La France

You might recall I wasn't exactly feeling this trip when it was first mentioned.

I'd only ever met the team I was going to lead virtually. They seemed nice enough, but trying to get a proper read on a team that reports into you through Teams is... weird.

Remote working is amazing, but there are some things you simply can't work out through a screen.

My boss is in the US and I only catch up with him every couple of weeks, so I've been left to fend for myself quite a lot.

So yes, I was a little anxious about this trip

Not about the travelling. I'm a seasoned traveller, don't you know? ;) I've lived and worked abroad in several countries, including Paris, so getting on a plane feels more like popping to the shops.

I realise that probably makes me sound like a bit of a dick.

Ok a huge fucking dick.

"Look at me, I've lived abroad. You haven't. Proper traveller over here."

Anyway.....

My French has been improving, but I was still wondering how my slightly Mancunian French was going to land and, more importantly, how the French themselves were going to receive me.

Travel was straightforward enough. We're aligned with Air France, so I had to get my arse from Yorkshire to Manchester to fly from there, but that's hardly an ordeal.

The flight was fine. Air France provided me with a lovely little sandwich and a glass of red, and then boom... Paris.

It had been a few years since I'd been here, but I navigated myself out of the airport, onto the express train into Paris, and then into a taxi to my modest hotel.

I say modest because, although our travel policy is actually pretty decent, getting a decent hotel in Paris for under €160 a night is a challenge.

I deliberately booked one two Metro stops from the office, in a quartier I already knew. One stop from the Champs-Élysées, but far enough away from the tourist madness to have little winding streets, cafés and shops everywhere.

The hotel claimed to be three-star.

Maybe in the 1980s.

It was clean though, the bed was firm — which was an unusually welcome change, and apparently I had booked a "suite".

I use the word suite very loosely.

Bedroom, bathroom and a large walk-in closet.

Basically a room with somewhere to put your suitcase and enough space to swing a small French person.

Then something quite strange happened.

I checked in.

In fluent French.

It just... clicked.

And throughout the trip I noticed something else.

Pretty much everyone spoke to me in French automatically.

The flight. The train. The hotel. People in shops.

Nobody seemed to hesitate.

At passport control, I even heard the guy behind the screen greet another passenger in English before they'd produced their passport.

He greeted me in French.

Maybe it's the way I dress now.

Maybe it's the ridiculous long hair swept back.

Maybe it's my general persona.

Or maybe, after all these years, I'm slowly merging back into looking like a stereotypical French bloke.

As per Instagram story :)

Am I becoming French again? 😂

Whatever it was, it made me smile.

If anyone remembers Modern Family, there's that Paris episode where Mitch is instantly recognised as American. It doesn't matter what he says — apparently he just looks, dresses and carries himself like an American from about three miles away.

Then he changes his clothes and suddenly everyone assumes he's French.

I genuinely had a moment like that.

I'd walk into somewhere and people would just start speaking French to me. No hesitation. No awkward pause while they worked out whether I was the British bloke who'd wandered in looking lost.

Just... French.

At first I assumed they were being polite and giving me a chance to practise. I started wondering whether I'd somehow crossed a line without noticing.

Long hair. Clothes that apparently pass the French test. Ordering food and drinks without pointing at things. Speaking French without immediately sounding like a Mancunian with a ginger moustache.

There was something strangely satisfying about it, though.

For years I've been the bloke giving it big licks that I was French. Suddenly, for a few days, I wasn't obviously the English guy trying to speak French.

I was just... another bloke being French.

And yes, before anyone asks, I did briefly wonder whether I should start wearing a beret.

I didn't.

Yet.

After checking in, I wandered out and found an unpretentious little café that served small plates. Ordered a beer and something to eat and basically disappeared into the background.

I just sat there listening.

Everyone talking around me.

And I understood everything.

It felt strangely familiar.

Comfortable.

Almost like a warm hug from a place I'd known before.

The following morning one of my team picked me up.

And that's when the nerves properly kicked in.

This was the first time I'd actually met them face-to-face.

Would they like me?

Would they think I'd made the right choice?

Would my French hold up?

Would I actually be any good at this?

I needn't have worried.

I was warmly greeted, my French eventually started coming out in something resembling the correct order, and somewhere during the journey we actually shared a joke.

I relaxed.

The commute itself was exactly as I remembered driving in Paris.

Six near misses.

Three pedestrians clipped.

One hand on the wheel and the other casually hanging out of the window clutching a cigarette.

And that was just the first ten minutes.

Two weeks later I thought we'd finally arrived at the office car park in La Défense.

It was about twenty minutes, but it felt way longer.

La Défense is the business district of Paris, just a short distance from the Champs-Élysées.

I was given my own office, which appeared to have been firmly preserved in amber sometime around 1987.

The building had apparently only banned smoking last year, because everything was yellow.

Everything.

The carpet.

The walls.

Possibly me.

But I had a window overlooking trees and a little road below.

And, more importantly...

My own coffee machine.

So I was happy.

I spent the next few days having one-to-ones with my direct reports, and some took longer than others to break down the barriers.

I wanted them to see that I'm human.

That I'm approachable.

That I'm actually a decent bloke.

I might not always have been that bloke in the past, and I'm conscious of that, but that's part of the reason this new chapter matters to me.

