I've been very, very absent as a blogger since our baby began walking and running. He runs fast, which means he's very hard to catch while I'm sitting at a computer. I know this is common, but I still feel guilty. I've got so many things to post!
Rather than going back in time, for the moment, I'll go directly to our new project. Well, our old project/new project. We're going to trash the walls of our bathroom in the hopes of selling our apartment! Demolition starts tomorrow!
We had our apartment up for sale for several months, then didn't do anything with it while we were in Canada and the US, then put it up again, then forgot about it for a bit, then had a few offers that fell through for various reasons, and now we're putting in some effort again. It's an exhausting project -- well, it's exhausting my imagination. I'm happy taking risks, but that doesn't mean that my imagination doesn't want to plan ahead. This time, we're giving the sale a real BUY OUR APARTMENT NOW! push. We're focused. We're fired up. We've got drop sheets and new tile.
In French, they call this type of renovation a "re-looking" rather than a make-over. I love it. In a make over, you remake something, in a re-looking, you change the way you see it.
This is possibly how I see our new shower turning out -- not because it's my dream shower, but because I think it's the one that might make the most sense.
My brother, who does this kind of thing for work as a real job, will be helping us tomorrow. Well, he might end up doing all of the work, depending on how he feels about our skill levels. I'll post some before and after pics when we're done, then I'll move onto some other updates: the wild boar who is living near our house, our new love affair with sea fishing (regardless of whether we're good at it or not), and Nice from a toddler's point of view...
I guess I'm re-looking the blog, too? Phew!
Lovely Awkward: A Year of Wine, Romance and Life Among the French
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
A dream home in the country?
We've put our apartment back on the market in the hopes of finding a place with a little more room for the baby. My concept of "a little more room" and the professor's concept, however, don't appear to be quite the same thing.
Last weekend, while browsing the apartment listings here in Nice, the professor asked how I'd feel about a having a little house in the country. I said that I'd always dreamed of having a small apartment in the city and a bigger place in the country -- one where I could have a big oak table outside and tons of dinner guests. It would be crazy and wonderful if we could somehow win the lottery and get everything in this next move, I told him, but I wasn't expecting to get this place in the country for a few years yet.
"We could just look for now," the professor replied with a big smile, pointing to an ad he'd found for affordable land just outside of the city.
So, we loaded the baby into the car and drove off to test out the concept -- each with our own idea of what having a home in the country meant.
My idea is probably one that many North Americans have: A villa that requires a little love and attention, that has a few grape vines, maybe an orange tree, and a perfect spot for a garden once a little weeding has been done. I pointed a few of these out as we drove through the little villages surrounding Nice, and a few more, even while the spaces between the villas grew, as we started to climb the side of one of the valleys in the Alps beyond the city. Eventually, though, I stopped pointing out villas altogether. There weren't any houses left.
The prof's idea of a house in the country, I soon discovered, was this: A tent. With some rocks around it, and a mist so strong that you feel as though you're in the clouds. The mist gives you some privacy, I guess, but only from the few lonely horses and goats that your kilometers-away neighbour might happen to own.
As we drove through the Col de Vence in search of this land for sale, the prof. grew more excited and I grew more skeptical -- even though I love tents and normally think any adventure is great.
I now support this skepticism with a few facts I learned on the internet: The Col de Vence is apparently one of those UFO-sighting kind of places. The theory: no one else was out there, so it must have been the aliens.
(I first looked up Col de Vars by mistake, which is described as a high mountain pass, with an elevation of 2108 m (6916 ft), that is ONLY OPEN from May until October. I believed that was the place because THAT'S how remote I consider it!)
We've been sticking to the city listings since -- not because we don't like the Col de Vence, but because it won't exactly take away the feelings of remoteness that I've been trying to shake since I first moved to France.
Last weekend, while browsing the apartment listings here in Nice, the professor asked how I'd feel about a having a little house in the country. I said that I'd always dreamed of having a small apartment in the city and a bigger place in the country -- one where I could have a big oak table outside and tons of dinner guests. It would be crazy and wonderful if we could somehow win the lottery and get everything in this next move, I told him, but I wasn't expecting to get this place in the country for a few years yet.
"We could just look for now," the professor replied with a big smile, pointing to an ad he'd found for affordable land just outside of the city.
So, we loaded the baby into the car and drove off to test out the concept -- each with our own idea of what having a home in the country meant.
My idea is probably one that many North Americans have: A villa that requires a little love and attention, that has a few grape vines, maybe an orange tree, and a perfect spot for a garden once a little weeding has been done. I pointed a few of these out as we drove through the little villages surrounding Nice, and a few more, even while the spaces between the villas grew, as we started to climb the side of one of the valleys in the Alps beyond the city. Eventually, though, I stopped pointing out villas altogether. There weren't any houses left.
