Anyone who knows me, knows I'm French at heart. Some make the mistake of thinking I fell out of love with France, when I fell out of love with the Frenchman, but I will always feel French... and Scottish and European, and now maybe a bit Danish too, even if I sadly never really get the chance to go there... I've lived a multi-cultural life, all my adult life and you don't just switch that off because of one person...
So yesterday, of course, I was glued to TF1 on my computer, le Monde and many other French language news sites. Although Thomas reads French, they speak too fast for him to completely follow the details, so while I watched on my laptop, he watched France 24 (an English-language French news channel) in the TV room. Come 3pm, he stepped in to do my schoolrun. He could see I was too upset to move. Once the kids came in I went through to the TV room where live footage was on screen with a running update along the bottom of the picture. Amaia walked in clasping a PS3 game in her hand. 'Can I play this, mummy?' she asked. Before I could reply, Anna, who has just turned seven, replied for me. 'No Amaia, I'm watching the news. Some bad things have happened in Paris and we need to know about it.' She then proceeded to sit reading the running footer aloud to Amaia, so she could try to follow too, all the while taking in the reports and asking very pertinent questions. I don't know if I'm proud that she is so mature, or sad to see the beginning of the end of childhood so soon.
In any case I'm too upset to analyse it still. I just wish I could go home to France for a few days now.
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