Walking in a winter wonderland...

That song never said you'd be walking because there would be no trains. Misleading, I feel.

Train service of a kind finally restarted today, after yesterday's complete shutdown. It's not what you might call back to normal though - I've just spent an hour standing in the snow waiting first for a train that never came, then for a train that was heavily delayed, and packed solid. Even those men with big people-brooms on the Japanese metro couldn't have got us on. And finally, for a train that when it did come was delayed, but has seats.

I'd like to thank Southern for their clear communication during this difficult period, but since there was absolutely none, I find I can't. Bonus points go to the woman in the nice warm National Rail call centre who insisted that we must have had announcements - every 7 minutes - because that was what her list said was supposed to happen. Despite those of us actually, you know, living it telling her otherwise.

I would genuinely like to thank the lovely people in the cafe upstairs who made me the best bacon sandwich and coffee in the world. A small ray of sunshine in the day, but better than nothing!

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France

France is lovely, and it smells of home. London, not so much.

I'm not dead, I still don't have a working internet connection back in the UK, and this horrible thing called work is taking up a lot of time.

I'm nearly caught up on my jewellery orders (business picks up in the run-up to Christmas, which is nice), and I'm still way behind on my story. I've done 15,000 words, and I need to ideally be up to 25k by the end of the weekend. That's unlikely to happen, but it's not impossible. If I can get up t0 20k, that will be pretty much good enough. That's certainly possible.

Flight was fine - pilot from Easyjet actually understands customer service. Was shocked, but pleased - may write to them and tell them how good he was. Ground staff were utterly fucking appalling - am definitely planning to write to complain about them. Complete and total lack of understanding of basic customer service, or even health and safety principles - shutting a plane load of people in a tiny waiting room, with the heating on full blast, closing all the doors and windows, and then not giving us any information about what's happening and why we're delayed by 40 minutes is utterly unacceptable.

The apology from the pilot - which was polite, informative, specific and sounded fairly sincere - went a long way to making up for the shockingly bad attitude of the gate staff, but since it's a contracted out service, I rather think I might write to Easyjet, urge them not to renew the contract with a company that's so obviously lacking in basic training for its staff.

Incompetence annoys me.

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Let there be light!

And lo! there was light.

The electrician came. Our bathroom now has a light in - and it's even one that's safe to use in bathrooms, unlike the very pretty one we have before, which even without a leak upstairs apparently wasn't safe to use in bathrooms. Awesome. I love it when people try to kill their tenants for the sake of aesthetics.

Anyway, it's fixed now and we can see again.

Door is also fixed, and boiler is certified as safe. Our flat is now almost perfect.

Tree chopping person is supposedly coming later to sort out the tree outside our window - I'm more bothered by the mattress and carpet bits outside, to be honest, but they scare me too much to try lifting them. Creepy crawly things live in carpets outside, I'm not going near them. The council will get rid of them. (Hopefully.) Maybe the tree people will help...

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Domestic triumph

Today's domestic triumphs:

Bought clothes dryer.
Worked out how washing machine works. (Tip: works better when the door is properly closed. You're welcome.)
Found 3G inside - balancing on the corner of the coffee table. Bound to not work tomorrow, but for this second, I have the Glowing Blue Light of Communication beaming at me.

Domestic set-back:

Freeview box doesn't fit TV ariel cable. Suspect this means TV ariel cable might actually be satelite cable. Which means freeview box might not work with it, even if I can find a way to make it fit. Further suspect that freeview box is non-refundable, because shop is owned by capitalist bastards who want to make money. Suggestions as to ways forward gratefully received...

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Flats

The good news: we found a flat! It's a 1 bedroom with a garden and a kitchen and a bathtub and a washing machine and it's half an hour away from work, and perfect. It's just had new carpet laid, and it has a new mattress and it's lovely. Except.

