Grey is the New Blond

There is no McDonalds in Aix.  Nor is there a KFC, Pizza Hut, or any of the other food scourges of the world.  Of course I am not counting the McDonalds on the motorway interchange, or the several small Dominos around the suburban streets.  And there are a couple of home grown burger restaurants.  But the good burghers (ha ha, inadvertent pun) of Aix would never allow such a déclasse outlet in the Centre Ville.

But they have allowed this.

For the past few weeks I have been watching the fit out of these new premises in Les Allées d’Aix, but I must have missed the opening because when I walked past today it was full of people.

Five Guys is a fast growing American ‘quality’ burger chain with 1,500 locations (now 1,501) world wide.  It is a relatively classy fast food joint, and someone in Aix decided they should have one.  So did I go in?  You bet your life I did.  Take a look around.

Red and white, clean, full of light – everything so American, and the fries pretty good actually.  Plus little baskets that you could fill with free peanuts roasted in their shell.  A large space with dozens of youthful staff, smiling, taking and filling orders, and cleaning and clearing the tables the moment you finished.  In short, a formula we know very well, but new to Aix.

The place was packed with homesick American language students, excited French teenagers, and quite a few regular French grown-ups come to see what all the fuss was about.  The girl in the queue behind me declared to her boyfriend that she was, “so excited, she could hardly breath”.  I decided on a moyenne carton of fries, purely in the name of research.  Not bad, but hardly worth the fuss.

The truth is that there are no end of better, cheaper, tastier and more nutritious food choices everywhere you look here.  The bread and sandwiches are superb; the pre-made salads excellent; the soups, crepes, and waffles fantastic; the sushi fresh and imaginative; and the actual sit down food choices are endless.  However, traditional French food, while often very good and always flavourful, is not always healthy and can be – dare I say this? – a little stodgy.  I am not really surprised that an American style burger and fries should prove popular.  In fact, this chain, using fresh and good quality  fillings, is probably marginally less calorific and healthier than the standard French sit-down lunch.

So there.  Let the heavens rain down on me.  French food is not the be all and end all of cuisine.  And it is not always made with the love and care we are taught the French apply to food.  However, the French do apply love and care to eating.  That is the real reason there are so many great food choices here.  But you still have to take care in making those choices.  Indifferent, overpriced food is not hard to find.  I wish Five Guys here, good luck – they are off to a great start.

As a parting thought, I should add that the French are fighting a losing battle when it comes to the influence of the English speaking world. I would be willing to bet that at least half of the 35,000 students in Aix are English or American.  They stroll in groups around the streets oblivious to their surroundings, and block the aisles in the supermarket arguing over which sweet treats to buy.  They are catered to by concept stores for Nike, American Vintage, Diesel, and dozens of other US brands.  The young shop assistants in these stores all speak some English, which is often not the case in French and European brand stores.

The the biggest influence by far is entertainment.  On tv  the programmes that are not doco’s or Survival style voyeur fests, are overwhelmingly British or American.  I have to say dubbing technology has come a long way.  You would struggle to know that those familiar faces are not in fact acting in French.  Movies are in the same boat.  But the real conqueror is music.  Popular music is just simply popular music from the UK, US, Australia, Canada and even NZ.  Today I sat for 40 minutes having a pedicure, and heard not a word of French on the in-store music feed.  My technician, who speaks no English, confessed to singing in English.

Ok, enough for now.  Next time there will be more local atmosphere as the Christmas markets get going.  And it looks like I am not only going to the Netherlands for Christmas, but paying a visit to Passchendaele on the way to follow up on what I wrote previously about my grandfather.  So more of that story to come too.

A bientôt.

 

 

Ok, I have been here a month and a half now, so time for a few random observations.

Lunch is very important.  I tend not to eat lunch here.  Rising later than a working day, and getting in a yoga session first, means I breakfast late.  So in the interests of not overloading my body any more than necessary I skip lunch if I am on my own.  Not so any French person, ever, under any circumstances.  This causes me a bit of a problem sometimes if I go out between the magic hours of 12 noon and 2 pm.  There are people eating and the smell of food everywhere.  Some of the shops and the post office are closed.  I am often compelled to stop for a chocolat chaud, just to feel like a normal person since the rest of the world is so busy eating.

These are my French friends Sylvie and Christine eating lunch in Loumarin last weekend.  They had a full hot meal and dessert, after a considerable debate as to the best restaurant to sit in the sun.  The excellence of the food is a given.  We also drank a jug of the local rosé.  Sylvie repeated the exercise with me that evening.  Both are as slim as whippets, as is their friend Natalie who served us a four-course lunch the next day.  How they do it I have no idea.

The French have a sweet tooth.  My landlady left for me an arrival present of local sweets called Callisons.  Neither Jacqui or I cared for them much, but there are numerous shops in Aix dedicated to this local specialty.  They are sweet but bland, and fortunately Sylvie is a fan so she took them away with her.  I wish I could say I did not care for the patisseries here, but that would be a lie.  The pastries and cakes are superb, and they are everywhere.

People are buying and eating these sugary confections all the time.  No coffee or tea is complete without patisseries.  And chocolate.  Specialist chocolate shops abound.  Not to mention those cute little places that produce nothing but multi-coloured and flavoured macaroons.  Then there is the nougat – don’t even let me get started on the nougat shops.  Do people really eat this stuff – you bet they do.  Sugar is considered an essential food group in France, and yet very few people are fat.

Men wear mustard coloured trousers.  I have no idea why I keep noticing this, and it would be inappropriate to take a photo to illustrate the point.  But French men seem to have a thing about mustard coloured trousers.  Is this a fashion trend I have somehow missed in Auckland?  You also see, occasionally, men in those huge  loose corduroy trousers looking like they come straight out of an old film set in a French farming village.  They will also be wearing a knitted vest or pullover, a scarf and cap, and a houndstooth checked sports coat.  Very likely they will also have longish grey hair.  When you see someone dressed like this you know you are in France, but suspect you have travelled back in time a bit too.

Scarves, hats and berets.  There is no doubt that in general French women dress better than we do in NZ.  But one thing is certain.  No outfit is complete without a scarf.  Even I have taken to wearing one most of the time.

There are possibly many reasons for this, not least of which is that they are sold in the 1000s in the market for as little as 3 Euros, although you can blow anything up to 500 Euros on a designer scarf just as easily.  Another reason might be, that as warm as a day may seem at midday, out of the sun or later in the afternoon, temperatures drop rapidly.  But even on the warmest days everyone is wearing a scarf, which is really just to add that little je ne sais quois to one’s outfit.