And slowly, the barriers came down.

We found common ground.

We laughed.

We talked properly.

We came up with some great actions.

Then came the tours, the stakeholders, the meetings and the inevitable avalanche of names and acronyms.

And something kept coming up.

The French team were genuinely pleased that they'd recruited someone who spoke French.

Badly.

But spoke it.

Someone who understood the culture.

The way they work.

The little nuances.

The frustrations.

The differences between the French way of doing things and the way things are sometimes done by the "Yanks", as one of them rather charmingly put it.

More importantly, they told me they felt I was on their side.

A conduit between the French team and the wider organisation.

That meant a lot.

Because I'd gone to Paris wondering whether I'd made the right choice.

I came away feeling pretty bloody certain that I had.

The week went brilliantly.

And then there was another pleasant surprise.

The French, much like several other European cultures, don't really believe in socialising after work.

At five, you go home.

Work stays at work.

You don't check your phone.

You don't spend the evening answering emails.

You don't send an OOO at 10pm because you're somehow still working.

I wasn't expecting anything from my team outside office hours.

So I was genuinely pleased when a couple of them invited me out for food and drinks.

And obviously I accepted.

Twice.

We found some proper French restaurants, ate local dishes, drank beer and wine and consumed considerably more cheese than any human being actually needs.

I woke up slightly worse for wear on both occasions.

The French can drink when they put their minds to it.

And then there was Paris itself.

That's the difficult bit to describe.

I've been here before.

I've lived here.

But Paris is one of those places that you can disappear into.

On the night I went out alone, I wandered.

Coffee in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.

A bit of food.

A museum.

Walking without really knowing where I was going.

Just absorbing the place.

And it was wonderful.

But there was also this strange little feeling underneath it.

A hollowness.

Not unhappiness.

Not loneliness in the way I used to understand it.

Just the quiet realisation that experiences like this are sometimes the ones you instinctively want to share.

A private joke.

That look across a table.

Someone's hand finding yours while you're crossing a road.

A shared smile when you both realise you've got completely lost.

Someone beside you when the lights come on.

Those little moments.

That's the bit that caught me.

Because I can genuinely be happy here.

I can love the job.

I can love the travel.

I can enjoy exploring somewhere on my own.

And still occasionally wish I was sharing it with someone.

Apparently you can hold both things at once.

Who knew?

And before anyone gets carried away...

Fuck you, Paris, for making me all poetic and romantic. 😂

Overall, though, the trip was a massive success.

Even if my flight home was delayed by five hours.

At that point I just paid to get into the Air France lounge, found some food and accepted that apparently I now have the financial freedom to throw money at problems until they go away.

Charles de Gaulle is an insane airport with the ridiculous concentration of high-end shops all within walking distance.

There's something quite enjoyable about wandering past Burberry, Dior, Hermès, Givenchy, Lacoste, Chanel, Rolex, Cartier and pretty much every other French or luxury fashion house you can think of.

I'm a sucker for French fashion houses.

I don't necessarily need to buy anything.

I just like looking.

Although...

Did I treat myself in Chanel?

Fuck yes. 😂

Sometimes you've just got to accept that you're in Paris, you've worked hard, and occasionally your bank account needs to experience a little bit of French culture too.

I'm not saying what I bought.

A gentleman never tells.

And neither does his bank statement. 😂

I'm not complaining.

The drive home over the Pennines in the middle of the night was a different story.

Exhausted.

Full of cheese.

Car full of French goodies.

And a duty-free bottle of whisky looking at me like it had been through the same emotional journey.

I've got to go back every two or three months, and I've already got my next trip booked for early December.

And if I remember correctly, Paris around Christmas is rather spectacular.

So I'm looking forward to that.

As I was saying my goodbyes to the team, I was reminded of something else.

Apparently, it's quite normal within the company to bring your partner along on these trips.

Flights and accommodation are covered; you'd just pay for your own food, drinks and whatever else you get up to while you're there.

Which is actually a rather lovely arrangement.

There's just one small complication at the moment.

I'm very much single.

It was slightly surreal trying to explain that, particularly when it was met with a few quizzical looks, as though I'd just announced that I'd decided to give up speaking French and communicate exclusively through interpretive dance.

Everyone is married, everyone had kids, everyone had a partner, and there I was trying to explain my divorce.

I suppose when people hear about Paris, a December visit, nice hotels and the opportunity to bring a partner along, they naturally picture two people sharing the experience.

And for a moment, it reminded me of something I'd been thinking about during the trip itself.

It's not that I can't enjoy these experiences on my own.

I absolutely can, and I did.

It's just that some experiences naturally lend themselves to being shared.

So, who knows?

Maybe one day I'll take someone along.

For now, though, it'll be me, my questionable French, far too much cheese, and the occasional existential crisis beneath the Eiffel Tower.

Honestly, there are worse ways to spend a week.

I'm happy.

And I'm not entirely happy.

I think that's probably okay.

Maybe this is what I'm learning.

You don't have to be miserable to miss something.

You don't have to be incomplete to want someone beside you.

And you don't have to stop moving forward just because there are still parts of your old life that occasionally tug at you.

Paris reminded me of that.

Anyway....

Time to hit the gym and attempt to remove approximately seventeen tonnes of butter, cheese and French wine from my body.