Starstruck

*Apologies for such a long delay in writing. Spare time has been sparse and intelligent things to say even sparser. My head is an unnavigable mixture of Indo-European languages... Mir geht es bien tack et you? 

Shall I be dull and do the "holidays" thing? After the Parisian glamour, the TGV took me to the Côte d'Azur to stay with my soeur d'acceuil of 2004. Laura personifies the word acceuillir. She is utterly lovely and calls me her Australian brother. And the countryside too seemed in a welcoming mood. After the steely grey of the North, sunshine and 20 degrees are marvellously uplifting.

Laura adores horses and riding, so these featured rather a lot in our hectic social calendar. At the Domaine Equestre des Grands Pins, some rather startling wealth was on display. Surprisingly, a lot of it seemed to emanate from Belgium. But for all this, the club restaurant was quite, quite awful. The service was bizarre to say the least, with an old man scampering about congratulating people on their choice of dish. My soup was cold, my pasta suspiciously un-pasta-like and I noticed nothing. Well, not terribly much, because directly ahead of me was the Swiss Miss. One of my absolute favourite tennis players, I used to love watching her. Love. Whenever I played myself, at 0-3 15-30 I would frequently ask myself "What would she do?". This didn't usually work particularly well, but by golly it helped the psyche.

But why should I be starstruck? I'm an equally valid human being, surely? I may not have dozens of trophies and millions in prize money, but I... Well at any rate I was there too, even if by accident, surrounded by obnoxious Monaco money. Of course this is such a poor man's retreat, I know it so well, quite off-by-heart. It's not the money's fault that it is being thrown in my face. This is rather what I resent the most. With such money I would not endlessly play charades with grandiose pretences. Perhaps one or two to begin with, of course, but only very privately. Probably in the antique free-standing bath, for example.

I took to considering life as an investment banker. Could I? I mean, truly, could I? Why not? Far sillier people than myself work in the industry, so whyever not? As I've mentioned before, I tend to think only about the results, never quite considering properly the details. I just want too much. The AbFab lifestyle in which one can fly to New York for lunch simply because there is a rather nice doorknob one saw and it might look nice in the new kitchen. Often insufferably tedious, but this is why there is champagne.

A friend we met in Cannes could quite possibly fit this bill. Nightmarishly manic to shop with, causing me an unexpected overspend just about everywhere and just wonderfully, flamboyantly French when in the Galeries Lafayette, she was hideously fascinating. Striking looks, very much savante, yet equally childish and naive. The highlight was her telephoning her Mother to check which day of the week it was. Charming, and I loved her the more for it.

However, La France hadn't finished surprising me quite yet. Organising passage to Germany (and specifically, Stuttgart) with SNCF was neither an easy nor cheap task to complete. By some bizarre stroke of luck, some of the equestrians were in fact Stuttgart bound, off to collect some horse or other. Four year old filly, if memory serves me correctly. The hilarious twist was that if I were to accept a lift from them, I should be sleeping in the horse van. I mean really, how could I not? A rather bizarre ten hour journey ensued, featuring a swearing German and a very timid Frenchwoman. And a lot of chocolate, inconceivably. When finally we arrived, the German rather officiously told me I should get out now, as they needed to continue East. So out I hopped, suitcases and all at 6am with no idea where I was, where to go next nor how to get there. My "Deutsch", if you could call it that, was about to be tested well. Naturally the only thing open at this hour was the butcher, so in I went, asking for directions. I didn't understand the reply. Thankfully the "English speaker" was summoned. Within thirty minutes I reached my friend's house and, happily indoors, tucking into the wonderfully delicious German bread. It really is so much better than English bread. I eat so much of the stuff on a daily basis. I defy anybody to lose weight in this country.

A week on and I am thoroughly enjoying Germany. Stuttgart is a marvellous city, full of surprises. I just wish that I could communicate better, I were a few inches taller and a few Euros wealthier. C'est la vie, hein?

Happy New Year!

Over two weeks ago, waiting for my airport transportation, I felt rather a lot of uncertainty. Will I love it, hate it, be bored, be understood, be overwhelmed, find congruence? I was at least certain I'd find time for the odd blog, after all, isn't that why I was taking my laptop? Quite evidently, I failed, spectacularly so. I now have less than forty-eight hours in this country, and I am filled with melancholy. I want to stay! I had not predicted I would feel quite so strongly as this. If anything, I was worried I would be far too bored of the whole thing, especially after almost three weeks with the same person. And now, here I am desperately trying to learn a new language, with a view to applying here to study.

One thing I am so hopeless at avoiding is comparing oneself to one's peers. In the last hour, I just discovered an old-boy has established his own charity to help the refugee camps in Eastern Africa, and will also use his research for an honours programme next year. Some have already finished their degrees and many were probably budding entrepreneurs mid-way through. E.G. that chap who imports champagne to sell online, why did I not think of something like that?  Oft-times I wonder if I will ever amount to much, too much sitting and not enough thinking to make even that viable.

Passion is a wonderful thing, and some people are very lucky to possess it. I can be passionate, but then I weary of it. I traipse about aimlessly, hoping for something to pop-up and seem applicable, but naturally this shouldn't involve too much work. I shy from work. I want and crave the extraordinary, the unusual, yet I will not work for it. How do I drag myself out of the inert swampland I seem content to mellow in? Even today, one of my last days and one I should really make the most of, I overslept. Who does that? I may have been a little tired from the New Year's celebrations, but I don't think that required missing all 4.5 hours of daylight Umeå offers mid-Winter. I could at least have been practising my Swedish! Jag kommer från Australien men jag bor i London...

Perhaps it is just my traditional New Year's pessimism, resurfacing. I have always been very hard on myself, but similar to Edina from Absolutely Fabulous, "I like results." The problem is, as her daughter Saffron counters: "Life is in the details." Regardless, repetition doesn't help it sink in any better. How does one balance between living in the present and for the future? I expect it would be a good 18 months 'til I were ready to start at university here. Time at least to learn the language sufficiently -  or so one would suppose. Many people I have met here compliment me on the incredibly basic Swedish I have learned. This in itself is very heartening, especially as the Swedes are usually quite reticent about compliments. In English we throw them about meaninglessly, they are dispensable, of incredibly low value and clog up one's wallet like the copper coins of the realm. Perhaps I have made more effort than many other visitors do, but then, as my friends here are all native, I am often left out of parts of the conversation. Of course I do not begrudge them that, if anything it makes my pursuit of fluency even more important to me.

Growing up in a hot country, I dreamt of living somewhere cold, where the white Christmas fantasy was reality and everything fits, like a postcard. Or indeed a Christmas card. Many people laugh at the irony of somebody coming from such a desirable climate wanting to leave for colder climes, when of course it is the reverse journey they want to make. I expect it's all a case of "grass is always greener". I do know that I am happier in this hemisphere. So I shall stop moaning, and simply look forward to achieving it, I'm sure that will be another prolonged adventure. To anybody who has ever known the quagmire of uncertainty, I wish you a very Happy and Prosperous new year, and new decade.

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