The bad news: The flat above us had a leak between me seeing the flat and moving in. And it's screwed up the nice new paint work. And it's run into the bathroom light, making smoke billow from the lights in an alarming fashion. So we switched all the power off and took the lights off the ceiling, so it could all dry properly. And the inside of the light where the wires connected to it is all black and melty. Lovely. Since the ceiling is still wet, I'm thinking it's not entirely safe. Am now reduced to showering by torchlight, which isn't as easy as you'd think. Hopefully it will be fixed soon, by a real electrician, if I'm really lucky. At least the wires are taped up so it's now safe to shower. I hope. (If you never hear from me again, it wasn't safe to shower, and you should all learn a lesson from this. I'll leave it to you to decide what lesson - I personally favour "Never go up against a Sicilian when death is on the line!" but you can pick your own. And if you know where that quote comes from without looking it up, you get a gold star.)

Photos of the new place will follow at some point when I have a proper internet connection. I'm currently sitting in the garden which is the only place that gets 3G internet, so the dongle works out here. It's bloody cold though, so updates will be strictly limited until inside internet is installed... My UK phone number works, for those of you who have it - if you don't, and think you should, email me. (And if you don't have my email address, you shouldn't have my phone number, so that solves that.)

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Commuting

I'd forgotten the joys of commuting, not having had to do it. This route isn't as bad as the Brighton-London one though; I even have a seat with a table!

Still, waking up at 6:30 and not getting to work until 8:45 is not fun. I shall be glad when we find somewhere to live - as, I'm sure, will my parents!

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Hi-ho, hi-ho...

It's off to work we go... Think of me as Snow White, just without the seven dwarves, and with blonde hair. And a tan. Ok, so the analogy falls apart somewhat, if you're going to be picky.

But, today is the day I leave the world of 1950s gender roles and go back to a Real Job. Part of me is looking forward to it, part of me is shitting bricks about the whole thing; what happens if I've forgotten how to be an office drone in the last year? (Not that I was ever exactly gifted in that regard, so no one will likely notice. But still.)

Wish me luck!

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Back in England

Flight yesterday went ok, apart from the hour's delay. Easyjet provides yet another spectacular service. One day, I'll get a flight that goes perfectly smoothly, and be utterly confused.

So, the beginning of my part-time-expat-ness. I'm going to keep this blog going, at least for a while, not least because I'll want somewhere to document the hassles of flat hunting and part-time-expat-ness. Also, I'm aware that I still haven't written about my wedding day. It's on my list of Things To Do like opening a bank account, finding somewhere to live, buying new work clothes, starting a job, all that sort of thing.

Anyway.

Good Things About England So Far:
Starbucks
Huge hotel rooms
Bacon
The BBC
English books - WH Smith in general
Potentially, the pub, though it has an ominous name
Marks and Spencer

Bad Things About England So Far:
Rain
Cold
Sky (the TV company, not the grey thing looming menacingly above us)
Sky (the grey thing looming menacingly above us, not the TV company)
The trains
The cost of the trains
Rain
Being homeless, so having to carry everything around with me
Did I mention the weather, generally? I think I'm going into shock at the amount of rain and grey and cold and wind. I was on the beach yesterday, ffs, where did it all go so horribly wrong?

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Photos! Rochester, Canterbury and Whitstable

OK, so, none of these are in Nice. Or near Nice. Or, indeed, in the same country as Nice. But those of you who have paid attention will know that on the first day of our August Exile, we went to the Kent countryside (careful for spoonerisms, saying that) and now I've finally found somewhere that lets me upload photos. So, photos from Kent today:

Rochester

Whitstable and the Oyster Festival

Canterbury

More photos can be found on my Flickr page in the August Exile collection.

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Manicures and pedicures explained

All typos are a result of trying to type at 6:30 in the morning before coffee on a mini computer. Try to imagine the horror.

I'm waiting for my Eurostar to whisk us away and back home, via Paris. So I thought I'd update you on the manicure/pedicure experiment. I surprised myself by quite liking it and I particularly recommend it to you, Keith. You'd look awesome with purple toes.

For anyone like me, who isn't exactly an habituee of nail salons, I thought an explanation of what happens might be helpful, in case you ever have to go to one and pretend to know what you're doing. A manicure is fairly easy. They soak your nails in some hot orange water thing, scrape the crap off them, cut the dead skin away, file your nails into the right shape, and then paint them the colour of your choice. (Metallic purple, in my case.) Then you get a nice hand and forearm massage, in the place I went to, leaving your hands and arms smelling pleasantly of coconut.

