Next stop: Cordes-sur-Ciel.
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France | Cliff and Orcs and Bells Going ‘Dong’
When I (unsuccessfully) attempted to move to France last year, Seth and I spent each Sunday in his van, zooming around the countryside in search of interesting things. I like being in the van; it’s high up so you feel safe on the road, even though the closer you get to the Mediterranean, the nuttier everyone’s driving becomes.
Continue readingFrance | Well Albi Damned, The Table’s Ablaze
We’ve just left the museum, and I’m drinking a cherry Coke in a town square. Seth sits down beside me and places a weird fluffy tart on the table between us.
Continue readingFrance | Albi, Baby
Nearly killed me, getting to Gatwick. I planned the route carefully-ish and gave myself time. It shouldn’t have been a big deal: the airport is only 22 miles from my house. When I set off, however, I discovered that trains were cancelled all over the shop.
Continue readingAK ’23 | Last Legs Pt 1
On our final day together, Annie and I spent the afternoon in a relaxed fashion: we found a cafe near Leah’s place and sat down to write and eat cake. It was a trendy, young place, Scandi-chic, far less intimidating than the bistros of central Paris with their chalkboard menus covered in dense, illegible scrawl. On one of the cafe’s exterior walls, facing a sidestreet, somebody had spray painted a vaguely left-wing proclamation in French, translating roughly as ‘down with fascism!’. A little further down the street, someone else had written ‘hipsters fuck off’.
Continue readingAK ’23 | The Destroyer of Molluscs
We did Paris stuff on our second day in Paris; tourist bits, lots of walking. I love walking in big cities – doesn’t matter how far. I love walking anywhere, just trundling along chatting and looking at things. It might actually be my favourite thing to do, now that I think about it. I’m 30 years old and I’d genuinely rather take a one-hour stroll through a park than spend five hours in some swanky rooftop bar with a pool. Annie is not as fond of walking as me, which is why I always have to lie to her about the distances it says on the map.
“So how far is it to this cemetery?”
“It’s just, uhhhh…” I glanced at my phone: 43 minutes to Père-Lachaise. “Another twenty mins or so.”
“Ugh.”
Continue readingAK ’23 | A Grassy Hilltop in Paris
“So you do all the maps and navigating and stuff. What do I bring to the table in this travel duo?”
We were in a taxi on the way to the airport, for an 11am flight to Paris.
“Don’t be daft. You contribute loads. You make me do things I don’t want to do.”
“Yeah,” said Annie slowly, looking out of the window as Lisbon’s trams and tiles flicked by. “Yeah, I do. I introduce you to a wealth of interesting new experiences.”
Continue readingFrance | Deluge
France | Better!
Avignon’s been nuts. Nuts! Nüts!
Well it hasn’t been that nuts. But kind of. Here – watch me as I write another gorgeous diary entry for you.
Continue readingFrance | Pickles
I turned 30 on Sunday. Wasn’t that big of a deal in the end. It’s sort of mad to think that I worried so grandly about it for like, ten years – and regularly made a right mess of things because of this mad looming fear of being Too Old for Stuff – and then it just happened regardless and it’s basically fine.
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