The prof's idea of a house in the country, I soon discovered, was this: A tent. With some rocks around it, and a mist so strong that you feel as though you're in the clouds. The mist gives you some privacy, I guess, but only from the few lonely horses and goats that your kilometers-away neighbour might happen to own.
As we drove through the Col de Vence in search of this land for sale, the prof. grew more excited and I grew more skeptical -- even though I love tents and normally think any adventure is great.
I now support this skepticism with a few facts I learned on the internet: The Col de Vence is apparently one of those UFO-sighting kind of places. The theory: no one else was out there, so it must have been the aliens.
(I first looked up Col de Vars by mistake, which is described as a high mountain pass, with an elevation of 2108 m (6916 ft), that is ONLY OPEN from May until October. I believed that was the place because THAT'S how remote I consider it!)
We've been sticking to the city listings since -- not because we don't like the Col de Vence, but because it won't exactly take away the feelings of remoteness that I've been trying to shake since I first moved to France.
 |
| Col de Vence -- the pass that, well, isn't going to pass, but makes for a beautiful drive nonetheless. Cyclists, apparently, love it. |
Thursday, October 4, 2012
The mandarin tree is dead!
When we went to Canada for our several-month trip in the spring and summer, we left our beloved mandarin tree with a security guard in a building near us. Unfortunately, we didn't think about the fact that security guards, especially in France, often take holidays in the summer.
So, when we came back from Canada, here's the state that we found our mandarin tree in:
The death of the tree didn't make me nearly as sad as the death of the little baby tree that had appeared beneath it around the time of our baby's birth. I'd sort of hoped that our baby would be able to pick fruit from that little tree for his whole life, once he got passed mashed pees and carrots, but that's not going to happen anymore. So sad.
On a happier note, we've now replaced the tree with some lovely flowers -- Bougainvillea. They grow on balconies, walls and fences all over this part of France. Our French neighbour gave them to the Professor with this little bit of advice to keep them alive, "These flowers are like a woman. If you're too nice to them, they won't stay beautiful."
He was joking, mostly, I'm sure, but we're determined to play hard to get.
For the baby's first birthday, I'm thinking lemon tree. Or kiwi (apparently you need both a male and female plant). Fig?
So, when we came back from Canada, here's the state that we found our mandarin tree in:
 |
| Our poor, dead mandarin tree. |
The death of the tree didn't make me nearly as sad as the death of the little baby tree that had appeared beneath it around the time of our baby's birth. I'd sort of hoped that our baby would be able to pick fruit from that little tree for his whole life, once he got passed mashed pees and carrots, but that's not going to happen anymore. So sad.
On a happier note, we've now replaced the tree with some lovely flowers -- Bougainvillea. They grow on balconies, walls and fences all over this part of France. Our French neighbour gave them to the Professor with this little bit of advice to keep them alive, "These flowers are like a woman. If you're too nice to them, they won't stay beautiful."
He was joking, mostly, I'm sure, but we're determined to play hard to get.
For the baby's first birthday, I'm thinking lemon tree. Or kiwi (apparently you need both a male and female plant). Fig?
 |
| Our new Bougainvillea plants. |
Monday, September 10, 2012
We're back! -- Oh, Champs-Elysées
We're back in Nice after many, many months in Canada, ready to figure out how life works for a little family in France. Our baby is now almost a little boy (in my mind at least), which hopefully means that I'll have a little more time on my hands to start blogging again. However, I'm going to start slowly so we can still spend a lot of our time outside.
The fall in Nice is my favourite time of year. The tourists start to leave, the beaches empty out a bit, and the sun starts to cool down a little in the middle of the day. The weather is still summery and beautiful and there are still flowers and ripe figs on the trees, but carrying a baby around just isn't as sweaty. At least, that's what I'm hoping.
To begin our rediscovery of France this fall, we've started with a new, baby-friendly soundtrack for the car. I threw in a little Raffi, and Sharon, Lois and Bram from my childhood (which has nothing to do with Nice or France) and the prof. went with some Joe Dassin. So far, we can't get enough of Les Champs-Élysées. Click on it. I swear it will make you happier.
The fall in Nice is my favourite time of year. The tourists start to leave, the beaches empty out a bit, and the sun starts to cool down a little in the middle of the day. The weather is still summery and beautiful and there are still flowers and ripe figs on the trees, but carrying a baby around just isn't as sweaty. At least, that's what I'm hoping.
To begin our rediscovery of France this fall, we've started with a new, baby-friendly soundtrack for the car. I threw in a little Raffi, and Sharon, Lois and Bram from my childhood (which has nothing to do with Nice or France) and the prof. went with some Joe Dassin. So far, we can't get enough of Les Champs-Élysées. Click on it. I swear it will make you happier.
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