Which might also explain how I have come to acquire both a hat (fedora style felt) and a beret, both blue and both yet to be worn in public.  I am a work in progress when it comes to hats, but come the really cold weather and I will be out there with the best of them.  Oh, and gloves of course.  French people (men and women) wear gloves.  Fortunately I brought a pair with me.

Incidentally, a nice man on a market stall gave me lessons in tying my scarf, so that was a bonus.

There are more breeds of dogs than I ever imagined.  French people have dogs regardless of whether they live in a shoe box or a mansion, and they take their dogs everywhere with them.  In fact dogs are almost as important an accessory as a scarf.  They are in the shops and restaurants, on the trains and planes, and everywhere you look.  Furthermore they come in all shapes and sizes.  There is no such thing as a ‘fashionable’ dog here.  All dogs are fashionable.  The pair below are Leonburgers, a breed previously unknown to me, and if they were to stand up they would easily take the table and everything on it with them.  The size of the man in the background is not a trick of perspective.

There are dogs promenading everywhere.  They stop to greet each other, or pass by in dignified reproach if the other dog is bigger or intimidating, or just too insignificant for their notice.  They prance and stroll and primp and preen, and seldom bother to take any notice at all of the humans on their leads.  I am entranced, and at a loss as to how dogs can have become such a problem in NZ.  Perhaps our dogs need to be taught a little French savoir faire.

Christmas is a big deal.  Unlike NZ, where stores bring out the Christmas decorations at the beginning of October, the town is just starting to gear up for Christmas.  But make no mistake, Christmas is a full on event.  The Christmas market starts in the Cours Mirabeau on Wednesday with 50 special wooden chalets, all decorated and lit for the evening market.  There are brightly coloured children’s rides of various kinds at both ends of the road, and the normal stalls have been relocated to the La Rotonde.  I am still waiting to see a municipal Christmas tree and lights, but the Council workers had made a start on Friday before they knocked off mid-afternoon (union rules here) for le weekend.

Here is a taste of what is to come.  I am thinking of buying the slightly risqué Mrs Clause outfit – what do you think?

In addition there are parades, fêtes and spectacles galore over the next couple of weeks.  I will keep you informed.

Shabby chic is a thing.  Many buildings are old but filled with grandeur.  There are huge doors, lintels, elegant windows, hidden courtyards, and delights too numerous to mention.  Where there are shops or restaurants on the street front there are the normal range of modern fit outs.  But the upper levels more often than not have dodgy spouting, crumbling plaster, rotting shutters and flaking paint.  Wooden trims are often rotting away.  And the interior in the photo below, for all that its form is gorgeous, is simply unmaintained and rotting.

The medieval buildings in the older part of town (read pre-1650) may in fact be faring slightly better due to their more solid construction.  But everywhere buildings are in use no matter what their condition, and if anyone cares it is not immediately apparent.  There are building firms that specialise in the renovation of these ancienne buildings, and I have seen them at work around and about the place.  But my suspicion is that without the help of the state or city, it is simply uneconomic to restore or even maintain these buildings that date back many 100s of years.

As a result, shabby chic is simply embraced, and even the modern buildings (anything less than 100 years old) tend to look a little dilapidated.  However the outside frequently, though not always, belies the elegant interiors.

 

 

I thought you might like to see what it looks like each day when I get around to writing.  Sometimes the glass holds cider, sometimes water, sometimes herbal tea.  But today I have an already open bottle of red wine, so why not?

You will see I am made up and wearing lipstick.  That is because I went out earlier when the sun was high in the sky and it was still warm.  I am now cosily ensconced for the evening, with a French game show on the tv in the background.  There are bits and pieces of left overs in the fridge for my dinner later.  Not glamorous, but very comfortable thank you.

So Grandma …

I would like to launch into the story of her life, but to be honest I know next to nothing.  What I will tell you later will be a pastiche made up from her stories to me, and the stories of my mother and others about her.  Because it is a story, I will fill in the gaps as I see fit.  It will, I hope, be. true to the spirit of her life if not the full facts.  

But because I am daunted, and a little frightened by the thought of taking such liberties, I will start by describing the woman I knew.

I was ten when my grandmother died of a brain tumour.  She had been ill for only a few months, but the pressure on our household was horrific.  My parents had taken in my cousin Steven, only 7 at the time, after both of his parents died suddenly within two months of each other.  And, yes, that is a story in itself, but again not mine to tell.  My sister, nine years younger than me, was a fractious baby with a chronic throat infection that had her screaming the house down in the wee small hours of every night.  

Grandma was 72, and for most of her illness no one had any idea what was wrong with her, and the doctors showed very little interest in finding out.  A strong, healthy, fit women degenerated into a helpless invalid in the course of a couple of months, and my mother was her only nurse for most of this time.  A sick baby, a sick mother, a bereft orphan, and two other children to care for.  I can still feel the desperation.  It came down to a couple of nightmarish weeks in a horrible rest home, a week or so of respite in the Mater Hospital trading on the Catholic history of the family.  Then she was gone.

So the women I knew was my current age when I was born, and I knew her as an old woman, because that is how we viewed people of that age in my childhood.  And indeed, she was old in the sense that her adventurous life was behind her.  In fact, as far as I was concerned it had never existed.

For a time, when I was very young, my grandmother looked like someone out of an old movie.  It was the 1950s after all.  Her hair was long and grey, with a darker streak through the forehead.  The mark of Cain it is sometimes called.  She wore it up in an old fashioned bun, and jammed a felt hat on top secured with a fearsome hat pin.  I was convinced she stuck the pin right into her scalp, and worried that she might do the same to me in my Sunday school bonnet.  She wore blouses buttoned to the neck, long woollen skirts, and smelt of powder and old lady.  Much of the time she was hidden in her room with the door firmly shut.  I never went in there uninvited.  It was like a different country.  But when she emerged she was always there for me.

One day she came home with a new, short layered cut.  It was like she was a different woman.  My mother took over her clothing shopping, and suddenly she had a wardrobe of light, printed Osti dresses, which were really quite ‘elderly chic’ at the time.  The hats largely disappeared.  I guess the 50s had progressed into the 60s.

