples are crunchiest and why French people prefer clementines to mandarines (no seeds). They correct me if I get the LE or LA wrong on a vegetable, they show me photos of Tunis and I show them photos of Sydney. They almost always give me a free bunch of parsley and they drive the most interesting truck you ever did see.

I had noticed, but never bothered to ask why, that every single fruit truck in Paris is daubed with a mural graffiti. The Smartarse, curiouser and curuouser than I, had me ask them why. Rungis, the massive central market in Southern Paris from whence all fresh produce is sent out into France is full of trucks every morning from 3am. Robbed of safe places to paint and practice their craft, the street artists of Paris took to the enormous carparks of Rungis guaranteeing themselves an endless supply of fresh canvases and the cover of early morning darkness for safety.

 

The Truck.

 

Next door to Samir is Marie, the cheese shop (let’s call her my dealer) who has only just opened and next to her is the Chemist.

I don’t know their names, but they are husband and wife. They know me well; they remember me with a leg coated in plaster and a feeble aluminium crutch holding me upright. They taught me how to job a syringe full of blood thinner into my upper thigh. They remember me buying illicit substances in bulk to send home to Australia. They remember measuring the alien foot for my sexy support socks. They remember absolutely every detail of my medical history since I landed in Montmartre. 

A particularly special moment was when she asked me ‘how I was going’ after handing over a fresh box of drugs that keep me sane. I hesitated to say, ‘I’m fine, I just take anti-anxiety pills because being interrogated by strangers makes me anxious’. Even so, given they actually take an interest in my health, I count on them to keep me healthy more than the Hannibal-esque misogynist of a GP I am obliged to visit next door.

 

The Chemist..I would love to know why there are no green crosses in Australia.

 

After the Chemist I wave across the road to Stephane, Murielle, Lucie and Vincent, the hairdressers at Profession Coiffeur. They are the lovely, if over-theatrical, crowd to whom I have entrusted the maintenance and care of the Kate Bush that sprouts from my scalp. They are directly across the road from the Greek Guy who sells me hummus and semi-dried tomatoes, a Greek Guy who is always shocked that I say hello and thank you in Greek, a Greek Guy who gets my money each week because it is impossible to find pita bread or haloumi in a generic supermarket. Pita bread is, you see, exotic.

A couple of shops down from the Greek God of chickpeas is the home of my most entertaining purchase of the week, Boucherie Jacky Gaudin. Jacky and his band of Merry Men are widely believed to be the best butchers in the quartier.

 

Veal Brains, Rabbit thigh and Lamb Kidney..but wait! There's more!

 

Filled with naked contortionist birds#, the street-facing window appears to be a funeral home for poultry (their still-attached heads bent around plump breasts in supplication). While the queue to be served wends its way beyond a standing rotisserie oven that is home to even more dead, if slightly warmer, rotating birds. Entering via the glass front door, passing the passport posted on the wall that details the provenance of all the different dead things, is the interior display case. 

If the outside has all the horror of Freddy Krueger’s tribute to chicken, the inside is the Evil Dead of offal. Little brown kidneys, tubs of bloodied brains and a giant slab of veal liver vie for poll position with the traditional logs of loin. There are dried sausages dangling from the ceiling along with giant metal plates awarded to Jacky in honour of his ability to kill and then dissect a five-star joint of carnage. They laugh at my ever-wider eyes as they carve up something’s right leg in front of me, you would think I had become accustomed to it. But just last week, they offered me a glass of water as I nearly passed out in shock at a gutless, skinless lamb that just caught my eye as it was cradled in the strong arms of Guillaume.

 

Guillaume..and something's entrails

 

Aaah, Guillaume.

Guillaume is a rather strapping example of manlinees who with his father, Guy, might be the only people in Abbesses who follow Rugby…not counting me. Each week, I am subjected to jibes and jokes at the expense of the land I love simply because we lost…again. Each week they offer to sell me Wallaby, usually followed up by some comment about how they’d be better barbecued than trying to catch a ball. Each week they make fun of me for not being able to say magret properly. Each week I watch Guillaume flinging his giant butcher’s knife around in front of his carefully tied apron and wonder what giant things the apron hides from view. Each week I wonder what it might be like if he trussed, tenderised and spatchcocked me rather than the pale yellow bird on the bench.

 

 

Guy... behind a trellis of phallus

 

Essentially, despite the fear of seeing an actual lamb actually sacrificed in my honour, I still go to the butcher so I can stare into Guillaume’s big brown eyes while he debones my duck.

