I am Amélie Poulain, if Amélie Poulain had to play charades in a personal banking meeting to make herself understood

Oh yah, so much nicer than Manchester.

So I'm here in France! 

Here, on this year abroad that I have railed against throughout my whole uni career, having led my own stroppy personal crusade against 'living in different countries' being the ultimate thing you could possibly do in your life. 

(Yes, great, you're living in Stockholm/Madrid/Tokyo for 6 months before you jet off to the next city. Now please tell me about the meaningful relationships you're going to make in that short amount of time and how much fun you're really going to have when you're in a foreign country, away from your friends and family from home, where you can barely speak the language.) (Or, alternatively, tell me about how your four-month holiday - yes it was a holiday - in Indonesia was just so horrible and difficult.) (Okay, I'm done, I promise.)

So it is with great shame and guilt that I report that so far (admittedly two weeks in), I'm having quite a lot of fun. As it turns out, wandering the streets of Paris with the sun on your skin, stopping off in a beautiful garden to eat a delectable pastry, and doing your shopping in a charming little market are all quite nice things to do. Also, as I've been on my own the whole time, there is nobody to stop me from giving in to pretentiousness while I stroll through the Métro to the soundtrack of buskers, preening and imagining that I look just like Amélie. That being said, I haven't started work yet - so yes, I am in effect on holiday in Paris on my own for two weeks. 

This holiday has, of course, been intruded on by Real Life Things, such as going to estate agents and opening bank accounts and having meetings with my new workplace and whatnot. Let it be known that even when I do these things in my native country, in my mother tongue, I feel constantly like a 13-year-old wearing an adult-shaped body suit. In France, speaking a language I'm half-comfortable with, dealing with systems different to those in England, I am useless.

Here are some things that have happened so far:

1. While opening a bank account, I realised halfway through a sentence that I didn't know the word for 'ATM' and ostentatiously mimed one by making a big square with my hands and pretending to take something out of it. The lady who was opening my account, bless her, not only understood (and told me the word) but also didn't laugh at me. I, on the other hand, spent the entire rest of the meeting desperately trying not to giggle as it sunk in what I had just done. 

On the plus side, it taught me that no matter how long it takes, you can communicate anything - you will get there in the end.

2. I retroactively realised that the man in a suit at the shopping centre entrance was not, in fact, a salesman, and was actually a security guard checking everybody's bag. Just a few days earlier, after they had obviously asked to check my bag and I had misheard, I had sailed past with a 'non merci'. Good thing I'm not a terrorist.

3. The worst of all: the other day, I met with the headmistress of the school I'm going to be teaching in. It was all going relatively well, I thought, until I asked if the children were sometimes méchant. This word was taught to me in school in the context of animals: a puppy who stole a shoe, for example, as far I was concerned, would be méchant. Turns out that, at the very least for people, it does not mean naughty or cheeky. Turns out I just straight up asked this lovely woman if her pupils were evil criminals. Lesson learned. 

I'd like to think that I'll be able to report back in another two weeks saying that I'm practically a native. If not though, hopefully at least I'll have another list of ways I've made a complete tit of myself.

currently feeling 21/11

Saw this photo on AnOther. Swooned. This is everything I want currently: everything in various shades of brown (down to the sepia-ish tinge to the picture), heeled knee-high boots, maybe even chandeliers (though probably, in my case, the sort you get at Tesco Extra). Also, I'm amused at how the man at the bottom left looks like his outfit is part of the show and he's just about to jump up onto the catwalk at any second. After all, it's not a fashion photo if there's not at least something ridiculous in the frame.

autumn vibes

As the leaves begin to tumble from the trees in earnest and frost begins to spread a glittering carpet over the pavement, I too fall back into autumn traditions which are far less noble and generally consist of getting overly excited about wearing orange and feeling the urge to consume copious amounts of red wine. 

All black is also a very viable option, and amber (or amber-ish) jewellery is perfect. I don't recommend taking up smoking for autumn in order to look mysterious; swinging around a carpet bag, wearing lots of eyeliner and listening to The National should suffice.  

muliebrity by seraglioe featuring a zip back dress 

These King Kennedy carpet bags are probably the epitome of rich autumnal luxe. And these descriptions of outrageous dinner parties of the 1800s are sort of second-hand satisfying the wine-drinking impulse. See: a pie, which when cut into, reveals a whole dish of jewels, iridescent fountains and 2000 'arrangements' of fish. 

The description of the diamond miners does, however, serve as a slightly sobering reminder of how somebody had to dig up all of those beautiful jewels. I'd be quite happy, instead, to settle for a slightly more innocuous inside autumnal meal like this indoors picnic via Polkadots and Vodka Shots (the former blog of Maja Hattvang). 

When I was about 14, I had the pink-wine-and-pavlova-on-shiny-blanket image saved in a folder of pictures that summed up a life I wanted to live when cool and grown-up. Now grown-up, albeit extremely uncool, I think I could just about manage an impromptu cake and wine picnic. Donning as black turtleneck, of course, and some amber jewellery. In an ideal world, it would take place on a beautiful Turkish carpet, but I'll have to make do with my rather less lavish Ikea version - I'm no Victorian billionaire, after all. And perhaps later, post-copious amounts of red wine, we'll go for a night-time walk through swirling leaves and mist and a delicate coating of sparkling, diamond-like frost...

