We arrived at Inverness quite late. New Year’s Eve or Hogmanay is a big celebration in Scotland. We had already had a big day, so we didn’t have big evening plans. At least, not what other people consider big plans. K went to bed because she is responsible and has…
Category: Wandering
Isle of Skye | Scotland
We lived in relative luxury for our two nights on Skye, in a little AirBnB granny flat. Great views that we didn’t get to appreciate that first day, because it was still reasonably dark when we left. If you wait for the sun to get up in Scotland in winter,…
Glasgow and the West Coast | Scotland
We set out for Glasgow on Boxing Day. My friend K and I, that is. We took the train because, well, train travel is delightful. I was going to say “train travel in the Northern Hemisphere”, but actually, I have enjoyed trains everywhere they have been available to me. Glasgow…
Christmas in Edinburgh | Scotland
For the Christmas/New Year break, I went to Scotland. While I am not averse to spending my birthday alone, and indeed, relish a solitary period of reflection, Christmas is a different affair. Usually there is a lot of lively activity with the family, that tampers off into a sleepy evening…
Marseille Adventures
After my time in Nice, I moved on to five days in Marseille. I had expected to like it more than Nice, and so had planned to spend my birthday there. It didn’t quite go as I expected really. I did have the smoothest train catching of my time to…
Monaco
Monaco is a tiny country – called a principality. It is the home of many millionaires, for tax purposes. Citizens are not taxed on income – the country makes its money through land tax and income from the casino. Interestingly, you can only enter the casino with a foreign passport…
Nice is Nice
(Some photos feature in this post, but you can access the full gallery here.) The school holidays began only three weeks after I started my role here as an English Language Assistant. Between doing prep work for classes and studying for my end of year exams, for my French classes…
La France, c’est different !
When you move countries, you know things are going to be different. There are some things you know beforehand, that you hear through the grapevine (which, these days, mostly just means the internet)- you know, stuff like driving on a different side of the road, or, in the case of…
Beginnings in Normandie | The Weekly (-ish) Lookback
Well friends, I thought it was time for a bit of a chronological update, since I have been in my town in Normandie for over two weeks now. (Side note: Normandie is the French spelling, otherwise ‘Normandy’ in English generally.) I took the train from Paris and one of my…
Are the French Rude?
The titular question is not usually a question I get asked- rather it is a statement often said to me. I have heard it quite a number of times, in many ways, from many different sources. Some people dial it in and say “Parisians” instead, which is at least a…