A-Z innit

I stole this from Sarah who herself stole it from Sara who stole it from K who stole it from one Ms. Jive Turkey.

A. Age: 32 currently but will soon be 33!

B. Bed size: Normal queen size bed because our bedroom is so small. Next we move, then it will be the biggest frickin' bed that France has to offer!

C. Chore that you hate: Changing the litter tray because well it's icky and takes forever

D. Dogs: None of my own sadly. But my husband's parents have 5 so I feel like I at least have a share in a dog through marriage!

E. Essential start to your day: Tea, a bowl of porridge and catching up on Twitter/Facebook/Instagram on my phone

F. Favorite color: Red

G. Gold or silver: Both and sometimes together

H. Height: 5' 6".

I. Instruments that you play: Well I had violin, piano and recorder lessons growing up so I guess if there was some kind of instrument emergency and nobody else was available I could step in and do a decent job of Twinkle Twinkle or Chopsticks!

J. Job title: Purchasing Manager.

K. Kids: None.

L. Live: South of France.

M. Mother's name: Fiona

N. Nicknames: Jo, Fountain, Box of Presence.

O. Overnight hospital stays: None thank goodness

P. Pet peeves: Umm, people who cut me up on the road, badly dubbed American/UK TV series on French TV, people who don't recycle at work even tho' the 2 bins are right next to each other, people who don't let passengers off the train before getting on themselves and the beat goes on....

Q. Quote from a movie: "If you ain't first, you're last".

R: Right or left handed: Right.

S: Siblings: 1 brother and 1 brother-in-law.

T: Travel favorite: "I like to be in America, okay by me in America..." New York and Vegas are personal faves.

U. Underwear: Cute, pretty colours, boy shorts

V. Vegetable(s) you hate: Brussels sprouts and parsnips- puke!

W. What makes you run late: Spending too much time on the internet, getting ready to go out.

X. X-rays you've had: Neck when I had whiplash, teeth for my braces and shoulder when I broke my collar bone.

Y. Yummy food that you make: Taco soup, tuna pasta bake, pork with apple and mustard, carrot cake, muffins....

Z. Zoo animal: Elephants FTW!

One night in Paris

 Last weekend, we left the sunshine of the Cote d'Azur behind and flew up to Paris for a quick overnight trip. For Christmas, I had managed to snag D tickets to see one of his favourite TV shows being filmed and as the taping finished around midnight on Sunday evening, we decided to make a weekend out of it and take Monday off too.
The weather in Nice had taken a turn for the worse when we left and we had a couple of days of rain and cold last week, but I was definitely not prepared for the freezing temperatures we were greeted with in Paris, as we stepped out of the airport at 9.30am it was 0°c and things went downhill from there culminating in a very chilly -5°c. Having been used to a balmy 18°c in January back in Nice, we were absolutely freezing walking around the city, but we manned it out long enough to visit the Eiffel Tower and take some photos of France's Iron Lady before finding the nearest brasserie and ordering copious amounts of chocolat chaud and Nutella crepes to warm up again.

 (The red blur in the bottom left hand corner is a bit of my coat I think!)

We also managed to indulge in 2 visits to Starbucks in a period of 24 hours thereby allowing me to get my tea and pumpkin muffin fix which will hopefully  keep me going until my next trip back to the UK. Say what you will about Starbucks but when you're in need of a piping hot drink and a quick sugar fix, it is definitely the way forward especially as I am the only tea drinker in a country of coffee lovers so my visits to more traditional French cafés are usually limited to hot chocolate or soft drinks. Plus the branch on the Champs Elysées had a very cool poster in the entrance hall which I am currently trying to work out how to recreate for our flat although perhaps minus the whole Levis website advert. Looks like I need to get on to Pinterest and look for some ideas asap!

Looking back 2011

Hi there! So yes I'm still alive and well, but I just haven't been around here for a while as you might have noticed..... No big reason, to be honest I have just been enjoying the first few months of newlywed life and catching up with family and friends recently.
But it's a new day and  a new year and one of my resolutions is to get the blog up and running again, so I thought I'd start off by looking back at 2011 a little bit.

Looking Back 2011 Version


An end of year round up taken from Slynnro and many many other blogs.

In case you want to compare, here is a link to last years round up and also the 2009 version



1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?

