It isn’t all rosy living overseas sometimes you get really fed up, not so much homesick, but just fed up and think what is all this B-S about. Those are the times when I want a good bitch – the kind of session that is chased by a couple bottles of wine and then drinks turns into dinner. That is when I miss London and friends. You can make new friends when you go overseas but it’s “your people” back home – the ones who saw you when life wasn’t glamorous (ha!), the long nights of crying over undesirable men, watching the same programme on tv whilst on the phone to each other and the exchange of looks that let you know you are both thinking the same thing – are the ones you crave the most. Even the fantastic newer friends you make and meet can’t ever truly replace “your people”. I was feeling particularly in need to some good old fashioned raise me up and I wanted to do it somewhere where they truly spoke my language – English. Tucked away on the Rive Gauche was a place I had heard of brimming with Southern hospitality (I do love reading Southern Living and Garden and Gun magazines) and a welcome to blast away the darkest of clouds hanging over one’s head. What is this paradise called I hear you say well 13-a baker’s dozen owned and run by Laurel! View Post
5 top tips for solo dining A.L.O.N.E in Paris & beyond…
“No one puts Baby in the corner”
When I started this blog, Liquid Marmalade, I was ashamed to tell people about it for fear they were going to judge me. They did and guess what I am still doing it 18 months later. I have had: inverted snorts of derision, pitiful looks and even plain why on earth would you want to eat alone. The reason I started solo dining was to stop missing out on all these wonderful restaurants and bars in Paris. I am single, most of my friends are coupled up and well you don’t always want to be the third or fifth wheel, but most of all I am an independent woman in control of the rest of my life, that’s the hope, and yet the fear of saying table for one left me trembling. Solo dining is great and having done it for well over a year in the City of Love and Lights here are my top tips and observations on how to successful dine solo.
Let me tell you one thing this baby sits anywhere but the corner! View Post
A bacalhau good time @Paris-Lisboa, Paris
Paris is the city of love, light and walkers.
To really see Paris you need to walk the streets and get lost, as I do often, being GPS challenged even with a blue flashing dot on the map I manage to often go in the wrong direction. You could take the metro and have the metro ticket rejected because it got demagnetised in your bag next to phone or have the pleasure – did I say pleasure – of someone push up against your backside, with not so much as an introduction, as they barrier hop. Yes, a very Parisian sport is fare dodging and riding the metro for free. Then if that wasn’t enough there is the dank stench of perspiration so strong that the back of your throat itches. View Post
Can you kir me coming @ Le Select, Paris
Forget what others think and just do it!
When I first came to Paris back in May 2010 to live and work I used to walk past various brasseries’ terraces and stare at the couples enveloping each other in midst of smoke and no doubt talking about something intelligent like Proust. I, on the other hand, was too afraid to even sit at a table and so that summer past with me walking sometimes seriously dehydrated past all these tables afraid and missing out on an essential part of French life – people watching! View Post
Eating fancy rice Korean style @ Jules et Shim restaurant, Paris
Did you know that for 6 months of the year I work for the French government?
No, I hear you say.
Neither did I, it came as a great shock to me too so let me explain.
August is the month of summer holidays. It is also the month in which the French tax man sends you your tax bill, it appears that some people in France work during August. Welcome to socialism because we’re all in this together! I returned from two weeks in idyllic Greece and her islands to see this year’s tax bill for nearly €4,000 having hoped the projection I had seen in June was wrong. There is tax at source in France and then there is extra tax, everyone has to submit an annual tax declaration to see what extra tax they will have to pay, what does the latter mean and moreover how is it calculated nobody seems to know or more importantly understand but lots of people spend days if not weeks calculating how to pay less of it. View Post
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