The pedicure was a similar thing for feet. But more complicated. And with an awesome chair that gives you a massage to distract you from the grossness that is your feet. I want one of those chairs. Think how much better my blogposts could be! I urge you to start up a collection for me!

Anyway, feet. You put your feet in a hot water footbath thingy, then the same scraping the nails happens, along with cutting away the dead skin near your toes. Another soak in the hot water (which is suspiciously blue, like cartoon water), and your feet are now sufficiently softened for the Potato Peeler of Doom to deal with them. This revolting stage of the proceedings is not for the squeamish - your dead skin is scraped off, much like peeling a potato. The poor, poor woman who was doing it. Then you get the remaining dead bits sanded off with a block of sandpapery sponge, and another soak in the hot water. Finally, you get a massage in green gritty gunk to do something nice to your skin. It smells better than it looks. Once that's washed off, you're given some fetching yellow foam flipflops and a purple thingy to seperate your toes from each other (poor, lonely toes). Your toes get painted (metallic purple, or colour of your choice) and little shiny bits of glass get superglued to your toes in whatever pattern you'd like (I have three in a line). Chair massage continues throughout. (Did I mention how much I like this chair?)

I did have some brilliant photos of my feet in flipflops and separator thing, but they are sadly stuck on my mother's phone. So will likely languish there for ever. Too bad.

Anyway, time to find coffee and get ready for Paris. Enjoy your week!

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UK: Day 4. Sickness and dentists and Starbucks

People are horribe germ-carrying vectors of infection, and should be banned from congregating in large groups - or at all, round me. I'm ill and I ache and my throat hurts and I'm very very bored of shivering and sweating, occasionally simultaneously. England has made me ill.

The dentist has pronounced me fine, though, and all I need to do is go back in 6 months. I'll consider it - dentists are expensive, and my teeth were fine after a ten-year gap between dentists visits. 6 months seems a little over-keen...

Starbucks and gossip with my old boss was great fun, even if I felt like shit. Suppressing the shivering and urge to throw up is easier when you've got something to distract you. And everyone who walked past said "My god, you look amazing!" and "How thin you are!" and words to that effect. I had thought it was just French women who did that, but they all meant well and compliments are always nice. I should come back more often - though I'm still not sold on the idea that daily is a good idea. Tad too frequent, that, if you ask me, but I guess this is why they pay you to go -if it were fun, they wouldn't need to. Unconvinced, though.

Hairdresser never happened due to imminent dying and shivering and teeth chattering and things. Lemsip later, and I feel almost human, though still shakey and achey and bleh. Hopefully more lemsip and sleep, and I'll be fine tomorrow. I need a hair cut. Well, I don't *need* one, but it's cheaper to get one here than in France, and another inch or so off the ends would make it easier to deal with the heat. Back in a country where they have proper summer. It's been grey and cloudy all day, and it rained. Rubbish. I also need to go wedding ring shopping, so I need to not be dying. Lemsip had better work its usual magic...

Off to read and shiver and sleep. Hope you're all feeling better than me!

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UK holiday, days 1-3

Within 2 hours of arriving in the UK, I'd found fast food, had my train delayed and seen urban scrawny foxes scavenging through bins and teenage mothers smoking. I can't imagine why I ever left...

Luckily, the next day improved dramatically. It was half-sunny, and we went to Rochester, Whitstable and Canterbury. (Yes, these are all perfectly do-able in a day trip from London. Quite a long day though...) Photos follow when I can find a sensible way to upload them, but highlights include the largest second hand bookshop in England (it's in Rochester, which is not actually up north, as I first suspected), the Whitstable Oyster festival with dancers and drumming, and Canterbury's general prettiness. (The Cathedral costs 8 quid each to get in, so we didn't. I refuse on principle to pay to see churches, particularly that much money.) And I managed to find new trousers on sale, so I have clothes that fit again - it's amazing how much more comfortable that is! Let's hope my weight losshas finished for now, I can't afford more new clothes. (I know, I know, that probably heads the list of Things On Which No One Will Ever Sympathise With You... But it's a genuine pain when you have no money...)

