Don't put your mobile in the back of your jeans....

About a month ago, I've broken my mobile phone by droping it in the toilett cubicle.

It's before I used.... just to assure you, BEFORE!

I was with a group of friends in a restaurant, drinking, yes, I was a bit tipsy but not overly drunk.

I picked it up from the water, as soon as it'd happened, and took out the batteries and all that, but didn't recover even after a week of the incident.

Shame.....the phone's only a few months old!!!!!

Luckly my hubby called the Orange and asked for a replacement, giving them some reasonable justifications - so I'd then got the replacement phone, hoorey! Merci my hubby.

So, I'd leant that not put your mobile phone in the back pocket of your jeans.

What was that for????

It's weekend! We went out for a walk, just down the road, to do a little Xmas shopping.
This year's Xmas decoration in Cannes, is just the same as last year and in our street, there's none.

We decided not to buy trees this year, since we will be away. it's really tempting to buy all those cute little decorations for trees. But not this year, am afraid. Zut.

The sun gets shorter each day but luckly, over here, it's not as cold as up north, although, I'd see some snowy mountains afar every morning when I go to work, which is really soothing.

I had this really wiered thing happened later yesterday, while we were walking on the street and were about to go in a shop to check things out. Out of nowhere, someone grabbed my butt.... and it wasn't the hands of my hubby.

What was that??? Then I saw a young woman running away.

What the fxxx are you doing to me??? Fxxx off!

Bloody hell, I don't know what to say it in French....really Zut!

Is it just a coincidence?

We've been living in Cannes for almost two years now.
Some people might have already noticed this unsophisticated naughty shops in front of the train station of this world famous city.

Well, you'd get used to it after a while - despite the horrible taste of their shop decorations.

But then I was gobsmacked, when I realised that there's this shop right next to kids shoe shop....
Wonder how a parent explain to his / her children, when or if they ask what they do as a business...?

Which shop started first? - suppose it's the naughty one. The shoe shop might have compromised themselves as it's a prime location.

Who's that guy who's about to go in? It won't be him, would it?

Already mid-October!!

Can't believe it it's already mid October! without having updated my pages.
It's been a manic last two months - working fairely long hours. I was covering a girl for a week who's sick so I had to do some extra work too and ended up being sick myself.
I had this annoying skin condition - I got this rush around my mouth and very sore.
Suppose I was a bit run down.
We have some visitors from London one September weekend. We love having some people around. It was unfortunate weather for the English friends(thunder and rain) but the sun came just before they depart.
Another friends came on the following week end. It was very hot and sunny that we went to St. Margaritte. We also went to a local Hammame followed by 30 mins massage. It was heaven. I needed that really, to distress.

The temprature seems a bit down these days, the autumn is here. The air gets very fresh in the morning, still very hot in the afternoon though. It's very difficult to find the right clothes -
not too look too summery but also not too wintery!

How to be motivated

There used to be times when I was very motivated and want to be on the job ladder... Not that I don't feel like that any more, but I don't want to be hussled by the over loaded works and affecting to your own well-being and your life.

On the other hand, it's nice to get noticed and being appreciated for what you've done. I am very careful not forgeting other's hard work and contribution. You can't expect others to do the same though.

I have helped one of my friends' CV and I have given her loads of business or job opportunities for her. Some people have come to me for advices - I enjoy doing that kind of consultations to make them motivated.

There was a world media congress in early October, since the last Film Festival in May, many people said that it'd be a quiet one, but there were still many people coming to Cannes. So even if the condition is not as good as you'd expected, you could still propose some solutions to get to win-win situation. Money is tight for everyone but need to spend and circulate it.

As for me, what I would do to motivate myself..... rather than moaning about the current situation? I eat well, sleep well, happy with my hubby and smile.
Yes, prepare things for the next step. That's for sure.

My favourite TV program

You've got to watch this 'L'Amour est dans le pré' which in English it means 'the love is in the field'
It's a real TV show on M6 to help people working in the agricultural business to find LUV of their lives.

I love this show, because it's not just to help them find love but also shows how hard those businesses really are physically and every way. They also show brief update on the people who appeared on the last year's show. Unfortunately, quite many of them didn't continue their relationships but a few people actually stay with the partners they have chosen which I find it very sweet.

It's not one of those speed dating - but light heartedly serious program.

Jazz Festival in Juan Les Pin

Apparently, the Jazz Festival in Juan Les Pin is quite famous and we went for the final day.
My friend, Lily and her hubby secured the seats for us which was very kind of them. We haven't had much chance to catch up properly but was really nice to see them.

It was a Tanya Baker Gospel show - which included the real church mass so I was quite surprised to come across the real 'Hallelhuja' prays but all in all, I was very happy with the beautiful location, the power vocal and the energy.

