French Escape

On Wednesday, I travelled to Nice by train.  No strikes this week. Ridiculously, the beginning of the journey made me think of the Dawlish sea wall. Different sea, different landscape, different colour scheme, but still a train travelling along the edge of the sea. With mountains bordering the water, there are tunnels pretty much all the way to Nice.  Monaco, as if embarrassed that it has to have a railway at all, has hidden its train station way down below the town.   Tunnels are tedious, but it's great to emerge from the mountain and glimpse terracotta tiles, purple bougainvillea and the sea, blue—even when the skies are grey with cloud …  I arrived in Nice and paused for a coffee, as the shops opened their doors.   It seems sad that, after all this time, police and army are very much in evidence, mingling with the shoppers, carrying their guns as casually as shopping bags. Opposite the café, a Salvation Army band played Christmas carols. I didn’t recognise ma...

On Monday, I had the excitement of receiving the first fourteen chapters of my book back from the editor.  I always think that  I have some idea about punctuation, until I see the thousands of corrections to be reviewed.   I dealt with the corrections, and then it was time for the comments. Martina’s comments show me where the reader might falter, might not understand what on earth I am trying to say or might not remember who a character from the last book was. Her comments are always pertinent but sometimes they do make me giggle. I enjoy this part of the process as much as the original writing but find that it is much more tiring, I’m obviously using a different (less used) part of my brain. The next fourteen chapters went off to be studied at the beginning of the week and I just have to check the final few chapters so that I can send them next Monday.  If you haven't already read my first two books, perhaps now is the time to do it: I have decided that I must hav...

   I thought that, when I spent time in France, my French would improve. So far that does not appear to be the case.  It could be due to the fact that, in Menton, on the border with Italy, you are as likely to hear Italian as French. On the other hand, it could be that I am so obviously English (or maybe American), that as soon as I try to speak French in a shop or bar, I am answered in English—sometimes worse than my French. I seem to be using a mixture of languages, slipping in an English word when I can’t remember the French. I am getting by.    In an effort to remedy the language situation, I have signed up for French lessons at the library.  The teacher, Régine, is very kind and very patient. At the first lesson, I didn’t completely embarrass myself and  managed to stutter out a couple of sentences but there is a lot of work to be done. I think I’ll take my pencil case next time, perhaps that will aid my concentration. But in the meantime, I MUST...