A blog in which I talk to myself, for myself

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This has been a funny week for us, perhaps especially me. I’ve been assaulted - hard - by an unfamiliar feeling: homesickness. Knowing that our house in England, with all its familiarity, is still there with its easy access to family and friends to be with and talk to is undoubtedly a big part of it. And although our French is good, sometimes very good, we can’t always just open our mouths and have our thoughts just tumble out, grammar and idiom perfect. It’s very frustrating, and often we find ourselves self-censoring by simply thinking ‘Is it worth the trouble?’ And that means of course that people aren’t getting to know who we really are - just those bits of ourselves we feel linguistically capable of sharing.

Being in an alien culture isn’t, I think, such a problem for us. We make allowances, allowances are made for us, and usually, it’s part of the charm of being here. But make no mistake. France isn’t simply a country some 20 miles away from England. It’s a centralised country with a penchant for uniformity that happily grants the State all the powers and privileges it requires to act for the common good (so no popping down to the local CVS then, to check out volunteering opportunities). The French affirm the State’s role in virtually everything - culture, language, welfare and the economy. This isn’t to say they’re not immensely proud of regional differences in tradition, food and so on. When they’re unhappy about whole ranges of issues, they strike, and it’s the State they’re taking on. On the whole, the English talk first and when that doesn’t work, then they go on strike. Here it seems the other way about.

Other differences, perhaps more trivial, seem more accessible. We’ve learnt to avoid the roads at midday, as everyone hurtles home or to their local restaurant for the sacred 2 hour lunch break. We’ve also learnt that the places to eat well and on a budget are those bars and restaurants with tradesmen’s vans outside, and inside, a group of men (and it is always men, I’m afraid) in their ‘bleus’ (overalls) tucking into their 3 courses + wine.

We’ve learned that local shops are where you go not only to shop, but also to catch up with all the latest news. And if that means that you’re 4th in line with only a loaf to buy, while in front of you someone’s bringing the baker up to date with tales of her daughter’s wedding, well, that’s just tough. Nobody minds. It’s just how it is. But it may partly explain why slowly but surely, supermarkets are beginning to gain the upper hand here too.

Being invited into a French home for a meal or social gathering of some sort seems to be a much bigger deal than it is in the UK, as the French seem essentially private and more family oriented than us. But it helps that we participate in local life, are seen round and about, and are serious about trying to fit in. This is probably no different from how things are in Britain when a foreigner moves in down the road.

So that means that there are pleasures and frustrations in equal measure. On the upside is that when we’re unhappy about things going on in the UK, well, we’re not there, so it matters less. When we don’t like what we see the government doing here, that matters less too, because we’re not French, so we’re less involved

Where was I? Oh yes. I don’t think I feel particularly alien here. I’ve never lived anywhere that long, and there’s quite enough culture shock in dealing with the differences between say inner London, outer London, Lancashire, Hampshire, Yorkshire to make me realise that any move requires learning and adaptation to local mores. Having a Polish father meant that that as a child I was - only sometimes - aware of being perceived as ‘different’. As an example, sauerkraut and boiling ring and cured meats that my friends kindly called ‘donkey meat’ weren’t part of the average London post-war childhood diet, but they were normal to me.

Day to day, I love our life here. Walks such as we did yesterday, with views of the Pyrenees all around us; shopping locally in the markets; working on our house and garden; talking with new friends and acquaintances; taking life more slowly; just mastering day-to-day life are all invigorating and pleasurable challenges. In the end then, I have to decide whether this new life, which is always interesting, sometimes frustrating, usually fun, is worth the day-to-day separation from UK family and friends.

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