London . . . Ontario?

So, all is well. I'm busy, working, enjoying the new house, beginning to potter and shoot in the neighbourhood. It's all coming together.

And then I got accepted to my degree.

Good news? Yes. And yet . . . I then learned that I'd been denied EU fee-paying status through some dastardly clerical error. I made a couple of phonecalls, and got a prized email address.

There then followed a silence of five days. I emailed again on day seven. Two days later, I got this:

On checking your documents on PAC can you confirm the following –

Where you state that you worked in London during 04 through to 08, was this in the UK?

I await your reply

Withr egards

Exactly like that, too.

What? London, in the UK? No. Surely not! I meant Ohio. Or was it Ontario?! Is that why the payslips that accompanied my applications read HM Revenue and Customs? Is that why they bore London addresses with big ole Brit postcodes on them? Is that why they were paid in pounds sterling?

KILL ME.

So, the deposit payment is due tomorrow, and I still don't know whether my fee-paying status has changed - so I can't pay them. This evening, I got a snappy email in response to my two-day old plea of 30 June, saying that this issue had already been addressed.

Is this actually proof that university administration doesn't read emails? Or is it proof of something more sinister?!? Comments please.

Return to the Mothership

Greetings, Earthlings.


I, for one, feel like I’ve been on Planet Xendor for the last month. I think the best way to go through things is sequentially, so, starting from the top:

I had my last day in London. I was on my own, bar lunch with a certain Go-getter, and I took a bit of a wander. I started at our house in Dartmouth Park, and I toodled down into the fabulous Kentish Town, stopped short of Camden and swung through Somers Town. It was a glorious day until I reached Russell Square and a pizza lunch with the Go-getter, where as the storm clouds gathered, I heard of his myriad impressive plans all stacking up on eachother with their deadlines and possibilities. Take that, pathetic fallacy. I told him of my plans, the agency set-up, the footloose and fancy-free feeling of having no more possessions in my life bar the roller bag and the duffel I was taking home from Gatwick.

I went on up to Islington, which is a great place to go when you’ve nowhere else to be. Full of life-affirming baked goods, expensive furniture, killer jewellery and antiques, it says ‘Waste time here – you know you want to.’ And I did.

It poured, but I took slow buses and thought about not very much and said goodbye. It felt like a great release.

And then I came home.

Irritating, the Maternal One refused to come to the airport, but I made it back home through throngs of Celine Dion fans. More or less immediately thereafter, I went back up to Dublin to meet the cousin. For some reason, I was vaguely dreading it – something to do with a combination of exhaustion and trepidation about entertaining a travelling newbie for a week.

My fears were unfounded and all was well. We toddled around Dublino, saw a couple of near and dear, did some sights, had some pints, went to the beach in the blazing sun, had cocktails, and that was a week. We talked about our shared family, nothing at all, Ireland and college life in Greenville, North Carolina. It was nice to get to know someone else in the family as if they were a real person, rather than a Christmas ornament. I spent my first and only stinky, hot summer in Washington with a different cousin once to the same effect, and I hope to work my way through all of them by the time I hit thirty.

When she left, I slept for sixteen hours. Then, I started to work.

I haven’t worked with such concentration and enjoyed my work or learned so much since I left college. This says to me that I’ve made the right move.

Not wanting to completely cut myself off in the seaside calm, I was up in Dublin for Writers Week, and got to see the wonderful Mr. Jones in conversation with John Boyne and Claire Kilroy, whose work I like very much. It was a slightly nervous set-up, hung on the tenuous connection of the South Seas – but it was a gorgeous introduction to the two baldy gents’ writing. A few days later, I had an infinitely less inspiring evening watching Hugo Hamilton ask poor David Grossman a slew of facile literary questions topped off with the breathtaking rhetorical on the Middle East, ‘I mean, how can you guys find it so hard? We showed you how to do it with Northern Ireland!’ Um, eight hundred years? So myself and the Editor headed for much-needed light-up pitchers of cheap beer and plates of very tasty sushi. Mine, the Eel Dragon roll, snaked across the plate under its crispy skin and looked at me with wasabi-paste eyes.

I’ve been going steadily on a project that came in three days before I launched the business, which is good, but I haven’t yet established any kind of schedule whereby I can do the task at hand while still setting up the bigger picture. I think that I should be able to do that once I’ve settled in our new house and am cookin’ with gas. It is, however, the uncomfortable, rigid, eyes-on-the-screen, slightly panicked kind of work that you do in your first days in a new job, which I guess I am.


