Tuesday 20 August 2013

douce France


Although we have been back for a few days now, the bucolic memories from "back home" are still lingering. Home is a funny notion. They say it's where the heart is, but having been a full-on expat for many years now, I feel like the UK is home, where I work, where my actual home is, where I want to be when I have free time, etc. And yet, "home" is also rural France, where I grew up, and where people never really seem to change as the years go by. Even though it's a pleasure to go and visit, sometimes I can't help but feel like an outsider in the room I used to love so much as a teenager.But then I guess that's everybody's lot, no? Whether you live abroad or not, I mean.
As usual it was good to go, and we made the most of recurring things we miss when in the UK - éclairs, cheese, and merguez on the barbecue, going to the garden to pick your own berries, salads and vegetables, and living life at a much slower pace, visiting the local market, listening to bees flying around and seeing the most amazing night skies.
And as usual, it was equally good to come back, to be able to do the shopping online, get a coffee to go while walking the baby, eat authentic Indian, or Mexican, or Lebanese without having to travel 30 km... the sort of things I have become used to as an expat who grew up in the middle of nowhere wheat and sunflower fields in French countryside and now lives in the biggest capital in Europe. 
The best of both worlds, maybe?

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