2005 September « petite anglaise

September 18, 2005

tired and emotional

Filed under: good time girl — petiteanglaise @ 9:51 pm

A mobile phone rang in someone’s pocket. The owner glanced at it and looked up with a sheepish, apologetic grin. “It’s sitemeter. Sorry, I’d better to take this,” he mumbled, before turning his back on us momentarily so he could talk about Very Important Things in private.

The kind of banter one would only expect to hear at a blog meet.

The regular patrons of the Champion pub in Notting Hill Gate may well have wondered which planet this strange assortment of nervous looking people were from, when they started sidling in, one by one, on Saturday afternoon, often with a copy of the Guardian tucked under an arm. A private handshake of sorts.

As for yours truly, I did cheat by meeting a couple of people at a secret location beforehand, so as not to arrive alone, but after a couple of glasses of wine on an empty stomach, my butterflies were stilled and I mostly flitted around the pub repeating “I’m just so excited! There are so many people here I was dying to meet!” like a broken record to anyone who would listen.

But I was excited. Because without exception, everyone I talked to was lovely. It felt more like a reunion between old friends who hadn’t caught up in a while than a meeting of strangers. Because we Know Things about one another. More about some more than about others, admittedly, but their voices seemed familiar. They talked like they wrote, or sounded just as I expected them to sound. I asked after their building work or other half as if we’d met many times before. People asked me quite personal things (usually prefaced with “Stop me if this is too personal, but”) and I replied, honestly, because it felt perfectly normal to do so.

One person had a very exciting device and he let me hold it. Others plied me with alcohol (and if I forgot to reciprocate, please excuse me!) and potato wedg(i)es. I resisted the urge to throw a pair of (clean) undergarments at That Man From Norfolk.

I’d love to do it again. On the condition that a few other people I really, really, really, really want to meet come along too…

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September 16, 2005

cornflakes

Filed under: city of light — petiteanglaise @ 3:38 pm

Autumn has arrived in Paris. The trees which line our avenue, partially obscuring the view from our fifth floor balcony when fully clothed, are beginning to shed their large golden brown leaves, making it more of a challenge to steer the pushchair clear of any déjections canines which may be lurking beneath.

I am slightly embarrassed not to be able to say what type of trees they are, but as I have mislaid my childhood “Spotters’ Guide to Trees”, I’m at a bit of a loss.

Tadpole insists on walking through the leaves, listening to the crackle they make beneath her Startrite shoes, pronouncing them to be “crispy, jus’ like cornflakes!”

It won’t be long before an army of little green men bring out the heavy artillery of leaf blowing/hoovering contraptions, working around the clock to clear the pavements. Men with futuristic looking machines on their backs, powering leaf blowers which blast the debris violently into the gutter. (Tadpole doesn’t like the noise these make, and shrieks, eyes like saucers: “regarde! it’s a big hairdryer mummy!” Hairdryers are Very Scary Things. Apparently.) There are green hoover trucks which drive up and down the roads, sucking up the blown leaves from the gutter with a huge serrated tube. In parallel, more traditional, labour-intensive methods are used involving sweeping brushes and huge green plastic bags.

In the mornings, on our run to the childminder’s house, it feels rather like an obstacle course negotiating the blowers and the sweepers, in addition to the usual pavement power washers and the sprinklers set up in the park, so that they slowly rotate and catch passing pedestrians unawares.

With all this frenetic, noisy activity going on, much of it at dawn, when it really would be nice if it were quiet enough to get some more beauty sleep, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the pavements might actually be clean.

Sadly, the little green men are no match for the combined forces of the Parisian pigeons, dogs with scoopless owners and cigarette butt tossers.

Living in Paris is a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it.

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September 13, 2005

cherry lips

Filed under: Tadpole rearing — petiteanglaise @ 8:02 pm

My birthday weekend was a resounding success.

In spite of the fact that we had to take a late train to Rennes, after a day on which I would rather not have been at work, with a Tadpole who was visibly wilting more every second and had lost what little grasp of logic and reason she normally possesses, but who was hell bent on fighting the urge to sleep. Suffice to say that there were moments where complimentary earplugs would have been welcome. For everyone in the carriage.

In spite of the fact that Tadpole swallowed several cherry tomatoes without first biting or chewing, which resulted in her thoughtfully redecorating my Lover’s apartment (with special attention paid to the sofa) in warm cherry tones the following morning.

In spite of the fact that once I had left Paris, and finally began to let go of the stresses of the past week, I then spent most of the weekend in a comatose, horizontal state, unable to venture out from between my cool, white sheets for any extended period of time, lulled by the mutterings of cricket commentators in the next room (or the slightly less soothing sound of Grand Prix). Not the most dynamic weekend I have spent in recent times.