The towards the end of the show, the singer asked us to hand in hand with the person next to each other - the lady next to me was so charming and pleasant that we said to each other 'bless you' which was very sweet.

Online Banking- muppet me...

These days, thanks to the technology, you can check the bank balance online - that's been happening for the past 10 years. In France, the online banking is in multilingual - so you'd see the details in English - which is great.

I have just finished a telephone conversation with a call centre guy from my bank. I have forgotten my pin code of my online banking that I got myself locked. Bloody Hell.

So, the English version of online banking screen says [Need help? Call this number!]
So I did.

I was sort of expecting that they'd be English speaker - but they weren't..
They'd asked you all those general questions like, your address, your account number as you'd expected.
But here, they'd also ask you the name of your branch manager - which I wasn't really aware but luckly I've kept the recent letter about change of the account manager.

I managed to go through those questions in French - the new details would be sent by post within a few working days. I was quite pleased with myself my French got alot improved.

Accessorize in Cannes

Hoorey! One of my favourite shops in England has recently been opened in the city of Cannes.
It's Accessorize
I used to buy quite a lot of stuff there when I was in England - their hat collections are quite good. All are very reasonable which I like.

The summer sales have started all over France but except Cote d'Azur apparently it's not until next Wednesday. Not fair but in the meantime, I just have to check what to buy.
I find French sales are a bit naughty, they reduce the price bit by bit, English sales which gives a huge reduction straight away.

New job

My French school has finally come to an end and there I am working AGAIN, but this time in France. My dream comes true, after almost two years of patience and learning French.

My job is in Sophia, luckily only a half hour drive from home. It's a six months maternity cover which actually suits me perfectly, as I wanted some experience to get started my career in France.

I am quite lucky that my route to work is not so overly busy compare to the route coming from Nice. As my car is right hand drive, sometimes I find it uncomfortable driving on the hilly place to across Vallauris.

I've put myself having the test period at work, working only 6months but I really want to gain my French ability, so I try to speak more French - indeed most of the time I use English, but this is a great chance to listen and use real French in working environment.

I have already got the initiation that my French isn't good enough YET - I've sent an email for hotel booking in France - I wrote the request in French but got the reply in English....
I phoned for an enquiry in French but I got someone talking to me in English. 'You can talk to me in English'
It's very discouraging but I won't give up until I got it right.

Wedding Anniversary

It's been two years since we married at a Paris registration office. It was such a short ceremony that I don't recall much of what we did at the ceremony, well in fact, I didn't understand what the Paris mayor was saying at the time. - all I said was 'Oui'.

It was very descrete yet lovely ceremony for us. It's not the lavish one, as we just wanted to be together - we didn't think the ceremony itself was that important.
Now seeing other friends' lavish wedding, I wished we could at least get all our friends / family there.

We had some small arguments here and there, but all in all, I have met the most wonderful and sweet husband I could ever find. I thank him for his patience really. I would like us to share loads of lovely things ahead of us.

I wouldn't mind having another vow in Cannes just for us - Not now but one day..
We celebrated our special day at one of our favourite restaurants - Riad. We had a lovely Moroccan food, watching very sexy belly dance, followed by nice walk along the beach.

Marriage of my friends

Just got back from England, where we've attended a big wedding of my friends fron uni. They've been together for seven years and they've just tied the knot in Devon.

She's a very kind, thoughtful, intelligent and fun person I've ever met.
He's also very kind, helpful, intelligent and fun and has a big heart I've ever met.

They've supported me through more than half of my time in England.
We studied together - we partied like crazy - we dined together numerous times.
I broke my foot at their house when we had a bbq.There are so many great memories.

On their special day, it was such a lovely wedding. Loads of families and friends all over the world at this beautiful manor house where they took the vow followed by the lavish reception at the UK local army base (which,of course, is rare to get in)

A toast to the lovely couple once again.
Wishing them all the very best for the future together.
Miss you and love you loads - never realised how much I missed friends and England.

Not available in France

Only noticed recently that Maxfactor products aren't available in France.

Yes, France is the country of ' Because you're worth it'

It never occurred to me that I purchased quite many stuff from Maxfactor and much from the other.
When the mascara was runing out, I went to the local Monoprix and not there.... so I went to the Sephora, they didn't have it either....I found that out when I checked on the internet.

I got some lovely freebees of 'Because you're worth it' at the last year's Cannes Film Festival, as they were one of the main sponsors. So I started to use new mascara, but I am still not sure if I liked it, I kind of miss my old mascara.

A funny product name - 1

It's a French version of DW-40 but the name's caught my eyes and I had to share this with you.

