Nostalgie FM

I have been feeling rather old this week. Or perhaps not old, more nostalgic.

It all started when we went to visit my grandmother, Mamie Jacqueline. She lives in a house in Surgeres, around 30 minutes' drive from the Ile de Re, where she has lived, to my knowledge, ever since my own mother was a little girl. Her house has seen most of my Christmases, a lot of my summers, and it's always a pleasure to go and reminisce there when I visit.

But this time, everywhere I looked, all I could see was the past - the dried up grass where my late Papi's tomatoes and strawberries used to grow; the dishevelled tool shed which used to be forbidden to me as a child; the rusting laundry line to which post my brother and cousin once tied me for a whole afternoon... Instead of feeling warm at the thought of all the memories I have, as I usually do, I felt sad and, well, nostalgic is the best word for it, I suppose.

And the feeling has stayed with me ever since. Walking on the harbour front in St Martin, all I can see is the ghost of my 18-year-old self, hanging out with my cousins on the terrasses, feeling very adult. Everywhere I go, I feel the shadow of my past self lurking just over my shoulders.

I don't know whether this has something to do with having a child myself now, or whether it's because my 30th birthday is just around the corner, but it's quite frustrating to have the feeling that I used to mock in my own parents.

When we used to watch the videos of me as a little girl, my parents always used to be depressed. And I used to think they were silly, and that they should be happy to have recorded such great memories. But now I feel the same as they did. In fact, we watched those same videos on this trip, and all I could think was "where did the time go? how did my life go by so fast?!"

My life isn't over, I know. But now it feels like I need to leave the floor to my baby, and it's Oscar's time to make memories. Thankfully his memories will make up a big chunk of my own. It's just a new chapter about to start, even though I'm finding it hard to let go of the page I have to turn for it to begin.

Waiting for Krusty

It's day six of my bittersweet trip to France.

Bitter because it's hard to be away from my husband (who I realise I haven't been separated from for almost a year). And sweet because, well, where do I start?

First there's the pleasure of watching Oscar interact with my mother, now known as Lady Gaga for the noises she makes when she sees him, and my father, who Oscar seems to find hilarious. I watch them play and fuss over him and I imagine being a baby myself. This is how they must have been with me. It's mindblowing in a way.

There's also sweetness in my bambino, of course, as usual. Since we have arrived, he has really found his voice, adding brief, sharp squeals to his repertoire of coos and gurgles. He has also realised that those two things on the end of his arms are actually his hands, and his to control, and he keeps delicately grabbing his own fingers like one of those claws that grab teddys in arcade machines, and smiling proudly. It's a far cry from that day I had to remove his hands from his face because he couldn't understand that he was in control of whether they were there or not.

And, it goes without saying, the sweet, sweet pleasure of finding French food again. Oh my. There are peaches that taste of raspberries, bread that tastes good from the moment you buy it and even for a few more days after that (if it survives that long without being eaten). There are tomatoes that have the colour, texture and TASTE of tomatoes, there are my mother's desserts, cooked from my grandmother's recipes. And there are mussels. And melons. And and and. Oh how much we are missing...

To hell and back

Once I had finally sorted out the plane ticket (they wouldn't give me a cot bed seat until Krusty called every hour to insist, long story...) I was actually quite excited about taking Bambino to Europe, not least because the cold plane would mean I could finally dress my baby in shoes and a cardigan.

I admit that it was quite difficult to say goodbye to Krusty not knowing when we would see him next, but I felt confident that everything would go well. Night flight? Check. Warm, comfy clothes? Check. Soft cover used at naptime to induce sleep? Check.

But I should have known better. In fact, as soon as the wheels of the pushchair got trapped in the door of the Airport Express train, inducing panic in all those around me, I should have seen the signs of a nightmare trip ahead.

It's safe to say, in retrospect, that Oscar does NOT like flying. As soon as we sat down in the plane, he cried for three hours then again every two. The incredibly manicured man next to me (my gaydar was on full alert) started huffing as soon as he sat down, giving Oscar the evils while he edited back copies of the Portugese version of Hello magazine.

In fact the airline had put me in a window seat, so I kept having to step over him to get out (he wouldn't swap with me because he had "specifically ordered a corridor seat"), so after a while, he just draped his cover over his head, periodically huffing from underneath it like some modern, bitchy Egyptian mummy. He paid for his huffinness in the end when the cot bed fell in his lap, breaking both of our tvs...

Many more hellish things happened on the flight, not to mention the endless train journeys from Paris to La Rochelle, with crying all the way, but this trip was a little like childbirth - I remember that it was painful, but I can't remember the pain, because the end result is so pleasurable (oh the baguette, oh the clean, fresh air, oh the proud feeling of seeing my son smile at my parents) that the ordeal has disappeared in my mind.