My Pant's

Gosh, only five days since I last updated? What is the world coming to?

There was a serious amount of heat this weekend - looks like summer has finally decided to stay. I mean, it's always possible it'll go again, but the temperature hasn't dipped below 15 degrees in the daytime for a while now, so I'm keeping my hopes up. Saturday it rose to the giddy heights of 27 degrees, so Katherine and I put on our short shorts and retired to the Bois de Boulogne for a wonderful hour of people watching. We saw:

2 guys playing ukuleles

Many topless old guys

A dad racing his son on a tiny tiny scooter

A kid on a bike smoothing back his hair

Many, many fashion mistakes.

Very productive.

After that, I rushed back home to get my tickets for Eddie Izzard, only to find out on my way back (already running late) that I hadn't even needed to go get them. So annoying. Consequently, I missed the first fifteen minutes and nearly wasn't let in to the show, but I looked so upset they let me in! Well, the show was excellent; entirely in French and I understood it all (though his accent is super easy to understand). It was only an hour long, so I only saw 45 minutes, but then Dani and I stood outside for about half an hour to wait for him to leave so we could meet him... and we did! It was so exciting. We got his autograph and a picture with him and then we shook his hand. I also confirmed that he is planning to run for London Mayor in 2020, which is pretty cool!

After that, Katherine came and met us and we hung out by a fountain in Pigalle and did some more people watching. Seriously, Paris is the place to go for such activities. We saw some tiny hipster kids that were super unnerving - how were they so small and yet so hipster?

Le prochain jour, Dani and I decided to go for an amble around gay Paree; our default activity on the weekend. I hate museums (as I have the attention span of a flea) and there is almost nothing else to do in Paris besides walk around or shop. Since neither of us are particularly inclined towards spending money at the moment, we walked around.

Currently, we are eschewing the metro as our default mode of intermediary transport in favour of the bus. As previously mentioned, the weather has picked up somewhat recently, so getting on the stifling metro is not exactly an appealing idea. Buses, on the other hand, are airier and due to Paris's abundance of monuments, tend to take you via at least three well known tourist spots regardless of your starting point and destination. Generally just more appealing. The one I took to go and meet Dani did not disappoint, taking me via the Eiffel Tower, Tour Montparnasse and depositing me at Jardin du Luxembourg, where I met Dani by a guy playing an accordian.

We strolled through the Jardin, through the Latin Quarter, across the river, past the Louvre, past Place des Victoires (where a segment of Paris, Je T'aime is filmed) and then through the 2eme arrondissement, chatting about this and that. It was lovely.

Happy members of the EU.

We also saw many amusing things, a selection of which I have provided for you below.

St. Traffic Cones.

His hoes are super jealous of his balloon

This means 'the postman hasn't come'.

We have seen a lot of hilariously named shops in Paris. Herein follows a list of the ones I can remember:

Gladys (Pet Shop)

Homies (Slightly bohemian Clothes Store)

Homeyz (Ghetto/Pimpin' Furniture Store)

My Pant's (Clothes Store)

I Love My Blender (Stationery?)

Sky Kevin (Clothes)

There are many more. The Asian stores near Dani are particularly forthcoming with excellent names. I shall make a list and put it on my flickr because goddammit, I signed up for it and may as well use it.

In other news, today I discovered this genius and then showed it to the kids who loved it. These kids are gonna be so cool. I even got a video of smallest child dancing to it, which deserves to be immortalised on the internet so I can show him when he's older.

April

Whoops, I completely forgot to post in April. I nearly remembered but I was at work at the time and I always feel bad doing anything productive while I'm busy procrastinating on someone else's time. It is okay to watch tv programmes - working my way through the entire seven series of House while the ironing pile mounts to a height taller than me is perfectly acceptable - or to spend hours at a time reading textsfromlastnight.com, but it is not okay to actually do anything that might be construed as slightly productive. I am actually writing this at work, so that has clearly gone out the window, but the children are watching tv and ignoring me, so I don't really have anything else to do. Not my fault, in summary. And I am doing something productive by just being here and making sure they don't have access to scissors/flamethrowers/acid or anything else. Really, I am an exemplary employee.

