JUNE IN THE DUNES

This past weekend was a fun trip up to the northern coast to hang out at a seaside(ish) apartment in Merlimont (near Touquet)

SLOW

It's actually been a slow few days, and I must shamefully admit I have not been profiting at all from the sunshine nor life in Paris. The thing about living in such a famous city is that there's something of a self-imposed pressure to be constantly taking advantage of that fact. Especially when one makes the rash decision to blog their adventures online...

Even though I have been a hermit, there have been some daily life developments, mostly in the 'what now? department.

Without going into too much personal detail, the stress of our respective employment situations (in both the having and not having sense) has been taking a toll and we're both taking some time out to reconsider our quality of life here and whether a move to a more regional area might not be a better idea - maybe Toulouse (althought the previously mentioned job interview didn't pan out), or elsewhere.

In the meantime I'm working on my 20th reiteration of my employment 'motivation letter'...migrainus merdum, so unmotivated. Oh and I went to see Star Wars - apparently wookies are from Vietnam and Darth Vader is some kind of metaphor for George W. (if you're not with me, you're against me...)

NO TIME TOU-LOUSE

I've been waiting to use that line for ages, I must admit

Well, one weekend and a lot of kilometres later, and I can now say I've seen at least a little of southwestern France.

Leaving late on Thursday night, we drove the 700 odd kilometres down to Albi (a town just out of Toulouse where we had a free bed waiting). Arriving at around 2am, we didn't see much of the town, but opening the shutters to a hot southern sunny day, we were greeted with a very green view of the river Tarn, and more than a little jealous that this wasn't OUR daily view!

HIGH CLASS CONFECTION

At some point every couple of weeks or so, I'll find myself lost wandering nonchalantly through a posh area of Paris (no, not all areas of Paris are posh, promise), and will stumble across what I can only describe as an haute couture chocolate shop. This shrine to hedonism distinguishes itself from the normal riffraff of plain old amazing French chocolate shops by the addition of ridiculously too good to eat chocolate art.

With Easter approaching, there is already a torturous assortment of chickens, rabbits (and for some reason I can't fathom, gnomes...one chocognome I recently spotted was meant to have a chococarrot in his chocohand, except that it had sort of slipped down to his choconetheregions and he was looking pretty excited about Easter is all can say) in the window of pretty much every other patissier. Meanwhile, the High Class chocolate simply get on with their weird and wonderful creations as part of the day to day showing off, and they might chuck in the odd chicken to prove they're paying attention.

Yesterday night, while displaying my astute knowledge of the layout of inner Paris ('where the hell we NOW? And where's the putain de metro station gone?') to a visiting friend, we found ourselves (intentionally of course) on the impossibly chic Rue Saint Honore (think Cartier), I passed by the creme de la creme of all the chocolate concoctions I've seen thus far. A giant exotic bird made of dark and white chocolate with a chocolate waterfall in the background. Wonder if they've managed to scrub my nose print off the glass yet?

GO BIO

One of the things I love about food shopping in French supermarkets (or the old fashioned outside ones, when I get the chance) is the lovely choice to 'go bio' (organic) with almost all products on the shelf - particularly the important staples of rice, flour, coffee, sugar and milk. I kind of like it when my fresh produce doesn't come with a side serving of pesticides either, but you really need to go to produce markets for that.

SALAD DAYS

I really don't know what the recommended RDI for olive oil is, but I've surely passed my monthly quota in 3 days.

Despite the shuttle too-ing and fro-ing that a "cheap" low-budget airline flight involves (which becomes progressively less cheap once you tack on all the shuttle fares), plus the guilt of the carbon miles (am I redeemed cos I don't own a car?), my mental health is thanking me, though whining a bit that I couldn't stay longer.