Je suis une trentenaire...

It sounds a bit more glamorous in French, but horror of horrors I have hit 30. It's actually not so bad at all - I now feel I can wear what I like, eat what I like and ignore the consequences... almost.

To celebrate my birthday I had a big black tie dinner (with my friend Gemma who was also hitting 30) back in London surrounded by my friends and family which was absolutely great, and very civilised which is surely a sign of my age. Without really planning to it seems I managed to hit the absolute height of ginger on my birthday, oh good...

Rugby & frogs

The usually very French Lyon has been invaded by Rugby fans. Although through the summer you could occasionally hear the odd English or American accent, it’s pretty much just French here. Suddenly the town has grown in size – and not just through volume of people, but individual size too. It is very rare to see any really fat French – bring on the worlds assortment of Rugby fans! What better place to be than in France when England gets off to such an incredible start. Incredible for the lack of any points whatsoever that is. Lucky for us that the French lost the football to Scotland last week so they can’t be too cocky.

Update as I didn’t publish this in time… oh how things have turned around with England through to the final! Woo hoo, bring on Saturday. How on earth do you approach a team who has thrashed you in the opening stages? We shall see.

For those of you who read my Korean blog, you may remember a particular blog entry where I wondered what happened if you kissed a large gold Frog – hoping particularly that it would turn into an extra rich prince. Not the case it would seem. I can safely say that if you kiss a large gold frog, it turns into a….. frog. Yes, I can now reveal that shortly after arriving in France I did kiss a frog – not a large inanimate gold one this time, but in the form of a French man, and he is now my boyfriend. Considering it is year of the Golden Pig out in Korea, it’s lucky I didn’t kiss a pig I reckon – although you could argue I have done in the past!

Here is the man in question... Guillaume! (oh what an easy one to pronounce and spell for a Brit!)

Les Vacances encore

Not having much holiday left, I am at least trying to make the most of my weekends. This weekend I visited a beautiful little village called St Germain – all flowers, cottages and farm houses basking in plus 30 degree heat, set on a hillside with a breath-taking view across the plains of the French countryside, dotted with trees, cows and the odd lake. And quite a lot of horse poo. I don’t know whether someone was hoping to grow roses in the middle of the road, but there was a good sprinkling along a 2 mile stretch of road. It all added to the charm and aroma of the countryside though.

The purpose of the visit was to visit Mr. Kauffman, a very nice French Grandpa of a friend of mine who, as it turns out, happens to live in a beautiful cottage with a beautiful garden which just makes you want to start drinking Pastis and stay there forever. I was given a tour of the house and garden – lovely vegetables growing in the sun, a cool dark barn-like extension to the house which although pretty much unused was at least a third bigger than my apartment in Lyon, and came with it’s own sunny garden, and numerous sunny, bedrooms with white shutters and pretty views of the garden.

Then there was “Le Cave” – a room used as a wine cellar which, I have learnt, any self respecting wine lover (and therefore French person) should have and nurture. Hard to do in a small flat, but one can try. This room, although not particularly large, housed around 300 bottles of wine, a few spirits, and more recent/ more frequently changing additions of a few crates of beer, among which I was a bit surprised to see a crate of “Desperado’s” – sweet lime flavoured beer with a dash of tequila more commonly drunk by English students in ski resorts or bars in Clapham.

I was very privileged to be given a short, sharp course in Brandy tasting by a connoisseur. Mr Kauffman has collected his brandy’s for many years, and the first one I tasted was made in 1969 – which would have been a sobering thought, drinking something 8 years older than me, except that sobering is the last thing that a 50% brandy does to you. Certainly warmed the cockles, and I imagine did the equivalent of exfoliation to the back of my throat, oesophagus and stomach lining. We tasted 3 in all – the last being a mere 6 years old, made of Mirabel’s which are a common fruit in the area (yellow prunes – haven’t come across them in England I don’t think…) and being of more recognisable strength and a fruity flavour. The first 2 had a definite difference between them, one being heavier and more honeyed, the second a bit more fruity but both incredibly strong. I noticed one bottled on the dusty shelf which said 70%. My only question would be, does alcohol get stronger with age? If those were nearly 40 years old and started off at that percent, lord only knows how strong they are now!

So after an impromptu brandy tasting course, we retired to the patio for some Mirabelle tart washed down with a very nice desert wine, in the late afternoon sun. Perfectly acceptable to be tipsy at 4pm on a Saturday afternoon, after all, I am (pretending to be) en vacance.

Les vacances...

This last week has seen a turn for the better in the weather here and has generally been scorching hot. It has been a slightly irritating hitch in my French holiday, having to go to work every day, but I am trying to maintain the pretence that I am just on a long holiday. To keep up the pretence, I have been strolling back from work in a casual manner (as casual as you can be with a heavy laptop bag) and indulging myself in a huge chocolate ice cream most days whilst sitting in Place Bellecour (as pictured) soaking up the holiday feel, and pretending I am a tourist.

