LGVs due to be opened this coming year

Looking forward to 2017, I thought I would do a blog post covering the LGVs (Lignes à Grande Vitesse) that are due to open during 2017.  As many readers will be aware, France has an absolutely fantastic LGV network.  It contains one of only two lines to recoup its own building costs (Paris-Lyon, the other being Tokyo-Osaka).

They have made several journeys much easier.  For instance, I just adore visiting Reims (silly English people think it is pronounced "raymz", whereas "ranz" would be a better approximation), where French kings tended to be crowned.  Thanks to the LGV Est, it can be reached via an interchange at Marne la Vallée-Chessy or Aeroport Paris-Charles de Gaulle TGV stations and Gare de Champagne-Ardenne TGV station (served by both TER trains and a local tram network).

Our pinko-liberal commie socialist president (who has thankfully announced he isn't standing next year) delayed the construction of several lines, but several of the lines already in construction before he entered office are due to enter service in 2017, in addition to the 2nd phase of the LGV Est that opened earlier this year.  The lines are the LGV Bretagne-Pays de la Loire, the LGV Sud-Europe Atlantique and the Contournement Nîmes Montpellier, which I will briefly discuss in turn.

The LGV Bretagne-Pays de la Loire will go from the LGV Atlantique's current terminus near Le Mans to Rennes, expediting train journeys to various stations in Brittany.  Mireille Guiliano says her husband Edward notes the similarities there with England (not exactly to its credit, but anyway).  Just like Mireille, I love the seafood available in Brittany.  Yes, various fish products can be caught near Marseille, but Brittany has a very long coastline and different fish.  As per custom for new passenger-only lines, the line will open with an initial top speed of 320km/h, electrification of 25kV 50Hz and TVM300 (Transmission-Voie-Machine) and ERTMS Level 2 signalling.  The line will have several links to the conventional lines.  Some examples of journey time reductions are: -

• Paris-Rennes 1h26m (from 2h05m)
• Paris-Nantes 1h52m (from 2h09m)
• Paris-St Malo 2h14m (from 2h54m)
• Paris-Lorient 2h56m (from 3h43m)
• Paris-Brest 3h25m (from 4h18m)

The LGV Sud-Europe Atlantique will go from the line's current terminus near Tours, where through trains are already able to bypass the city.  From there, it will continue to Ambarès-et-Lagrave (twinned with Norton Radstock, possibly the most gormless and rubbish town in the whole of the UK), which is on the outskirts of Bordeaux, the main urban centre in a region known for its fine wines: - I therefore just adore visiting the city, though this line will not do much to expedite journeys there from Marseille (the Bordeaux-Toulouse section of the GPSO will).  The line will have no new stations, but will have links to the existing intermediate stations on the conventional networks in Châtellerault, Poitiers and Angoulême.  The bypass will allow trains not stopping in these places to proceed full speed ahead to Bordeaux.  The line will be useful for people travelling not just to Bordeaux, but it will also appreciably shorten train journeys to Toulouse and Irún (over the border in Spain, plus the intermediate cities).  This will be particularly useful regarding Toulouse, as the air route between Paris-Orly and Toulouse-Blagnac airports is the busiest in Europe.  Paris-Bordeaux journey times will drop from 3h11m (non-stop) to about two hours.  The line will have an initial maximum speed of 320km/h, with the same power and signalling arrangements as the above lines.

The Contournement Nîmes-Montpellier will bypass Nîmes and allow freight traffic to avoid the centre of Montpellier.  It was decided that the existing Montpellier-St. Roch station would not be able to cope with the increased rail traffic, so the decision was made to build Montpellier-Sud de France station (which will unfortunately not have a tram link until 2020).  The line will bypass the centre of Montpellier, but bring Paris-Montpellier journeys down to about three hours.  It will have an initial operating speed of 220km/h, pending a signalling upgrade, which will allow it to be raised to 300km/h.  The reason for the slightly lower speed is the fact that this line is being designed to accommodate freight traffic, which results in a trade-off between gradients, cants and curvatures (curvature sacrificed for the other two parameters).  It will result in journey time reductions of around 20 minutes for journeys between Paris and Montpellier/Barcelona (and other intermediate destinations), though other train routes, such as the Intercité Bordeaux-Marseille may also use the line.  Bilal enjoys travelling by train to Seville to visit his homies and is learning Spanish (he is apparently doing a good job at mimicking hip-hop Spanish).  When the Nîmes-Perpignan gap is closed, it will be high-speed all the way from Marseille to Seville: - the route for the Montpellier-Perpignan section has been decided.  The power supply will be the same, but the initial signalling will be BAL (Bloc Automatique Lumineux) classique and ERTMS, both Level 1.