But she was still my grandmother, although our family was undergoing changes too.  My father left the building company he had been working for and set up in business as a contractor.  My mother learnt to drive and got her own car.  My parents purchased an empty lot in Otahuhu and sold our house in One Tree Hill that was within spitting distance of the Onehunga they had both grown up in.  For a time, while building in Otahuhu and living in a small flat, my grandmother lived in the Far North with her only other daughter.  I suspect my mother had hopes this might become a permanent arrangement, but I held out for her return.  And, return she did.

In order to save money, we all moved into our unfinished, unlined house in the winter of 1963, and Grandma moved in with us again.  At that stage we were a family of five – my parents, me, my brother and Grandma.  The house was freezing, but otherwise large and comfortable, and the nightmares had yet to come.

I think we were all quite happy for a time.  I will try and describe my grandmother as I knew her then.  

She smoked continuously, and was the only member of the family to do so.  Pall Mall.  When she ran out she would ask me to go to the dairy at the Monument and buy her another packet.  In those days young children could stroll freely around the suburbs, and buy cigarettes without a care from any corner dairy.  I would demure on the grounds of her health, she would give me threepence to spend, and the deed was done.  Then she would lean on the kitchen bench smoking and gazing sightlessly across the creek at the green spaces of Middlemore Golf Course.  I used to wonder what thoughts she was lost in, but of course a child does not ask such questions.  A pity.

On the nights when my parents were out she would play cards and feed me Cadbury Milk Chocolate.  I remember the blocks were huge, and each little square was twice the size of what you get now.  I no longer eat it after the palm sugar episode and the shift in production out of Dunedin.  But for most of my life I was addicted to it after that early saturation.  And I still play Patience, but usually online versions now.

At other times she would sing to me the old music hall songs of her youth.  I was forbidden by my mother to sing in the house due to my total lack of ability to follow a tune, but my grandmother seemed not to mind.  I can still remember the words to so many of those corny old songs, and, as I said earlier, do the Lambeth Walk.  

During the school holidays, and on weekends when my parents were house building and section developing, we would go out.  The Easter Show, the Zoo, shopping in town or in Otahuhu.  If local we walked, although often we got a taxi home.  In those days taxis were flash cars, maintained immaculately by their owners, and I remember the clean car smell of a taxi on a wet day.  I loved those outings, but learnt not to show too much excitement on returning home.  If I was too “full of myself”, the inherent tension between my mother and grandmother would spill over into grief for me.  So many great days ended up in horrible nights.  I learnt it can be dangerous to be happy, and it has taken me a long time to unlearn that lesson.

My grandmother had some bad habits that were apparent even to me.  She had a habit of buying things, often for other people, on hire purchase.  Or putting them on lay-by.  She did not always follow through.  Her most obvious vice at that time (and in the past as I now understand) was gambling on the horses.  Not a habit she could really afford on a pension.  But every week she sat down with the racing guide and chose her horses.  Sometimes she had me choose them for her.  My preferred method was to close my eyes and stick a pin in the page.  Then off we would go, on foot, to the TAB located conveniently between the Star and Criterion Hotels in Otahuhu.  I waited outside, the bet was made, and off we went to await the race.  I don’t recall many collections, but no doubt there were some.

My mother recalls walking as a child from their home in Church St, Onehunga (the house was where DressMart now stands) to the Ellerslie Race Course, meeting her aunt and cousin, and spending the whole day there before walking home again.  My grandmother would often forget to feed her on these occasions, so it was a long hard day for a child, and not a memory she cherishes.  It cannot have pleased her that her mother continued her habit through the TAB under her own roof, and engaged me in the process as well.

But I got the best of my grandmother.  She taught me to knit, even though I was left handed and clumsy, and she was not.  She showed me love and affection at all times, not least in teaching me to bake.  Although not a great cook or housekeeper, she was a keen baker.   I baked right alongside her.  Rock cakes, short bread, madeira cake, fruit cake, and every kind of stodgy, sugary and wonderful pudding known to man.  When she became ill I took over baking duties in the household,  and kept right on baking until my own girls took over from me.  Even now, given flour, sugar, butter and eggs I can throw together a great tasting cake without a recipe in the minimum of time.  However, I don’t – because that was a habit that proved not good for me at all!

When members of the wide, and largely mysterious to me, family, came to visit, my mother and grandmother would sit and gossip for hours.  I was a great eavesdropper, and would curl up in a corner hoping I would not be noticed and sent out to play.  I was not great at going outside to play.  It was always clear to me that the family net spread wide, but I did not understand exactly how it worked as a child.  When my parents’ friends came to visit, my grandmother would turn turtle and retreat to her room.  She was not shy.  It was just that these were people she had no interest in.  Not surprisingly, this was a source of tension in the household, although I suspect if she had remained, her presence would have been an equal irritant.

So there we have her, at 70 or so, a women with a mind of her own, prone to reveries, in turns garrulous and remote, loving and distant.  And of course, I did not know her at all.  I only knew the person she chose to be to me.

 

Every day brings a little challenge.

I do not always sleep well, so this morning I got up late and have been slow getting started.  But there is plenty to do.  The cleaning lady comes today, and although we have never met, we are becoming accustomed to each others little ways.  That is to say, she and I both recognise that I am not tidy and ordered in the way she would prefer.  I leave my laptop and iPad on the table charging with cords trailing across the room, do not stack my notebooks and guide books in a perfect pile, arrange my bathroom necessities in a useful not aesthetic manner, and drape scarves and other small clothing items over the back of the very convenient chair in the bedroom.  Not only that, but I line my slippers up against the wall instead of tidily tucked under the bedside table.

All of this and more offends her sense of order.  When I come home in the evening not only does the apartment sparkle and smell divine, it is also re-arranged in such a way that I cannot find a thing.  This came to a climax last week when she tidied my yoga routine cards away so efficiently that I have yet to find them.  Luckily I remember the routines.

So I spent a good 30 minutes this morning picking up and tidying, in the hope that everything will be where I left it when I come home after my afternoon walk.  But that was not the challenge for the day.  No, the challenge for the day was my second trip to fill up the car.

Not to go anywhere in the car, you understand.  No, just to fill it up in anticipation of future use, because after my busy weekend it was almost empty – or down to 1/4 tank, which for this typical Virgo is as good as empty.   The first challenge is to actually get the car out of the garage, which fits it like a glove.  It is a new car fitted with every safety device imaginable, so it screeches continual warnings that I am about to collect the side of the garage as I back out.  It does the same thing as I manoeuvre past the cars parked in the narrow lane that leads onto the tiny one-way road at the back of my apartment block.  I am already sweating by the time I reach the intersection.