Normally there are not many English speakers in Lyon, but this balance has tipped in the last few weeks as a few more Americans and English have arrived, but more noticeably the balance has shifted because the French have left. I don’t know what came first – do the tourists arrive and the French leave, or the tourists arrive because the French have left?! August in France of course means that everyone winds down a notch and most head for the coast or for their holiday villa somewhere other than the cities. Coming from England, this is all a bit of a change having been used to requests for 2 weeks holiday being met with raised eyebrows as if to say “2 weeks, what could you possibly want to do with 2 weeks off work, you slacker” and 3 weeks of holiday needing sign off from the MD and a bloody good reason! Here, the minimum time off seems to be 2 weeks, with plenty of people departing for 3, which is only reasonable given that most haven’t had more than 2 weeks off since May! (if only I was on a French contract and had that much holiday!).

So, this mostly leaves the English to sweat it out in the, until recently, non air conditioned office. However, the air conditioning has arrived. Now usually you wouldn’t notice air conditioning arrive. It is simply cool or not, there is simply a quiet background hum to an office or not. However, it was with great ceremony and a lot of difficulty that 3 large a/c units arrived the other day, about 4 foot tall and wide and trailing a hell of a lot of cabling and tubing which now snakes around the office in a very “un-health-and-safety-you’d-never-get-away-with-that-in-the-UK” kind of way. Big water cables, bundled up with electricity cables strewn across the floor, a few feet from a flight of stairs. Now if this was the UK, you could be forgiven for hatching up an elaborate incident to claim off the insurance and I am talking big bucks here – after all, how much could you get for tripping over, launching yourself down a flight of stairs whilst being electrocuted? However, I am sure the French would just think you were a clumsy idiot for doing so (and probably quite rightly so) so I am not going to test out the French compensation system just yet. I have a strong suspicion that there isn’t one.

So, back to the air con. The long awaited arrival of these machines hasn’t worked quite as well as we had hoped, due to the fact that half of the office still want their windows open, and the other half want a/c which therefore renders the a/c useless, or very over worked. The second flaw in the plan is the fact that the water tubes for the a/c unit nearest to me actually go out of the window, which obviously now has to be permanently open. No wonder perhaps, that after day 3, two out of the 3 are no longer working. Time to go on holiday perhaps?

I want to break free...

Evidently, having E.Coli then getting your bridesmaid dress fitted, then celebrating for 2 weeks by eating everything in sight is not good for then getting back into the dress for the wedding. Oops. It certainly was figure hugging, although perhaps more of a chunky crayon skirt than a pencil skirt. I really had problems when it came to sitting down, especially when I had to get into my car and drive. The seams began to stretch a bit, and by the end of the night the seams down the front were fully fraying. However, by that time of the night no one noticed, and it held on enough to protect my modesty. The reason I am smiling so much in this picture is because I am standing, and am therefore not at risk of the bottom of my dress making a bid for freedom, and of course because I am stood with my good friend Brownie.

Mange-tout

Hooray, I can eat again! Ok, so my appetite only went for about 6 days, but it seemed like a long time before I could eat solids. I would eat everything in sight, but as I got a final fitting for a bridesmaids dress yesterday I had better not go too mad in the next 3 weeks.

In celebration, it was of course only right to visit the market as per usual on a Sunday. These pictures will perhaps show why it is such a big part of the week for me. I hasten to add the market pictures are not my own work, but were taken by Melanie when she came out to visit a few weeks ago. First stop on the Friday night was for Kir Royals on board my favourite bar. Yes, on board…

We did the usual rounds of sights and of course culinary tours around Lyon, as well as taking the biking one stage further. Unfortunately during Melanie’s visit it rained, but it did mean that we managed to have bikes with baskets and umbrella’s! Probably not that safe, definitely not that sporty, possibly scores points on the being completely impractical but glamorous front though, particularly as my brolly is from Selfridges, so that’s ok then.

With Melanie’s help, I managed to get to grips with the night time setting on my camera and capture the picture I have been trying to take for 4 months, which is the Medical Museum on the river a few hundred metres from my apartment.

Back to the market…. and my favourite counter is of course, the cheese counter. Every week, the first stall we hunt for is “the cheese man” – if we haven’t found him after 15 mins or so, things get a bit panicky. There are of course loads of other cheese counters, and we could get incredibly good cheese from any of them, but somehow he beats them all… you can probably see why….

Now aubergines don’t feature heavily in the UK recipe collection as far as I am aware, but when you see them in such abundance here and with the stalls suggesting you buy 3 or 4 of them at a time I am nearly tempted to buy a load and improvise. However, it would also be sacrilegious to take such beautiful specimens and reduce them to the wilting mess of my vegetable drawer that would no doubt occur if I bought them with no plan of what to do. So far I have resisted. Any recipe ideas, gratefully received

You give me fever...

Beautiful song, but clearly with lyrics from someone who has never had an actual fever. Five days into a fever, I feel somewhat of a veteran at it, and therefore well placed to criticise.

