what we've got

It’s been a year since Jennie and I left England to move to Geneva Switzerland, and later to nearby France where we live now. I won’t go into the sentimental details of the ‘anniversary’ – suffice to say that there was a little reminiscing over a glass of champers last night, thinking about the year that has passed – so instead here’s a list of how French life is great and the things I miss about the UK. In no particular order…

Why I love France

Weather. It’s hotter here in the summer than the UK, there are more days filled with sunshine, and it’s relatively consistent and predictable too. Summer last year was like the feted one in 1976 in the UK, the one we think all summers should be like. Since meteo.fr is particular to my specific area, the forecast seems always to get it right. There are some indifferent days, of course, but generally it is less damp than England, less gloomy. The barbie gets more use. Conversely, when it snows, it is colder than the UK, colder but a dry cold. What this means is there is a greater range of…

Outdoor activity. In the summer you can plan days out because it’s likely you’ll get decent weather. Since we live in the countryside, more or less, we have some excellent hiking, golf, cycling, climbing, swimming… the list goes on. We have a tennis court and football ground at the end of the road. The key thing is, as the winter comes the sports only get better: when it’s snowing, we go snowboarding or snowshoeing. It’s this kind of year-round activity that is one of my most favourite things about this place.

The mountains and the water. We live in the Rhône-Alpes region, so as you might expect there are lots of mountains and there is lots of water. We live around an hour or so from some of the best Alpine locations anywhere and I can see the Salève and Jura mountain ranges from my window. We have Lakes Geneva and Annecy, which we plan to boat on soon. What’s more, we have Geneva on our doorstep, so we get to do all the city things, too – and there are the all-important opportunities for work.

Food and wine. I’ve done some independent studies* on this and, in short, food is better in my part of France than in the UK. Much better. Even local stores have local produce, lovingly laid out and presented. (There is one exception, as you’ll see.) Even the small fact that France loves whisky, as do I, seems as if it is just the right place. The aisles dedicated to cured meat and cheese found in the hypermarché should be enough to convince you of its culinary superiority; if it doesn’t, try some of the local wines from Satigny, or the Rhône, or…

Secular, liberal, republic. So far, I’ve counted the physical things, like weather and mountains. But there are political or philosophical things, too. One of the latter is the fact that France is a modern, democratic secular, liberal, republic. This generally coincides with my approach, my politics. It doesn’t mean that France is without its issues. But nor does it mean that these high ideals are completely detached from public life either. You’ll find them in bars and restaurants and in the fabric of life out here. I even found a copy of Camus’ ‘L’etranger’ at the local supermarket.

People work to live, not live to work. Shops are closed on Sunday here (some large supermarkets are open in the morning) and often closed on Monday, too. Many more close for a long lunch, between 12.00 and 14.00. It’s annoying sometimes and takes getting used to, but it illustrates how the French try to put living before working. It’s not perfect, and we’ve been affected by strikes and so on, but it’s something I can believe in (and not just because I’m lazy, either).

Before you get on the plane (or not, as the case might be) to leave it all behind, there are some downsides, at least as far as I’m concerned…

What I miss about England

Family and friends. You have to leave your family and friends behind. That is, unless you can take them with you. I’m working on the latter. You get more popular when you live in a nice place and I try to convert every member of my family who comes through the door to move out here. France isn’t a million miles away, either, and it’s only a short plane flight to go to the UK. We all do a lot of social networking stuff, too.

Newspapers. The quality of newspapers here is very high. Le Monde, Le Figaro and even the free or cheap newspapers like 20 Minutes focus on more on news, not just gossip. But since I’m still learning French, I can’t read them effortlessly, which is how I like to read a newspaper, especially at weekends. The French Paper is quite good but it doesn’t have the frequency or sheer heft of a good old weekend broadsheet, stuffed with magazines and reviews.

Marks and Spencer. There’s plenty of good shopping out here, but there’s nothing like a Marks and Sparks. It’s the corduroy, you see – the cardigan. There is one in Geneva but it sells only clothes for women and food. However, I can order online, and it’s fairly cheap at around £5 to ship to France, so all is not lost.

Curry. Despite an ongoing fervent search, I still haven’t found a convincing curry house. The curry in Geneva, even in what appear ‘authentic’ places, is adapted (read ‘made innocuously bland’) to a Swiss and French taste in the places I’ve been. It’s just as well my wife Jennie is a great cook. On a related note, you can get Marmite and baked beans (other staples) but they are often horribly expensive.