To make my teeth unclench and reconnect with the outside world, I started taking huge walks and much shorter runs – and taking a lot of pictures. The river here is tidal, and goes so low that you can see the trouts’ fins as they roil just below the surface. We now have a pair of snowy egrets up from Africa, who seem to be having a tense relationship with the nesting herons. The ’round Ireland yacht race starts tomorrow, visible from the living room, and the lovely bronzed boaty types are attracting a good bit of, erm, harbour totty, I think Curly would call them.

I miss the Bearded One, but he’s been having much the same intense experience in a different context up in the city, so it’s good this way – but better together.

I feel like myself, and ‘glad to be home’ doesn’t even come close.

Unusual Transactions

As expected in recent months, Clinton didn't win the nomination. She did, thank God, deliver the best speech of her entire campaign - would that she could have pulled it out of the hat a little sooner, but it was gracious.
But, nothing daunted, like a good little Democrat, I toddled over to the Obama website and put down my $25 as my first donation. I joined the LinkedIn group, the Facebook group, and then sat down and had a little sigh.

This morning, I had more than a little sigh when I got a text message at 8.30, immediately after my alarm went off. My bank had texted me to alert me to some 'unusual transactions' on my credit card. *Gasp.* So, I called to check that this was a legit service, which it is, and then, oddly, I get re-routed to the UK. Gemma from the midlands then repeats the same message, adding,

'Let's see here - Obama for America? Would you have sent in €16 to Obama for America? We had it flagged as an unusual transaction.'

Clearly, my bank knows me rather well.

This does, however, mark a positive departure from the Clinton website, where I found that I could not donate on a foreign credit card at all. More fool them. The Obama site does have a hiccup for the Washingtonian voter, however - under 'State Shirts' in their store, there is no 'Washington, D.C. for Obama' shirt. Yes, yes, not a state, and don't I know it. Taxation without representation, I believe it's called. But Puerto Rico got their own shirt. Gimme a break.

Besides, 'Washington, D.C. for Obama' sends a nice message, no?

I've got the movers in

It's true. After a whirlwind couple of weeks, the Bearded One has begun his new job Liffeyside today, the movers left this afternoon, the website goes live tomorrow, the ad goes into the trade rag on Friday and the business launches sooner than expected. All is - dare I say it - going to be ok. Leaving my job went well, in that people were really lovely, full of great suggestions and absurdly generous with the gifts, oi oi oi. I will be the best-outfitted impoverished translator in town. Enough to make you snivel into your cupcake, so I won't dwell - though I've learned an enormous amount, made great friends and had a good enough introduction to publishing to know what I want to do, careerwise, some, erm, obstacles notwithstanding.

Because that wasn't enough to do and because you really want a mini-break in the middle of your move, (gift donkeys, I know) I went to Marrakesh with the Production Diva.

And this was no ordinary trip to Morocco, no no - we travel in style around here, dontcha know. All expenses paid, five-star with beauty treatments style, Cointreau and tonic (try it) by the pool style. In all seriousness, this trip is the most generous gift I've ever received, with the exception of my education (€11,000 per annum for a four-year degree is nothing to sneeze at, and all thanks to being a Yank).

So, despite a 3am start and EasyJet *shudder*, we landed in Marrakesh in a spookily empty and spotless new airport and were whisked away to the Kasbah Agafay. Alarmingly, there are no suburbs in Marrakesh; you go straight from pristine-if-parched avenues with roses and posters of their fearless leader to the most grinding poverty with none of the typical frightening urban set-up of southern Europe; no HLMs, no estates - just rubble. Rubble and nothingness as far as the eye can see, punctuated by the odd cactus, goatherd or robed gent or lady carrying a small child - from where? To where? It's like an extreme and depressing version of the West of Ireland; you pass a farmhouse in the middle of the fields and see no other signs of life for twenty miles, until you spot an octagenarian on a bicycle. Hrm.

From there, we swerve off the road past a huddle of intinerant day labourers and into an olive grove, where we come upon enormous dantean gates and into the most spectacular gardens around a big red fort, all overlooking the foothills of the Atlas.

What followed was a completely surreal two days and two nights eating off of starched linens in olive groves, lounging by the pool, and enjoying watching a bunch of English people squirm at the thought of getting their kit off for the hammam ladies to scrub them with clay - as one of the ladies said to me in broken French, 'Don't they like to be clean in England?'