Since writing the above paragraph, lunch has happened and I am waiting for the three year old to finish his goddamned icecream (he's been eating it for nearly half an hour) so I can put him to bed. Eldest child is doing her homework, which she enjoys doing because she's researching on the internet and she enjoys doing anything where she's staring at a screen. Middle child is probably sulking, because that seems to be her default emotion at the moment.

So, what happened in April?

Well, I got into Sheffield University to do a Masters in Speech Therapy. I wrote about going there in March, and had pretty much lost hope before I got an e-mail a couple of weeks ago informing me that I had been offered a place. I nearly hyperventilated. My mum did hyperventilate. My dad, who was listening to my mum, assumed I had died.

Everyone keeps asking me if I'm excited and... I mean, I know I should be? But I'm not. I've been trying to rationalise it, but I have no idea why I literally feel nothing about it. I'm not dreading it - my overall thoughts about it are positive but I just don't feel anything active towards the idea of spending two years in England. I suppose I should just be pleased that I don't want to cry every time I think about it because I don't want to leave Paris.

I went back to England for a week in early April as Katie, of Peru fame, had returned from gallivanting around the world for a month. She was bringing her Kiwi boyfriend with her who I was dying to meet, but right up until the last moment, I wasn't even sure I would be allowed time off while she was in the right hemisphere. Originally I had been informed that we were going skiing and then down to Bordeaux over the Easter holidays but two days before Katie returned to the homestead I was told that, due to there not being enough snow on the mountains, we weren't going skiing. Instead, the family was going down to Biarritz and while I was welcome to come, I was under no obligation to.

Well, I booked my tickets back home tout de suite and arrived back mid afternoon on the 9th April, where I spent a delightful 10 days swanning about in Hertfordshire and surrounding areas. I saw my parents, which was nice, if slightly unnecessary since they were coming to visit me in Paris a week later anyway. I went into London to visit my cousin, and we ate at a delicious tapas place in Covent Garden, and then went for a walk along the river. It is always weird seeing a skyline without the Eiffel Tower poking out from behind a building. I'm going to miss it. I shall have to stick pictures of it in obscure places around my room to make myself feel better. I also went up to Cambridge to see my grandma for dinner, which was really nice, though the food was kind of bland.

I also, of course, saw Katie and Tom. Tom is lovely and had an amazing accent, Katie is still lovely and disgustingly tanned. We went out a couple of nights in Hitchin, which of course filled me with glee because I love Hitchin, it's my favourite place in the world... Nah, I did enjoy it really, but largely because I was with Katie and she makes me happy enough to enjoy spending evenings in a pub with people who live in Hertfordshire. *shudder* I can't believe I don't know when I next might see her! Then she and I spent the entire day before I left together and wandered round Hitchin eating sandwiches and chatting about life.

The church in Hitchin

The Royal Wedding occurred on the 29th (as everyone who reads this blog is fully aware, as you are all English). I watched it at work, as part of my 'do not do anything productive' plan, and spent the whole time talking to Dani on skype. Sample part of the conversation:

Kate: HATS

Dani: SO MANY HATTTSSSSS

Dani: FASCINATOR!

Kate: BEAAAARDDD

Dani: QUEEN! YELLOW IS SO GOOD.

We descended a few levels mentally whilst watching it, I think.

That evening, we all met up in a Scottish pub which was showing the highlights and Katherine and I spent a lot of time being excited about it together. Who knew I cared so much?? The next day our friend Claire had her birthday party which was 'Best of British' themed, so I bought an English flag from WH Smiths and Katherine and I drew Union Jacks on our hands. Actually, we also drew an English and Scottish flag to represent our separate nationalities...except Katherine forgot what the Scottish flag looked like and I doubt I ever knew, so we drew that wrong. She is ashamed. Here is a photo to immortalise that shame on the internet forever:

The horror. The treason.

Why yes that is the Moulin Rouge. We were just passing as, you know, we live there, and it's totally passé now because we see it all the time....

[I suspect my grin and thumbs up may be slightly undermining my attempt at casualness.]

I think that's everything of significance? I am definitely going to start updating this more regularly. I'm sure I'm interesting enough to merit more than two posts in as many months. Also, I need to start documenting my time here so that when I leave and inevitably forget everything within a week, I will have some place I can come back to and remember it all.