Today we went to Greenwich and looked round the Observatory and the Time Museum, after walking across the park. Then we got the boat up the Thames to Embankment, where we went to Picadilly to meet my parents (yes, at the statue of Eros - when I tourist, I go all out) and we had dim sum in China Town. My scientific edification of the morning was complemented by a trip round the Royal Academy of Arts and the Sargent exhibition there, which was lovely. A very talented man, John Sargent, though one wonders how many other people might be able to be that competent, with the advantages he grew up with...

Anyway, tomorrow, the dentist, the hairdresser and other bits and pieces. The next day, wedding ring shopping and whatever else we decide to do, then down to see my parents and the doctor later in the week, as well as having my nails done. (I am having a pedicure for the first time in my life. I shall let you know how weird I find it.)

What are you all up to this week?

(Excuse any and all typos in this - the mini keyboard on this mini laptop is a tad challenging...)

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Packing

Packing continues - we're being temporarily evicted from our flat for August, so the landlady's family can live in it, which means we need to pack everything we own up into suitcases again. (We knew about it before we moved in, it's not some terrible surprise.) We're going back to the UK for a bit, and then to Paris for a week and a half, then spending most of August in a studio in Nice.

Assuming we don't kill each other living in a studio for a month in the middle of 35 degree weather with no internet, we'll be back here at the beginning of September, normalement. I shall try and find internet to check email, at least, and post here on occasion to let you know I'm not dead, but it will be sporadic at best. (Sign up for the RSS feed to be automatically updated when I post.)

I intend to use the month to write my next story with no internet distractions, lie on the beach, do some more cross stitch and read a lot of crappy English books that I'd never normally read from Gibert Jeune. I hope you all have a wonderful summer too!

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A quick explanation of Parliamentary government

Following on from Heidemarie's comment on my last post, my answer started getting too long for a comment. Hence this post.

Heidemarie – (8 May 2010 23:40)
No matter how many times Parliamentary government is explained to me, I just don't get it.

To be fair, this is hardly normal Parliamentary government. Normal Parliamentary government is really simple. To wit:

The Prime Minister, as part of the vestiges of the Royal Prerogative, decides when to call a General Election. This must be within 5 years of the last one, though there is no formal minimum time. In practice, if a Prime Minister wants to call an election every 6 months, permission will likely be refused. It costs a lot to run an election, anyway, so no political party would be very happy with overly frequent elections. The Prime Minister must give at least 17 working days notice of the election date, to allow the other parties time to campaign.

The country (including Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) is divided into constituencies, with roughly equal populations (more or less). This time there are 650 of them. (The number varies slightly, as they adjust boundaries to take into account changes in population based on the last census.) These are separate from the constituencies - and elections - held for the various national assemblies and governments that exist in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Each constituency elects a Member of Parliament (MP). Each of the main 3 parties (the Conservatives, the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats) and a number of smaller parties (the British National Party, the Green, independant candidates, usually standing on local issues like hospital closures) put up a candidate and The People vote, between 7 in the morning and 10 at night on the day selected by the Prime Minister as polling day.

Once The People have voted, the votes are counted, usually overnight that night. There's a bit of a race to be the first constituency to declare, and it's usually Sunderland. The winner of each constituency is the person who got the most votes, and they become the MP. Each MP gets one seat in the House of Commons.

Usually what happens next is that the leader of the party with the most MPs becomes Prime Minister, and there's a whole rigamarole around the outgoing Prime Minister going to see the Queen and resigning, and the incoming person going to see the Queen to be appointed. (Unless the incumbent wins, of course - but then the PM still goes to see the Queen, I think, to be formally invited to stay PM.) This has almost always been the leader of one of the two main parties (the Conservatives and the Labour Party, since the inter-war period.) Different rules applied during the Second World War, I think, though I'm not sure quite what they were...