Au revoir to English number plate

The final attempt to the council office in Grasse for my car. We went there on Monday and got rejected due to the French MOT certificate was over 6 months old. We had it done Sep1st last year, so thought it should be juuust fine, but apparently they'd check the dates too. So we were late by a few weeks, had we got all the papers ready.
(Although officially it was still valid but for the paper work, they need it to be within 6 months old)

Soooo gutted that we went to have our car checked straight from Grasse, then we are REALLY ready.

Today, things went very smoothly. Handed all the papers along with the latest French MOT certificate (Contrôle Technique) and then they'd given us the new registration number straight away. Don't forget to keep a part of English registration certificate, as you'd need to send it to DVLA for termination the other end.

Apparently the registration in France is applied by the owner, not to the car unlike in England. Basically if the owner of the car changes, the registration number needs to be reassigned accordingly. The same thing applies if the owner of the car moves to other departments within France, as the number plate shows the registered department at the end of the plates.
That sounds so silly....and must be hell loads of work to do for the administration.

Anyways from today, the new system has been applied (started from small parts of the country) that new registration will be applied to the car and will no longer be required for changing the owner or the address of the owner.
Unfortunately, our number is still the old system, so if we ever move the department, we will need to change it then from there on, we can keep it as long as the car is working.

Once you have the number, you have officially 48 hours to make the new plate and have it fitted.

There was a little shop in front of the Council office that sells and fit the new plates - very clever business. We checked the price there and called the garage who does our car usually.
We went to the local garage after all, as it sounded a bit cheaper.

So there you go.... real 'au revoir' to English number plate.



After 10 months of waiting, the French number plate's just been fitted at last!

Am keeping my English plate, of course, as it's got loads of memories...

Hoorey! - Crotted Cream

There are quite many English stuff available in France, though slightly expensive (no choice) - Helman's mayo(tiny pot..), English mustard, HP source, Worcestershire source etc. You could also find a few selection of teas here - Twinings, PGs.
Long time ago, the nasty Lipton was the only one available in the continent, but things have changed.

Teas are very much appreciated here in France too - many are perfumed or herbal teas. You can also buy organic ones(They call it 'Bio'). You could also have some red English teas at tea salons.

One of a few things I miss most is this..... The Clotted Cream.
But today I found this pot in the local supermarket! It's a long life one but I am not complaining.

Hoorey! I will definately make some scones.

They also have the pot of Devon Cream too!

YUM YUM!

French course started

In France, I have some privileges to take free language courses - thanks to Mr. President. It's a new law which applied a few years ago, that all long- term residents in the country must have certain level of language skills in writing and speaking - otherwise, the country provides them some free lessons.

It's for foreigners who have French spouses and legal immigrants. There are several processes to take to get this benefit but to simplify - it's provided by the local ANAEM after you apply for a residency permit (Carte de séjour) . They'd give you maximum of 400hours at a nearest education centre depending on your level of the language. The ANAEM is the public service for foreigners who helps them integrate in the country. They have several one-day sessions to teach you the history of France and the civil rights and so on (providing free delicious lunch).

Last January, I took the course for 400 hours and then took the French DILF (the most basic one)exam at the end of the course. You'd get mingled with so many different nationalities, age groups and educational levels (sometimes there were people who couldn't write) there are pros and cons in that particular school I went but all in all, I don't complain - because it's absolutely FREE of charge. If you have to go to the private school - you'd expect to spend quite a fortune.

Now, I started a new course last week, which is done by ANPE (The French equivalence of JobCentre) - it's part of the skill training that will run over 10 weeks. They'd asked you for committment for the course, as they won't let us skiving off. Compared to the previous course by ANAEM, this one is for adults who're looking for work - so the course covers more practical bits as well as very basic stuff that you'd always need to recap which is handy for me.

Hopefully I'd get the most out of it.

Registering the imported car in France

My car has been a quite multi-national like the owner.
I've bought it in the UK about 10 years ago, it has never been any issues.
The car was actually imported from Japan - it's happened to be like that. So she's been driven in Japan before coming to the UK. I love driving, so I took my car as much as I could through England - I love driving without a map.

Now, the car is driven in France - despite they drive the other side of the road. We have installed a new stereo too which makes our trip more fun.

Anyways, we have been trying to get the French number plate, as any insurance company do, they simply won't cover you after 6 months in abroad.
So we've got all the information for registering in France from DRIRE and prepared as much as we could - got the technical check done, put together all the papers they said they needed. We were aware that it would take a bit of time, but this long.... never expected to take 10 months to go through this process.
As we all know, French loves documents - They'd asked you to send all the original documents (the UK car registration certificate etc)- which makes us a bit nervous but luckly they didn't lose them. (Yes, don't forget to take all the papers a photocopy)

If my car was purely from the UK - it wouldn't have been this complicated.
In January, we had to go to UTAC - Paris suburbs for the similar technical check but for the imported car which had costed us a bit of a fortune.

