HOMESICK

Dordogne
Originally uploaded by PhylB

You can't spend 20 years in French family, speaking French and living between France and Scotland without getting homesick once the French life is over.
Of course I miss my family every day, especially my other mum - they were old fashioned - divorce doesn't happen, so they couldn't stay in touch with me and André too. Maybe one day we'll find a way to become friends again. After all it wasn't them I fell out of love with, and I couldn't stay forever just to keep the family I saw twice a year.
For the first time since I was 16 I have not set foot on French soil for over a year and I ache with homesickness - for the smells, the sun, the buildings, the language, the food, the way of life.
When André and I split he kept all the French music, I got the books. I didn't mind because hearing it would hurt too much. Two years on I decided I needed it back - I found my favourite half dozen cds on amazon.fr/used and bought them for less than £20. The first one arrived this morning and it feels so good to listen to - even if all that old stuff: Maxime le Forestier, Brel, Piaf, Barbara, Aznavour, Guichard makes me a dinosaur! That music is part of me. Listening to Maxime now I have to resolve to improve Léon's French level - if André won't take him and speak it to him, I will make sure he doesn't need a dictionary to understand these poetic lyrics when he's old enough to understand them.

FOOTBALL

I was going to blog it last night but I had a migraine. Scotland has only gone and beaten France in France - how surreal is that?
I went round to Derek's to watch as it was only on Sky - for some reason the terrestrial TV thought us Scots would rather watch the England match - don't start me - grrr! I know the French team well, having spent at least 10 years supporting France, not only because half the family is French but also because Scotland failed to qualify for anything for at least the last 10 years! So it felt odd watching what is supposedly my team, who I didn't recognize, play my other team who I know well! Anyway Scotland beat them and gobsmacked them all in one. We then had a problem getting home as Sauchiehall street had turned into an impromptu party, with singing, dancing and horn tooting, blocking the whole street - even my kids finally accepted that it was ok to support both France and Scotland - unlike the floods of tears we got last year when Scotland last beat France. I think as long as both France and Scotland qualify all will be quiet in my household, but if the evil Italians, who my kids still accuse of cheating France out of the last world cup, qualify instead of one of their teams, life will not be worth living!

SOLD OUT

Oh dear! Next month's France Scotland football match sold out before I could acquire tickets for it - bad parent :-( Any volunteers to break the news to the football crazy kids?

ZIDANE

Came in to hear my kids singing this this evening. Quite catchy, apparently it is top of the French charts at the moment. Marcel particularly likes the bit about Trézéguet. It got me thinking about the cultural differences between such a close neighbour and the English. Imagine England had got to the world cup final and lost it because Beckham had head-butted someone and got sent off - he'd be in hiding living with daily death threats - the French however didn't instantly remove Zidane's national hero status after one fault - instead they had a laugh and a party! I guess you can't accuse them of being bad losers anyway!

Oh check this out too!