It was a good group, all of us quite up for the gorgeous food, lounging by the pool, and buffing and fluffing on offer, understandably enough, and that's exactly what we did. Pleasingly, there were Very Important Bods in the world of audiobooks (errrr?), consultants, people with 'people' and some mere publishing plebs like myself with saucer-eyed partners or friends in tow. There were also some minor celebrities, including a TV survivalist (although as his people were eager to explain, that's not really the image they're going for) and one of the actors from The Archers, whose Venn diagram of life does not overlap mine in the slightest, needless to say. The former was more fun than the latter, mainly because I knew something about him and his schtick - and, that in a laconic anitpodean kind of way, was up for a laugh.

'Hey', says the Survivalist's partner, grabbing a leaf from the beautiful hotel herb gardens, 'can I eat this?' 'Yep,' says he in a murmur that suggests there's more to it than that. 'Jesus, Ray, that was really vile', says she.

Having managed to shake off the shady and irritating guide laid on by the hotel, the Production Diva and I demanded that a taxi pick us up later, and headed off into the souk. Amazing how much more welcoming people are when you're not in a quivering group of foreigners whose collective presence emits a 'We're White and Frightened that You'll Rob Us' vibe, innit.

We met a baboush seller and his ancient father, heard midday prayers, were made temporary perches for tiny tortoises and a chameleon and bargained like it was 1999. In short, a successful trip, and further proof that I don't quite have what it takes to live the sanitised life of five-star luxury. I would quite like a chameleon, though.


I got back on Monday, sorted out the remaining pre-move chaos and today managed to nab 12 metres' worth of parking by 10.30 am. The movers, two lovely fellas from NornIrn, have the situation entirely under control and left this afternoon with promises to appear in Dublin in under one week. The Bearded One just checked in to say that he has a Blackberry. *sigh* I will well and truly get outta here in one piece. TFFT.

Looking forward to a quiet last day visiting some places I really like in London.

Feeding wolves with rubber stamps

So, ever the worrier, am damn near apoplectic with concerns over the Very Boring Details of moving countries - again. Bank accounts, movers, college administration, luggage, living at home for a month in between . . . it's a lot to think about, or rather, worry blindly about.

And then there's the business. The new business will launch 16 June, before which date I'll need to talk to the business naming people, the tax man, the bank, and oh-so-many more people with rubber stamps before I can get cracking. (On the plus side, I now have my very own rubber stamp of my very lovely logo, thanks in part to My Friend George - see right.) More overwhelming is whether all this effort will succeed in earning me the required crust, though well-meaning friends and colleagues assure me that this is not an issue.

By way of keeping fingers in pies and the wolf from the door, I've started noodging for more reviewing work - which will be good *kill me* networking, too. A Dublin-based magazine might have some, but - as in Real Journalism - the freelancer must pitch the idea. They have some useful and amusingly-written guidelines for pitching. Most are fairly par for the course, but some are very useful points spelled out in plain English.

27/27

So, I'm getting old. Don't laugh. I am now distinctly closer to thirty than twenty, and it doesn't feel good. It feels a bit like staring into the gaping void of a new business and a new degree. It also feels like it's time to go home and set up shop properly.

The friends, they really pulled it together on this one. The party was fancy dress, the theme was London. There were pop stars, hated politicians, a daft prince, one great fire, some ghoulish pie-bakers, and a small lost bear. There was a gallant Arab gent, some hard rockers, a gay bespectacled candle in the wind, the actor who baked pies himself, and a good old-fashioned hooker. The winners in my mind were the Squares, Lester and Russell - a charming couple, if a little well-starched.

Possibly the most daring was fellow Norf Londoner, your favourite extremist cleric and mine, you guessed it . . .



The evening also brought a new shiny stack of reading to my groaning, tiny bedside table: My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk, The Twilight of Atheism by Alister McGrath, and, oh yes, How to be a Domestic Goddess by Unmentionably Dreadful and Yet So Very Tasty in the Cakes Department (not to mention the production values, oooerrrr).

Not a bad haul! Also, I got a star - what should I name my star? I've added a poll next door >>>>>>

Never content, I am still hankering after more, possibly foreseeing my new book-buying future once I leave the hallowed halls of publishing in-house. I give links to sites, reviews and some surprise book shops just for anorak fun.
For All We Know by Ciaran Carson (Gallery), Sputnik Caledonia by Andrew Crumey (Picador), the original text of A Tranquil Star by Primo Levi (spotted in Engrish in the New Yorker) China Returns to Africa, Eds. Christopher Alden, Daniel Large and Ricardo de Oliveira (Hurst or through The Times) and the new Dermot Bolger in a whopping great NYT review and Sebastian Barry, mentioned in an odd piece in The Economist and this in the Indo
with the only unflattering photograph I've ever seen of the author, who is quite the handsome devil.