But this morning all went well.  I have, surprisingly, yet to give it so much as a scratch.  And I may say that is more than can be said for most French cars.  Drivers here slip into such tiny parking spaces and through such tight gaps, that almost all are battered, scraped and dinged in a manner that would horrify most NZers.  The owners seem not to care.  Strangely, I quite approve of that attitude.  I have always thought the car was there to protect the driver, not the driver to protect the car.

Anyway, without any drama I made it all of 500m down the road to the nearest petrol station.  Then I pumped gas – not something I ever do for myself in NZ – determinedly ignoring the sign that ordered me to pay before doing so.  If I am filling up, as my father taught me to do, how can I pre-pay without knowing how much it will cost?  As it happens it cost around 40 Euros, so clearly far from empty, and the attendant did not growl at me when I went to pay.  I was home within 10 minutes.  Result!

Such is the minutiae of the life of a middle-aged woman alone in a strange country.

Off now for a walk, and to leave the coast clear for the cleaning lady.  It is beautifully warm and sunny, but it will be freezing by the time I come home, so I need to dress appropriately.  What will I see and do?   Perhaps I will have some new photographs to post.  Perhaps I will buy something.  Strangely my anxieties and inhibitions about language and behaviour disappear completely in the retail sphere.  Perhaps I will buy some boots that do not make me slip and slide on the wet paving stones as the ones I have been wearing do.  Certainly I need to buy something for my dinner at least.

Who knows?  It does not matter.  The point is just to enjoy it.

By the way, I will get back to the Grandma story ….

And I am back …

I expected nothing from my walk today, and did not intend to add to this blog.  But in fact it was perfect.

Do you know that feeling of pure happiness you get sometimes?  Hearing a piece of music that lifts your soul;  the softness of a baby’s head nestled under your chin;  lying skin to skin with another person under a cosy cover.  Well I had two experiences of pure happiness this afternoon.

To begin with I bought a pair of the best kick arse boots you can imagine from a very posh shoe shop.  I know it was posh because I had to press the button to be allowed in, the man knelt on the floor to fit my boots, and the prices were très cher.  That made me happy, but it was not the thing that sent my spirits soaring.

The first ‘moment’ was when I had to pinch myself to believe I was sitting in an outdoor bar in the last rays of the Provencal sun drinking a dry cider, eating the free potato chips, and generally watching the world go by.  The light was golden, the air was crisp, the waiter was polite, and it occurred to me that I had nothing to do but enjoy.

Then, on the way home, there were flocks of thousands of birds (starlings? swifts?) wheeling around creating fractals in the sky above the trees on Cours Mirabeau in the dying light.  It doesn’t get much more perfect than that.

So now I am home in Cours Gambetta, glowing a little, and wondering what tomorrow will bring.

Here in Aix the sky remains clear and blue and the sun continues to shine every day.  But the temperature is dropping daily, the sun is low in the sky by 3.30 pm, and some days the Mistral blows and blows.  The ground is covered with leaves, and very soon the trees will be completely bare.  Inside is a constant warm and comfortable temperature, with furnace fired central heating and super-efficient double-glazing.  But there is a reason for all those puffer jackets, thick scarves and gloves they sell in the market.

It has been a few days since I have sat down to write. I spent the weekend with my friend Sylvie, who drove 4 1/2 hours to visit me from Agen in the south west of France between Bordeaux and Toulouse.  I will tell you what we did, but it is also time to reflect a little on how I am getting on here.  Le weekend first.

Sylvie arrived late on Friday night, and I had been fretting about where she would park.  No worry.  With typical French insouciance Sylvie found the one empty park in the street a little up the road from me, and proceeded to ignore the parking limitation and fee for the entire weekend.  The car never moved for the duration, and fortunately no one came and towed it away or ticketed it.  No doubt if it was me I would have been towed within 5 minutes.

My car is very snugly housed in a garage at the back of my apartment block, and generally I prefer that it stays there.  But it is a brand new car with SatNav and all mod cons, so I happily handed it over to Sylvie to drive for our weekend adventures.  Her friend Christine, who lives 15 minutes out of town at Les Milles, joined us and we set out to explore Le Luberon.  This is the region of Provence made famous by the Peter Mayle books, and it is, for want of a better term, mountainous.

Except that they are not really mountains.  Rather big limestone formations that rise above the plains below, and provide the anchor for some spectacular villages anchored into the top of what are really huge rock formations.  Take a look at the view below from one of those villages, Gordes.

We had lunch in Loumarin, checked out the quaint shops, then drove the pretty winding roads of the region through the most breath-taking villages, ending up in Gordes for late afternoon hot chocolate. The only problem for me was that I had given over the passenger seat to Christine in recognition of her special guest status.  Because she does not speak English it seemed unfair to separate her from Sylvie.  But I suffer from motion sickness, so I did not appreciate the drive as much as I might have.  However, I did enjoy each and every one of our stops.

The trip home was interesting.  It gets dark early, and there are no direct routes through Le Luberon, so we were totally reliant on the SatNav.  Now the lady on the SatNav is remarkably tolerant and patient, as well as being unerringly accurate no matter what is happening on the road.  She will even tell you how to negotiate the supermarket and airport carparks.  That is how good she is.  BUT, the driver is only human and not error proof.  We do not always listen closely enough, and our brains do not always compute when there are multiple stimuli.

Which is to say, I have made a few mistakes.  So did my friend Martin when he drove, having declared himself an experienced European driver.  When you go wrong, the SatNav lady goes quiet for a moment or two, takes a big breath, recalculates, and then gently directs you back to where you were supposed to be in the first place.  But I assumed my French friends would be immune to error.  Not so.  They sat together arguing over the instructions, disbelieving the advice, and took as many wrong turns as anyone else.  Furthermore, when we got off the autoroute in Aix, Christine decided her local knowledge trumped that of the SatNav lady.  As a result we took a route to my place at least three times as long as the way I normally go when I stick strictly to instructions.  All good fun, but a long day.

On Sunday we went to Marseille to visit another of Sylvie’s friends, Natalie.  I was excited, because it meant going to the home of an actual French person, which I had yet to do on this trip – or indeed since I first met Sylvie in Agen on my trip to France 15 years ago.  You may know Marseille has a mixed reputation.  Sylvie used to live there and loves the city.  But even so, she made sure our hand bags were safely in the front with us, and not sitting on the back seat in danger of being snatched.  I had spent a rather troubled New Years Eve there six years ago, so I have mixed feelings about the place.  Certainly parts of the inner city and suburbs are unattractive, and there is an air of seediness about the place.

