Happy Birthday Baby C

Today is Baby C's birthday, a whole year old. Well she will be at 7.25 pm GMT.
It has been a busy year for her, aside from moving countries and living in three different houses she has also been busy with the never ending task of being a baby.

In the last 12 months she has mostly been occupied with the following;

• Growing.
• Feeding.
• Sleeping - but not always when I would like or as long as I would like.
• Growing hair.
• Growing teeth - four so far.
• Sitting up.
• Rolling over.
• Crawling.
• Standing.
• Learning to feed herself, messy but fun.
  
• Making all kinds of sounds.
• Learning to say Ma Ma, my favourite sound, other than the snuffling of her sleeping.
• Trying to make friends with the cat by pulling her tail, not one of her most successful endeavours.
• And generally being outstandingly cute, though obviously I am biased on that.

I look forward to the next 12 months with her and finding out what Baby C did next.

The Ministry of Frenchness

For all the trials and tribulations it has been a blast living in France. After eight months I have come to the conclusion that there is a Ministry of Frenchness whose job it is to ensure that each town complies with a certain set of standards and maintains an appropriate amount of Frenchness.

Boulangerie per street quota - at least one on every other corner.
Baguette quotas - the number of people carrying a baguette under their arm must never fall below a critical mass.
Accordion quota - at least one busker per town per day, more on market days and fetes.
At least 90% of cars should be renault or citreon and at least 1% should be 2cvs or those citreon vans driven by farmers.

Should a town fall below these standards they run the risk of having their Frenchness revoked and their name removed from all tourism literature until such measures are in place to ensure standards are met.

And in these last months, despite my slow progress with the language, I have found myself turning native.
I now wear sunglasses in winter and summer.
I can carry a baguette under my arm with no hint of self-conciousness.
I have a scarf of some description with me at all times.
I no longer have a mop, I peg a floorcloth around the broom to clean the floor.
I no longer have a kettle, I use a pan to boil water.

Floor mops and kettles do exist in France, I've seen them in the supermarket, but we have got stuck without them. I shall be buying mop, bucket and kettle in England so that no-one can report me to the Ministry of Englishness.

If its not bling its blong

In my last trip to England I bought a packet of these jewellery polishing cloths. I only recently got around to using them and they are fabulous, I now have lovely shiney earrings, necklaces and bangles, and a satisfyingly grubby cloth.

I do like a nice bit of bling and Baby C is showing signs of following in my footsteps as she can often be found modeling the plastic rings from her ring tower toy. Mind you her little arm soon fills up if she has more than two on. She really does rock the chunky accessory trend.

The post I forgot to give a title to

I have a new house, well new to me house. And for have I should really say rent.
So I have an old new rental house.

I've not moved in yet but hope to be installed some time in mid September. It is a Victorian terrace but most of the original features have gone, though it has been updated quite nicely. As is the fashion these days it has laminate floors, plain carpets and white walls. Unlike France the English landlords don't like you altering or decorating their properties so I shall have to brighten it up with furniture and frippery.

Two big plusses are that it has a spare/sewing room and that there is a fabric shop on the corner of the street. So possibly a rather dangerous location for my bank balance though a very nice one for my imagination.