...it's hard to control eyes hungry for the familiar... cafés once stopped at or favoured breaks. Trees whose names I hadn’t lost. The same shells on the beach. Things that made me feel “I belonged here, this is still a part of me. My heart is here.”
emigration
Apart from the weather…
I'm in the middle of a move again and haven't much time to write.... well, I could, but the weather this time is rather lovely so we're plunging in the lake to cool off from box emptying and furniture moving.
Time to knock the expats on the head?
Looking around the web the other week for some supporting articles on subjects I was researching for this blog, I kept falling upon 'ex-pat' websites. Sites like 'Expatica', 'expat.com' and 'Internations' to name just a few - full of references to 'ex-pats' all over the world. Today I started to look at the kinds of … Continue reading Time to knock the expats on the head?
The Look: how the French make you squirm
So I started researching this article by Googling things like ‘Filthy look, French’. That delivered lots of translations and suggestions for how to say ‘filthy look’ in French. I tried, ‘French, France, dirty look’ and got articles expressing an opinion that the French are none too clean (hmmm, our own showering rate has definitely declined … Continue reading The Look: how the French make you squirm
My first book – Out Now!
It’s not that her London life is destroying her, but it’s not inspiring her, either. And the fact is, Naomi’s in love - with New Zealand.
Driving on ice!
With the husb going away regularly I decided this week was the week to bite the bullet and have a go at driving in the snow. Even though we have an excellent free in-season bus service between our little town at the top end of the lake, and the main town at the bottom end, … Continue reading Driving on ice!
And the cat, too…
Whenever we move, the cat(s) have to come too - of course. Current Mr Mog, aged 14, was born in rural NZ, moved to the city (albeit at nice quiet seaside suburb), flown to the UK and now driven to the south of France - to snow, of all things!
They Speak French!
I could have written this a few weeks ago. But now it’s really true. They speak French. The children. Not utterly fluently, but they speak. And... “You don’t pronounce it like THAT mummy!” I hear, several times a day. I’ve even started toasked them for vocabulary. Our youngest’s handwriting has gone from this: To this: … Continue reading They Speak French!
French
I've read, or heard, that when immersed in a new language children absorb it amazingly quickly. By the time the girls had been in school for a month I was expecting to hear the odd French word pop out. Rien. I cajoled them. Some of the French children were practicing their English on my girls, … Continue reading French
The Wild
Suddenly it was May and very nearly the end of the ski season and it felt like we'd barely arrived. I hadn't ski'd enough. Or eaten enough patisserie - the shop was going to shut soon... Plus we were heading towards the start of our third month and the girls weren't speaking French, much to … Continue reading The Wild
Jumping Off Books 