One of the benefits of learning French whilst living in France is that the more obscure words I’d be unlikely to learn in a French language class are more available to me. For example, a housewarming party in French is not chauffage de maison. The literal translation does not work. It’s pendaison de crémaillère, which translates to ‘pot hook hanging.’ I’d argue that it’s a stupid name, but is ‘housewarming party’ any better? In fact, after findi... Read Full Story

As I mentioned in one of my last blog entries, I’ve moved house. I now live in St Jean de Sixt, which is the next village down from La Clusaz, so it’s not a very big move. A friend visited the new house on the weekend, and as we walked towards the bakery, just a few minutes away, we obviously looked local enough for not one, but two cars to stop and ask for directions. The first car asked for directions to Aravis. My French friend explained that the entire region is the Aravis, so... Read Full Story

First of all, I’m very sorry about this image, but it wasn’t fair that my eyes should suffer it alone, and my blog has been a bit barren of images of late, so I’m sharing it. Once again, I have French junk mail to thank for finding me a topic for my blog. What we have here is a whole rabbit, skinned, and apparently ready for cooking and eating, with pleasant garnish. But I can’t help but see a human backside on this bunny. My overactive imagination has been aided by th... Read Full Story

I’ve just had a big clean-out at my place in preparation for moving house. One of the things I decided to get rid of was a boat oar. How did I end up with a boat oar in a ski resort? That’s a good question, and I can explain it, but the bigger question is how the boat oar ended up in a ski resort before it belonged to me. That, I can’t answer. Here’s what I know. A few years ago, I celebrated my birthday with lots of friends in my big front yard, but I had no sports eq... Read Full Story

My blog statatistics tell me what some visitors have searched for before they arrived at my site, and they’re mostly on track with the content of this blog. The number one search every day is ‘how to pronounce French words’. I’ve discussed this, but there’s certainly no lessons coming from me, considering I’m still struggling to make the rolling ‘r’ sound!  So, for those visitors, try going to the BBC learn French website or the Indo-European La... Read Full Story

I was talking last night to an American friend who is married to a French girl, and he remarked one something that had never occurred to me. He said: “Have you noticed how in English, we insult our friends by animal, whereas foods are used French?” I hadn’t noticed. So, I’ve been thinking about it. In English, you can indeed call your mate a pig, dog, cow, turkey, chicken, snake, donkey, ass and more. The only food-related insult I can think of right now is saying some... Read Full Story

Coming back a few days ago from the tropical weather of Queensland, Australia, I was pleasantly surprised to see snow falling from the sky on my first morning back. Of course, it’s not winter yet, and it might all melt, but there’s more snow predicted for the foreseeable future, so perhaps the winter base is laying its foundations. Les impressive was the loss of my suitcase, which was discovered spending more time in Malaysia than my flight’s three-hour stopover. When it eve... Read Full Story

Okay, it’s time to come clean: I’ve been in Australia for the past few weeks, but I had plenty of blog topics to keep me writing about France. By the time you read this, I’ll be holidaying on an island on the Great Barrier Reef before heading to Brisbane for a family wedding, then back in France next week. Until then, I want to write about how easy it is to idealise a home country when living abroad. It’s natural for anyone to compare countries, but I’m now compa... Read Full Story

It’s that time of year where snow lovers in the Northern Hemisphere are getting anxious about the upcoming ski season. Speculation has already begun on how good a season it will be, based on the lateness of red berries, the colour of autumn leaves, and which ways the cows prefer to face. Mushrooms, summer temperature, frost, the Southern Hemisphere’s winter, and bird activities are other indicators that I’ve heard of to describe how cold or warm, snowy or dry a winter will b... Read Full Story

Driving along a back road toward Thônes one day, I discovered a roadside statue of Mary, protected by some lions and surrounded by candles, flowers (both real and plastic) rosary beads, statuettes and water features. Here’s a close-up of one of the two protective lions. It features a scary eye and an even scarier missing eye, some cob webs, and a rather big snarl. Meanwhile, below is a photo showing just how close to the road this monument is (you can see a close-up of Mary and the tri... Read Full Story