Back to school

This time three years ago, when I was starting Sixth Form, I was scouring H&M and Zara, trying on suit trousers and dreaming of my fantasy professional wardrobe, which, if I recall correctly, contained satchels, fitted suits, and gratuitous use of brooches. I wanted to transform myself into an 80s businesswoman carrying four phones a la Kate Beaton, or, on other days, a vintage art student. I had plans far grander than my old, boring school uniform.

Naturally, of course, my neat, pretty little skirt suits and my clicky kitten heels and my carefully-chosen jewellery devolved quickly into a uniform of holey tights, the same scruffy, paint-stained velvet blazer, and whichever pull-on dress I could dig, crumpled, out of my drawer. It is not easy to dress stylishly when you get up every morning, without fail, half an hour later than the absolute latest you should have been up.

Of course, now at university I don't have a dress code. I can rock up to lectures in pyjamas for all anyone cares (and indeed, it might come to that - I haven't become an early riser in the past three years). I still, however, love clothes that catch my imagination and make me feel like I have transformed myself. Here are some looks with blouses, pinafores, turtlenecks and brooches, to wear if you want to feel like a cross between a 70s secretary, an eccentric art teacher and the Queen.

Photos are taken in the garden by my mum, of course; it is back to school after all. (Disclaimer: the glasses are genuinely needed. See: middle photo in which I am squinting, blindly, at the camera, like a pinafore'd badger.)

Outfit 1: Shirt: charity shop, brooch: hand-me-down from my mum, skirt: charity shop, shoes: Deichmann

Outfit 2: Shirt: charity shop, pinafore: charity shop, brooch: my mum's, borrowed, shoes: hand-me-downs

Outfit 3: Top: New Look,  skirt: Topshop, cardigan: charity shop, brooch: car boot sale, shoes: Deichmann, as before

Voutsa

Hand painted mural (via)

If I did happen to be choosing wallpaper for the millionaire New York brownstone apartment of my dreams, I'd definitely be giving Voutsa a ring. I didn't think that wallpaper porn was a thing, but Voutsa's multicoloured, water-colourish designs are absolutely gorgeous.

(pictured: Octopussi, Ballet Russes Mini on Flat White, Vagina Tree)

They also do lampshades, screens and clothes, in case you wanted to emerge from your beautiful apartment in an equally beautiful outfit.

While I'm sure my landlord wouldn't appreciate me painting all over the walls, I'm sure I could stretch to a t-shirt. Maybe not vagina tree-print though...

Sunday morning vibes

Above are images from different Sundays, but both nice ones. I feel like there two sides to the Sunday coin. One is getting up early, going on a pretty walk and feeling productive. The other is getting up as late as humanly possible, eating a labour-intensive breakfast and sitting around in the same room listening to music all day. Have a cup of tea, put on a good album, hopefully bask in the sunshine and have a nice Sunday.

Adventures in Adulthood: The Moving House Edition

photo mine. it's truthful.

Moving into halls was far easier than I thought it would be. I was handed over a key, then handed over to somebody else, who walked me to my building and left me to begin the rest of my life. There were directions to the town and people in official hoodies waving signs and paperwork packs and about fifty billion emails, and even when my chair was broken and my internet didn't work, it all got resolved within a day.

A few months of living in halls, and I thought of myself as a Real Live Adult. I tidied my room without my mum forcing me to. I cooked meals for myself, and not all of them involved ketchup. (Although I did once, on a particularly grim day of essay-writing, perilously close to a deadline, buy just a packet of chicken dippers and a bottle of ketchup at Lidl. The cashier's response was 'we all have those days, don't we?'. I then proceeded to eat the entire packet. It was a low point.)

I was so very excited to get out of halls. The house I had paid a deposit for was a promised land, with a dishwasher and a double bed and peaceful nights, un-punctuated by the sound of the flat above singing Happy Birthday and banging on the floor for the fourth time this week. (How many birthdays can a flat of ten people have?!) 

Unfortunately, I didn't quite take into consideration how much students are looked after by halls staff. I live with two other girls, and none of us are stupid, but when we got into the house and saw the fridge and freezer wide open, we naturally assumed that new houses just don't have electricity. We rooted about in the cupboard under the stairs and pressed a switch, and the house alarm went off. We pressed the switch again, panicking, and the fire alarm started bleeping ominously. We decided it needed batteries, and went about unpacking with the equivalent of Chinese water torture as a soundtrack. 

Our landlord then arrived, and kindly told us that the electricity had already been on, and flicked the switch on the plug that was very obviously connected to the fridge. The beeping stopped. Peace was restored. We cleaned the house top to toe, hoovered the patchwork 70s carpets, and wiped the layer of stickiness off the kitchen counters. Thoroughly pleased with ourselves and feeling competent, we broke out the gin and tonics and settled down in front of 24 Hours in A&E (like the wild, crazy students we are). 

Then the bloody slugs arrived. There were two big fat ones slithering across the freshly-cleaned kitchen floor, and a few more tiny ones wriggling across the Artex walls. For some reason, we had anticipated everything going wrong except this. We'd assumed that naturally, the wifi wouldn't work. We'd discounted the possibility of having hot water for at least a week, and that we'd be living in the lap of luxury if the heating worked just once over the course of the year. But nobody walks into their kitchen and expects their foot to meet something plump and slimy. We had had a few gin and tonics, and we were absolutely traumatized. 

There it is: my experience as a student so far in a nutshell. Dodgy carpets, dodgy flats, dodgy food choices and dodgy TV. Oh, and alcohol, of course.