Flea markets, cockroaches, prawns and alsations

While I was living in Paris my brother Stephen met the woman he was destined to marry. What better way to woo her than whisk her away for a romantic weekend in the City of Light? Unfortunately for her, his pay didn't quite run to the George V hotel, or any other for that matter, but he could afford the coach/ferry fare for both of them, and he asked if I would put them up. I warned him it wouldn't be romantic, as I lived in a studio and we'd all have to sleep in the same room.

My mother was delighted. She didn't approve of sex before marriage (or after it, according to my father) so she was confident that there would be no 'hanky-panky' with me sleeping mere feet away.

'Tell her I have cockroaches, if you're really worried,' I said. 'That'll make sure she keeps her knickers on.'

Of course, I didn't expect my mother to tell my future sister-in-law this, but mothers never do what you expect them to, do they?

Wanting to make a good impression and ensure they had a good time, I took them to the flea market at the Porte de Clignancourt on day one. We had a great time rummaging around the stalls and stands and after a happy couple of hours decided it was time for lunch. This is when the trouble started. The café we chose was a very popular one and they had run out of tables outside in the sun, but I appealed to the owner's national pride: it was the first time I had met my brother's girlfriend - the only time I'd met one of his girlfriends, so I knew she was special to him. I wanted them both to enjoy their brief visit to Paris and I'd selected his café and we'd all be just devastated if we couldn't have lunch on the terrace.

My plan worked. The owner carried another table and three chairs outside. Unfortunately he put it down where his huge alsation used to relax in the sun. The alsation was not happy at being ousted, and sat by Sarah's leg, glaring at her and salivating. Sarah is afraid of alsations ...

To her credit, she only whimpered a bit, and after another word with the café owner, the dog was dragged inside and Sarah relaxed and ordered her first course. Being British, she ordered prawn cocktail. Being France, the prawns were shell-on. The dish was placed in front of her with several pairs of beady eyes staring at her and she went white. Sarah is afraid of shell-on prawns ... it's the eyes and antennae that freak her out.

While she went to the bathroom, my brother and I started to peel the prawns for her but she was back before we had finished. She was holding her hand in the air, blood dripping from her palm. She slumped into her chair and told us that she wasn't used to 'squattez-vous', or toilettes à la Turque (the squat-and-drop holes in the ground) and had put her hands on the walls on either side to brace herself. This was a big mistake as her hand slipped on a broken tile and gashed her palm open.

Smelling blood, the alsation came and sat by her again while I went and asked the café owner, who was beginning to regret ever putting the table outside for us, if he had a first aid kit.

'No,' he said. 'We only took over last week and we haven't got around to that yet. Here, have some paper napkins.'

Poor Sarah ate her (peeled) prawn cocktail with her fork in one hand, and the other hand clenching a dozen or so white paper napkins that were slowly turning red.

What else could go wrong? Well, we had the main course to get through. Steak frites, you can't go wrong with that, surely? Especially when I told the waiter that Sarah wanted her steak bien cuit, no, more than well done, absolutely cremated. Not a drop of blood, thank you. In fact, not even pink in the middle. Brown to the point of being black all the way through, please. I could not have been clearer. The steaks arrived: Sarah cut into hers and moved back just in time to avoid a jet of blood shooting out of the middle. So much for bien cuit! I think the owner wanted to make sure we never came back... I sent her steak back with renewed instructions, even though I could see she was rapidly starting to lose her appetite. It came back, cooked to Sarah's exact specification, but the chips were cold. We gave up. We went back to my flat, Sarah's hand still swathed in bloody napkins.

After a few drinks in a local bar later that evening, Sarah started to see the funny side of it, much to my brother's relief, but when we were all tucked up in bed that night I heard Sarah whisper, 'Is it true, what your Mum said, about the cockroaches?'

'I don't know,' Stephen whispered back.

'I'm not taking any chances,' Sarah replied firmly. 'I'm keeping my pants on!'

Sarah and Stephen celebrate their twentieth wedding anniversary at the end of August this year. I asked them if they fancied going back to Paris for the occasion. The answer, in perfect unison, was a resounding No!

Just in case you didn't believe me ...

... here I am with my medal for finishing!

Phew, what a scorcher!

I love the hot weather - under the right circumstances. These include sea in close proximity, a lack of clothing save for a sarong or a tankini, fresh air and a jug of something ice-cold. Sangria springs to mind.