Language. It’s hard sometimes to know that everyone around you doesn’t understand what you might want to say, that you are divided by a language, even if you might share common interests and beliefs. The answer is to learn French. If you’re like me, you might find this tough. But when you get a moment of breakthrough – perhaps you listen to the radio, and understand what is being said, at least in part – it is completely rewarding and worthwhile.

I can’t say I miss UK culture – music, tv, movies – because we get them all here. Without them it would be difficult, I think. And I can’t say we’re completely immersed in French culture, either. Some of it, especially some of the pop music and comedy shows, I’m happy to leave aside for now.

If you think these lists amount to my succumbing to the temptation (common in other ex-pats, I’ve found) to criticize their home country when they leave it, then think again: I love the UK and always will. A move away from home can mean that you love it just the same, not less. I’ll be supporting England in the football World Cup. It’s just that I now have another couple of teams to shout for, too – France and Switzerland. Addition doesn’t mean dilution.

But the biggest thing I’ll take, though, is not necessarily to be found in either the UK or France and is this: we feel good because we took ourselves from our relative comfort zones and tried something new and challenging; that we developed a new confidence and broader outlook that comes with the huge upheaval of moving to a country with a different language and culture; that we’ve not just sat and thought it would be nice to move, but actually gone and done it.

It’s not that people don’t do this kind of thing every day, or that it’s particularly unusual or daring or brave. We’re none of those things. It’s just that it is unusual for us, a challenge, something that has allowed us to be different from ourselves and one we’re lucky to say has worked out wonderfully. And who could not love an area like Haute-savoie when it has the motto: ‘In tartiflette we trust!‘ This is a place I’m happy to call ‘home’.

*I mean I’ve eaten in both France and England quite a lot.

I started to get many views on a particular photo in my Flickr photostream, consistently, over a period of about a week. That can only mean one thing: my photo has made it to the 0.05 per cent of photos that appear on Flickr by becoming part of the coveted ‘Explore‘ group. I checked my referrals and using other tools, and there it was: it made it into Explore. In other words, it’s got a high ‘interestingness’ rating – thought to be a complex equation based on how many views, comments, faves, etc a photo has. Here it is, and as it appears on Flickr (click on image below for full size).

Snow trees in winter ©Phil Greaney

I quite like the way Flickr approach the idea of ‘interestingness’. No one really knows completely how it works, it’s like a secret recipe, an alchemy. As a result, Flickr’s forums and some groups are full of speculation on how it’s calculated and what you must do to get your photo included in Explore. Looking through Explore photos, you quickly realise it’s not the best photos, so let’s not get carried away. All I can do is say I had none of this in mind when I took the photo. I just wanted to do the best I can. And I might add that I had to do very little on the day; nature did it all for me.

More important to me than the Explore thing was that my nephew said, quite out of the blue, that he was using my photo as his desktop background on his PC. Now that’s all the ‘fame’ I need.

What does it mean to be French?

The French have began a process of reflecting on their national identity by asking what it means to be French in the 21st century. Ostensibly this is happening as a result of recent perceived issues with parts of the population that are felt to have not integrated into French society, at least as some see it. But it also appears uniquely French itself, in that it represents another way in which the French undergo a perpetual (it seems) analysis of their language and culture, their politics and ideologies, their people and beliefs.

A strength of a society (and its individuals) is calculated in its ability to accept and respond to criticism, to solicit it even. Inevitably, the Grand débat sur l’identité nationale (The Debate on National Identity) will attract criticism of the French. One thorny issue that appears frequently when considering French identity is the perceived conservative attitude to its language and culture.

The BBC’s ‘From our own correspondent’ outlines this single, but significant element, by expressing it as a desire of the French to embrace their own culture jealously, even at the expense of others:

The French collude in the over-praising for two reasons, one good, one bad. The good reason is that they are genuinely fond of their culture. [...] One realises after a while that the French view their [celebrities] almost as members of the family. They enjoy going to see them in the same way they enjoy catching up with the latest family gossip.

The bad reason is that it is all about self-protection. Succumbing to sycophancy, after all, is a way of reassuring oneself that all is good in the world, when clearly it is not.

