Less foreign now….
In fact–Tout va très bien chez nous! 🇫🇷
Yesterday we collected our Certificates of Naturalisation from the Prefecture of our department (Tarn).
We’re smiling, though you wouldn’t know!
Then we sat in a traditional brasserie in a traditional French square and drank a traditional French petit café
and felt good about it!
We resisted the temptation to sing La Marseillaise!
The cup was slightly bigger and less thick than normal and the coffee was clearly the issue of arabica beans– brilliantly hot and delicious.
Maybe it was our delight we were tasting–but NO! it was the best café coffee I’ve tasted in years.
I will never be French and Meredith will never be British or French; but we now are undeniably bonefide French Citizens.
We can vote in the national elections for the President and the government of the country in which we pay our taxes. We have representation when we are taxed (especially meaningful for Meredith!).
Please excuse my perhaps over-enthusiastic donning of rose-coloured spectacles, but today I feel fully “legit” and c’est bien ça !
AND…
We are once again citizens of Europe.
Twenty-two years ago, when we told our friends that we were moving permanently to France, the news received a mixed reception.
Many people were skeptical.
“They’ll be back in six months,” predicted some.
“What are you going to DO there?” others asked.
“Have you spent a WINTER there?” (1200 kilometres south of London!)–another, puzzling reaction.
Two decades plus down the road….
Well–Stephen Sondheim’s superb French-Canadian interpreter, Jasmin Roy, tells it better than me…
Robin Ellis 