2017 looks like it will be a good year for high-speed train travel in France.  Spain's high-speed projects have more or less ground to a halt: - I wonder if we might have caught up with them by the end of 2017 in terms of kilometres of high-speed routes?

Why Bilal is a real man

Donald Trump's inauguration will happen soon.  In spite of being a macho man, he won a clear victory in the electoral college vote (with liberals continuing to go on about how he lost the popular vote) over Hillary Clinton, who I and many others are glad to see the back of.  Traditional masculinity has come under attack in recent years.  I am a super-attractive, glamorous and successful woman and I have no objections to women being like me, but I always found real men more attractive than the emasculated men we seem to see these days.

I was recently reading an article about the marks of Christian manhood that talked about marks of Christian manhood and it got me thinking about how Bilal is every bit the real man I desired.  The marks they gave were: -
1. Spiritual maturity sufficient to lead a wife and children.
2. Personal maturity sufficient to be a responsible husband and father.
3. Economic maturity sufficient to hold an adult job and handle money.
4. Physical maturity sufficient to work and protect a family.
5. Sexual maturity sufficient to marry and fulfill God's purposes.
6. Moral maturity sufficient to lead as example of righteousness.
7. Ethical maturity sufficient to make responsible decisions.
8. Worldview maturity sufficient to understand what is really important.
9. Relational maturity sufficient to understand and respect others.
10. Social maturity sufficient to make a contribution to society.
11. Verbal maturity sufficient to communicate and articulate as a man.
12. Character maturity sufficient to demonstrate courage under fire.
13. Biblical maturity sufficient to lead at some level in the church.
Bilal demonstrated 1. in his leadership of Sunday School classes and his informal mentoring of various other boys inside and outside the church (e.g. his boxing club) and demonstrated 2. in countless situations.  He has demonstrated both 3. and 4. with his day job with "Le Trom de Marseille" (as he calls it) and his accumulation of a fortune through shrewd online investments in shares.  He demonstrated 5. by refusing physical contact with unrelated women, which included holding hands with me during courtship (obviously, I learned on the wedding night what he had been labouring diligently to keep under control).  He has demonstrated 6. and 7. through his prolonged willingness to stand apart from the world and its evil practices at whatever cost to his own popularity.  He has demonstrated 8. by how passionately he carries out his church activities and is able to shield himself against outside distractions where necessary.  He has demonstrated 9. by how much joy he has brought to other believers in their fellowship with him, in spite of how shy he is.  He demonstrates 10. by his immense labours within the church and community to spread the Gospel message and help keep young La Savine boys out of trouble.  11., 12. and 13 are not that obvious, given his shy character, but he never shirks his duty to speak about the Gospel when called.

Beyond these issues that are, without doubt, the most important ones, he has shown himself to be a real man by both secular and religious criteria and I am glad I have him, rather than several other half-men who have approached me, but not demonstrated anything an it-girl like myself required.  Bilal has demonstrated manhood in every department.

His early life was spent in the Sahara Desert as a Touareg herdsman.  This is physical hardship at its best: - fiercely hot days, cold nights, defending his family's livestock from predators etc.  He lived in La Savine (probably Europe's toughest housing estate) upon arrival in France and only ceased living there when we returned from our honeymoon.  He feels rather lost in the immense luxury of my penthouse apartment overlooking the Vieux Port, but he likes the proximity of a metro station ("Réga du Trom" as he would say).  All these things have contributed to make him the rugged man he is today.

Bilal has been into strongman training since he arrived in France and came across a Marseille gym during early exploration of the city.  He was not old enough to be allowed in, so he occasionally watched from outside and sought advice from members as they left the gym.  When he was old enough, he took out gym membership, doing odd jobs to earn money to pay for this and other paraphernalia associated with developing the strength necessary for strongman contests (this was before online share trading became common).  He very quickly gained in weight.  He was a fairly shy child, preferring to sit in a corner reading the Holy Bible and other religious literature during break times and was therefore often the victim of bullying (I often used to see him with bruises on his face at church).  However, this soon ceased after he started gaining weight and physical strength.