As an outsider and relative newcomer to the country, I’ve yet to form a picture of what it means to be French, but I’m learning a great deal (it wouldn’t be fair, either, since I wear rose-tinted spectacles having fallen for the place). I probably never will satisfy a complete conclusion but what I can say is that the national debate on what it means to be French appears to me a clear-eyed approach to learning more, good and bad, about itself.

And when you point such a focus elsewhere, it’s only a matter of time before the focus rests on you, and rightly so. I’m from the UK, so I wonder: what does it mean to be British? And by extension, what does it mean to be me, or be you, and where you’re from?

On Saturday, me and Jennie followed the war memorial walk at the Glières plateau in Haute-Savoie, about thirty minutes from home. Unlike our previous walk to Le Grand Piton, it offered no summit, no grand views from the mountains which we couldn’t see at the beginning, and barely a place to rest and eat lunch. Rather, we followed a linked series of paths that were significant during the French resistance counter-attack during the latter stages of the Second World War. We started at the war monument.

After an hour or so of walking over the stone roads and passing the re-built infirmary and so on we found ourselves in the walk proper. We began the descent, eventually finding our way into a wood where the trees offered some shelter from the heat.

When you’re on a descent and know you’ll end up where you started, you can safely assume that every step you take down you’ll need to take up on the return, albeit in a difference place. Only on the second half you’re tired and so the ascent feels worse. When we’d walked for about and hour and a half on the way down, we knew we had some walking to do to get back. What’s worse was that it was getting late-ish: although we still had plenty of time, we needed to move quickly without too many breaks – so I started recording ‘on the run’.

I don’t know enough about the events in January 1944 to do justice to it in a retelling (you can learn more here). But we did walk through the sentier de l’attaque, the path taken by the massed German troops towards the plateau where the French Maquis were waiting. As I traced the path taken by the advancing soldiers I tried to immerse myself in their thoughts and feelings, and imagine how it must have been for them and for the French fighters they were about to face.

Despite the great interest in the local area,the walk itself suffered from several issues which made it less enjoyable than it might have been. It seems churlish now to complain – the views, were, after all, quite spectacular and the walk well signposted and challenging – and it has piqued my interest in local history, especially during the war. But sometimes when you finish you feel elated – here, we simply felt relieved.

I’m not sure we’ll take this walk again, but this doesn’t detract from the memories and respect for all the men who fought here, and the courage of the Maquis facing such terrible odds. I took some photos, too – you can find them here.

Walking guide details
This was walk Number 26 in Janette Norton’s Walking in the Haute Savoie: Book 2, South (Between Annecy and Chamonix) ISBN: 978-1852844110. It is described as a difficult / medium walk and took us about 6 hours.

I can see the mountain Le Grand Piton from my desk, every day as I work and now as I write. In the short time we’ve been here, I’ve wanted to walk it, having seen it so often. This weekend, we did.

Like many good walks, it started with a drive to a car park by a church. We left the car in Beaumont, about ten minutes away from home, and started up the steepish path, clearly able to see the tower at the top which was our destination.

And so the walk began. It was very good weather, with a bit of a breeze to keep cool. The directions from our guidebook were very easy to follow and there were very few people around. About an hour or so away, we stopped for a break, where we could see up close and personal what we’d only looked upon from a distance usually.

Two paths diverged in the wood and we, we took the one… with the red rock (it had a big splog of paint on it), which meant we were on the right track. It was the more difficult option of the two according to the guidebook, but it had better views.

The low-resolution, ham-fisted video doesn’t really do this justice, nor does it capture the scale of the view before us – and the peace in which we found ourselves, so distant from the teeming life below. Still – onwards and upwards – we’re not at the top yet. Shortly after, we reached a high spot, which I thought then was the top, and which offered views of the pre-Alps all around.

And now to the best bit of every walk we do – lunch. We had packed lunch as is normal, and we planned to eat when we arrived at the summit. I wondered if Jennie had found a good spot?

And that’s where this story ends. Now, as I write, I’m looking at Le Grand Piton, the very mountain we climbed, and it feels good to imagine myself at its summit, looking down over Geneva, and France, and our home, even this office.

A coda

I realise that posting these videos is more or less like showing someone your holiday snaps or home videos. Sorry about that. But despite my explanation, I can hear you ask: why did I climb the mountain? For that, we need to turn to William Shatner and in doing so, I hope rescue this post from mediocrity. Happy viewing, climbers. (Thanks to Andrew for the video recommendation).

