Monthly Archive: September 2012

Does my style of parenting shock you?

As a Brit, married to a Frenchman, raising our children first in France and now in the UK in what we call our franglais way, I know that we shock some people with our style of parenting. It is amazing to think that so few miles separate the UK from France but that culturally these two countries are so different.… Read more

The Gallery – 8pm

So this week’s Gallery theme is 8pm and what goes on in your house at 8pm. In our house it varies, depending on if I’m running to schedule, am early or running late, so these are the things I could be doing:

  • Walking the dog
  • Supervising L as she brushes her teeth, gets into pyjamas etc
  • Reading a bedtime story

Last night at 8pm I was doing really well and we were ahead of schedule so it meant L and I got longer time for snuggles and bedtime story reading:

It’s not a great quality picture but I didn’t want to take up too much of our reading time by rushing around looking for the “real” camera.… Read more

Professional photos: works of art or a waste of money?

I don’t know about you but I’ve always been pretty sceptical about shelling out a small fortune to have a stranger take professional photos of my family and me. When B and I got married, back in 2003, we hired the services of a professional photographer. It was a total and utter disaster; as there were lots of pretty, single, 20-something girls at our wedding (my gorgeous girlfriends) he spent most of his time chasing after them rather than capturing any decent photos.… Read more

The Gallery – Breakfast

After following Tara’s ‘The Gallery’ over at Sticky Fingers for a long time I have finally decided to join in with this week’s theme which is ‘Breakfast’ (nothing to do with this week’s competition, that’s just a coincidence!). I am hoping to make this a regular thing, but let’s not hold our breath!… Read more

How does an English pregnancy compare to a French one?

I am now 32 weeks pregnant and it has been such an interesting journey, comparing my pregnancy in France to my pregnancy here in the UK, so I thought I would share my comparisons of the two pregnancies.

Pregnancy N°1: The French One                                                        
When: March – December 2006
Where: St Vallier de Thiey, a village on the French Riviera, inland above Grasse and Cannes

  1. Permanent nausea 24/7 for the first three months.
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Top tip for cheap activities with kids in London

When we first moved back to the UK from France we were staying with my parents who live quite close to Windsor, so I suggested to Hubs that we take L to Legoland for the day. Fortunately we didn’t actually mention it to L because when I went online to look at prices I was shocked to see that it would cost us around £100 just to get in, we would then need to add travel costs, parking costs, lunch etc.… Read more

La Rentrée française vs Back to school UK style

My Facebook and Twitter timelines are awash with photos of children going back to school today on both sides of the channel. As today is my first “free” day of maternity leave it seemed like a good time to return to my blog and to compare “la rentrée” (the return to school) in France with what back to school means in the UK.… Read more