I got married! Twice in fact as French law requires a legal marriage at the Town Hall before you can have a church wedding so we did both.
I also (finally!) passed my driving test first time and bought my first car



2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Well as they mostly involved spending less money and doing more sport, I would say 50-50 for this year. I did a pretty good job on the sports thing, I've been running and swimming all year and am aiming to keep it up this year too. However on the money side of things, well having a wedding is expensive yo! and even though we did as much as we could ourselves we still ended up spending a lot, so 2012 will be all about saving, saving, saving!


3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Yes, one of my Nice friends had a beautiful baby boy, a friend from university also had a gorgeous little boy and there are more babies on the way in the next couple of months!


4. Did anyone close to you die?


Not this year thank God.


5. What countries did you visit?

 Italy for a mini-moon in Rome and England more times than I can count,


6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?

Exactly the same as last year as this got pushed back by the wedding extravaganza-I would like to finally rip out the kitchen in our flat and redo it, and then paint the rest of the flat


7. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

5th September- Our civil wedding in Nice
6th September- Taking my driving test
7th September- Finding out I'd passed my driving test
10th September- Our wedding day!
(Yeah that one week in September was a whole bunch of crazy......)


8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?



I think planning the wedding and managing to get pretty much all of our friends and family together in Nice to celebrate with us is the one I'm proudest of. And then passing my driving test first time was a big one for me personally too


9. What was your biggest failure?

Exactly the same as the last two years: Not finding time to do everything I wanted to. Mainly because I waste too much time on the internet. And not saving as much money as I would have liked


10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Ummmm not that I can think of bar a few common colds- thankfully!


11. What was the best thing you bought?

My wedding dress


12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

My husband- I definitely couldn't have got through this year without him. My parents for going above and beyond as always and my brother too. My in-laws for helping us out immeasurably during the wedding planning stage.



13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

Nobody I know personally, but globally there were a few



14. Where did most of your money go?

The wedding
Driving Lessons
My car


15. What did you get really excited about?

The wedding! And the whole week of fun that came with it
The babies who arrived during the year
Planning our honeymoon for 2012
Our first Christmas together in England


16. What song will always remind you of 2010?

Right Round by Flo-rida and Don't Stop Me Now by Queen


17. Compared to this time last year, are you:


(a) happier or sadder? Happier I think
(b) thinner or fatter? A bit thinner than last year thanks to all the running and swimming
(c) richer or poorer? About the same I think


18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Travelling, writing letters, reading


19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Worrying, procrastinating, and wasting time on the internet



20. How did you spend Christmas?

In England with Didier and my family. It was legend......wait for it...ary!



21. Did you fall in love in 2011?

I renewed my ongoing love affair with my husband....


22. What was your favorite TV program?

Downton Abbey for the win!


23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

Not really no.



24. What was the best book you read?

I read so many books this year but the ones that stick out are 'Room' by Emma Donoghue and Rob Lowe's "Stories I only tell my friends"


25. What was your greatest musical discovery?


Otter Petter's album "Nice Night for a Knife Fight"- added bonus the drummer is my girl Leah's beau!



26. What did you want and get?



A Kindle for Christmas from my parents- so excited to start stocking it up with books!
A driving licence!


27. What did you want and not get?


The only thing I wanted and didn't get this year is the Shark Steam Mop for the kitchen, but that's only because I haven't got round to ordering it yet so I'm a lucky duck!


28. What was your favorite film of this year?

Ummmmm, pass. I think I only went to the cinema twice this year and one of those times was to see The Hangover 2.......


29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I was 32 and had lunch on the Promenade des Anglais with Didier then drinks with friends at the Cafe des Fleurs


30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?



Finishing the apartment. We did make quite a lot of progress, but it's tiny so it really should be done by now!



31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?


A big white satin dress and red sequinned high heels ;0)


32. What kept you sane?

My friends, my family, my husband and the internet



33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Nobody really although Clooney continues to age like a fine wine


34. What political issue stirred you the most?


The uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East


35. Who did you miss?



Everyone I don't get to see regularly- my friends and family all over the world although this year was a great year for catching up with the wedding in September



36. Who was the best new person you met?


Ummmm pass!


37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010.



Enjoy the small things


38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:

"So I've had the time of my life, and I owe it all to you....."

Wedding (Photo) Friday

I still haven't had time to write up our wedding, heck I haven't even had time to write about my 2 hen nights yet and they happened about  2 months ago now, but things have been so crazy in the lead up/after mouth of the wedding that I just don't seem to have any time to write it all down. I mean seriously, who knew weddings were this much work? (I'm going to hazard a guess and say everybody. Everybody knew except me!).