On Friday morning before the day started I had a coffee with Jennie, in the roof garden to the World Health Organisation’s building in Geneva where she works. It was a lovely sunny day and unusually clear, so there are some good views around Geneva and the surrounding mountains.

I planned on taking some photos, but ended up doing some impromptu video instead. The quality isn’t great – it’s taken with an Ixus 80 pocket camera – but I think it does the job. Next time I’ll take the Canon XM2 up there and the tripod – but there’s no replacement for my terrible narration and faltering voice. That we’ll just have to put up with.

Most mornings I wake up and say the same thing, which you might generously call a mantra to start the day. In a former life in the UK, I would say (normally to my wife Jennie, where it made barely a little more sense, but sometimes to myself) upon throwing back the bedsheets:

I’m going to have a shower, you absolutely shower. I’m off to work to keep you in the manner to which you’ve become accustomed.

Day in, day out, the script remained the same. Nowadays, since the move to France, I have changed my tune a little. Now I’m more likely to say:

Another day in paradise. What’s the weather like, Jen? Sunny?

And most often it is sunny. But the price we pay for il fait du soleil are storms, violent ones, ones you’d remember for ages, ones you’d bring up in conversation months or even years later. Every silver lining literally has a cloud – in this case, a big angry one, full of thunder.

And so as we went to bed last week we expected the storm to come, as it does, and light the night sky, and crackle and fizz overhead and then pass, and then become calm. When the thunder woke us up at around 2.30, the sky was ominously filling with light. Clouds flickered endlessly in an almost seamless trail of light all over the sky. When sensible, I unplugged all the sensitive electrical equipment and returned to bed.

I dozed for about ten minutes then BOOM! an explosion jolted us awake, its sharp crack infinitely nearer than the thunder. Knowing we’d been hit, but not where, we ran about the dark house – the fuses had blown – with an unsteady torch, trying to find the source of the smell of sulphur.

It wasn’t until light that we saw the chimney had been struck, and that shards of debris lay on the grass and in the drive. We’re more or less the tallest house on this road so there was no surprise we had been hit.

Lightning strikes

If you look carefully you can see the large slab left sitting on the roof, and the tiles that have been uprooted by it. That night the water seeped in, moistening the plaster, dripping into the comble (can’t help smiling when I write that word, it’s like a Womble, but with more emphasis on meaning ‘loft’ or ‘attic’ space). It doesn’t look much in this photo, but for the record, being hit by lightning isn’t fun.

In the morning, as tiredness washed over me and I dozed, I imagined that the strike had affected me some way – like the bite of Spiderman’s arachnid, or countless other SuperHeroes subject to radiation, venom, or the madman’s experiment – perhaps I, too, would now have hero powers? Maybe I can fly, or, seemingly more prosaically, have great insight or understanding?

But I had none of these things. I was, and am, just Phil Greaney – with a broken chimney.

One of the (happily few) disappointments of living in France is the difficulty and expense of buying an English newspaper. In time, I hope to read Le Monde and perhaps even Le Figaro. But until then, I’m happy to be reliant on ‘journaux anglais’ – a phrase I know well because I’ve said it in many tabacs in both France and Switzerland to little avail.

We live a little out of town, so the local tabac doesn’t sell an English language newspaper. We could go into Geneva, where several shops sell them – but not as many as you’d think, since the Swiss enjoy a Sunday free from shopping, and even smaller shops close. And it’s the weekend newspapers I miss most. I’ve used the web for news, and WRS (World Radio Switzerland) is in English, and both have served me well. Accepting that I wouldn’t have something to read in the garden away from a computer, I thought I’d try the digital editions offered by The Times and The Guardian.

Both use a more or less identical engine for the main functionality of the paper, provided by NewspaperDirect.inc. You can turn pages, zoom, copy articles, email them, all the things you would expect in a front end that does its best to approximate the real thing. What’s striking is the difference that the format makes. Sure, you could get more or less the same content via an RSS feed or through the newspaper website. But seeing the news in high-res spread across a large-ish screen is very satisfying and it’s one of the reasons I’ll subscribe.

