In the name of the Father, the Son and the holy Spirit(s)

There are few things in life that can be described as timeless. A quilted chanel handbag. The Mona Lisa. The Ferrari 250 GT Breadvan. However for most people these are just pipe dreams and the result of many lustful google image searches. So what exactly is the working man's Joconde?

Check out the nostrils on this baby.

I wish I could be profound here and say something like "quality time with the family" or "a brisk country walk," but one look at the title of this entry/my general demeanour can give you a clue as to where I'm heading with this. I'm talking about drinking. More specifically during the day. Even more specifically at the airport. 

Airports, thanks to a wondrous concoction of fluorescent lighting, perky shop assistants and "comedy" stag party t-shirts, are places where time magically stands still. (Except, perversely, when your gate is closing in five minutes.) Many people I know are more excited by the prospect of their first breakfast wine of the holiday than the holiday itself. By many people I mean my family and close friends. I don't know if it is the European lifestyle getting to me (who am I kidding, I've always appreciated a good boozy brunch which eases seamlessly into a drunch), but I am therefore more than a little disappointed that my flight home leaves the airport at 9 o clock in the morning. I will be kicking around the departures lounge at 7:30am which even for me rules out any possibility of a swift verre before take off. Chiefly because I happen to know the one bar in the glorified tent that is Lyon St Exupery will be closed. 

A tray of wine a happy traveler makes.

I have actually resorted to googling whether or not one can consume duty free items onboard. Before any of you get concerned and start bringing up sponsors and debating whether or not to revoke any recent invitations, I do actually have two excuses. 1. I am not a particularly happy flier. Don't even bother explaining the statistics, more people get killed by donkeys blah blah blah. I know, and, like I said, it is always fine after a glass (albeit a large one) of crisp Sauvignon Blanc. 2. Something tells me that crosswords and a three week old copy of Heat aren't going to be enough to keep me chirpy to see me through the SEVEN different types of transport that I need to take to get home. (For the vaguely autistic amongst you, they are bike, bus, metro, tram, plane, train and car.) I don't want to get drunk per se, just to enter in to that beautiful haze where I won't be unduly fazed by being inevitably seated next to an obese Frenchman who insists on eating all of his garlic eclairs at once.

That's me to the right. 'Scuse the beard.

So, despite how arduous it will inevitably be, I am very excited to be heading home. I've spent this afternoon packing, singing along to carols and wondering once again why I was never chosen to do a solo at school. I have been thinking about all the wonderful British things I've missed - the landscape, proper fish and chips, Marmite, queues and the subsequent tutting, microwaves, pubs and OH LORD REAL NORMAL MILK. None of this UHT shit. God it is repellent. 

Jolly good.

But....then I looked out of my window to see a snowy Mont Blanc just peeping over my balcony in the late afternoon sunshine, and started to think about all the wonderful French stuff that I'm going to miss these next few weeks. The Cairngorms vs The Alps. Glenshee vs Val d'Isere. Fish and chips vs Fondue and tartiflette. Marmite vs homemade jam bought from the market down the road. Queues and tutting vs every man for himself and some lively confrontation in the morning. Microwaves vs actually taking time over a meal and taking time out of your day to really enjoy food and the experience of eating. Pubs vs a glass of the new Beaujolais outside a cafe overlooking the river. Real milk vs....yeah, going to leave it at that actually.

Cheese eating surrender monkeys.

I know I'm at risk of becoming that francophile: "Ooh, they don't do that in France. Oh, well in French that sounds much nicer blah blah baguette fromage etc etc." For this I can only apologise, or maybe just shrug nonchalantly and break off another bit of bread. I suppose it is just that I suddenly really, really feel like this, here, Lyon, is home. I look out of my window every morning at the Frenchness of it all and am just really amazingly happy. 

Nothing a few weeks of solid rain and crippling social awkwardness can't sort out though, I'm sure.

Happy Christmas to all of you, my wonderful readerlets.

x

Advons, Advez, Advent.

Glad tidings my wonderful readers. I hope you are all feeling thoroughly Christmas-y (incidentally an adjective I loathe, but we all make sacrifices at this time of year and that's hardly the spirit,) and that your parents/friends/local barista love you enough to have bought you a wonderful tray of chocolates cryptically concealed behind numbered doors. Or, if you are either my sister or a French person, a wonderful tray of PLAYMOBIL CHARACTERS behind numbered doors.

