Walking along the famed Croisette on New Year’s Day, I had to give Cannes dix points for people-watching potential. There were troops of tiny little pooches bouncing along the promenade, most sporting designer dog accessories which would each have cost more than the combined total of my own outfit, and lots of short women in…
Restaurant Le Basilic, Paris
On a recent visit to Paris, we rendezvous-ed with an old friend of Monsieur’s on a Friday evening. He zoomed across town on his scooter, arriving in a flush of excuses “so sorry I’m late…” and then a lot of finance-world explanations which I don’t understand in English, let alone French. In fact, Old Friend…
l’Epicure, Restaurant gastronomique!
To add to the list of restaurants that I really rate, I must write about L’Epicure, a restaurant in Corbeil-Essonne. Located in a traditional stone house that looks as if someone could be living inside it, sitting with cat on lap in front of the fire, the restaurant may be found a short distance from…
Bespoke Travel Kits
I have a strange thing for travel kits. When I was growing up, our bathroom cupboards were full of in-flight toiletry bags filled with nylon socks, eye masks, creams to keep your skin soft in dry aeroplane air and strange-tasting mouthwash. Dad would bring them home from his frequent business trips and we were sometimes…
The Vegetarian Visitor to France
Downunder isn’t a bad place to live if you follow a vegetarian diet: partial, full, total or vegan. The produce is fresh and the chefs creative enough to allow vegetarians tasty alternatives to meat with options far more adventurous than lentil soup or a plate of lettuce. England isn’t bad, either. Even that old stalwart…
Revenge of the Duck
Monsieur visits Paris on business fairly frequently and, if time permits, will visit food halls, filling his bag with tantalising treats. As he unpacks, I stand transfixed by the foreign labels and cooking instructions, a gourmet in food heaven. Were we to buy the same or similar in London, the prices would multiply before us….
The Unhappy Traveller
Years ago I shared a flat with a PR girl from the States. She earned a lot more than my meagre art-world salary, claimed all sorts of allowances (car, housing etc) to boost her already generous income and used what she didn’t spend on rent to travel. A lot. For a while I found her…
Words we love to hate…
There are certain words that have the ability to make us cringe in the same way that sounds make us recoil when listening to a dentist’s drill or nails being dragged across a blackboard. At work, a group of us compare notes on Vile Vocabulary from time to time. So far, one person absolutely detests…
Check in and check out
Monsieur and I booked our flights to Nice many weeks in advance of departure, yet, when we went to the check-in machine at Heathrow, our seats were separated. We had booked a PAIR of tickets at the same time, so why were we seated apart? We found a uniformed helper and explained our plight. “No…
Bashful with The Beatitudes
Standing on the Mount of Beatitudes in Israel, one of our tour group whispered something in my mother’s ear. Apparently, the tour leader had suggested to this woman, a teacher, that she read the Beatitudes aloud to us all to enhance our visit to the Mount but the teacher suffered from dyslexia and found reading…
Petite Anglaise by Catherine Sanderson
Having been a fan of blog-star, Petite Anglaise, since I first stumbled across the link to her blog on Expatica.com, I have happily dipped in and out of her observations on life in Paris. Being a Kiwi living with a Frenchman in London, I am fascinated by the cultural differences she writes about as an…
Fook Ming Tong Tea
Monsieur went to Hong Kong and brought me back a bag of tea. Fook Ming Tong tea, to be precise. It was wrapped in foil with a pretty tag and presented in one of those smart carrier bags with gold cord handles. I admit, I hadn’t exactly expected to receive tea from Hong Kong. But…
Epicurienne 