So to keep you going for a while here are some of my favourite wedding photos from the big day,all photos were taken by one of Didier's uncles and he has perfectly captured how the whole thing went down- Enjoy!

On the church steps 

Showing off my shoes!

Posing!

At the reception

Homemade (by my Mum) raspberry and white chocolate cookie favours

At dinner- Top Table

All the kissing!

Cutting the French wedding cake

In mid air (There was so much dancing)

 Dancing and singing apparently!

 More to come......

With this ring, I thee wed.....

 We did it!
10/09/11

Nice, France

Elsewhere....

Today I'm interrupting my extremely irregularly scheduled blogging to bring you something a bit different....
I don't know if you've noticed or not, but I recently added a new link to the Cote d'Azur Links on the right hand side of the blog to connect you directly to some new friends at Expat Focus


This came about after I was contacted by a very nice lady over at the at the Expat France website who got in touch to let me know that Nicer in Nice had recently been awarded an Expat Focus Recommended Website Award (my first ever blog award and yes of course I put it up on the blog immediately, I'm all about the trophies!)
She explained that the awards are given to bloggers who discuss ex-pat life and experiences of living abroad, which I suppose I do amongst various other things but weirdly enough I never really considered myself to be an ex-pat blogger until I got her email, despite you know, the whole living-in-another-country thing.

She also let me know that the Expat France website is now linking to Nicer in Nice on their website (Hello any new readers out there) and asked me if I would consider being interviewed for one of their ex-pat profiles. Well, I think you probably know by now that I can never resist an opportunity to talk about myself (see exhibit 1: this blog) so I said yes and got down to the tricky business of being interviewed. (Turns out that talking about myself nonstop is actually much harder than I had ever thought possible)

And as of today my interview has been published so if you fancy checking it out and learning a bit more about me and why I chose to live in France and the ups and downs of living on the French Riviera, well then, please be my guest and click right on over: http://www.expatfocus.com/expatriate-france-experiences-nice-vicki-riley

And if you would prefer to hear about my hen night last weekend which involved glitter, drag queens, cupcakes, champagne and burlesque dancers, well stick around because as soon as I get the pink feathers out of my hair and the photos uploaded I will be telling you all about it!

30 for 30: 15 things about you

Ok it's time to get cracking on number 10 of the 30 for 30 questions and this one is actually a 15 parter. So without any further ado lets jump right in with 15 facts about me you might not know.

1) I am English but have now lived in France for 12 years, almost as long as I lived in England.

2) I have never drunk a cup of coffee in my life. I hate the smell and the taste of coffee, it's tea for me all the way!

3) I've had about 20 jobs in my life including wine waitress, translator, sewing shop assistant and bar manager.

4) I love beer- lager, bitter, Guinness, you name it, I'll drink it!

5) I've not yet met a cheese I didn't like.

6) As a child one of my first words was "antimacassar". Yeah, I was a geek from an early age.

7) I love animals, especially dogs and cats. When we get a bigger apartment with a garden, we will have a dog and I can't wait!

8) I am not vegetarian but I rarely eat meat. I just don't like the taste of most red meat.

9) I drink a lot of tea. Like a whole lot. Usually about 6 cups a day, and more in the winter. I just can't get enough!

10) I drive a scooter every day. It's fun but cold in winter hence all the warning cups of tea!

11) I hate ice-cream, all ice-cream. Don't bother asking me to try your favourite "because I'll love it" because I promise I already have and I won't. Oddly enough people are always really upset about me not liking ice-cream, as if it was a personal affront rather than personal taste.

12) I love to swim. I'm never happier then when I'm in the water, either sea, pool or bath tub!

13) I read very quickly. So quickly that I was continuously tested at school because the teachers thought I was skimming the books without understanding. I never failed a test though as it's genetic, I got it from my mother who also reads quickly.

14) I cry in films and tv shows all the time. The opening scene of Love Actually gets me every time.

15) I grew up in Shakespeare's own county, beautiful green leafy Warwickshire. And I miss it a lot. Going home to England is like recharging my batteries.

So there you have it, thanks for playing along and if you want to check out some other 30 for 30 posts these lovely bloggers are all taking part as well: Home Sweet Sarah , Sensibly Sassy, Barbetti, Ready for 30, Maura Lessa, My Grand Illusions and Just Expressive