I’m not overly worried about getting sick given our lifestyle in Ottawa. I'm worried about everything else, though.
French woman in English Canada.
Looking for comrades to start a revolution.
In the meantime, I write stories, explore cultures and travel. You know, the usual.
I’m not overly worried about getting sick given our lifestyle in Ottawa. I'm worried about everything else, though.
“Are you sure his first day is today? Where are the other kids?”
I shrugged. “Socially distancing? Waiting in the car? Who knows!”
On Sunday night, I completed Canada’s most important parenting task for the first time in almost exactly six months—I packed a waste-free, egg-, soy- and nut-free, safe to leave at room temperature...
Go ahead, read the news and comments below, browse Twitter, chat with a neighbour—there’s anger and outrage all over the place about IRRESPONSIBLE BEHAVIOUR, topped by a layer of virtue signalling...
Solve, Down the Hill and Distorsion: discover three podcasts that are not about COVID or the 2020 US elections!
With fall just around the corner and winter not far behind, it’s time to start accepting that the weather will soon be changing and the sunshine is going to be around a lot less often. Instead of...
This is what a French brings back from a trip to France. Yes, detergent and instant soup, why?
Mark should have started Grade 3 this week. Instead, I’m keeping him busy with the latest download, Dora and the Lost City of Gold. Clearly, something went wrong along the way…
I folded and refolded then packed and repacked until 11 p.m., getting irrationally frustrated because edges still had wrinkles and my stack of clothes looked uneven. “Let me know if you need...
I mean, without people, there wouldn’t be a pandemic, right?
Still, I like seeing streets full of interesting strangers I’ll never see again.
Suddenly, just like that and just for us, the city puts on an amazing and unexpected show. Lights reflect on water, the moon shines, everything looks magically and disconcertingly different.
I’m exhausted (not a COVID symptom) and anxious (totally a pandemic side effect).
This year, I added a COVID-19 test to my "French chores" list. Hey, it’s a unique Pandemic YearTM opportunity after all!
Saint-Nazaire could have been my kind of place.
It’s the biggest harbour on the French Atlantic coast and a working-class city with a long tradition of fishing and shipbuilding.
One by one, French cities and towns have been making face masks mandatory outdoors for a couple of weeks now. Le Monde’s headlines were getting ridiculous—“masks mandatory outdoors in Lille! In Paris...
We followed a small river, la Sèvre nantaise, and stumbled upon a hamlet called Ville Bachelier—just four of five houses in the middle of nowhere. It felts like being in the 1930s.
The river and night sky never look the same. Yesterday night, for instance, it was perfectly still and the water offered stunning reflections. This is rare in Nantes—it’s close to the coast and it’s...
Later in the afternoon, we all went to the Hellfest “park.” Clisson hosts one of Europe’s biggest yearly metal festival and the site is open year-rond so you can take a stroll around the… ahem, metal...
Art does matter and speaks to us in mysterious ways. I have no explanation for the nude butt cheeks footage, though.
Like many French adventures, it started at the train station. Unlike many French adventures, it didn’t involve some weird train story—strike, ghost train, missed connection or other typical public...
France is a minefield this summer—there are no easy answers to Mark’s hundreds of not-so-innocuous questions.
I can’t take anything for granted anymore—school, work, the ability to move freely from place to place or to see loved ones whenever I want. Everyone around me feels the same.
French 17th-century apartments don’t come with air con and it gets really stuffy in Nantes, even on the Loire River shore.
Yes, all that for bread, "and you buy it every day and every city has it!" like Mark says. Welcome to France, where bread matters.
