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Vive la difference!      Pippa Price loves France and the French

I love the French! I frequently arrive home with these words on my lips, often following an episode that not only confirms my sheer delight at living here but my amazement at the obvious differences between France and the UK.

Take, for example, the supermarket. How often have you hopped from foot to foot behind a local who seems to have all the time in the world with little concern for getting the goods paid for and out the door? On the route nationale, the same insouciant soul will suddenly become pushed for time and insist on driving stuck your bumper, just willing you to break the speed limit.

On the other hand I sometimes pull myself up sharply because I realise I have been rather English and not as polite as I could be (certainly by French standards). For instance, eagerness and excitement often makes me launch into conversation instead of taking time to shake hands first. This ritual has to be undertaken even if you are coming upon someone for the second or third time that day. And, you know, it really is much nicer to take the time to greet someone properly. In fact, I have a theory – it can’t be coincidence that street muggings are rare in a country where everyone is drilled almost from birth to kiss everyone else on sight.

Of course, we also have a huge variance in matters of taste. When shopping for clothes, I can often be seen gazing in wonder at the latest trend in electric blue or Fanta orange and reflecting that this is the nation that gave us Coco Chanel, Christian Dior and Yves St. Laurent.

When we lived in a farmhouse that we had extensively renovated, our neighbours, eager to see what we had achieved, took a tour. Their response, open mouthed, was “C’est très claire” I never did find out if this was meant as a compliment or not.

Whatever our differences, the upshot is I would never want to live anywhere else. I am a firm Francophile, often woken by a cauchemar in the wee small hours. What is this bad dream? Always the same thing; I am living in London!