Should the opportunity to get roulade with Guillaume ever present itself, I would pay a pre-purchased visit to Laura, the Baker’s daughter, to whom I pay very large amounts of money to pour hot wax over my nether regions… but never after noon.

My Saturday lunchtime’s are sacrosanct.

 

The view above my table at Le Miroir ... marginally less nauseating than the Butcher

 

Regular visitors to my life on these pages, or even to my actual life, are familiar with Le Miroir. There have been some changes over the last year, some for the worse and some for the better. The food is still exceptional, the service is getting back to where it was and each week I entrust my digestive tract to the dynamice duo, Sebastien Squared.

Seb, the one who cooks, is spending increasing amounts of time on the floor, so I’ve gotten to know him a lot better. He is trying very hard to set me up with someone who’ll cook for me. He recently invited me to the party for the birth of his daughter. Seb, the one who gives me wine, is the new guy out on the tiles. His enthusiasm for art and design are matched only by his enthusiasm for a hairdo that is bigger than mine.

Like a dimly lit independent play, this little drama unfolds in a space only 5 blocks from my door. It features a small cast of reliable performers. Like Much Ado, I know the story inside and out, but I will pay to see it over and over again. I happily hand over the fruits of my fruity labour for the opportunity to smile, the opportunity to be entertained and the certainty that I will be delighted.

 

 

Something delicious with Scallops.

 

* In related news, I could write another War and Peace pledging my love for The Muppets and hence my manic obsession with Jason Segel, especially 4.26 minutes into Forgetting Sarah Marshall…

^ It is a real greengrocer!

# The human variety is just down the hill at Pigalle

Switch – Will Smith 2005

•  How long have you lived in France?
•  6 years
•  Wow, your French is amazing?
•  Yes, I lived here when I was sixteen. I went to high school for a year. I lived with a French family and I placed second in French that year at school… even though I’m Australian# 

 

If I had a euro for every time I’ve answered that question in the 2190 days, give or take a month, that I’ve lived in Paris, I’d be richer than Spain. Actually, I am already richer than Spain; I just don’t own as much sunshine…or a tan…or Javier Bardem.

I lived in France when I was a sixteen because I was an Exchange Student.

I was an exchange student back in the days before Internet, before Dubya Bush but when women had bushes, before online dating and Big Brother. I left sunny Sydney and her drought wrought plains for the fields of gold (-en corn) in South West France to spend a year with the Belloncles.

My other sister.. Ben Herself

 

The Belloncles taught me to eat radishes with salted butter, they showed me how to pick girolles, delicious buttery mushrooms, in the damp forests of the Pyrenees and Papa taught me a skill I might have been better off without, oenology, the art of consuming wine. A mother, a father, an older brother and a younger sister*, I was re-birthed as a Béarnaise Belloncle for a whole year. In 1992, without text messages, email or Facebook, (Disneyland Paris was still EuroDisney!) I couldn’t communicate with a single soul down south other than by writing letters. I wrote every week, with a pen and paper, not a keyboard, sharing the stories of my storied life with my other family, and they would reply. It would take two weeks for them to receive a letter; I wrote on tissue thin paper to minimise the cost of postage.

Today, I speak to them almost every day…on video…via text…posting on Facebook or just ringing them on my Smartphone. All of which, like legalising gay marriage, were impossible in 1992.

Being an exchange student implies that someone switched places with me, that an adolescent French girl went to live in Sydney in my stead. Well my suburban Sydney family went one (four) better than that.

I came to France thanks to the financial precariousness of my parents and hefty selection process of the global organisation AFS. AFS organise cultural exchange programmes across the world for high school students. Learning a new language, the language I speak everyday in 2013, is only a very small part of what I gained from twelve months à l’étranger.

The year I left, we welcomed a boy from Aarau, known in our house as Jesus Christ Superstar from Switzerland. We blessed him with a holy name in part because Motherbear deemed him perfect, in part because he was much better behaved than us, her biological children, but mainly because his kind and open nature saved us… even if for only for twelve months. So Jesus Christ, the real one, the singing one or the Swiss one, became the superstar of our suburban Zeitgeist.

JCSfS was a year older than us and liked to eat bread. Knowing only our suburban Sydney existence, bread was something that you toasted at breakfast and pasted with Vegemite, it was not a condiment laid on the table at dinner like salt or pepper. JCSfS taught us that Europeans ate bread without butter; he also taught us to eat a meal around a table in the evening as a family and not spread among the Jason recliners as the individuals we were. JCSfS, in keeping with his nickname returned home to the Alps and an icy North Star in time for Christmas.