This time, no one political party has won an overall majority of seats in the House of Commons, which is rare, to say the least. Coalition government is not common in the UK Parliament, which is why there's a fuss about it. The two parties that got the bigger share of the seats in the House were the Labour Party and the Conservative Party (though Labour didn't actually get that many more votes than the Lib Dems, but that's one of the quirkes of our First Past the Post election system...) - they are now each trying to persuade the Liberal Democrats to support them, which would give the Tories (the Conservatives) an easy majority in the House, and would give the Labour party much more support - they'd still have to get some support from other minor parties, though, since the Lib Dems alone wouldn't give them a majority.

This reason it's a problem that no party has a majority is because of the way Bills are passed in the UK. If a political party has a majority of seats - if they can out-vote all the other parties joined together - they can pass the legislation they set out in their manifesto (these are known as "Manifesto Commitments" oddly enough), because - assuming their own MPs remain loyal to the party, and there's a whole system designed to ensure this - all the other MPs can't stop legislation passing by out-voting it, no matter how much they disagree with it.

If a party has a very small majority, they can have trouble passing Bills, particularly if the leader of the party is unpopular with his MPs. (John Major in the first half of the 1990s, for instance.) Even if the other parties put together can't out-vote all the Government MPs, not all Government MPs will necessarily vote the Government line. There are varying amounts of pressure and carrots dangled to ensure compliance, but on some issues, there are rebellions of MPs, where they vote against the Government, even if it's their own party. If there's a very small Government majority in the House of Commons, these rebels can tip the balance the other way and defeat Government legislation. Big rebellions can defeat even healthy majorities, though it doesn't tend to happen nearly as much.

I'm going to stop rambling for a bit. If you have any questions about any of the above, or anything I've missed out - or if I've got anything wrong - do give me a shout in the comments...

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Elections continued

Well, waking up this morning, there still aren't any real results. The Lib Dems didn't manage their shiny brilliance - people lie to pundits, what a shocker. Disappointing for them though - and a particular shame that Dr Evan Harris didn't get back in. He was one of the few MPs to actually understand the Internet and why it matters.

Good news is that Dr Caroline Lucas *did* get elected. She was my MEP when I lived back in the UK, and it's great news that she's now an MP! No real surprise that it was Brighton that elected her, though!

ETA: Other good news: Nick Griffin was slammed in the constituency he was standing in, and the BNP did crap tonight. Also Philippa Stroud didn't win, although it was a very close vote looking at the results. Clearly the people in her constituency are deeply depraved. (Hi Jon!)


Those people whingeing about not being allowed to vote after 10pm, I have very little sympathy. They should have started queuing earlier - you can't claim to be massively dedicated to voting, generally speaking, if you don't turn up until just before the cut-off point. Polls opened at 7am, after all.

It looks to me like all the people talking on the telly about this have sort of missed the point - they think it's difficult to tell what people want; I think people have been really clear - they hate all the main parties. They don't want the kind of polarised politics that we've had for the last many years, they want people to have to actually negotiate and work things out, rather than push through rushed legislation on a 3-line whip. And I think that's an excellent idea - wonder if any of the parties will take the hint.

I suspect, though, we're going to end up with David Cameron as PM with a very small majority, and politics will go on the same as ever. Shame, really - this election had so much promise.

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Week 3, Day 1

Things I have learnt this week:

• Running on flat ground is much, much easier than running up hills.
• Mud is not a good surface to run on.
• Low-flying geese are an actual hazard in this part of the world.
• Loose rocks will one day kill me. If the geese don't get me first.

Some photos, because it actually wasn't raining, and running by the river was quite pretty.

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Bureaucracy - the easy bit!

Today has been a day of dealing with bureaucracy. Fortunately, it's been the English half, so it's at least been easy to communicate. I've got a form for the Student Loans Company, telling them I've moved and run away, so they should stop expecting any money from me. I've rung the very helpful Overseas Health Team at DWP in Newcastle and requested an E106, which means I can get healthcare in France as if I were French. (Wonderfully helpful, thank you DWP people who will never read this! Unless you're googling yourselves, in which case, hi!) I need to not get ill until that gets here, though, because I'm not actually sure I'm technically covered by anyone at the moment... Assuming work send me my last payslip, and I can find a fax machine, I should then be able - French bureaucracy permitting - to get healthcare up until the end of 2011. By which time, I really need to have found a job!

Tired now, going for a nap. It's exhausting, all this phoning people.

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