Tiny plastic foal vs. tiny plastic tasting chocolate. 

For December is now upon us and all of the festivities which it brings. In Lyon, that means one thing - La Fête des Lumières. For those who haven't done extensive research on my new home town then a) shame on you and b) I'll fill you in (as it very much were.) Every year during the second weekend of December, Lyon lights up. I'm talking Vegas rather than Rome, and it is set to be bloody majestic. In a way that can only be described as devil-may-care, the Lyonnais council are reported to spend EIGHTY PERCENT of the yearly city budget on a flashy outdoor disco(theque.) Cause who needs hospitals?

LOOK AT THE SHINY SHINY

"Why such frivolity and excess?" "M'ssieurs-dames,  car c'est la France." (insert nonchalant shrug here.) Sadly this is not the actual answer. It's still quite a cool reason though. In 1643, Lyon was hit by an immense plague and the then mayor pledged to give thanks to the Virgin Mary every year if she saved his town, despite the fact that one can only assume he was nicely tucked away from the vomiting boil-ridden public in his absolutely massive mayoral crib. Snaps for Mary, she did as she was told and put a spell on Lyon or whatever and BANG. Happy, shiny people once more. 

Nice threads VM.

So the Mayor kept us his end of the bargain and had a little candle-lit procession from the main square to the basilica. As is the usual wont of these things, it snowballed and, the French not needing much excuse for a party (read: yet another day off work) upped their ante and now have the third biggest destination festival in the world, beaten only by the Rio Carnival and Oktoberfest.  Think less beer and crystal thongs, more basilicas and crying statues. 

Virgins and vin aside, I have also been putting in sporadic appearances at work. I say sporadic not in an attempt to seem cool and laissez-faire, but because I've actually been quite ill and primarily spending my days in a beautiful cloud of wonderfully strong French pharmaceuticals. When I have been there though, it has been uneventful, which for the purposes of this blog is a bad thing. Except the singing and the falling over. And the attempted theft. It's all relative I suppose. 

"Ohhhh nuiiitttt"

We'll start with the singing. Finally my life has begun to resemble parts of the above film besides the ubiquitous (at least amongst GCSE French students) "Action - Reaction." I was sitting in my little classroom, the smell of vomit hanging ever so slightly in the air and generally feeling a bit sorry for myself. In traipsed an ingratitude of children (the actual collective noun; it's the little things in life) and I steeled myself for the usual hour long onslaught of sarcasm, disinterest and mockery. Yet how wrong I was. One pupil, a comparatively charming young man, came in and put his things down quietly and with no undue fuss and asked, politely, if I was alright. I replied I was fine, thank you (he was hardly to know the treason I would be committing were I to answer anything else.) He did not take this well- "But you are clearly not, you have sad eyes and you did not say hello in your normal way." (I was unaware I was usually so outwardly cheery...) He then - I kid you not - started singing. "Don't worry, about a thing, cause every little thing...is gonna be alright." THEY ALL JOINED IN. My whole class actually sang to me and it was beautiful and uplifting and wonderful and made me finally have the "so THIS is why teachers do it," sort of moment. Happy days.

So that was wonderful, and then I undid all their good work by face planting into a pile of moist leaves (I'm so sorry) in front of what appeared to be the entire school. It was painful, humiliating and irritating as I left the majority of my carefully filed worksheets fluttering gaily around the suburb as I limped as far away as possible to allow myself to burst into hideous, gulping tears and kick a lamppost in irritation.

We can just pretend I look that good crying/ever.

The theft pales in comparison - I'm hamming it up if I'm honest. I just came in to my classroom to find a youth rummaging in my drawers (don't report me) which are luckily filled only with cluster of broken pens and a couple of croissant crumbs. Unlucky Oliver Twist.

Un gamin, yesterday.

So once more, there we have it. It is just over two weeks till I'm jetting off to the warmer climes of Scotland (now there's a sentence I never thought I'd write) to stuff my face with mince pies and wine. Just to be on the safe side, I'm getting lots of practice in here. I keenly await the arrival of two wonderful ladies/training partners who are winging their way here next week. My first guests. Time to get the good silver out I think.

Can't forget the can-canning champagne bottles!

Au revoir and to all a good night.

Xx