I think that the ability and desire to have children (coupled with acceptance of all the responsibilities parenthood entails) is a mark of manhood.  If one is among the few people gifted for celibacy, fine, but otherwise, I think avoiding having children (apart from being against Psalm 127:4) is a mark that a man wants to live a freewheeling bachelor lifestyle and is, in reality, a boy rather than a man.  On the occasions before our wedding I mentioned this subject with Bilal, he always said abruptly, "Children are an inheritance from the Lord and I want to conceive as many as the Lord, in His almighty grace, will allow me to conceive".  Sure enough, when we got married, he wasted absolutely no time.  I admit he isn't always politically correct about this: - the Sunday at church after the test confirmed my second pregnancy, I overheard him say with enormous pride to his church "homies", "I've got her pregnant again!  Yes!", punching the air and behaving with the excitement of a football fan whose team has just scored a goal (in a way, he had scored a goal himself).  Someone in the group of friends (hip-hop people, of course: - the image below is from Wikimedia commons and does not depict him or anyone else we know) immediately spudded him and said, "Brap-brap-brap!  You're a big man doing that so quickly both times!  Regardless of what feminists think, I am pleased to have a husband who views the ability and willingness to conceive as the height of being a macho man.  I wouldn't want a boy who viewed children as an encumbrance to his freewheeling bachelor lifestyle: - Bilal also views the ability and willingness to conceive and properly raise children to be a mark of manhood: - he is keen to have a third child as soon as possible following the birth of our second.  I am due in a few months and have still not yet accumulated flabber!

In other respects though, he doesn't fulfil traditional macho values.  He does at least half the work of caring for our son, doesn't mind being seen pushing our son in his pram in public and is seen cradling him in church for most of the day: - he certainly takes much more of an interest in our son than pretty much all fathers I know.  He is generally a very quiet and shy character, but with the glut of people with an opinion to publicly express and the dearth of people interested, a few more quiet people in the world wouldn't go amiss!  I agree with most of Tomi Lahren's views, but she seems capable of little besides ranting!  The media needs people who will go out there and dig out stories, rather than just ranting aimlessly about what is there!  My fashion magazine is a great example of how to do this: - it is at the vanguard of fashion trends, not just reporting them, but predicting and defining them!

Here's to looking forward to a very large happy family with Bilal and gloating to women who lose self-control over their diet during pregnancy and have flabber to lose after giving birth!

Real beauty

Following on from my article when I commented on Marine Le Pen's physical beauty (or lack thereof), I thought it would be good to do an article on what I consider to be real beauty, in my position as an expert fashion connoisseur and fashion editor and a real heterosexual Frenchwoman.  My magazine makes a point of targeting real beauty.  The fashion industry is regrettably controlled by men who are receievers of swollen goods, which means that a lot of fashion models do not reflect what real heterosexual men and women find beautiful.

I am not talking about plus-sized models.  I find that look utterly atrocious.  I would not allow my magazine to feature Tess Holliday (whose tattoos make her look even less attractive), unless I did a special fat-shaming issue!  MDR.  My magazine targets what real men and real women find attractive: - slim hourglass figures for women and muscular physiques for men, which is at odds with the flat-chested women and bony and androgynous-looking men who appear on many catwalks due to the influence of homosexual men in the fashion industry.

Tattoos are not attractive on either gender.  This is due to my view as a Frenchwoman that natural beauty is good and my view as a Christian woman that one's body is a temple of the Holy Spirit (1Corinthians 3:16 and 6:19): - one would not face a holy temple and so neither should one deface one's body (granted, the temple in the picture below is an idol temple).

In spite of all my use of the magic phrase "la moitié, s'il vous plaît", I know very well that it is not attractive for a lady to be flat-chested: - hourglass figures are attractive because men are wired up to desire women for childbearing and who have self-discipline.  A narrow waist indicates self-discipline, big hips indicate the ability to carry his offspring and large mammary glands are desired given that that is how she will (in a large proportion of cases) feed his offspring for the first few months of their lives.  I advocate saying "la moitié, s'il vous plaît" at every mealtime, but the bony look is not attractive either: - Mireille Guiliano points out that a Frenchwoman eats three meals a day.

