Our second child

I have given birth to our second son.  As expected, Bilal was overjoyed by the arrival.  One could falsely believe that he wasn't, given how much he has spoken about subsequent children, but he has been visibly excited throughout the pregnancy and his joy in holding our second son just after he was born was clear for everyone to see.  In one sense, nobody deserves anything, given that we all fall short of God's glory, but in another sense, given the fruits Bilal has produced during his Christian journey, I think Bilal really deserved this type of fruit.  He has a yearning for a big family and I am very aware that it is something he has aspired to for pretty much all his life.

As with his older brother, our son was a very pretty baby immediately upon being born and he was born with some lovely curly locks and beautiful light brown skin in between the skin shades Bilal and I have.  I would have enrolled them as baby models immediately if Bilal hadn't said no: - personal privacy is one of his primary preoccupations, so this is out the question, but I don't mind, as he clearly has his family's best interests at heart.  He is no controlling husband and does not do things like demand to know where I am at any moment of day, lol.  Marriage is about give and take and Bilal has certainly given a lot, so even by the standards of non-believers, there is no justification for upsetting him by sharing photos of our sons against his will (the boy in the photo below is not ours).

The delivery had no complications and I was immediately back to my previous waist measurement and weight with no fat to lose.  People often say this doesn't tend to happen, but I have managed it during both my pregnancies!  It is easy if you just eat sensibly: - just utter the magic phrase at mealtimes ("la moitie, s'il vous plait)!  MDR!  The lack of complications meant that I left hospital within a matter of hours: - as a BBC article pointed out, we French are often hypochondriacs, but it was blatantly obvious there was nothing wrong with me.  This was nice, because although I don't do much worrying about my health (since I eat properly), Bilal does.  He can be very attentive if he suspects I am unwell and it is often hard work to reassure him.  Even with French standards of hypochondria, he has made a name for himself at the local doctor's surgery for being overly cautious with almost every sniffle our first son has had, MDR.

Within an hour of completion of the delivery, Bilal was talking about future children, which attracted an unwanted disapproving comment from a feminist member of the hospital staff: - "Come on!  Your wife has just given birth and you want to force more children on her like she is some breeding animal?  A woman is worth more than the children she bears!"  Bilal was visibly shaken by this comment and he is uneasy about engaging in conversation with unrelated women, so I stepped in: - "Madam, I am aware of many options open to me in this country if I were in an abusive marriage and my husband were forcing me to have children against my will, but he is not, so I will thank you not to interfere in our private family life".  Bilal said very little after that and was clearly very upset, but he returned to his normal ungentlemanly self after we left the hospital with our sons and returned home, MDR.

Save for my parents who were at the hospital and came home with us, our first acquaintances to visit were some of his "homies" from La Savine who he has been trying to encourage to come along to our church.  When they rang the bell from the street entrance, Bilal was naturally too engrossed in our sons to notice, so Daddy went to the intercom.  The poor quality of their French made Daddy reluctant to let them in, so he asked Bilal if he knew them, to which Bilal abruptly replied "let them in, they are manz homies from La Savine".  When Daddy let them in at the door, he was visibly unimpressed with their attire (low-slung trousers and hooded tops covering most of their faces).  Upon seeing our second son, they said, "Congratulations fam!  You da man!"  Bilal replied, "True dat!  Manz only been married 19 months and manz knocked up manz well buff wifey twice and manz now got two sons!  Manz gonna knock her up again as soon as possible and be an even bigger man!  Us manz Heavenly Father has given man a bare sick gift between manz legs!"  Bilal then did a hip-thrust gesture and a loud grunt whilst saying that for effect.  This caused me to start sniggering and my parents let out a groan: - Daddy never liked Bilal's ungentlemanly behaviour and he tried to turn Bilal into a gentleman when we were courting and subsequently engaged, but eventually just gave up, reasoning that Bilal is an otherwise wholesome man, even if he is quite hip-hop with some similarly hip-hop friends.  I am expecting Bilal to be similarly ungentlemanly when we go to church today, MDR.

Bilal is enjoying his short time on paternity leave.  Ever since becoming a father, he has been almost clingy with our sons: - though he enjoys his job and works very hard, I know that he is always yearning for the end of the working day to come so he can come home and be with me and our offspring.  His interaction with our sons is at least as much as mine.

