Belately realising things

I recently read an article by a Northern Irish lady named Lorraine Wylie belatedly realising how wonderful French women's lives are compared to Northern Irish women at https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/life/features/northern-ireland-can-learn-a-little-on-lifestyle-food-and-fashion-from-the-french-37451558.html .  What struck me most about this is that this was published on the 24th of October 2018 (less than a month ago).  Clearly, though the author has a French first name, she has been stuck in a bunker for the last decade-and-a-half or so!  Has it taken her this long to realise how effortlessly perfect we Frenchwomen are?  No wonder effortlessly perfect Frenchwomen like myself feel the need to go on endlessly about this!  MDR.

The article talks about her visit to her French friend Véronique Maquin Chillou.  She doesn't give the name of the town in which this article is set, though she mentions that it is part of Vienne.  I don't think I would be breaching privacy laws to say a quick Google search reveals it to be Chauvingy in Nouvelle Aquitaine.  This part of France is particularly famous for goat's cheese, with less famous foods being Echiré butter, Farci Poitevin paté and Tourteau Fromagé.  Not as wonderful as Provence, but every culinary region of France is wonderful compared to any region (or country) not under French sovereignty.

Lorraine Wylie talks about how she walked up the steep cobbled streets.  I must say, if she views French women's passive exercise as a new revelation, I can't think what sort of isolated circumstances she has been living in.  This woman has probably been sweating away in a gym (and overeating afterwards) in an attempt to lose weight, as is typical among frumpy Anglo-Saxon women.  Meanwhile, we Frenchwomen are staying effortlessly thin, to oversimplify things slightly, by just walking more (using the stairs and less car travel) and saying "la moitié, s'il vous plaît" when offered some food.

Regarding the tips about beauty, yes, a Frenchwoman definitely knows how to use a beauty regimen to make herself look nice, though I think Véronique Maquin Chillou has a fairly laborious routine.  I don't spend anywhere near the time she appears to spend on beauty (I have compressed my routine to a few minutes in the morning) yet Bilal still thinks I am a "bufft'ing" and comes home each evening with a huge appetite for after our sons have been put to bed.

The advice on food is hardly revolutionary.  Véronique Maquin Chillou says she makes rich dishes and avoids processed foods, sticking to simple things (a Frenchwoman loves elegant simplicity).  She also doesn't avoid cheese, desserts and wine, three not-so-guilty pleasures that Frenchwomen regularly enjoy.  The biggest No-sh"BLEEP"-Sherlock part of the article is "As suspected, a slender silhouette has nothing to do with national heritage. It doesn't matter which side of the channel our bread is buttered, staying in shape is simply about portion control."  I don't know how many times the phrase "La moitié, s'il vous plaît" has appeared in this blog so far.  Okay, she might have been suspecting it for a long time, though I don't know why it took so long for her to confirm her suspicions.

Okay, it is generally harder to reach Northern Ireland from France than the nations making up Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) by land, but how has Lorraine Wylie been in the dark for so long?  She talks about the tips as if they were groundbreaking new revelations, which they should not be, even in the Anglo-Saxon world.  This demonstrates that there is plenty more work to do with this blog!