Facelifts also look horrible: - Mireille Guiliano points out in "French women don't get face lifts" exactly what the title says.  Natural beauty works better, in spite of Zoë Williams' gormless rant about the book.  I sincerely hope Donald Trump (rather than Hillary Clinton) wins this week, but Melania/Melanija Trump is a classic example of an older woman who looks a bit like a hallowe'en character on account of apparent facelifts.

The classic example of a lady with this sort of physical beauty is Marilyn Monroe.  Some of my readers might pipe up and say that I have traditionally been very critical of American women and their inability to stay thin.  I say "American women didn't get fat in the 50s" (this blog is now known by the name "Outdated by design").  I don't just do women of the past though.  Even though Marine Le Pen doesn't have much physical beauty, her niece (Marion Maréchal-Le Pen) does: - I love the fact that in spite of her physical beauty and political success, she has spoken to promote the beauty of motherhood and generally promotes conservative values (she was a prominent marcher in anti-same-sex marriage rallies).  She represents Vaucluse's 3rd constituency, which is centred around Carpentras, which is very easy to reach from Marseille using a connecting TER service via Avignon TGV station and the recently-reopened Carpentras branch.  I would love to do a whole magazine devoted to her, given her position as a conservative woman who is a pretty face and much, much more, but the danger is that this would attract protests from old-school feminists who grumble about the lack of attention given to the jobs a woman does in favour of her appearance, MDR.

The fashion industry also does not understand what real beauty is in men either.  When I attend fashion shows, I constantly have expressions of disapproval when I see bony androgynous male models walking past me on the catwalk.  Real women such as myself do not find that at all attractive.  Real women want men to be real men: - it is our ungodly world that seeks to blur gender boundaries.

I simply don't see the point of six-packs either, as they are simply not reflective of a man's abdominal strength.  I am not all that enthused by well-defined muscles either.  I have heard stories of men participating in bodybuilding contests having 2% body fat and it being painful to walk, given the absence of fat on the feet: - I struggle to see what the point of this is.  If a man wants high physical strength, he needs to eat accordingly: - strongmen should not say, "la moitié, s'il vous plaît".  I much prefer the sort of body that men participating in strongman contests have: - big muscles, but not necessarily well-defined.  To get that look, men often have to do odd things like not drinking for two days prior to a photo shoot to get that look.  Also, a layer of fat is useful for balancing boulders on one's chest during strongman contests, MDR.

I also love beards, as they are a prominent indicator of masculinity: - I have known Bilal since he was a little boy and he has had a beard as long as he has had facial hair.  He has always regarded this as an open indication of Christian masculinity, firstly because of how beards generally only appear on men and secondly given biblical verses on the subject.  Bilal has always regarded cutting off a man's beard without his consent as a very egregious act.  I am aware of an incident in school where a school bully attempted to cut his beard, which resulted in the bully getting a broken jaw (Bilal has always been generally a quiet and pensive character) and Bilal running away into some nearby forests and not turning up at home until after dark.  He is not normally argumentative, but I am aware of him having arguments with his school (over presentation issues) and his family (once they found out the beard was the result of his perception of it as an indicator of Christian masculinity).

I don't publish photos of Bilal or our son here because he has said he is not happy about it (I fully accept and appreciate his desire to maintain our family privacy), so I obviously need to talk about men in the public eye (or, at the very least, with online profiles) I perceive to be attractive (admittedly not as attractive as Bilal) in order to illustrate what I perceive to be real beauty in men.  One man I would like my magazine to do a feature on some day is Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, a.k.a. "The Mountain" in "Game of Thrones" in spite of his tattoos and weather-beaten face (no surprise, as he is from Iceland, a country with extreme weather).  One Londoner I have come across online who shows non-white men how to look good in a beard is the Adventist Andrew Fuller.  However, apart from Bilal, the man I would most like my magazine to do a feature on is Englishman Eddie Hall, the first person to deadlift 500kg under strongman conditions (which nearly killed him).  Of men in the public eye, he is strong (pun intended) in every category: - muscular body (no six-pack present or needed), young-looking face and a great beard.