The Times e-edition front page

The right-hand navigation panel gives useful previews of pages and means you can navigate the paper quickly. If it all looks a bit busy, you can minimise the clutter and just look at the pages. I found moving within the page a bit difficult and the mouse movements counter-intuitive. It just takes getting used to and others might find it suits them. You can open an article and read it in a non-newspaper box, which looks more like the website and undermines the illusion a bit. There’s lots of other things you can do with an electronic newspaper, too – like search, or just look at the pictures.

Where The Guardian group’s Digital Edition adds further value (The Times call it their e-paper) is the ability to share content through a variety of social networking tools. Articles can be saved to Delicious, shared on Facebook or blogged and so on. The latter function has it for me: it makes sharing the content much easier, something that I hope will prompt a some sharing on this humble blog. It is illustrative, I think, of The Guardian Group’s growing embrace of the web, although the sticky subject of how old media will survive or not is still unresolved.

The Guardian Digital Edition frontpage with share icons

Both are relative cheap services, too. You can pay a whopping 7.50CHF (Swiss Francs) for a bonafide paper copy, which is about £4 for a Sunday paper that’s sometimes incomplete, with often the best supplements are missing (meaning it lacks the heft of a Sunday paper and therefore one of its most attractive qualities). It will cost only £4.99 a month for The Observer; £3.99 for a month’s worth of The Sunday Times. I guess the extra pound pays for all that social networking goodness. Both have mobile-friendly editions, so you can use your mobile device for the odd read although like many things the screen might be too small for prolonged reading. You can also download if you plan to be offline.

Despite this, I’d really like to see some of the excellent multi-media material we find on both news websites (and especially The Guardian’s) integrated into the editions. Although you can listen to the Guardian’s stories (a function I’ve been unable to get to work), in an ideal world both could follow the example of ‘electric!’, a rich media publication from Virgin Media, which uses the Ceros engine. Superb interaction, although quite unlike a conventional newspaper reading experience and appealing to different markets, a hybird which incorporates existing audio/video from the sites seems possible (from this distance). The image below offers video playback embedded in the publication, and there’s audio too. Try ‘electric!’, you might like it, if not the name.

electric! is a rich media publication from Virgin Media, powered by Ceros

So, I’ll have to compromise: I won’t be able to shape a paper copy to my whim, read it in the garden or at the cafe. Lamenting this, in the never ending pursuit for that elusive hardcopy,  I ventured out to the Swiss / French border near Perly following a rumour that they sold English newspapers. Success of sorts: I did find a single copy of the Sunday Mail. It may still be there for all I know: there are standards.

I feel a bit worse for wear today, since last night we celebrated finalising the contract on our new home in France. Having seen the place online, Jen flew to Geneva the very next day and immediately agreed to get the ball rolling. It’s a lovely place and we’ve pored over pictures of it, dreaming of what life will be like there.

Such dreams are very welcome because right now we spend our days immersed in a thousand logistical problems, with stress levels rising and deadlines looming. Sometimes we have a heavy heart because we are leaving people and places behind for a little while, at least. But that’s for another post. We’ll move to this place after a few weeks in Geneva.

Our one reservation was its location. We have heard that thousands commute from France to Geneva daily, but was the town – Chable, in the Haute Savoie department, the French Alps region – close enough, with good transport links? The drive from the airport to the house convinced Jen it was. It takes about 10-15 mins to get there, and luckily bypasses Geneva central and the (in)famous snarl up over the Pont Mont Blanc. You can get a bus, too, right from the town to Geneva central.

View Larger Map

My ‘office’ has a great view, over to Mont Saleve (below) – and some natural light from the window above. Seems a really great space to get creative/doze in.

View from the office

The front room has a long main window looking out onto trees and fields. Lots of light fills the room and air, too, since there are French windows at the back of the room. It doesn’t feel strange that I’ve yet to visit where I will live – listening to Jen and viewing the photos mean that I’ve got a feel for the place, however remote.

The main room with a view

The best seat in the house is the third-floor loo. From there you can see the snow-covered mountains in all their glory. Nearby is the capital of Haute-Savoie department, the city of Annecy, which I’m told is a good place to visit, and Lyon is the major city. There’s some good walking on our doorstep, so we’re lucky there.

View from the best seat in the house

So, all this is a huge relief for us. Now when we arrive in Geneva we do not need to frantically find a place to live but – and it seems dangerous to mention it, as if it might put the mockers on it – we can even relax and find our feet. There’s a jazz festival we can go to; do some walking perhaps; explore the cafes in the new city before we move to France. A man has to dream, no?