I do not love the hot weather when I have to go to work in an office where you can't open the windows ('Why would you want to open a window? We have aircon!) especially when the AIRCON IS BROKEN! Sorry, was I shouting?

Only one area of the building is without functioning aircon at the moment - yes, you've guessed, the area where my desk is situated. About 10 of us are affected. We've managed to find one decent sized fan and one little one, but all they seem to do is move the hot air around. The huge windows radiate every calorie of heat into the offices: it's like working in a sauna.

The back of my neck perspires, my face looks like a tomato that's just been rinsed under a tap. I kicked my shoes off under the desk for a few minutes and couldn't get them back on again. I swear I left damp footprints on the carpet!

The Factories Act (1961) states that it's not reasonable to have to work in temperatures below 16°C, but there is no upper limit. The thermometer on my desk was next to the fan, and it still showed almost 30°C today.

The least my boss could do is go out and buy us all an ice-cream! But if I suggested it, I'd be the one getting into a hot car and going to the shop. Maybe, for once, I'll keep my mouth shut!

Race for Life

I did it!

For the fourth year running I completed the Race for Life. It was touch and go whether I would take part - when I enrolled in February my operation was supposed to be eight weeks off, giving me about 15 weeks to recover before the race. Due to NHS 'procedures', though, I had only 7 weeks between operation and race and the cardiac nurse roared, 'Oh no you're not!' when I told her I was doing the Race for Life ... Having promised to walk (I'm built for comfort, not for speed; it was never my intention to run) and not push myself to do it in under an hour, cardiac nurse said OK but after my first cardiac group rehab session I have been soooo depressed it's been a struggle to get out of bed in the morning to go to work, let alone to hike 5km round the Common. Yesterday I got up early, pottered around a bit, but feeling desperately fed up after a couple of hours I went back to bed for the rest of the day, only able to drag myself up in time for Casualty at 8.50pm.

Anyway, I did it, I'm glad I did, and I'm proud of myself. I don't know if I'll do it next year, though.

Barking, not biting ...

This is one of the photos that came up in an email entitled 'special moments'. It wasn't my favourite, by any means, but as soon as I saw it, I thought, 'Hmmm, I've seen that startled look before.' A colleague had received the same email and when she got to this photo she looked up and said, 'Look, that's a picture of you and me!'

Now, I do agree that I tend to explode with rage from time to time, but nobody takes me seriously, they think I'm just exaggerating for comic effect (which can be frustrating at times). It seems, though, that my original roar (or bark, to keep the canine theme) does startle them.

For the record, my bark may be a bit scary, but I never bite. I'm too afraid I'll leave my teeth behind ...

La Vie en Rose

Sitting in the surprisingly modern foyer of the health clinic, waiting for my cardiac rehab appointment, I leafed through a magazine (another surprise, it was in date!) and found a small article on Petit [sic] Anglaise. I immediately went into an internal rant about how it should be Petite with an e if it was Anglaise, but fortunately there was no-one to hear my tutting, and it was a mistake on the part of the journalist, not the writer herself of Petite Anglaise, first a blog, now a novel. I spent the next few days catching up on her blog, and, through it, remembering all the things I loved about Paris when I lived there. Do take a look at her blog - it's a wonderful slice of Parisian life and a great unfolding story of a young Englishwoman's life.

I'm sure I can't have been deliriously happy for the whole of the six years I was there but, looking back through the inevitable rose-tinted glasses, I loved my time in Paris. Most of my friends and family have heard all my anecdotes and incidents a dozen times before and I don't often get the chance to tell my tales these days, so I thought I'd commit some of them to the blogosphere before they fade from my memory.

Every day for 6 years I walked along the Rue de la Folie Régnault, turned onto the Rue de la Roquette and walked to Place Léon Blum. I made my way down the steps of this metro station, Voltaire. I'd travel two stops to Oberkampf, change lines, travel to Place d'Italie, change lines again for another two stops and get off at Maison Blanche on the Avenue d'Italie. I worked as a PA in a company that made photographic accessories - flash guns, tripods, lens filters - and the reels that were used in the good old days of movie and audio tape, before things went digital.

Every now and again, in between my rants about my current life in England, there will be the odd reminiscence about 'the good old days' in Paris, so do stop by from time to time!

What did you do in rehab today?