Our possible first female president

According to polls, there is a very serious chance that Marine Le Pen could win the French presidential election.  With the day of the presidential election in the USA a matter of days away, I thought I would reflect on Marine Le Pen and what it would be like to have her as our first female president.

Firstly, as a religious woman, I am at the very least uneasy about the idea of a female leader.  1Timothy 2:12: - "But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence."  Liberals would say that we aren't bound by something as unfashionable and last-season as the Holy Bible.  Halfway conservatives say this rule only applies to leadership positions within the church.

For practical reasons, the issue of men reporting to women is not an issue with my magazine, as it has no male employees, given the type of men who tend to be interested in fashion, who would never feel at home at my magazine (receivers of swollen goods, in other words).  My fashion magazine is all about clothing that Christians would feel entirely comfortable wearing and which is distinctly for one gender or the other (no androgynous clothing, an example of which is above): - this idea of "non-binary" is thoroughly wicked and contradicts "He made them male and female" (Genesis 5:2, Matthew 19:4 and Mark 10:6).  

It is possible for women to be leaders, but still under the rightful authority of their husbands.  This is reputedly the case with Queen Elizabeth II, who is a queen regnant (i.e. a queen in her own right, not a queen by virtue of her marriage to a king).  It is understood that her husband Prince Philip (whose politically incorrect comments I like) makes the important decisions on family matters.  It is the same in my household: - I am doing very well with my fashion magazine, but I joyfully render obedience to Bilal in accordance with Ephesians 5:22-24, who in turn does a very good job of fulfilling his obligations in Ephesians 5:25 (nobody is perfect: - if they were, they would not need a saviour).  Laws in virtually every country in the world guarantee my right to make my own decisions on this one, but I have so far been happy to waive this right and let Bilal make the decisions on when we try for children, for instance.

That subject covered, let me turn my attention to another very important issue: - Marine Le Pen is badly overweight!  I had hoped that if we had a female president, we would have somebody who is a quintessential example of female beauty in France.  Marie-Ségolène Royal (who thankfully lost to Nicolas Sarkozy in the 2007 presidential election) is a good example of an attractive female French politician.  I asked Bilal what he thought, to which he replied that whilst he didn't view her as being "well buff" like me, she is "reasonably fit".  Zoë Williams, in her rant entitled "Cherchez la femme", gave several good examples of attractive female French politicians who know how to dress.  With all the attractive women who exist in France, it is a shame Marine Le Pen doesn't look like she knows much about how to look nice, though admittedly, her niece Marion Maréchal-Le Pen is also "quite fit" in Bilal's estimation and has a nice figure in my estimation as well.

In terms of her politics, I much prefer the National Front's political positions when they are compared with other major political parties.  I am aware that they particularly appeal to Pied-Noirs (or "Pied Renois", as Bilal calls them).  Islam is the great enemy of what France stands for, though admittedly, the traditional French church (the Church of Rome) is not great either.  I am proud of France's history in the reformation, e.g. the Huguenots, John Calvin etc and am aware that many reformed congregations have existed in the vicinity of Strasbourg over the years.  Granted, there might be potential converts from Islam (like Bilal) coming into the country, but on balance, it would still be great to protect what is left of France's Christian heritage and reform it, bringing about a genuine religious revival in France.  The Le Pen family is very good at standing up to establishment figures who do their utmost to stop France being governed by real French people for real French people.

Marine Le Pen is certainly a very powerful and talented public speaker: - we need such people to put our cause across to the people.  I remember the famous rant she delivered against our commie socialist president François Hollande.  She seemed a little like Zoë Williams, who wrote a long rant about how women can supposedly only enter French politics if they have a powerful relative.  Honestly!  Zoë Williams rants about our great nation not giving women a chance unless they are thin, but yet when a fat woman is in the upper echelons of French politics, she continues to complain!

In conclusion, in spite of her lack of physical beauty, I am keen to see Marine Le Pen win next year's presidential election and make France great again.

Promoting bad habits

Apologies to my regular readers for the lack of postings.  Nobody said that managing a top-flight fashion magazine and being a wife and mother was going to be easy!  Our son has been reasonably easy to train to sleep through the night and is by no means an unusually difficult child, but no baby is easy to care for, hence why I have struggled.  As mentioned, we are expecting another baby, so there is the danger that my blogging will suffer even further and Bilal remains resolute in his desire for a large family, but we shall see how things go.