BE WARNED: This may sound a bit whiney, mostly because it is. I apologise to anyone who has got anything serious or worse wrong with them and I realise I am being a big girl about it and will be fine shortly. Just thought some of it may be amusing!

I have for the last few days been cycling (in the cyclical fashion rather than the jolly red bike with basket fashion) between shivering under 4 thick blankets, and sweating away with the thinnest of PJ’s on.

The cause? A suspected kidney/bladder infection, as it’s been accompanied by quite a bit of lower back ache. I tried the “sleep through it/drink water through it” approach that usually works for most ailments, and even resorted to the serious step of taking some Nurofen.

After 36 hours of continuous fever, broken sleep and slowly more aches appearing everywhere (presumably from being in bed) I decided it was perhaps a good opportunity to develop my French conversational skills in a doctor’s surgery environment and risk getting suppositories as treatment. Ok, I cheated with the first part in getting someone French to book me in, but I am ill after all.

It should be noted here that all attempts to be glamorous at this point were totally disregarded – I showered and changed into non pyjama clothes but that was about it. Except for the fact I happened to have a French manicure at the time… unplanned, I promise.

I managed to drag myself out of my apartment and find the nearby doctor’s surgery. It was a choice between 3 flights of stairs or getting in a lift so small that if you walked into it, you’d have to back out of it the way you went in as there was no room to manoeuvre in there. Visions of broken down lifts, fainting, sweating too much and filling it up like a bucket all sprang to mind. So I walked up the stairs. Shame it was the wrong staircase. Needless to say, on the second attempt I opted for the equally small lift and prayed.

Once in the waiting room, I had to wait a customary half an hour past my appointment time to be seen, which made me feel very at home, although I was beginning to wonder why a number of people who had turned up after me seemed to go in first. Whilst sitting there patiently trying not to fall asleep on the spot, pass out or do anything else unbecoming of a young lady it occurred to me that Doctors waiting rooms would be much better if they reduced the large amount of out of date crap reading material and replaced it with a couple of up to date magazines, for those people who are there with ailments that leave them for the most part feeling ok, or those waiting with others.

For those who have used up every last bit of energy getting themselves there (and perhaps up the final 3 flights) there should be an area of padded floor for them to collapse onto, rather than trying to stay poised on a rickety old church hall style wooden chair. Rant over.

So then came the next test, trying to communicate with a French only speaking doctor. However, he was jovial and kind, and didn’t do anything unexpected, merrily jabbing around my stomach and back to find out “yes that does bloody hurt” which unfortunately I could only translate into French as “ow”. Amazing I thought, it’s the same word! Apparently though it is not the same word and I should have been saying “aie!” – I hope I did not get misdiagnosed as a result.

Next stop was a very swish looking laboratory – where having asked me (as the doctor had done) for the two very essential pieces of paperwork I should have with me proceeded to deal with me in a very efficient manner as if the question had never been asked. I dutifully filled my bottle and was told I could get the results in two days time.

In the meantime, the Dr had prescribed me some antibiotics which cover most things, but he said would be adapted if necessary once the results came in. Great, drugs, anything, give them to me! Pharmacies are everywhere in France, so I didn’t have to shuffle far to find one.

By this time, I was in the grip of a fever again with the shivers, so the pharmacist gave me a few odd looks as I stood there shaking and trying to stop my teeth from chattering. Probably wondering if I was an alcoholic, genuinely ill or a bit of a loon.

I was safely back in my bed within an hour and a half, where have remained pretty much ever since. Unfortunately this hasn’t been the fun, too ill to go to work but can manage a duvet on the sofa watching TV. I haven’t even read a book or magazine since Monday. It has been the kind of aching fever that actually had me sat bolt upright in bed, cross legged last night trying to sleep which of course didn’t work but did relieve my headache for a bit.

So anyway, I got my results today, and instead of confirming what I pretty much 100% knew to be a kidney/bladder infection….. I have

E.COLI!

Goody. (I am surely back in the running for the best illness prize with my friends in India - Delhi Beli or E.Coli. Got to be close contestants?!) Fortunately the anti-biotics I was taking are fine for this too, so with a bit of luck things should be getting better soon.

I’m afraid this is a bit sparse on photo’s this time. Probably a good thing I think you’ll agree.

So to any of you who are also worried about getting e.coli, here's a few useful pointers on what to avoid (the crosses show what I've had recently - so let that be a warning):

Undercooked meat (that would include steak perhaps?) x
Apple juice x
Cheese x
Undercooked vegetables x (I thought they were better for you that way?!)
Potatoes x
Lettuce x
Ham x
Bad water x Is French tap water bad?
And let's not forget the famous case found in chocolate in England not too long ago...
chocolate x

Right then. Looks like a diet of evian and overboiled fish for me, minus the vegetables and of course not reheating the rice. Celebrity diet it is then. Who'd have imagined all those poor waifs were simply trying to avoid getting ill...