However the Vieux Port and the Corniche are magnificent, and Sylvie took me to some coastal suburbs that were absolutely gorgeous. There are also many modern public buildings of considerable architectural stature, not to mention a massive new football stadium that inspired the plot of the tv series ‘Marseille’, starring Gerard Depardieu as the only slightly corrupt Mayor.  I had not realised how close to reality the plot was until I was reminded of the programme when Natalie’s boyfriend got very hot under the collar talking about the unnecessary cost of the new stadium.  But before we went to lunch we took a turn along the magnificent Corniche – the Tamaki Drive of Marseille if you like.

In the above photo you can see some of the many rocky islands in the harbour, and the Chateau d’If, where the Count of Montecristo was imprisoned in the book by Alexandre Dumas.

There are certainly more apartment dwellers than house owners in Marseille, but Natalie lives in a  modern house with a garden back and front, and a small swimming pool.  Like all houses in Provence, you could not have told it was modern at first glance, because like every other building it is plastered on the exterior, painted a colour somewhere between a light pink and light orange, and has actual terracotta tiles on the roof (compulsory by law in Marseille).  Also, like all private houses, it is surrounded by a high wall, solid iron gate, and big trees.  Oh, and with a dog to guard it all, although Yoda actually took all afternoon to overcome his fear of me.

The afternoon was relaxed and very enjoyable, despite my complete inability to keep up with the conversation.  We sat in the sun for a time drinking wine and pastis (my first experience of the aniseed flavoured aperitif), and the best I could do was to grasp the subject matter of the conversation.  Once I had done that, I would carefully compose a comment of my own in French, and chuck it in whenever there was a pause.  Then they would talk to me in English for a minute or two, before the conversation would take off again in animated and rapid French.  All in all I was pretty happy with that.

Then, inside to lunch, and my first real experience of just what that means on a Sunday afternoon in France.  We had already been drinking and snacking.  Actually, the memory of that meal has just compelled me to get up and fetch myself a glass of red wine.

Anyway, we began with bread and a delicious rustic pate.  That was followed by roast chicken, potatoes and gravy.  All the while we were drinking and talking and arguing, and not in a hurry at all.  The discussion was wide ranging  and all about ideas.  Politics, nature versus nurture in relation to dogs (there were two dogs as part of the gathering), the requirements for public places, local government, unemployment and homelessness, and the local psychological services (Natalie’s daughter is a psychologist).  There was disagreement, shouting and robust debate.  Every so often someone would take their frustrations outside and have a cigarette.

At one stage, after quite a hiatus, I assumed we had finished eating and made to clear the dishes.  Not so, I was admonished.  The cheese course came out, and I was instructed to drink more wine because French people cannot eat cheese without wine.  Très bien.  I complied.  Some time later a home-made tarte tartin was produced and consumed.  Finally I was allowed to stop drinking wine and it was time for coffee.  The afternoon was well and truly finished before the lunch ended, but the problems of the world had been thoroughly addressed, if not solved.

It was, for me, highly enjoyable and relaxing.  It is surprising how little it matters that you don’t know exactly what is being said, as long as you have an idea what is being talked about.  Certainly the views of individuals are no mystery as long as you are alert to the verbal and tonal clues.  But, of course, I ought to be working harder on my language skills.

So that was my weekend.  How am I getting on otherwise?  Well, not too badly I think.

I have a loose routine.  My day starts when the light wakes me up, and I decide to get up.  Not too early unless there is something in particular going on, and then a self-directed yoga session  before breakfast.  I am lucky that Johan is happy to talk to me on FaceBook every day, so I do not feel isolated.  Most days I will take a long walk into and around the Centre Ville.  On Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday there is a big market in the Cours Mirabeau, and other days I might run errands or just window shop.  Every day I try and find something new to photograph, and really it is not hard as I become more and more aware of my surroundings.

Today in the market there were signs of Christmas, with stalls selling small, exquisite figurines for Christmas tableaux.

Some days there is a particular challenge to overcome, and a new set of vocabulary to master – the beauty salon, the post office, the hairdresser, the petrol station – all already documented in this blog.  When I have to do something new, I work out in advance what I need to say and ask, and usually that is actually very helpful.  Today, for example, I wanted to buy yard for a knitting pattern I had found in a French magazine.  I am quite proud of the fact that I negotiated my way through a conversation about different yarn types, quantities and requirements all in French.  Basic, but we understood each other and my errand was a success.

Sometimes I stop for a chocolat chaud or a cidre, and sit and people watch for a while.  Then I come home and try and write for a while, although I am easily distracted.  My latest distraction is an invitation to spend Christmas in the Netherlands (Boxmeer anyone?), which involves quite a lot of planning.  It is 1100 km by road or rail, and not simple to get to by air from here either.  So much time wasting, but opportunities are there to be taken, n’est pas?

In the evenings I make calls, watch television, and knit.  As of yesterday my evening viewing improved dramatically.  My lovely landlady left detailed instructions for everything and had the TV set up to play English language stations, i.e. 1980s BBC comedies, Fox News, and US home improvement programmes, so that it was driving me insane.  But I have just figured out how to get it onto regular French tv.  I cannot fully understand it, but at least there is proper news and a variety of other programmes (many of which are from UK and dubbed in French).

I have noticed other changes over time.  Somehow the way I dress has subtly changed, so that I now get taken for a French woman at first glance.  This means shop keepers no longer trot out their best Franglais the moment I walk through the door.  That is gratifying, even if we often have to resort to it when things get complicated.  And on the street, in this very touristy area, I am getting stopped and asked for directions.  It is very flattering, and in fact I could probably help them.  But ironically they are almost always tourists from elsewhere in France, and as soon as I open my mouth they back away and look for more reliable assistance.  Very funny.

The point is, I am doing ok I think.  I have been here for over a month, most of that time by myself, and I am neither bored nor lonely.  I have more visitors to come, and a couple of trips to take.  C’est si bonne.

Another rite of passage.  Today, having been feeling increasingly unkempt for a week or so, I decided to go to the hairdresser.  Or at least to make an appointment.

For once my anxiety was not so much how to express my needs – I’m getting better at that.  Anyway, all hairdressers speak a universal language involving signs, hand movements and facial expressions.  Check it out next time you go.  No, this time my anxiety was about WHICH hairdresser to go to.