This morning I found myself sitting in the bar of a rather run-down 5-a-side football club beside a dual carriageway, watching in dismay as a handful of old men dribbled in and sat down. One of the men seemed younger than the others, but the taut, slightly startled expression was a bit of a giveaway. I think he may have succumbed to the pastic surgeon's knife. Certainly he looked and sounded like a man who spent a lot of time moisturising.I was the only woman there. Apart from face-lift man, I was younger than all the others in the group by at least 15 years, 25 years in some cases.

It was obvious that nobody there (except face-lift man) understood what was meant by, 'wear something you can exercise in.' They were all wearing old-man trousers pulled up to their armpits and buttoned-up shirts, socks and highly polished leather lace-up shoes. I was in a loose T-shirt, cropped trousers and trainers.

Imagine, if you can, three women aged between 19 and 45, all on the chunky side, extolling the virtues of exercise in voices that are normally used in a play-group. A powerpoint slide show presentation was given and, in case any of us couldn't read, it was read out to us. Very slowly. I spent the time looking at the spelling, punctuation and layout mistakes and trying to remind myself that two of these women were nurses, not secretaries, and the 19-year-old was ... well, she was probably good at PE at school and ended up being 'an exercise professional'. Whatever that is.

The more I thought about being there, the more depressed I became. When we'd listened to the presentation and been asked questions about it ('So, can any of you tell me what the benefits are of exercise?' 'Yes,' laughed one old geezer. 'It gets me away from the wife.') we then went into our exercise programme. Walking on the spot. Swinging our arms. Walking around the room. Bending our knees.

'Come along, get those knees up!' one of the jolly nurses said. 'Try a little jogging on the spot!'

With size H boobs? In front of 7 elderly men with heart disease? I did them all a favour and refused. I didn't want the shock to kill them.

By the time we broke for a drink of water I was so angry at being there I was close to tears. Oldest nurse asked me how I was. Well, I'm nothing if not honest.

'I really resent being here, having to be here. Everyone else is retired and treating this like an outing. I have to go to work after this. I feel better and fitter than I have done for at least two years but I've been told I can't go back to the gym before I've completed this ... this ... programme and all I want to do is get back to a normal life, not waste my time here.'

To her credit, she didn't try and jolly me along (or I think I'd have walked out there and then) and did seem sympathetic. I guess she was surprised to see someone my age in a cardiac rehab group, and she did say that I could probably leave after week 6 instead of waiting until week 8.

I might have felt a little better if there had been some other women in the group, or at least someone my own age. As it was, I spent two hours surrounded by elderly men, most of whom didn't appear to have heard of deoderant. To add insult to injury, the showers were out of order.

It's going to be a very, very long five weeks.

They tried to make me go to rehab ...

I went for my 'Cardiac Rehab' session a couple of weeks ago. I thought it would just be a question of,

'How are you feeling?'
'Fine, thanks.'
'Good, on your way then, and try to cut down on the cholesterol.'

Turns out it was a lot more serious than that. Instead of carrying on as normal (after all, the statins I'm taking now combat the cholesterol, so where's the problem?) I've got to make some major life-style changes and complete an eight-week cardiac rehab programme - every Tuesday morning from 8 July onwards I have to attend a gym where I will exercise under the close scrutiny of cardiac nurses to check I'm actually as well as I now feel. I'm too young to have heart disease but as every member of my Dad's side of the family has/had it, I guess I wasn't ever going to escape. I resent the lifestyle changes I am going to have to make, but hey, it's better than the alternative of dying young, isn't it? Isn't it?

Although the good old NHS has had almost 2 weeks to send me details of this enforced activity (whilst forbidding me to go back to my regular gym - which I have to carry on paying for) I have had no letter from them. I 'phoned them last week at 4pm only to be told that there was no-one there. The person who answered the 'phone did take my number and promise that the cardiac nurse would call me back the next day. She didn't.

So, I still don't know where I'm supposed to go, what time I'm supposed to turn up, whether I should wear loose clothing for the exercise, if there are showers there and if should I bring my own towel? My boss has said not to worry, that we'd work around it, but to be honest, if I were the employer, I'd expect to see some kind of official document about the fact I'm going to have to take off every Tuesday morning until the end of August.

When I had the angiogram earlier this year I was told that I could go back to the gym 10 days later. At that time I still had a severely blocked artery and angina pains. Now that I've had the op I am fitter than I have been in at least 2 years, so why have I been told I can't go back to the gym? It makes no sense. If I haven't had my letter by Monday night, I'm not going to their bloody rehab.

So there.