Stuttgart: - a city of viticulture

Though I am heavily pregnant and due to give birth any day now, it was necessary to travel to Germany on business, as I am trying to get my magazine set up with a German office along with all the necessary infrastructure, such as distributors (admittedly, this is less of an issue in the online age).  I am considering the question of which cities to site the premises in.

To me, transport connectivity is a big issue, as in spite of the internet revolution, the fashion business contains many aspects that just require people to be there in person.  Airport connections don't really cut it for a Frenchwoman, as the short working week means she needs to be productive all the time, meaning that if she travels as part of her job, she needs to be able to do work during the journey, i.e. on a laptop/tablet hybrid on a table.  It was therefore necessary to choose a city that is well-linked to France and other German cities.

One of the cities I am considering is Stuttgart.  Current direct journey times from Paris are 3h11m.  This should drop further when the Rastatt Tunnel is opened in 2022.  Frankfurt is 1h17m on the fastest services.  Munich is 2h13m, though this will drop substantially with the Stuttgart 21 project's completion and the new line to Ulm.

Berlin is 5h04m, though it admittedly has a long way to go before it becomes a fashion capital, even though it is full of the metro-trendies from my industry I detest!  The Stuttgart 21 project will convert the main station from a terminus into a through station and shift it underground and will be completed concurrently with the Stuttgart-Wendlingen-Ulm high-speed line.  When they all open in 2021, they are expected to reduce journeys starting in Stuttgart by around 26 minutes, with Frankfurt-Munich journeys (via the Stuttgart route) being about 3h00m instead of 3h37m.  The increased saving for through journeys exists because of the time penalty for turning a train around.

In addition to good intercity connections, Stuttgart also has a great metropolitan public transport network, focused mainly on the tram system, but it also has a rack railway and funicular railway as part of its urban transport system, as the city is built on a series of hills.  Being from Marseille, this is something I am used to: - the city is shielded by mountains that mean the city is 8.4 degrees Celcius in January, compared with 5.5 in nearby Aix-en-Provence.  Bilal is more used to it, given the years spent in La Savine, a high-up area of the city.  The city has a series of outdoor staircases, a bit like Los Ángeles.

The Romans quickly discovered that Stuttgart has a mild climate suited to viticulture (some vineyards are a few hundred metres from the main station), which gives it an air of sophistication, though not to the same extent as France.  Germany has a reasonably large number of wine-producing areas: - the Rhine and Mosel(le) valleys are often used for wine cultivation.  The custom in these areas is to pick the grapes when snow arrives, which gives an extremely sweet quasi-dessert wine flavour: - not very good to my way of thinking, being a sophisticated Frenchwoman, but ultra-sweet dessert wines work with a few foods, such as crème caramel and blue cheese (Roquefort being a well-known French example).

Stuttgart is the capital of the Baden-Württemberg state and therefore contains the state parliament.  It is also the biggest city in the state and therefore the place where things are happening.  It is also a huge centre for the automotive industry: - Porsche and Mercedes-Benz are based in the city.  As my readers will know, I am less enthusiastic about cars, given the increased difficulty of finding somewhere to drive at 320km/h (the LGV Est, Rhine-Rhône, Sud-Europe Atlantique and Bretagne), but these two brands have definitely succeeded in creating an image of glamour!  Certainly, Stuttgart is a very prosperous city and these brands reinforce the image of luxury living.

A French it-girl such as myself will always be on the lookout for good places to go shopping.  I haven't slowed down on shopping since becoming a mother, as motherhood is not the time to kick back, neglect personal beauty and end up looking ugly: - this is what silly Anglo-Saxon women do!  Stuttgart is not as fabulous as the best French shopping destinations, but there are some reasonable bargain basement offerings and entry-level international cuisine in the form of the Calwer Passage: - after all, if German women are aspiring to be impossibly perfect and dainty like we Frenchwomen, they have to start somewhere!  MDR.

We shall see if this venture into Germany is successful and whether a whole new country can be made aware of how impossibly and unattainably perfect we French women are (and ideally inspired to replicate our impossible example even though they will never reach it)!

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.

