France

Considering the subject of compatibility, experienced British expats in France maintain that a French man and an English woman might work, but rarely the other way around. Anecdotal evidence bears this out. The English chap, for example, who came to look at the septic tank has a long-term French partner who once broke his arm during a domestic dispute. This mildest, most liberal-minded of men lives alone in a mountain refuge whenever feasible. He also has a part-time job as a tour guide in the Far East. I am currently transitioning to a woman for urgent medical reasons. Force of habit, however, leads me to consider the French women I

There are several cave houses built into the cliff. Ours is the highest and can be reached only by a precipitous footpath with a lot of puffing and panting. The postbox is at the foot of the path, but occasionally the postman carries up something or other that needs to be signed for. When you go to the door to answer his knock, you find him doubled over, his hands on his knees, pouring with sweat, gasping pitifully, unable to speak. Guests likewise. The path up to the house is a public footpath that is part of a tourist trail called ‘Visit the Grottos’. One pays €2 at the tourist

I regained consciousness on a trolley in a recovery ward. A masked porter wheeled me from there back to my two-bed room on the fifth floor. When I’d left the room earlier, the bed next to the window was vacant. Now it was occupied. Lying on his back under a blanket, his face half covered by a surgical mask, was an old man. On the floor under his bed was a pair of Adidas ‘Superstar’ tennis shoes. The word ‘Superstar’ was in gold lettering. The old man lay rigid, as if bearing pain or discomfort patiently. Through the window the sky above Marseille continued a resolute blue, as though cloud

At dawn, starving, I drove to a commercial laboratory in the town centre where five phials of blood were taken from my arm. I was then handed a plastic jar and a refreshing wipe and directed to the nearest unisex lavatory to give a urine sample (mid-stream). Then a nurse stuck a long cotton bud up my nose as far as it would go and twiddled it this way and that. Blood, urine and Covid tests were preparatory to a hospital admission for a procedure involving a general anaesthetic. Then I drove home and ate a kipper for breakfast. While I was eating, Catriona stuck a hypodermic needle in my

We bums find ourselves sought after at this time of year to lend a hand with the olive harvest. So this week I’ve been standing on a tarpaulin in a sunny field combing olives off olive branches. It’s a good year for olives. The trees are laden and the work is pleasantly monotonous. The minimal level of thought needed to accomplish the task shuts down the internal Red Army choir of negative thoughts that normally drowns out the competition, offering the mind a holiday. In the mornings we combed to the sound of birds twittering in the trees; after lunch to Fip music radio, state-financed, eclectic. On Thursday the smoky-voiced

Monday night’s murderous gunman in Vienna is officially described as ‘Islamist’. Brahim Aioussaoi, the man accused of murdering worshippers in a Nice cathedral last week, arrived (reported the BBC) with ‘three knives, two phones and one Quran’. These would seem to be the basic toolkit required. A friend who lives in southern France tells me that although the latest lockdown measures prevent church services being held, so serious is the terrorist threat to churches that many are guarded by police. So it seems natural that President Macron of France warns of the danger to French Catholics and speaks of ‘Islamist terrorist folly’. Each of his three chosen words rings true,

Home Wales, entering a 17-day ‘firebreak’, closed most shops by law but then tried to stop supermarkets selling ‘non-essential’ items such as bedding, kettles and smoke alarms. At the beginning of the week, Sunday 25 October, total deaths (within 28 days of testing positive for the coronavirus) had stood at 44,745, including 1,166 reported in the past week, compared with 819 the week before. In England, Nottingham entered the most severe restrictions,Tier 3, taking the number of people so restricted to 7.9 million (in Liverpool, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, South Yorkshire and Warrington). About 54 Conservative MPs from the north of England wrote to the Prime Minister asking him to ‘show