Thursday 6th May. London. Election Day.
It’s strange. I seem to be moved to write my blog when I am playing away.
I have over the last year or so, steadily increased my visits to the UK, for a number of reasons.
Firstly, my oldest daughter lives there, as do other members of my wider family, and even I feel a bounden duty to visit my mother in law from time time, especially as she makes such wonderful cakes, and secondly it gives my OH a welcome break from doing the weekly commute to France.
I arrived yesterday afternoon and have already been shopping in M&S, had an Indian Meal and bought armfuls of foodie magazines, all sporting the same ads and recipes.
Today, of course is the General Election, but I have not voted. It seems somehow inappropriate when I live in France, although there ironically I can only vote in the municipal and European elections. Who will win? We’ll have to wait and see. In the meantime I am off on a shopping expedition to the Westfield Centre specifically designed for me and my dodgy back and leg – it is liberally festooned with plush sofas and armchairs, thereby allowing me to move from shop to shop with strategic sitting down breaks. How considerate of them. Its a bit of a step up from the austere fold away static chairs dotted around my local Le Clerc and a lot kinder on ones derriere.
It sounds terribly superficial, and it is, but shopping is something that I really miss in France. I can’t put my finger on what it is exactly. Perhaps it is the wildly overpriced and limited fashion range for someone of my size or the seemingly total absence of choice of reasonably priced everyday items (I cite children’s socks as an example here), but the French shopping experience doesn’t set my pulse racing like a romp around the shops in the UK. There I’ve said it. They say confession is good for the soul. It is. So now let’s away to Westfield…