Blue Dress Hot Mess

The Post-Paris Diary

I looked for the Eiffel Tower in London. (It wasn’t there). I saw a magnolia tree on Park Lane and smiled, but not because I thought it was beautiful (it was), but because it reminded me of the one in the Palais-Royal. (I smiled again, sadly this time). I tried to pretend I was a foreign girl of about my age – French, Spanish, Italian, maybe. I tried to see London the way I saw Paris. To delight in everything, the way I did in Paris; to be amazed at every day; to be the kid in the candy store. I tried to Observe (with a capital ‘O’) the man who sat next to me on the tube. (Even he was less interesting. He wore no lilac-coloured corduroys, no tortoiseshell glasses; he did not read, did not even look vaguely but interestedly up at the adverts on the sloping ceiling-walls of the train. He just sat. What could be more boring?). The people are less stylish in London – it is a fact – indisputable, because it is made so obvious by every person just walking down the street. The fashion is ubiquitous and boring (I am part of it); straight-legged jeans, a semi-designer handbag to ‘elevate the look’. Too much make-up. Not enough sense.

I tried to pretend I was a foreign girl – about my age – coming to London to live the way I had lived in Paris. Coming to London because she loved this city — its grime, its grey, its gentrified history. (It didn’t work). I miss the French. I miss the way they ask questions, with their voices raising at the end; I miss the way they call me ‘Madame‘, and the way they always greet you differently depending on the time of day – bonne-jour, -journée, -soir. I miss the cheese – ça se voit. I thought how happy I’d be – this foreign girl, of about my age; Spanish, Italian, French – to smile at the corgis in the window of the Buckingham Palace Gift Shop. I thought of all the things I would take pictures of (I have gained at least 500 photos from 6 weeks in Paris): the sign to the ‘West End’; the endless English Breakfast tea in the supermarket; the statues in Hyde Park which dance around the fountain like nymphs. I thought of all the things I’d want to eat: the iced buns in the bakery (however good French patisserie is, the Brits do buns better); the fish and chips advertised in every pub on every street corner (I can taste the salt and vinegar on my tongue; it tingles. I can feel the sticky varnished tables under my fingertips. If I scrape them along the wood there is a thick line of beeswax and beer-smut under the nail. No French manicures ici, merci. I am having fish and chips this Friday); the shortbread biscuits which sit next to the teas in the supermarket in tins with those very same corgis on them, grinning out at me like deranged Cheshire cats. I thought about all these things, the way a foreign girl – of about my age – might. And I felt happy in my country (oh so proud to be British), but I felt, physically, nothing at all. I was not in Paris; and that is where I wanted to be.

There is a certain self-satisfaction in running a Home (capital ‘H’). Everyone is well fed, well exercised, and well watered. (Everyone, in human terms, includes only me; in real terms, it includes my closest family: the dog is passed out on his side at my feet, the cat is dozing in the Spring sunshine, and the two horses are grazing (loose) in the garden. I will have to keep an eye on them – one hoof too far and they will be running havoc either in the neighbour’s garden or in the churchyard). There is a cake cooking in the Aga, and I am sitting on a wicker chair on the lawn planning the menu for a dinner party I am hosting in two week’s time. (Perhaps my return from Paris has suddenly catapulted me into retirement, grandmotherhood, and old age. I have consumed too much media about Dame Mary Berry’s 90th (Happy Birthday, Ma’am). I absorbed Vogue’s article on the subject, and am now perusing the Dame’s ‘Cook up a Feast’. I think it is all going to my head).

The puppy is readjusting. He is surprised by the smallest things (and chooses to surprise me too, by going backwards in his potty-training by at least three months – literally – overnight); his first bramble (it spikes!); his first lawn mower cuttings (delicious, apparently). Learning to share with the cat (who is less than thrilled by puppy’s reappearance in his sedentary life). I, meanwhile, am still adjusting to the very fact of having a puppy. I knew every pocket would be full of dusty dog treats, but I had not anticipated the surprise of putting your hand in your pocket during a windy walk and, instead of drawing out a tissue, finding nothing but poo bags – of all shades and varieties. No thank you, I do not want to wipe my nose with a gently-scented biodegradable piece of black plastic. Thanks for asking.

I, too, am in a transitory phase of readjustment. I cried when Paris came up in a Disney film I watched with Gabriel last night (pathetic, I know). I burnt the orange and almond cake because I’d forgotten that our oven is at least 100 degrees hotter than it says it is. I find it odd not hearing sirens, but it means I relish the birdsong like classical music. I still miss Paris; but Spring is better in England, surely, with the yellow daffodils and the blue sky and the green grass. State the facts; a child could write what I am writing, but it is better to embody a child than to hide from reality. I am not a foreign girl – of about my age – here to discover this country. All that ‘Observing’ was a lot of hard work. Here, I do not have to Observe (though the grass is green and the sky is blue (cloudy-with-a-chance-of-downpour), and the daffodils are yellow and smell sweet-like-spring). I am home, and it is simple. I will eat fish and chips tomorrow night.