French women my age, at least those who bother at all, come in two varieties.  Either they are competing with the kids with long multi-coloured waves flowing over their shoulders, or they are coiffed to within an inch of their lives with perfect soft blow-waved bobs. Those who don’t bother have short, business-like cuts and bad dye jobs.  None of these things are appealing to me.  You have seen my hair if you read my original blog.  It is shortish, whitish and curlyish.

Having thought about it, and reaching no conclusion, I assumed there must be a good and trend conscious hair dresser somewhere in town, it was just a matter of finding them.  So I mucked about all morning, set off as late as possible, and started checking out salons.  There are plenty of them, starting with the one at the end of my street (very old fashioned, one man proprietor), and the four in Rue d’italia.

Should I go to the one that said it was part of a Paris chain and staff spoke English?  Well, I might have.  But the girls working there did not look that stylish, and they were busy.  What about the one with the super-trendy looking stylists who were all in Halloween costume last week?  They were super-busy, and all so young!  The other two looked friendly, but so suburban …

Better to head right into Centre Ville I thought, so I did.  I wandered around for an hour or so, passing dozens of salons – some too small, some too busy, some not sleek enough – all with some indefinable discouraging element.  Then I remembered I had seen a Tony & Guy somewhere, and the Auckland version of that franchise was where I met my current (home town) stylist.  I know all about the training the staff get, so figured that would be fine.  But where was it?  Google to the rescue.  It was, naturally, at the other end of town, but I plodded on till I found it.

But … it is a huge salon by Aix standards.  I peered through the window.  There was one stylist and one customer and a sea of empty seats.  I remembered it had been equally quiet the day I first passed it.  Now the one thing you do not want to do is trust your hair to a salon that no one else wants to go to.  So more aimless wandering.  I was thinking that I would just go home and have a little lie down.

To get home, as I do almost every day, I took a turn down Cours Mirabeau, still keeping my eye out for other salons.  Then I spotted her.  The woman in the mink coat, looking, from a distance, like a refugee from the Cannes film festival.  It was not really cold enough for a fur coat, and to illustrate the fact she was wearing high heeled strappy sandals, and teetering along only a little painfully I thought.  She was one of those with the multi-coloured flowing locks.    I was intrigued, and by that stage had decided to check out one last salon.

Creatoria is the biggest, fanciest, and most expensive beauty and hair salon in Aix.  It sits between two banks in the centre of the main drag, and is one of those places you hesitate to enter unless very well dressed and carrying a designer hand bag.  I was not.  But, the  woman in the mink coat disappeared through its doors, and of course I had to follow.  Some of you will not be surprised to read that.

As I entered, the mink coat, who had been conferring with the receptionist, turned to leave. OMG, she had wrinkles, lots and lots of wrinkles.  Beautifully made up, impeccably and glamorously dressed, but older than me and definitely showing it.  Oh dear, but by then I was inside, and the charming man at the door had me under his spell.

Madame wanted a hair cut and blow-dry (coupe et coiff), maintenant?, mais bien sûr.  When being charmed by an overwhelming  Frenchman, what does price matter?  And really, it was worth it!

I was seated and robed.  Two charming French men, only one of which was gay, came to undertake my “consultation”.  They ran their fingers through my hair, exclaimed over its beauty (yes, I know, but it was a very good performance), and explained that they were going to do some tests on my hair to determine what treatments it would require during the shampoo stage.  Testing bottles and instruments emerged.  The degree of sebrum on my scalp was tested – a little dry apparently.  A special shampoo and conditioner was recommended.  I was tested for signs of dandruff – none, très bien.

Then we had a discussion about style and colour.  It was agreed that no colour was required.  A personal history of my hair and styling habits was taken.  We agreed the look should remain casual, the length on top was to stay, and that some shaping and tidying up around the sides and back would be undertaken.  Then Jean-Luc lead me to the wash basin, where he personally lifted and placed my feet on a foot rest before proceeding to wash and treat my hair, massage my scalp, and promise me ‘shine’ to die for.  At one stage he got distracted by an errant hair in my brows, rushed off to get the tweezers, and gave me an impromptu eyebrow shape up.

When finished he wrapped my head up in the sort of turban you see in old movies but can never replicate. Here is a picture of Jean-Luc and I when we got to that point.

Then I was led back to my seat in front of the mirror for Jean-Luc to cut my hair, but I was not allowed to sit down.  No, precision cutting, and it really was, required that I stand so that the line of my hair would be perfect.  Then he went to work, and I have to say the cut and attention to detail was superb.  I was allowed to sit for the blow dry, which is uncharacteristically straight.  I could have stopped him, but it is kind of fun to be so groomed, and the curl will be back at the first wash.  Here is the result.

Yes, it did cost an arm and a leg.  Tip – if offered mousse or hairspray, say no – you pay extra for everything.  And of course I had to tip Jean-Luc.  But was it worth it?  You bet.  Everyone in the salon was SO NICE.  The surroundings, the care and the treatment was fabulous.  The cut was top notch. And the brow shape was free!  Conclusion – it was worth it for the experience that made me smile from the minute I arrived till the minute I left.

Now all I need is a mink coat and a pair of strappy sandals and I will be all set.

Some days I wonder why I am here?  In Aix-en-Provence I mean.  I have thought about the bigger existential question as well, but I figure greater minds than mine have yet to answer that one so I will leave it to the experts.

Anyway, my short answer is that I am here because I was disappointed in a relationship.  Yes, “Bloody Brian”.  He knows all about it, and doesn’t take that reasoning too seriously.  He is right, of course.  There is a distinction to be made between the reason for an action, and the thing that triggers it.

The thing that triggered my launching off on a little late life adventure was the unwanted (by me) end to a short, but exciting (again, for me) entanglement. The fact that the relationship was almost certainly unsuitable and doomed to failure from the start made no difference.   After living in a state wavering between happiness and misery for a year and a half, the thought of returning to a half-life propelled me to take action.

The reality is that I actually simply got on with life, and things turned out pretty well.  I had daughter Amy’s wedding to look forward to, and I proved I was not totally unloveable by fairly promptly meeting another man.  Who knows how that will turn out, but I am learning lessons late in life.

In the meantime I planned and booked my trip to France, which was something I had wanted to do for quite a long time.  I have been threatening friends, family, and work colleagues that I would sell up and simply run away for years now.  There have been lots of reasons to want to run away.  And there has always been that feeling that somehow life’s chances were slipping through my fingers.  The real reason I am here is that I want to be.  I may not enjoy every moment of every day in my exile, but I am here because I choose to be.  So thanks “Bloody Brian” (I know he reads this) for being the trigger.

