Avignon

Ended up drunker than a skunk last night in a bar just round the corner which happened to be stocked to the brim with hot guys. About 6 in a room holding 25 people, I like that ratio. Was up til 3am drinking red wine by myself, listening ipod and sending texts to people in London. Probably end up costing me a billion pounds or so.

Today we drove to the medieval town of Avignon to see the Pope's palace. There are many reasons why there is one in Avignon as opposed to the Vatican but alas the audio guide was as tedious as dental surgery so I can't relay any pertinent information. The whole town itself is just insanely beautiful and lousy with history. Its a fortified town and pretty much all of the battlements are still standing. We had lunch in a pretty square (obviously) had ricard before the meal (obviously) and red wine from a carafe (obviously). For my main I had the special which was bull stew ... the bull having been recently dispatched in a local bull fight. Who knew there were bull fights in France? I'm glad there are - bull is delicious.

Tired now, early start tomorrow. Only had one bottle of wine between 4 people at dinner. Think I might be turning into a French person.

English weather, French behaviour

Had a lovely dinner last night in what was basically a French man's living room. The menu was described to us by the owner/waiter/chef and was limited in content but not in quality. The experience was significantly enhanced by Bérangère grabbing hold of a ceramic chicken and exclaiming 'Ah! C'est jolie ça!' it was literally a GCSE French class come to life. We didn't make the club since we arrived to catch the bus after 1 which is when the last bus departed. Instead spent a pleasent evening enjoying the delights of the bars of Montpellier.

Today it rained. ALL day. It's only just stopped and it's nearly 9. We drove down to Sete which is a lovely coastal town famous for its seafood. Had a too brief to a Carrefour and headed into town. Had a good look around but no seafood since the market was shut and we were between meals. As I type this Andrew is making pastry for an Aspargus and Cheese tart, four bottles of vin rouge to get through and company to be had in a bar later. Lovely.

I HATE FRANCE

I don't really but it's impossible to be here without quoting the inimitable words of Edwina Monsoon. I do, however, hate French keyboards. I'm typing this on a keyboard where you have to use the shift key to get a full stop, there's a Q where the A should be and a ù instead of an apostrophe. So apologies in advance for any nonsensical aspects. Flight passed without a hitch, I almost got to sit next to the hottest man in France but the woman in my aisle moved up rather than let him squeeze by. Very sad. Bumped into Isi in the airport briefly though, which was great. Was picked up by Andrew in his comedy French persons car, this isn't it but his is VERY similar, just blue:

Stayed up til 3 drinking wine and Pastis, listening to depressing music and setting the world to rights. Trés Français. At least its easy to do the correct accents with a French keyboard. Just had a long walk round the hilly medieaval streets of Montpellier, lunch in a small square with a carafe of wine and stopped in a glorious cheese shop on the way home. Tonight its Moroccon food in the Arab quater then clubbing. Clubbing. In France. Clubbing. Behold the Techno.

The one blot on Montpellier is the Antigone built in the 70s by blind, almost certainly insane people. A little slice of Saudi Arabia in the south of France. Judge for yourself:


It's on the postcards which implies they're proud of it. Hmmmmmmm I'm clearly missing something:

Hello? *peeps nervously round door*

Having recently endured the horror of being made redundant and staring infinite time in the face, I thought it was about time to reignite the blog.  I stopped because my boss pulled me into a meeting and said 'We can tell from the time of your blog posts that you've been writing it at work'!!!  I was all 'and you can tell from the content that my life goals revolve around illegal drugs and falling down when drunk' so my writing career came to a swift end.  Now I'm free, FREE!

The credit crunch, redundancy, unemployment.  Words of horror and terror.  Let me speak to you of my experiences of the world economic crisis: I went from being miserable, incarcerated in a prison camp 9 hours a day five days a week, to being set adrift into a world of near constant sunshine, limitless free time and £11,000 to enjoy it all.  LET MY TALE BE A WARNING TO YOU ALL.  Governments beware ... I went from enslaved, productive member of society, safely contained within the rat race to a free thinking, whirling, happy free spirit ... liable to dash off on holiday, kick up my heels for joy or do something entirely unexpected.  Is that what you want from your populations?!  IS IT?  Who's going to do all the photocopying if everyone's too busy enjoying themselves?  I suggest fixing the world economy immediately or risk total societal breakdown and an unstoppable outbreak of picnics.

So I guess the theme of my blog from now on is going to be my search for a new job/career and, by extension, self.  More of that later though, for now the theme of my blog is going on holiday cause that's what I'm doing tomorrow - Montpellier, Barcelona, Madrid.  I'm hoping I might never return from this trip but instead it'll be the jumping off point for a lifetime of adventures and opportunities.  However, since most of my holiday plans revolve around wine (France, no explanation needed plus Spain = Sangria) I'll probably just be back in three weeks as planned - unemployed, hungover and significantly poorer.

Mid-week

Had Deborah round for dinner last night, made her a beef stew based on the Paleo diet. was pretty good but since the Paleo diet is strictly no salt the only thing I could think of to say about it was 'needs salt'. I was thinking about making a blog of my Paleo experience and putting recipes and stuff on it but it seems everyone who does similar puts pictures of whatever they've cooked and I don't own a camera. So no dice. Giving up salt hasn't been as hard as I thought. I really was expecting everything to taste of nothing, not only because I used to eat SO much salt but also because I'm a smoker. Turns out salt tastes like salt. Miss it a little bit but have a bad feeling I'm going to be making faces when eating other peoples food in the future because its 'too salty'.

Soho Gym

Besides the inevitable cycling into work not alot was achieved yesterday apart from joining and attending the gym! It finally happened. As I hadn't eaten that much, hadn't been to the gym for literally YEARS and had cycled 18 miles in the preceeding 24hrs after a 17 day hiatus I couldn't do that much but at least it was a start. Was so tired, had to get off my bike and walk a portion of the way home ... there was nothing left to give in my muscles. Despondently ate some leftovers, watched TV, had a bath and went to bed.

God bless Soho Gym by the way. Gym of choice for the buffest men in London and by God does it make me happy to see them. It was a Tuesday afternoon and I would say I saw at least 15 guys whose bodies wouldn't have looked out of place on the cover of Men's Health. Already looking forward to going back.

Joyous return to work

Monday I cycled into work, did work, contemplated suicide and then went home. Embarked on the Paleo diet, think that might be worthy of a separate blog, if not only for my benefit. Rubbed a solution of vinegar and salt into some t-shirts to get deodarent marks out (something I've been saying I'm going to do for about 6 months) caught up with peeps on the phone and then popped over to ASDA to get some fruit, nuts and a bottle of water. Not a bad day really.