I read a rather shameful article which talked about how supposedly French women are fatter than people think they are.  To be honest, I think the article's author (Caroline Bell) seems somewhat covetous of French women's effortless perfection, as well as somewhat deluded.

The topic of fat-shaming has been in the news a lot recently, in particular with a Venezuelan lady named Yoseph Alicia Machado Fajardo in the context of the American president regarding the Miss Universe contest.  Inevitably, Godwin's Law has been proven correct in this instance, as she has compared Donald Trump with Hitler, accusing him of using all sorts of derogatory names against her, given that she gained 12 pounds during her reign as Miss Universe.  She talked about how she was 116 pounds when she won the Miss Universe contest and was anorexic and bulimic.  Putting aside the fact that 116 pounds is not much of an achievement as far as a Frenchwoman is concerned, one thing I have historically admired about the USA is its supposed culture of personal responsibility.  As a believing woman, I categorically say that many of the things Donald Trump has said are silly, but blaming Donald Trump for your anorexia and bulimia is ridiculous and this woman is stretching the truth.  For a start, anorexia and bulimia cannot co-exist, as anorexia diagnoses are given to people below normal weight and bulimia diagnoses to people at and above normal weight, if they do the various things associated with the conditions.  As Mireille Guiliano says, "French women choose their own indulgences and compensations.  They understand that little things count, both additions and subtractions, and that as an adult everyone is the keeper of her own equilibrium".  Note the last part in particular: - blaming someone else for your anorexia or bulimia indicates a lack of personal responsibility.  A Frenchwoman knows that purging is not the way to achieve our impossibly perfect figures.  We have a magic phrase to achieve our impossibly perfect figures: - "la moitié, s'il vous plaît!"  Unfortunately, this woman is now a US citizen and can therefore vote in a couple of weeks: - neither I nor anyone else in our church who I know of has any liking for Hillary Clinton.

I am digressing.  I say that Caroline Bell is jealous because she feels the need to talk French women's wonderful figures down by talking down the effortlessly perfect figures that we have: - I am quite sure that I would have noticed it if her figures were accurate.  I am interested to know how many people they translate into, but it is hard to discern, as her figures are too well-rounded, MDR!  Authors like Zoë Williams like to slag off French women, whereas authors like Caroline Bell like to insinuate that our figures really aren't that great.  She is also deluded because she actually thinks the women shown in the article look great.  *Cough!*  As a fashion editor with a steely eye for the details everything to do with fashion, I think they look awful!  Plus they are setting a bad example to their compatriots who need to take more pride in their impossibly perfect figures that they have laboured so diligently to achieve!  We work very hard to teach our daughters (admittedly, I don't have any yet) to teach them how to look great and we don't need people coming along and promoting plus-sized models and journalists to give them the message that they can slack off!

I note the part about how Lalaa Misaki goes into many French shops and is told they don't have anything in her size.  Why should French stores stock clothes for plus-sized models when they know that being thin is necessary for success and French women are thin and it is therefore an obvious business decision to target clothes for thin women?  Also, being fat looks horrid, so why should clothing manufacturers aiming to cultivate an image of exclusivity produce clothes for women who will never ever look good in anything?

My message to impossibly dainty Frenchwomen out there is be proud of what you have worked hard to achieve and don't let some haters in the public eye downgrade your achievements!

Pregnant again

I am delighted to announce that, having had a baby in April, I am a few months pregnant with another baby.  Bilal and I planned have a large family for as long as marriage was on the cards and we are delighted that our heavenly Father has elected to bless us with another baby.

British and American women like to play the martyr regarding their post-pregnancy weight and tell everyone they could not help it.  As I demonstrated, it is entirely possible to be exactly the same weight before and after pregnancy: - I weighed myself on my wedding day and just after giving birth and there was no change.  A Frenchwoman knows how to eat properly and stay thin, whatever her stage of life, whether she be a growing adolescent, in her 20s prime of life (what Zoë Williams calls the "young filly" season), pregnancy, middle age, the menopause (presumably what Zoë Williams calls the "old bag" season), old age and even very old age (and the associated reduction in physical activity).  Regarding the last one , I am thinking of Jeanne Calment (from nearby Arles), who died aged 122, though admittedly, she only had one child (he died, as did his son, leaving her with no heirs).  She claimed to eat nearly 1kg of chocolate a week: - I would say that either old age affected her memory (in spite of claims she was mentally intact until the end), or she was prone to telling tall stories.  Unless she was abstaining from all other food, she would probably have become enormously fat: - as Mireille Guiliano pointed out, French women will normally carry round chocolate in their handbags and have a single square each day to give them their daily chocolate fix.