It will all be rather a lot to pack, but that, as the relocation-allowance-bequeathed among us say, is for the movers to deal with.

Nothing daunted, and heading into my last month of work in London!

Prophesize with your pen

Today was a big day. After two and a half years at a very lovely London publisher, I handed in my notice.

It's an odd thing, quitting; many in the office acted as if they'd all written down their own predictable reactions, pitched them into a hat and passed it around the office. One, usually peculiarly perceptive to changes of mood in the office was shocked. Another, usually too quietly overwhelmed by doing three jobs at once to muster much enthusiasm burst into the biggest honest display of sadness, elation and genuine interest I've seen in an English workplace (sorry). Finally, the one who said 'YOU B*TCH!' when I left my last job in the company gave really helpful advice on the website demo. The big wigs were supportive, but likely thought my plans a small enterprise.

The enterprise, you ask? Yes, you did.

I'm going back to Dublin, back to college and back to languages. Then, I'll be setting up an agency of freelancers: editorial for English-language publishers and translators for foreign-language publishers/agents. I'll be writing about that elsewhere and this here blog will remain fairly personal and fairly anonymous.

Meanwhile, will be finding good respectable freelance staff and lining up some, urm, work.

G'day Nice Lady, Aaaaaright . . .

A few years ago, working in a central location too awkward for Dublin's pathetic public transport network to handle, I took up cycling in a serious way. I was inspired by my time in Florence, where cycling was the norm and a carefree, easy sort of thing - much like life there. I'm an unlikely candidate for city cycling - by which I mean physical activity after insufficient coffee, followed by a daily commute awash in sweat and mild danger; it's not really my bag. But, against the odds, I came to love it, and a good thing too, because it has become one of my favourite aspects of our life in London.


Drink and cycling, however, don't mix; you only have to hit the cobbles in Piazza Santissima Annunziata once to drive it well and truly home. So, on the days I have hot plans after work, I bus or tube it.


The only part of taking the tube that is any good at all is the walk down, during which I think about the day ahead and nothing at all. By the time I get to the station, I'm in a world of my own. ‘Aaaaarrrrriiiightnaaayssssladyaaaarrrrriiiight’, twinkles my favourite Big Issue seller. Everyday, the same routine. He never misses me, or any of the other nice ladies, even when I think he's busy making change or lighting a cigarette in the wind. I can be on the other side of the turnstile by the time I hear it, ‘Aaaaarrrrriiiight . . .’.

Sometimes, I try to sneak through without him seeing me, just to test him.

The great thing was that he moved during the day, selling at the supermarket where I often grab lunch-makings, so the pleasure was twice mine. 'I gets lonely, you know . . . missing all dose naaaysladeeeees'. Who can argue with that?

The thing is, he was beaten up and hospitalised the other week. It took me a while to check up that this was true, but it was. He told me himself when he got out, nothing daunted:

'They waited until I was at the end of my day, you know. They wait for the money. And then they come. But it's aaaaright, you know. They didn't get nuffing from me.'

Beating up Big Issues sellers. A new low for London, I have to say it, but let's hear it for the man in question. He's back on form, charming the ladies and selling the zines - but now I only see him at lunch. I miss my morning greeting.

parkbenchlondon.blogspot.com

So, few faithful readers, I have changed my URL from

parkbenchlondon.blogspot.com

to this here

viewfromaparkbench.blogspot.com

Hope you find me! Sorry for any confusion, tears in beers, etc. If any of you clever clogs know of a better way to do this, please comment . . .

Vacanze!

The time had come for a proper holiday. Of course we're blessed to be able to take weekend breaks all over the shop and have friends to stay with into the deal, but really, a full week in Italy is where it's at.

We started in Milan, late and hungry, hurtling down the motorway in a tiny car with a huge man at the wheel. Four sunny days in Milan followed, with home base in a flat along the canal and an Irish/English couple to visit. We wandered the city, not a great beauty spot as we knew, but a great visit nonetheless thanks to the touristing efforts of our lovely hosts. We ate ice cream and befriended well-dressed babies in Pavia, and avoided guided tours in the Certosa to the monks' crotchety annoyance. Sandwiches ordered from kiosks bore politicians' names (Fascist and Communist, thank you) and the aperitivi were epic.

