5 random things...

1. There’s only so much a girl can do with a strawberry. We’ve eaten them piled high in bowls with sugar on top, eaten them with ice cream, made a strawberry mousse with them, and a strawberry tart, and I’m tempted to introduce the little ladies to strawberry milkshakes. Is there some other strawberry delicacy I’m missing out on? I love the fact that here in France we are able to eat so seasonally, but at this stage in the game, I wake up in cold sweats thinking I’ve morphed into either a giant, juicy strawberry or a spiky green spear of asparagus. Bring on cherry season already!

2. I’m wondering if 60 euros is too much to pay to see a band I vaguely recollect from childhood and one that would force me to dig out my dangly gold earrings and possibly my legwarmers. Depeche Mode are playing in Carcassone in June at the open-air arena and part of me is tempted. If it was, say, The Cure, I certainly wouldn’t have hesitated this long in buying a ticket. But Depeche Mode? Twenty years on? I’m wondering if they will end up being like Kraft Mac n Cheese for me. I have fond memories, but I'd like to think I’ve moved on a bit since then.

3. I’m getting a bit freaked out with some of my clients who come looking for houses feeling under the weather. Should I interrogate them on which countries they’ve visited recently, say Mexico, for example? Maybe I should start wearing a face mask when I go to appointments. I managed to escape the foot and mouth outbreak and the bird flu, I don’t want it to be the bloody swine that get me.

4. Time to start swimsuit shopping again. One expense they don’t tell you to figure in when having a baby is the amount you will spend on buying a new wardrobe for the next 4 years as your body decides which size it’s actually going to stick at. I now own swimsuits in every size, ranging from an obviously-before-babies triangle bikini in a color that would make people look at me, to one piece affairs that range from nothing-to-see-here to possibly-something-to-see, but certainly-not-that-bit-in-the-middle. This year I need one of those cut-out suits, the ones that let you see a bit of the middle, but definitely not that wrinkly bit around the belly button. Anyone seen one of these miracle suits anywhere?

5. I think I’m going through Paris withdrawl. Every year, for the last 4, I’ve taken the train up to Paris twice a year for a little ‘me' time. I love my little village here in the south, but occasionally I need reminding that French culture is made up of more than shooting wild boar or riffling through people’s junk at a vide grenier. I need some action, of the Parisian people watching, art-exhibiting, and just generally bigger city kind. I told myself this year that I would head for Madrid for a long weekend instead, but you know, Paris is just a bit like that. She sucks you in, and no matter how hard you try to pretend you are so over her, you see something in a magazine or see a number 75 license plate and you can’t help but think fondly of her. Maybe I should go check out the train fares….