Our son tended to wake up several times during the night (though he started sleeping through the night aged six weeks) and the work involved with looking after him is generally about average for a small baby (a lot, in other words).  Bilal works in a safety-critical environment, so there is no question that his sleep is most important.  As well as taking care of his sleeping habits, he has been a very attentive father, including during the night.  He took the restrictions imposed on our lifestyle by parenthood in his stride, but then he has always been used to responsibility (the various children's ministries at the church, his family's livestock when in Mali etc).  Bilal has never been a male who lives a freewheeling bachelor lifestyle: - many men who have approached me have unfortunately been that way.  He has always been self-disciplined and this has served him well in life.  None of this treating life as one big party and going off on gap years, accomplishing nothing except clubbing and acquiring a cannabis addiction.  Maybe parenthood isn't quite such a drastic change if you are already used to responsibility?

With this in mind, Bilal wasted no time in expanding our family.  I wasn't checking, but I realised that some of the signs of pregnancy had arrived in the past week, so I went about properly confirming this.  Bilal was naturally delighted: - it is obvious that he has desired a big family throughout his life.  Bilal has always felt lonely as the only believer in his family and I am delighted that he is able to lead a growing believing household like this.

Of course, I plan to continue showing the world that a Frenchwoman has enough self-discipline to remain thin during pregnancy and still give birth to an entirely healthy baby.

The wedding

As discussed, Bilal and I got married during the summer of last year.  Very many apologies for the very long delay.  I continue to be keen to share with the world how impossibly perfect we French women are with the world, but with being a wife and mother, there are many distractions.

It was a fantastic affair and the Marseille high-society event of the year.  Some members of Marseille's high society were miffed that an it-girl such as myself would get married to a hip-hop person from da ghetto like Bilal, but I have no doubt that Daddy vetted all suitors very carefully: - he was the first and only suitor to get through Daddy.  If a man expressed an interest in me, I would give him Daddy's business card and say to go through this channel if he was serious.  I would always advise men to be ready to e-mail Daddy a copy of their Christian testimony (i.e. a brief summary of their life and their coming to Christ).  I must have given out thousands and thousands of business cards out in my time.  Whether they viewed this route as an expression of lack of interest, whether they didn't have the guts to approach Daddy, whether they approached Daddy and Daddy realised there were holes in their Christian testimony, I don't know.  It no longer matters.  Bof (I would light up a Gauloise at this point if I were a smoker, MDR).

After a few months of courtship, Bilal made a proposal of marriage, which I accepted straight away.  As soon as the news of the accepted proposal was public, the wheels of planning swung into action.  Bilal is a very down-to-earth person, but an it-girl with probably the narrowest waistline in the south of France like myself naturally wanted the best!  But sometimes, the best does not come at a great price!  A Frenchwoman who invests the necessary work in knowing local designers (which I do, as a fashion magazine editor and owner), local producers of high-quality food, local beauty spots etc is likely to get a better deal at a crucial time like this!

For the wedding attire, I used my own contacts who I knew were capable of delivering stunning attire not just for me, but for Bilal, since I had never seen him in a suit until our wedding day!  His build is similar to that of Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, a.k.a. The Mountain from Game of Thrones, meaning that he would look silly in any suit that was not tailor-made.  As traditional Touareg and hip-hop clothing is normally loose-fitting, he does not normally experience this problem, but he needs tailor-made clothes if they are intended to be tight-fitting.  With my unusually narrow waistline, I also needed to ensure the skill of the designer was sufficient to illustrate my wonderful feminine French figure to everyone present!