But my ipod now boasts a lovely, baby blue leather cover which fits ever so snugly. I had to amend one of my 33 things when I opened my other birthday gifts. I am also the proud owner of a very fetching pair of “I’ll never get laid in these” Miffy pyjamas.

The highlight of my weekend was being treated to a divine meal where I feasted on foie gras poêlé and magret de canard à la fleur d’oranger and other such delights.

So, on balance, this birthday girl is not complaining. (For once.)

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September 9, 2005

censored: updated

Filed under: misc — petiteanglaise @ 2:27 pm

Censorship is a terrible thing. Especially when it is self inflicted.

The subject which is preying on my mind, to the exclusion of all else, is the fraught atmosphere at work. However, I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to exercise caution about what I say.

If I won’t allow myself to write about work, then I find myself rather lost for words. Which is why I have been a little quieter this week.

But, in honour of my birthday, how about a quiz?

Which of the following statements are not true ?

a) I can speak some German, especially if you want to hold a conversation about bowel movements;
b) I have read every “Nancy Drew” detective story ever written;
c) The worst punishment I can remember as a child was not being allowed to watch “The Famous Five” on TV;
d) I own a signed Then Jericho album;
e) I hate aniseed and liquorice. And sprouts;
f) The only time I ever felt the slightest inclination to watch porn was when I was pregnant;
g) My favourite teddy bear as a child was a Peter Rabbit, made by my great grandma’s next door neighbour;
h) The sampler I made at school when I was 9 featured a BBC micro computer in cross stitch;
i) My porn star name is Pixie Eden;
j) The only time I ever trod the boards was as a Penguin in a school play at Clipstone Brook Lower School, Leighton Buzzard;
k) My favourite boss to date was a one-armed racing driver.

answers

e) is incorrect. I do hate aniseed and liquorice, however I like (brussels) sprouts.

Clarification: porn star name. This does not mean that I have a second career as an “actress”. Of the many methods used for calculating your “porn star name”, I have used the formula first pet’s name + mother’s maiden name here. Surfing on the web, I found name generators, along with a delightful quiz in which you are asked to guess which of a list of names belongs to a porn star, and which to a My Little Pony. Surprisingly difficult.

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September 5, 2005

pangs

Filed under: Tadpole rearing — petiteanglaise @ 12:48 pm

I found myself missing Tadpole this weekend.

For the first time, I spent a child-free weekend in Paris while my daughter was only a mere 200 metres down the road, at “daddy’s house”. I found myself wondering, whenever I ventured out on some errand, whether I might bump into her by chance in the street, or catch sight of Mr Frog pushing her buggy in the distance. I eyed his block of flats wistfully, and pictured her there, drawing Noddy with her felt tip pens or reading her library books.

Since Mr Frog moved out in early July, I have been away on the weekends when Tadpole was not with me, making the most of my freedom to visit my Lover in Rennes. On those rare occasions when I was in Paris, Tadpole happened to be staying with the In Laws. It is only now, with the holiday period behind us, that we will begin to adjust to the new status quo, and face up to what sharing Tadpole’s time really feels like. And whereas when I knew we were not even in the same town I was able to switch off my ‘mummy side’ altogether, knowing that she was so tantalisingly close this weekend made her absence achingly tangible.

As I lazed about in the stuffy, airless apartment on Sunday, reading a thorougly depressing novel, my mind persistently wandered. If I closed my eyes, silent, super 8-like images of Tadpole in the park with Mr Frog played across my eyelids. When the temperature finally dropped to a more bearable level, the Lover and I took a stroll through the Parc de Bercy, en route for the cinema, and my thoughts turned once more to Tadpole. I mused idly on what she would be having for her dinner, or whether she would behave herself at bath time. Was her nose still running? Did she have any new scrapes or bruises on her chubby little knees?

The most poignant reminder that Tadpole was close, yet just out of my reach, came in the supermarket on Saturday. Joining the queue, I smiled at the checkout lady, who has always made a fuss of Tadpole on our weekly visits. I can’t be sure whether I imagined her look of disapproval at seeing me doing the grocery shopping with an unknown man who is not Tadpole’s father. It was probably paranoia on my part, but I could feel the outline of a scarlet letter branded on my forehead. When my turn finally came, I felt some words of explanation might be in order, but managed to prevent myself from sharing my private life with what amounts to a friendly stranger.

As I packed away my shopping, the checkout lady remarked cheerfully that she had seen la petite puce earlier that day shopping with her daddy. Her words, however innocent, stung.

Did I feel jealousy, that Tadpole had been there without me? Or remorse, that I have divided our little family into two units, who shop apart?

I’m not sure what it was, only that I smarted as though I had been slapped in the face.

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