Quelque temps en France

I’m not sure whether I can write a lighthearted blog about this.  I didn’t want to talk about politics in these blogs and quite frankly, I’d like to go back to complaining about grumpy waiters. But one does not choose the times one lives in, and in what is becoming something of a pattern, I find myself having moved to a country just in time to catch the biggest sociopolitical upheaval in modern history. Rosie’s in the US this week, so I’m looking after Sam. This morning I dropped him off at his Nanny’s, and made my way to work. My route took me past the local high school, which was barricaded with hundreds of teenagers while black clouds rose from makeshift bonfire made from garbage cans and gasoline. I was briefly stopped by the police, who seemed to have chosen to stop cyclists going to work in place of stopping the kids attempting arson, and continued along my way. My usual route goes slightly out of my way to ride along a ‘rightsized’ street where the bikepath runs pa...

I never considered that the blogs would be read by the locals, which was foolish in hindsight. For the first several weeks of my job, after introducing myself, I was greeted with a slightly over-familiar look and ‘ah, yes - I’ve read your blog’. Each time, I slightly cringed at the thought of the rash cultural generalizations I’d made and muttered something apologetic. But, at the risk of offending more French people, perhaps enough time has passed to justify another entry... I sit on the sofa, for the first time in several months, with a cat. Obtaining said cats involved vast sums of money, kindness from friends in Boulder and bureaucracy. The final collection of the cats was a 2 1/2 hour tour de force of office apathy, with enough characters to make a functional sit-com (the mis-placed hiphop backing dancer at the main desk, the aggressive middle manager who was typing something very important and would talk to you in a minute, the guy who went out for a cigarette every ...

For the second time in my life, I find myself working in an environment envisioned by a mid-20th century architect to be an ideal academic sanctuary. NCAR had towers with grandiose windows nestled in the peaks of the Front Range of Colorado, with little crevices for thought and corridors and grand halls for conversation, while CERFACS is an inverted world, with pockets of tropical forests on the inside - a concept which makes little sense at the end of summer, but I’m assured is quite pleasant in November. The last couple of weeks have been a whirlwind of an introduction to French working life. Our work colleagues at MeteoFrance and CERFACS have been welcoming and lovely, but we remain at a loss as to how to organize quite basic parts of our existence: how to pay our taxes or enroll ourselves in healthcare, for example - questions where even for French people it’s annoying and complicated, but for somebody arriving from outside the system with no history and only basic Fr...

One of the concerns we'd had before we came to France was that our mental perception of life here was mostly formed in the mid 90s when we were teenagers, and that the reality of modern French life might prove to be a disappointment in the rose tinted context of carefree youthful summer holidays. However, the last couple of weeks have served as reassurance that the seaside world of our youth remains mostly in tact. This weekend marks the end of les vacances, a month-long exodus for most people from professional work. Fully embracing the local culture, we've spent the last couple of weeks on a sequence of mini-vacations with various members of our family. Despite the fact that the whole country is on vacation, the culture revels in informing you that the holidays are almost over. On August 1st, the supermarkets stopped selling fans and summer clothing, despite the fact it was still hot enough outside to cook eggs on exposed metal surfaces. The newspapers are full of stori...

Keeping up with Kilian Jornet  We are settling into something of a rhythm. We are being shouted at less in swimming pools, and are becoming more accustomed to the simplest of tasks being associated with vast amounts of bureaucracy. We spent a couple of days preparing for Rosie's parents' (Peter and Allison’s) visit after mostly neglecting our house during the heatwave. We spent a couple of afternoons gardening, which involved hacking at the spiky, nettle-y vegetation and unearthing some 200 year old pavement. We then tried to plant some grass seed, which was instantly consumed by huge numbers of ants. The house, it seems, is reluctant to be tamed. We don't yet have a car, relying on our bikes and an electric car share scheme to get around. The cars can be picked up at any time, rented by the minute but cannot generally be booked in advance. This set of rules encourages you to drive to a place and release the car back to the system, but it gets you some looks. Our...

I seem to have become a serial blogger, mostly enabled by staying up in the middle of the night with a supply of cheap brandy while Rosie and Sam have adopted a more conventional (and arguably healthy) sleeping timetable. Rosie is thus slightly resentful that I am solely responsible for the depiction of of our lives, and even more so that I am writing down and stealing her jokes, threatening to stop telling them altogether (which I duly noted down and stole for my blog). We have returned to the city. The last week involved staying in a mountain hut which we had traveled to while simultaneously renting a campsite emplacement and a house in Toulouse as well as owning a house in America, a financial situation which was not particularly sustainable in a month where I don’t yet have a job. We were then greeted by a huge mobile phone bill from America, which acted as a suitable incentive to attempt to get a French sim card and home internet. This seems to be a relatively advanced level...

There was a time when I could have been accused of setting unrealistic goals for adventures in the mountains, but the tables have turned. Seemingly easy hikes are transformed into substantial epics when provided with a squirming, occasionally uncooperative, 35 pound backpack to carry. The morning of Rosie's birthday, we set out (at her request) from our tent on the Spanish border for the town of Porte Puymorens, an arbitrary destination about 25 minutes away by train, but a full day's hike (at baby-carrying speed) with about 4000ft of elevation. Sam alternated between engagement, sleep and frustration and so we modified our progress accordingly - moving fast while he dozed and feeling mildly concerned when he shouted out "DOG!!" in wolf country. We stopped for lunch in an unmanned cabane, stocked with ancient furniture and emergency packets of cigarettes. A cabane We walked for hours through tiny villages and high pastures, eventually to a pass with a long steep...