The food needed to be all-things-to-all-men, though there were limits to my willingness to accommodate.  Some English relatives on my mother's side complained about the exotic nature and the small portions, as if I care: - these silly people wanted daft things, such as bangers 'n' mash, fish 'n' chips, curry etc.  For Bilal's family (who entered the church extremely reluctantly), there was an extremely large container of chicken and jollof rice, but this was the only concession we made.  I would like to educate them and the English relatives about what good food is, but I am a busy woman, so I have to pick my battles!  For everyone else, we had a delectable and divine selection of Provençale cuisine served obviously in dainty portions!  The dishes included that quintessential Marseille dish, bouillabaise, made with the freshest seafood.  Olives harvested that morning also featured prominently.  There was a whole smörgåsbord of local specialities, another one being calissons.  Wedding cakes are a very English tradition which we naturally eschewed, so we opted for the French tradition of croquembouche (gluten-free on Bilal's account of course).

In France, the legal part of the wedding can only be carried out by the mayor, so we went to the mairie and got this part over and done with and then went to our church for the religious part of the ceremony.  The church was packed, unfortunately with many people who don't remotely care about what it does and only viewed the wedding as the place to see and be seen (such people were invited for business expediency, rather than because I truly wanted them there)!  Still, the pastor preached an unashamedly evangelistic sermon, which resulted some return visitors, at least one of whom I know to have now been baptised and taken out church membership.  I say with full sincerity that this makes the presence of all the other superficial people worthwhile.  The hymns were "Comment ai-je pu?" ("And can it be that I should gain"), "Béni soit le lien" ("Blest be the tie that binds"), "Croire obéir" ("Trust and obey") and "Je suis tien, Seigneur" ("I am Thine, O Lord"), all of them favourites of Bilal and myself.

Bilal was a sight for sore eyes in his fitted suit.  He looked extremely uncomfortable, as tight clothes are not his thing, but it was nice to finally see him dressed in a suit for the first time.  My wedding dress was absolutely fabulous, as were the bridesmaid's dresses and the suits of the leading men.  It's a shame I may never see him in a suit again, but obviously, now we are married, I get to see other things.

We opted for an open-air reception at the Calanques, with a reserve order of marquees made in case of severely unseasonal weather.  We chose a lovely secluded beach and were undisturbed the whole time: - it was a case of security by obscurity.  Bilal is a very capable swimmer, but will rarely do so in public, as he doesn't like non-family members seeing any part of his body except his face, hands and feet: - Touareg men tend to cover their heads with a tagelmust.  I wonder if this would enrage the opponents of the burkini?  Tee hee!  Anyway, maybe when our family grows and an apartment proves too small, we could choose a new home away from the city centre with high walls and a swimming pool within the ground, so as to give Bilal the privacy he desires.

For the honeymoon, I wanted a destination that was French-speaking, unfamiliar to both of us, offering unbridled luxury and beautiful.  We chose the Van Horne Suite of the Château Frontenac in Québec City, Canada.  Bilal looked rather strange in his hip-hop clothing when we walked in.  I could see that the staff were trying not to stare, so I insisted that Bilal wear a Touareg outfit for dining.  Having spent a lot of his time in Mali living in tents and often with no shelter in the desert, followed by La Savine, Bilal was not used to such opulence and looked rather lost in the hotel.  He isn't really used to eating non-Touareg food and found himself embarrassed asking if they served jollof rice.  Poor Bilal!

Both of us enjoyed the historic city and its waterfront situation.  When we arrived in the city on a ViaRail service (shamefully slow), we were struck by the beauty of the station.  Unusually for the Americas, the city has a city wall and citadel.  We made various journeys on the ViaRail service: - as the speeds are so low, there is an emphasis on service.  Wi-fi has been standard for a long time and there are cheery stewardesses serving food as if it were an airline.

As mentioned in previous posts, Bilal has always been very good with children.  He was determined to experience fatherhood as soon as possible and he wasted no time on ensuring this would happen as soon as we arrived.  I realised I was expecting part-way into the honeymoon.  When we arrived back, he announced that he had booked a dietician appointment for me: - he had been worried that I was not eating enough to ensure the baby's good health, so he insisted I attend it.  The dietician agreed that there was nothing wrong with my diet: - I knew this all along, but Bilal needed some reassurance.  I continued to eat well during my pregnancy and I gave birth to an entirely healthy baby boy with my weight no higher than what it was when I measured myself on the day of the wedding.

But that is another story.  I am sure I will go into more detailed aspects of the wedding later, but I also expect there will be many posts about motherhood.