JCSfs marries his Mary

 

In the years since, he, and his parents, have welcomed many of my family to their frozen front door. I went to visit them when I was living in France and learned how (not) to ski. Most recently, he joined us in Paris last month during The Smartarse’s visit. The two surrogate brothers hadn’t seen each other for 15 years but they talked non-stop for two days as though no time had passed at all. 

Back to 1993, after JCSfS had gone home, sometime in the early Australian winter, I returned from France just as my cousin, The Panther, was herself heading North for a year in the snow of Zurich. Exchange-student-ism is contagious in our family.

That winter I returned to the only home I had ever known to discover that Motherbear had purchased a new washing machine I didn’t know how to operate and learned I was sharing a bedroom with a Thai girl. The former made me cry more than the latter.

Nada from Bangkok lived with us for a year. Her legacy was teaching us how to cook fuck and prick – don’t be juvenile, that is chilli and lettuce in her language! She now lives with her two children and her husband back in Bangkok.

The following year, after Nada had gone home for Christmas and the Art-sist-ologer had packed her bags, bags that would be stolen before she even arrived, for Sweden, Simon came to live with us.

Simon spoke French, but he wasn’t French. He was from Quebec. I couldn’t bear the notion that there was someone living in my house that spoke better French than I...and he had much better hair. He brought a culture of heavy metal music that was much appreciated by the Smartarse and an avid love for the Simpsons that was much appreciated by us all. Today, he lives in Quebec City and works at a radio station. He is living the dream…a dream that makes me just a little bit more jealous. He got the hair, the language and the job!

The Art-sist-ologer landed just after the beautiful blue-eyed blonde-haloed American from Green Bay, Wisconsin…BaaahhhB. Bob played guitar, he knew the words to almost every Beatles song: my father had another son. Today, he is still an incredibly talented musician who has made music his life and lives in New York. Further confounding the toing and froing of foreigners connected only by a year abroad with AFS, Bob and his family welcomed my French sister at their home in Wisconsin some years after his stay in Sydney.

The same year that we lived with Bob, the Panther’s younger sister, Giggles, was somewhere in Germany, her family had a boy from the Czech republic in their spare room in St Clair but even so, the geographically gluttonous coming and going of youths from near and far would come to an end that year.

Beyond those that came or went within my own family, there are those that we met along the way. The exchange community lends itself to fleeting relationships, some longer lasting than others, some more physically intimate than others, all rendered longer lasting after so very many years by modern technology and social media.

A beautiful Norwegian who photo-bombed my disposable Kodak camera with a picture of his genitalia hidden inside a tube sock à la Red Hot Chilli Peppers who lives today in Trondheim with his own family. During a short stay one winter Bernt’s family showed the Art-sist-ologer and I how they smoke salmon, in their own home and also how to slide down an Olympic ski jump on your bum, your cheeks shielded only with a plastic supermarket shopping bag.

The Academic baptises her son

 

The Academic, an American who lived in France the same year as I, who now lives a dozen metro stops from me in Paris. She who taught me the future-conditional and who today, teaches students far more willing than I at the New York University of Paris when she isn’t caring for her two children.

There are the Nobels, The Art-sist-ologer’s Swedish family who have welcomed me for two Christmases as one of their own. A family so doted with sons, they are happy to ring in a daughter. Albeit a very loud one who does not speak Swedish but does bring wine and foie gras along with her endless stream of words…not at all prize-winning.

Le Pere Nobel..no flatpack required..

 

Being an exchange student is not something that happens to you just once, for twelve months. It is an experience that stays with you for life. The family and friends that I have earned, despite the humiliation of repeating a year at my own posh private school when I returned in 1993, has afforded me the strength of character to withstand all that this life has flung upon me since.

I know I’m not starving, I’m not destitute and I’m in comparably good health. But I did watch as my father breathed his last, I watched as everyone I knew coupled and procreated. I wander and wonder, with a modicum of fear, but with a healthy dose of curiosity and a desire to learn and understand what it is like to be from somewhere else.

Going so far away at such a young age, being cut off from everything I knew, and didn’t know, has doted me with a love for others that I don’t even have for myself. I only wish I knew that Italian boy who fronted up to my school assembly in 1991.

 

•  Mum, I want to go and live in France
•  Why?
•  Because an Italian exchange student spoke at school today and I want to do what he did.
• Ok, let me call the bank…

 

Thank you Motherbear

 

 

 

 

 

 

#I’ll admit that I do love to talk myself up…at any given opportunity…hence the blog

*and a middle brother my age who was in the US that same year