Now we've got everything we need - we had a meeting at the nearest DRIRE with the car for a final check up in person. Seems like all's been sorted - all we have to do is to wait.

Parking Space

Ever since we moved in Cannes, we have been using the public parking nearby because our building doesn't have its own parking space. The parking is only 3 mins walk which is very handy but what's been annoying was that you'd have go to the main office in Forville to buy those 30 days parking card (quite pricy) and they won't sell it during the busy summer seasons unless you are regulars.
We've asked for the annual membership but have been on the waiting list for at least 15 months - there hasn't been any space available.

So since later last year, we've been looking for a private parking space - the private adverts at a local supermarket.
Luckly, we recently found one - only 5 mins walk from our place, it's secure and it's less than HALF the price.

Very luckly indeed....

Sunny!

The spring is definitely coming - the day is getting longer and very warm when the sky is like this.

The road to multi-lingual

The reason why I've started this blog in English, is because I am scared of losing my English, or rather somewhere in my brain, I wonder if some English words I knew have been replaced by similar French words as I learn.....

There are heck of people who speak several languages - and I don't even have enough capacity to store more words in just one new language?
That's not fair!

Believe me, after living in England for 12 years though, surely I am losing my English and it's very quickly. Despite the fact that my husband and I speak in English most of the time and watch BBC or CSI in English. (Although this doesn't help with my French study at all - can't be helped)

The way I speak is getting a bit more aaaaah...f..French...iish?
Nope.
No way near it.

It's been over a year since I started to learn French properly.
These days, when I speak with my husband, I notice quite often that I mix some French words in English context.
When I study French, I'd think things in English - that's easier for me as there are many similarities. But
When I respond - I'd answer 'Oui', instead of 'Yes' - that's a small example.
Instead of saying [I want something little] I'd say [I want something petit] - something like this.

Not realising what language I was using....that's the problem.
Yes, of course, you'd speak something normally - but I should be more careful not to be lazy and stop mixing the two languages.

I'm very curious to know how the brains of the multilingual people works - does anyone have any idea how to sustain what's in the brain and increase the memory capacity?
It's very long way to go.....am getting old.

Bling Bling!

This is what I got from my husband for Xmas.
A big diamond ring in a box - and voila it's a mug!

When a friend of mine from Japan visited me in November, she bought one of these from our next door toyshop. I liked the idea so I mentioned to my husband that she bought one - here it is, he bought one for me! How sweet is that?

X'mas wishes for 2009 - No1

I think it's to do with the difference in sense of humour - but I have to say that France is rather boring in terms of making CALENDARS compared to England. (and Greeting Cards too)
In our house, we had 2 calendars from England (SpongyBob and the one with veggie jokes) which we bought a year before.
We got 2 Asian calendars from asian supermarket - which are OK(aah, not really) but we would want something that could write things on.

So we went to FNAC to buy some for this year but they didn't sell calendars apart from THIS very naughty French Rugby team ones called Dieux du Stade.
(Apparently they do this every year)

I had to make that one pass, as 1) it would ruin the interier of our place (of course) and 2) my husband would get jealous (really) - though tempted indeed. I then volunteered to go around the town and look for something more reasonable but funny.

Went to another local book store, but they were very expensive (around 8 - 15 euro) for the ones with pictures of cats, dogs, temples, gardens etc. (yawn!)
And also they didn't apply for the winter sale - wished they'd take out 1/12 from the price for the loss of January(Should calendars be perishable?).
But nothing like the ones with silly jokes you'd see in England.
So big compromise, I bought two sensible ones. The big ones for the office, as my husband uses only to see the dates, the other one will be for kitchen as we write lots of plans on it.

I was quite happy with my choices despite the limited selection until I came home - my husband's comment hurt me alot.
'Oh bebe, wished you had told me if you were buying that type - as I could have got one for FREE from bank but OK, but it's such a waste of money - oh, it's 2.50 euro, well, never mind'
Boo....then why didn't you get one???
I said I'd take it back to the shop but he didn't listen and put it on the wall in his office and left for the Japanese class.
Boo...that's not very nice.
Nearly took it out from the wall and hid it while he's out- but I thought best not to as it would get things worse before he leaves for business trip the next day.
When he came back from the class, he said 'Sorry' in Japanese - so we made up.

Anyways, all in all, it'd be great if we can buy a decent calendar in this country - if I can't find one, should I make one then???