We had Saint Patrick's Day with silly hats and bad pints, furrin' style, in a pub that thought it was Irish, but could have been anything, and ate tricolor risotto. Life was good, and we hopped the Eurostar to Rome where we'd rented a massive flat in Trastevere. It was a great way to do it, as we soon felt at home, getting to know the neighbourhood as a neighbourhood, complete with sunny morning market, playground and family bars for espresso and sticky cornetti.

Rome is a lot like Paris in early spring, and we pooked along through the Jewish Quarter, along the river, round and round the Pantheon and beyond. It was beautiful, winding and full of extremely tasty food of the fried Roman variety. We went back to Da Enzo for carciofi and fiori di zucca, and discovered Le Mani in Pasta for cacio e pepe. And when the Vatican became too big, we found the smallest hole-in-the-wall for fabulous sandwiches, a place where the wine came decanted into empty Scotch bottles. Odd little bars popped up at every turn, one with an indefatigable Joe Pesci double at the helm, pork-pie hatted and ready for a good time.

The last of the woods laid low

So where to begin. A quarter hour before my departure from the office in the chaotic and completely unmanaged handover of my boss on maternity leave, I learned that my godmother had lost out to the cancer that was diagnosed five years ago. She would have been sixty-nine next month. It felt like being crushed, slowly.

So when I hit Dublin, I went, with a kind and patient friend, to meet for a sleepy jar at the Gresham - Smithwicks, in honour of the lady herself. It was her pint of choice, to be had laughing loudly on the creaky plastic benches on the balcony of the Dalkey Island Hotel. There, I would drink Club Orange (in a bottle with a straw, please) and Scampi Fries, and bury 10p pieces in the garden for our next visit and another round of Pacman in the lobby. We'd look out at the island and pile on more jumpers, pretending it was really summer.

travelblog.com

Behind the scenes parkbenching in Dublin was productive, and met with old friends for pints, dinners, tea and cakes, and theatre, and new friends for chats about books and language. Shared a restaurant with Mr. Black while we ranted and rolled our tired eyes through more Trebbiano and outstayed our welcome with dessert we couldn't afford. Saw Mangan, Poe and Mahony onstage in Daniel Reardon's latest, Bleeding Poets at Dublin's New Theatre, a great space hosted by kind people, filling the gaping voide left by the closing of Andrew's Lane. Sublime, ridiculous and the beginning of a very long couple of weeks.

I was back in London for eighteen hours before taking my first flight to Norway. When I woke up the next morning in the cozy wooden house with the potbellied stove, I saw that in Trondheim, children ski to school.


When we filed out of the cathedral, the snow began to fall.

Pictorial post while I parkbench it behind the scenes

Recent days have seen, in no particular order: family out-of-law, Chinese New Year, frustrations at work, the London Art Fair and lots and lots of food. There's plenty going on in terms of planning for the new venture, reading and reviewing, but for now . . . 

Christmas Catch-up...

Another year another... nyeh, who knows.

It's been ages, but December was a blur, and the pre-Christmas slow-down was a sneaking, snivelling foul little misnomer. It was heinous, our Managing Ed was ill, those who have failed to pull their weight all along excelled themselves, everybody else tried their best. It was all hands on deck, and it was ugly. Ugly, but nice to know that we got through it and the books were made.

Christmas in Old Country was lovely - enough time with our own families, each other's and friends to tick all the boxes and generally have a good time of it. I think the key is not spending too awfully long in any one place and mixing it up as best you can. Otherwise, cabin fever kicks in and people get crabby.



The Lads, headed up by My Friend George (see right), took a notion that I should see Cork, so I went down on the train and toodled - it's lovely, with winding laneways and the convivial quiet of a small Irish city - with the added bonus of a Cillian Murphy sighting in a gorgeous little pub called the Mutton Lane Inn. He seems nice. The four parents were stars, putting on additional roast dinners on their child-out-of-law's arrival, and being generally fantastic. Came home with a very old and very beautiful astrakhan coat, which I now have to endeavour to get cleaned... I don't think I'm upper-class enough for this one.

Stephen's Day was at the Master's house with the great and better than us. Fierce lit'rary, as previous, and just a warm and boozy day with a beautiful view. Sketched out the barest sketchings of The Plan to those who might be interested, and my God, what a reception it had. Apparently, The Plan is brilliant. Hmmph. That may be, but brilliancy doesn't necessarily buy groceries. Very encouraged nonetheless! On the 25th itself, I began the slow process of the legal mumbo-jumbo, interspersed with swan visits.