Incidentally, in case you were wondering, I am not fending off Gallic men in all directions.  I am just too old, even given the reputation of the French for appreciating older women.  I am invisible to the younger men, and those my age are either short, fat and balding (most middle-aged men in France fit that description), or firmly attached to a Madame.    And for those who know the difficulties I have negotiating the wine samplers in Farros – a French accent is no longer cute when they are actually speaking French and you cannot quite understand what they are saying.

Not that I’m looking anyway!

Where was this going?  I know I had something in mind when I titled this piece.  Oh yes, back to Grandma.

William Pera Aperahama was born in 1892, and married my grandmother in 1914. I don’t know when he joined the Army, but I suspect it was not until after he married, because by the time he embarked for the European war in April 1917 he already had two sons and a daughter on the way.  He could not have been conscripted, because Maori could not be conscripted until almost the end of the War.  Instead, along with a raft of other young Maori men, he volunteered for the Maori Pioneer Battalion.

What I do know is that he looks absurdly young in the portrait photograph I have on my wall at home.  Clean shaven, with a steady gaze and very handsome, he stares out of me in his uniform with no idea what his future held.  By the end of the war his he was a sergeant, but his health had been destroyed and he was lucky to live.  I imagine, like so many others, he came home an entirely different man than when he left.  If my grandmother was looking for a different life, she certainly found it.

The Pioneers were not generally front line soldiers – although they could be when the occasion called for it.  Instead they dug trenches and drains, laid rail lines, erected wire entanglements, and buried artillery cables – often at night and close to enemy lines.  They were useful, but ultimately disposable, and just as likely to get blown to smithereens as any digger or other soldier.  

His company arrived at Devonport in England on the HMWZT Corinthic in June 1917.  They were in plenty of time to take part in the battle for Passchendael Ridge, in which there were 3700 NZ casualties in one night.  By March 1918 they were on the Somme, which is where I assume he got mustard gassed.  I would think that nine months would have altered the clear-eyed look of the young man in my photograph quite a bit, although later photos show he remained a very handsome man.

Exactly what happened to him in France remains a mystery.  At the end of the War the Battalion advanced on foot towards Germany to take part in securing the country.  As they approached the German border the English high command decided it was inappropriate to have ‘native’ soldiers controlling the German populace, and they were ordered back to the English Channel to embark for NZ.  As a result, the Maori Pioneers were the first intact battalion to return to NZ, where they received a heroes welcome.  But William Pera Aperahama is not listed among those who arrived at Auckland on the Westmoreland in April 1919.  

It seems most likely he was too ill to travel and remained in hospital in England.  It is not clear when he was returned to NZ, but I have seen a poignant postcard from my great-grandmother in Jersey in which she laments the fact that she missed the opportunity to meet “dear Billie” because she did not know he was hospitalised there.  I can only speculate as to the reasons my grandmother had not enlightened her, but suspect that she had not been entirely forthcoming about her husband’s ethnicity.  I may be wrong.  I hope so.

His eventual return did not signal a return to normality.  Whatever normality was for my grandparents, which was certainly not what anyone else would ever have recognised as normal.  He returned to spend two years in a sanatorium while his lungs recovered.  I understand that at some stage my grandmother bought him home and nursed him back to health.  From a story written by one of my mothers two older brothers, I know that she put them into care for that period, and had a job running a women’s clothing store.  The story makes it very clear the boys were not happy.

Who knows what effect the war and illness had on their relationship.  I do not know what drew them together in the first place, but I would be willing to bet it was largely their mutual exoticism and physical attraction.  Instant parenthood must have put a strain on that attraction.  But there were ties that bind.  If nothing else, my grandmother displayed compassion and her own brand of loyalty.  But when a boy was born in 1922, he did not have the same father as his older brothers and sister.  Another boy and girl would follow, to the same father.

 

Today was not a red letter day.

I went to the market and bought a hat, a scarf for a gift, and to the bookshop for a little book to complete the gift.  Then I came home, forced myself to do the yoga practice I had skipped in the morning, and wrote a greeting on the card to go with the present.  I also exchanged my sneakers for boots, and my hoodie for a coat.  I had being feeling a little scruffy compared to the French women ‘of a certain age’ who were out and about this morning.

Then I went out again.  To get some cash out of the hole in the wall, buy an avocado* and two lemons, visit La Poste to send off my gift.

I have been to La Poste before.  The skinny balding man who looks after the postal inquiries is getting to know me.  In theory I should not have to go to the counter.  There is a machine that weighs your mail, notes the destination, and gives you the correct stamps.  But as I have now explained several times (en français), the machine tells me there is no such destination as Nouvelle Zélande, or New Zealand when I try that just in case.  There is Nouvelle Caladonie, and even Nouvelle Scotia, but no New Zealand.

Today La Poste was very busy.  This was a problem because I had memorised what I had to ask for, and there was a real danger I would forget those two longish sentences if forced to wait too long.  Furthermore, as I joined the back of the queue behind a diminutive, dreadlocked young man, his little dog (breed uncertain) decided to pee all over the floor, and I had to skip aside sharply to avoid damage to my flash boots.  The young man was a little, but not too much, put out.  He first admonished his dog, then picked it up and comforted it.  To be fair it was a rather gorgeous little puppy.

Then we stood around awkwardly for a while, me standing a safe distance back, and those in front of us smiling benevolently at what was after all no more than one might expect of a little puppy.  The man behind the counter continued serving a particularly difficult customer, and the queue went nowhere.  It was clear that every single person ahead of us had a particularly difficult parcel to post, and there were many complex explanations and a lot of head shaking before any one problem got sorted.

In the meantime the queue was building up behind me.  People looked impatient but resigned.  At some stage the young man with the dog interrupted the conference at the counter – an act of amazing audacity that he clearly had to build up to – and obtained, without comment or fuss, a bucket and a mop.  The puddle of pee that I had been avoiding disappeared to be replaced by a large, slippery wet patch on the linoleum floor.  From then on he had to take it upon himself to warn every newcomer that the floor was slippery.  Since most of those coming in were around 90 not out, it was a very important warning.

