I start this post waiting for my very early flight to Bordeaux. My friend Joe missed his flight the day before. He caught an evening one instead. The couple in front of me in the boarding queue like to display their love very publicly. They must’ve been of adolescence, which makes me feel old and cynical. I’m not complaining; it was quite sweet. A man eats a vanilla flan in the waiting room for this very early flight. The woman at security asks me where I’m going, and when I say where her eyes light up, her daughter studies in Bordeaux. You can tell the pride in her voice; it transcends languages. These are the kinds of conversations people have in airports in the very early morning. 

I was in a gym class and you messaged and I smiled and then I broke my plank. I cut my finger opening a tin of chickpeas. I ripped a hole in the lining of my coat. I was on the way to a gym class and you messaged and I didn’t smile and I went on a run instead. A receipt for an allongé fell into the hole in the lining of the coat. I paid with cash the next time, it made for a much simpler transaction. The woman next to me on the stair machine looked like the hunchback of Notre Dame as she climbed the many stages of this static staircase and I wonder why people put themselves through something that seems so uncomfortable. I wonder where her final destination is. 

I told my coworker that French men confuse me. She said this applies to men in general. She is not wrong. 

One of the artists in our recent exhibition used Kintsugi in her work (she is a ceramicist). The ancient Japanese technique of Kintsugi is a metaphor and a philosophy of life itself: resilience, healing wounds and transforming them into a strength.  

Not every romantic encounter leads to a relationship, I saw on TikTok this week. I think I have taken this to the extreme. I also think I have to stop taking advice from TikTok.

I question (again and again) the sustainability of taking a domestic flight. But it is considerably cheaper and quicker and that sounds like the capitalist dream but I ought not to feel too guilty because I try to be sustainable in other ways and that is okay.

If you’re a regular to these posts, I have violinist housemates. If you’re not, I have violinist housemates. They’ve been away for various reasons, such as reading week. I let the dishes soak too long before washing them. This is also known as not washing up. I also check for the key twice every time I leave the house for fear of losing it or leaving without it, knowing it is always in my bag. This is why I don’t live alone. 

Recipes for the salad crisis, Apple News flags up. 

Lets do it next week! (the missing apostrophe accurately represents the text received, not a grammatical slip on my part). 

It’s not me; it’s you! So I like to tell myself to avoid disappointment. 

I dislike the use of exclamation marks.

The cultural digest: 

• Bordeaux. This city! I am in love. The wine (the sweet wine!) The ladders in Mollat bookshop. This restaurant called Casa Gaïa (the best mushrooms I’ve possibly ever had). The abundance of cannelé (cake typical of Bordeaux). The highly efficient tram system. The Grosse Cloche. The abundance of good coffee. Basking in the sunshine on a street corner. This bizarre exhibition at the contemporary art museum (did I expect any less). 
• Diary of An Oxygen Thief. I inhaled this book, even if it wasn’t very good. Not that it wasn’t good, but it was uncomfortable and reminded me of the way I felt reading A Clockwork Orange, and I wouldn’t want to let anyone borrow it. I bought it based on the blurb instead of the TBR list I am working down. Next time, I will stick to the list. 
• Arrête Avec Tes Mensonges or Lie With Me is a film released last week. It was heartwarming and sad and about one’s first love. I need to read the book. Of course I need to read the book. 
• Bellaire’s new song Brazil. It sounds like something you would hear on Mario Kart.
• This curried lentil recipe from MOB’s vegan half. I have been making it so much recently, adding or subtracting elements depending on what I have in the fridge.

I told my mum I think I need to find someone more vanilla to stop being disappointed by people only there for un bon moment or no moment. She agreed with this wholeheartedly. She is not wrong. 

I wrote the above paragraph two days ago. In reality, the only vanilla I want in my life is in the form of a vanilla cannelé. I am not wrong. 

I was having a conversation with my best friend, and he said that surely it is at this point (well, a week ago) that now I have more or less done all the bucket list things I wanted to do whilst in France surely it’s now time to start doing things for the last time, like the last coffee at Petrin Couchette or the final cocktail at my local. No, I will not think about leaving just yet; thank you very much. But returning from my sejour in England now feels like the countdown towards the end. The final slog, except it isn’t because I love it here, and that makes me sound ungrateful. 

I wonder what people get out of private members’ clubs. Like really. 

eleanor xx