New Year's was a blast with a weird group comprised of the Bearded One's brothers, best friends and hangers on, the Ex and two of his friends I hadn't seen in, em, two and a half years. 'How have you been, J?', says I. 'Well, I've changed careers, A and I are due to get engaged... oh, and I was in a coma for five days.' No joke. A coma.

We stayed at the Mont Clare, in a lovely little corner room overlooking Greene's as was, Oscar Wilde's house and Merrion Square. In true Irish fashion, appearances weren't quite what they seemed, as a bockety blind clattered open and a heavy mirrored door swung gracefully awry. Pretty dreamy nonetheless, and topped off by a sleepy night in on the first - somehow junk food and bad movies takes on a whole new appeal in a hotel room. Wholesome, I know...

Travelling is great! Work is . . .

. . . a bit fierce. That said, my lovely jubbly UK working set-up allows me a whopping 25 days' holidays, and I've always been one for taking them. Just as well, because I did something extremely stupid this evening at 8.40 as I planted my ass - none the shaplier, mind you, for having given up the bike in the bucketing rain - on a northbound tube. I worked out my hourly take-home wage. For a forty-hour week, we're looking at around £7.40 per hour. A fifty-hour week drops me to a truly uninspiring £5.90 per hour. Usually, it's somewhere in between. Yes, the books are great and the people are lovely and I'm very lucky, tra la. It's true.

Back to the positives. My pre-Christmas trips -hah! plural!- were to Brittany to see the Babbo do his Swiftian thing, and later, to Brussels. Originally, for the former, the idea was that we'd toodle over to Brest and enjoy the hospitality of the conference at a four-course seafood dinner. Not yer tradish Thanksgiving, but I'm a very forgiving person when it comes to epic quantities of shellfish. Instead, we got stranded in Paris thanks to the strikes, and also because life is hard. Imagine our horror when at midday the man behind the guichet said, 'Baaaaah, ouais. Le prochain c'est à . . . bon, c'est à 19h05.' Ooookay then.
'It could be worse!' piped up the Bearded One with a toothy grin. So we checked the bags and hit the streets.The weather was sunny, the pastries were plentiful, and Paris was Paris. Ok, so Thanksgiving dinner was a greasy turkey galette off my knees in the Gare Montparnasse, and I had to evil-eye a pigeon to keep my meal on its sagging paper plate, but somehow that was alright in light of having just marvelled at the most breathtaking chocolate shop in Paris. I won't mention it by name, as it may well be magic. On a road that cuts the length of the Île Saint Louis, it's a dusty, arty, exotic little cushioned wonder. Run by a quiet, skeptical-seeming chubby French granny and her younger similarly-shaped South Asian counterpart, all glitters and winks. They serve myriad herbal teas with tiny flowers in squat iron pots, tea towels made from sarees and a selection of flat, ganache-drenched tarts. How many could you have? So many. Oh, and, ahem, tartes au citron. They would be my personal favourite.

We sat in quiet awe with a coterie of equally hushed and bemused tea-house regulars. Grown men's eyes sparkled, and one leaned over to confide with no small glee 'C'est magnifique!'. Another chuckled at the disturbingly realistic chocolate dog turds and bought praline tortoises instead.

We got to Brest and an ebullient papa at midnight. The hotel was cuteness and did the job and Brest is French and, well, ugly. True to form, the Allies bombed the shite out of the place at the end of the war. But France is France, and, forgive me, it survives ugliness better than some other places I might mention. Not only that, but these Frogs are Celts, and you can't tell me that doesn't help matters. The people are friendly, the food is astonishing and the Nouveau Beaujolais was in. Life, in short, was good.

Life was equally good in Brussels, for many of the same reasons, with added beauty. Poor wee Brux gets a bad rap for hideous architecture, but dammit, I think it's charming, particularly at Christmas. My hosts, also charming, were somewhat the worse for wear with a shared fierce bout of the winter vomiting bug, but were valiant and successful in their efforts to entertain yours truly. Lots of shopping when we should have listened to the weather and museumed. It was most unnecessary and extremely kind, and we likes kindness here at parkbench. We also likes penne with pesce spada just in from central Sicilian Luxemburg and big bowls of carbonnade and the little squishy hands of friends we miss. Said squishy hands at Advent-time tend to hold squishy bonhommes for Saint Nicolas, and the local ones, the hand-owner told me with authority, were simply not up to the challenge.

Predictably, immigrants were soon on the scene, doing the job better.