We got talking.  He told me the puppy was three months old.  I said it was naughty, and smiled to show  it was a joke.  This was a conversation in French, and that is about all there was to it, although I patted the pup and got licked enthusiastically.  The problems at the counter did not get any less complex.  There was the woman trying to post a duvet that was too big to fit into the XL box produced from out the back.  There was the long cardboard tube sealed with what looked like an entire roll of brown tape that was improperly wrapped and bound to come to grief if posted like that.  There was a mysterious pile of perfectly ordinary letters that seemed to take forever to sort.  Then the man with the dog finally got to the counter, conducted his interminable business with the dog under one arm, and I was next ….

“D’accord”, announced  the man on the counter, courteously neglecting to groan at the sight of me.  Then a miracle happened.  He did not berate me for not using the machine (no one else seemed to be using it either); I did not forget what I needed to ask in French; he understood me; he gave me instructions (in French) and I understood them.  Voilà, c’est possible!

Naturally it was not all good news.  It cost me 25 Euros to post one tiny parcel, and I had to fill out two separate forms, one in triplicate and the other in quintuplicate, both containing identical and detailed information about what I was posting and why.  But once I had done that, and worked my way back to the counter with the forms, my parcel was safely on its way.  And not a word of English or even Franglais had been spoken.

It only took 40 minutes too!

So why did this rather frustrating experience leave me thinking fondly of the French.  Let me spell it out.

1. The dog was welcome in the Post Office.
2. People were amused rather than horrified and judgemental when the puppy had an accident.
3. The Post Office man took it in his stride and produced a bucket and mop without a word.
4. The dog’s owner cleaned it up without being asked.
5. The queue remained amiable against all odds.  No one raised their voices, no one scowled.  Instead they smiled and offered advice about making up parcels.
6. Comme ci, comme ça.

Today was not a red letter day.  But it was a pleasant enough day after all.

*  Before I came to France I took lessons at Alliance Français in Grey Lynn.  Our vocabulary extended to learning the nouns for both professions and fruit and vegetables.  For some reason my class-mates never got over their hilarity everytime I was forced to answer truthfully, “Je suis avocat”.  Yes, lawyer and avocado are the same word in French.  Funny ha – meh, it wears off. 

I practise yoga, practise being the operative word.  I have been doing so for over four years now.  I am not willowy and slender, more flexible and strong.  My inner swan has yet to image.  The following pictures, which are a little old now, will give you the idea.

I can do better now, but it has taken a while.

Over the years I had put on so much weight that I was seriously unhealthy.  By the time I had my knee replacement surgery the lack of sustained movement, combined with my fear of injuring the joint, meant I could not even kneel down and stand up without assistance.  My daughter, Amy’s example, had helped clean up my diet a lot, but I still ate too much.  Turns out too much of a good thing can be bad for you.

By the time I moved into the Isaac I was ready to make more changes, but I had lost little weight and was very unfit.  But one of the first things that caught my eye was the yoga studio across the lane.  Never having tried yoga before, and certainly not wanting to embark on the spiritual side of the practice (which appears to me pretty shonky when I read about it), I thought I would try a beginners’ class.  But first I rang up, described my physical condition, and was advised to have a few private lessons first.  It was the best advice I could have been given.  I hate classes anyway, and I was assigned the wonderful Jac, who has become one of my best friends.

Needless to say I have never gotten round to going to the group sessions, although now have fun with a small group of friends at the Isaac who pay for a teacher to come and instruct us in the upstairs lounge twice a week.  Jac coxed and coached and bullied and cajoled and encouraged me until I was motivated enough to do it on my own.  Muscles I never knew I had are now routinely stretched and flexed, and my brain and body have been reintroduced to each other.  Believe me, that has some very positive benefits that go well beyond physical fitness.  Whole long neglected areas of ones well-being spring back to life, and of course that sets off other challenges.  But I won’t go there just now.

Suffice to say that it eventually got through to me that following an exercise regime that utilised my own body weight would be a lot easier if my body weight was less. In the past my mantra had always been, “diet or exercise, never both together”.  Naturally this was wrong, it never did work.  So I tried both together, and proved that with a lot of hard work even a post-menopausal woman with a wrecked metabolism can lose weight.  Quite a lot of weight in fact. Enough to be able to buy clothes from normal stores again,  although not enough to be regarded as slim.  Still, a better, healthier person did eventually emerge.  And when I stopped straightening and colouring my hair … well I told you about that in my first blog.  Not exactly Marilyn Monroe, but maybe not so bad for my age.

And if I had not taken up yoga, and met a teacher as sympatico as Jac, I really think I would be on my last legs now.  Or at the very least I would be as miserable as hell.  So, yes, yoga really did save my life.

By the way, I did warn you this blog was about me, right?  Oh, and another thing.  In the course of our yoga sessions Jac and I talk, a lot.  I am just putting this out there, for those of you who know me.  There is NOTHING Jac and I do not talk about!

Anyway, I am here in Aix doing my yoga routine every morning that Jac wrote for me as a parting gift.  I posted a couple of selfies on FaceBook this morning of me stretching feet up wall (an opening stretch courtesy of the also wonderful Bobbi who teaches our Isaac group), and my daughter commented that it just looked like me getting into awkward positions in my pyjamas.  But no, really, I am working out here because I dare not return to NZ looking like a tub of lard – been there, done that.

Enough for today, except for a little observation.  There are many markets in Aix, and a big one on Saturday.  The vendors are genuine retailers with mobile sites.  The prices are pretty good, but this is not the third world, and one does not haggle and expect to get something for nothing.  Personally, I do not think one should overdo that in the third world either, but that is another story.  Today in the market I watched two American couples trying to bargain with a stall-holder with so little grace or charm that I was ashamed we shared a common language.  After demanding a ridiculously low price for the goods on sale they used the classic, “well we are walking away now”.  All at full volume, with not a bonjour, s’il vous plaît, or merci to be heard.  I literally cringed with embarrassment as the stall-holder gave a Gallic shrug and turned his back on them.  Exactly what they deserved.

I am reminded that I am in a foreign country, and it behoves me to try and respect the culture and traditions of this place.  And I do try.  I always offer a greeting in French, at least begin my conversation  in French, and never neglect to depart with a merci and au revoir.  I am not sure if my French is improving, but people generally understand what I want.  It is just that I am a bit slow on the uptake when they reply.

And on a final note …  One thing I have been missing here is music.  I cannot get Spotify or Pandora, but have just discovered Jango and been happily typing along to a background of classic  American jazz.  Love Jango, and yes, those Yanks are good at some things.