Getting into good habits early on

I recently read an article about parents overfeeding babies.  When I first realised I was expecting a baby, one of the first thing Bilal and I discussed was what we would do regarding feeding habits when the baby arrived.  Obviously, it is good for new parents to have aligned attitudes about things involving children.  We agreed that feeding habits would be consistent for the initial period in the baby's life, as it is important for babies to get the food they need to grow properly.  No diligent parents would want to leave their children malnourished.

However, we agreed that at a certain age, there would be divergence according to gender.  Ideally, if our baby had been a girl, the first expression she would learn would not be "oui", "non", "papa" or "mama", but "la moitié, s'il vous plaît".  As indicated by the book "Why French children don't talk back" by Catherine Crawford, we French know a thing or two about how to raise children.  We like to get our children into good habits early on and beauty is one of the primary ways I plan to do this with any daughters I have: - I don't want them to grow up looking fat and ugly.

There is all sorts of talk in the Anglo-Saxon world about how women are bombarded with unrealistic images of what women should look like, to the extent that they have tried to make fat women legitimate by introducing a "curvy Barbie".  Apart from the fact that cartoon (or otherwise not-real) characters are exaggerated in how they are constructed, I think they should be ashamed of themselves for encouraging women to get fat like that!  With any daughters I have, I plan to promote the skinny ideal to them so they grow up to look like a pretty Frenchwoman, not a fat and dumpy Anglo-Saxon woman!  Quelle horreur!

However, none of this matters to us at present, as our baby turned out to be male.  To me, my ideal situation would be for him to grow up with the suave urbane sophistication of a traditional Frenchman, but with all the ruggedness and muscularity of Bilal, who plans to teach him how to run the farm he recently purchased in the mountains to the north of Marseille, making visits to his family's farms in Mali where possible to teach him about farming in an extreme climate.  I have no doubt that Bilal will want to introduce him to La Savine's culture, which I admit I have some reservations about, but I know Bilal will be more than capable of protecting him.  I have no doubt that our son will be irresistible to women if he manages to acquire both French sophistication and Malian ruggedness!

Anyway, if he is to have all these things, he will need a large food intake.  My food intake is fine, as I have a medium-intensity exercise routine (not considering using the lift unless my destination is more than 20 floors away and walking as much as possible).  However, our son will need more than that, so I am thinking of how to expand his dietary repertoire beyond Bilal's chicken and jollof rice!  MDR!  French cuisine has plenty of options for accomplishing muscle growth with high-calorie diets: - there are lots of dairy, meat and fish products that have been discussed in previous articles.  There are also lots of nice healthy fats in the area around Marseille, most notably olive oil, which will enable him to fulfil his calorific requirements without putting undue strain on his heart.

Anyway, all that is a long time away and I am still getting used to baby stuff!

The folly of crash diets

Apologies to all my eager readers who have been eagerly lapping up everything I have written about how to be an impossibly perfect Frenchwoman: - I am aware that I have not written a post for a long time.  As was said in my previous post, Bilal and I are now engaged.  I have been a woman in high demand for a long time, but so far, only Bilal has been able to win my father's approval to court me.  He is a very handsome Touareg man with an extremely muscular physique and lovely curly hair: - the muscular physique is a consequence both of his tough desert upbringing and his desire to continue to work out when his family moved to Marseille.  He speaks hip-hop French, but hey, as was said at the end of "Some like it hot", "Well, nobody's perfect".

I am hoping to work on Bilal's French.  Although it is his native language alongside his local Touareg language, his accent is a mix of Mali and La Savine, with his vocabulary being hip-hop, e.g. saying "tu voit ce que je veux dire?" at the end of sentences, inverting words (verlan) etc.  Although I am somewhat bemused by his use of French, I would much rather have a big, muscular and tough man from the ghetto toughened by living through years and years of gang warfare with real muscles than an upper middle-class man who has lived a cushy lifestyle, doesn't like the great outdoors and whose only way of looking nice is to stay under a gym sunbed and occasionally work out on sweaty gym apparatus (not to a Frenchwoman's liking, as Mireille Guiliano explains).  If one wants to see some of Bilal's acquaintances without actually visiting La Savine, many of them can be seen in 1.D.3's video Marseille Paname: -

Even though Bilal has grown up surrounded by such people, he is actually a very gentle character who has always resisted the pressure to get involved in a life of crime and who has presented an extremely convincing testimony of his new birth in accordance with what the Bible describes as the signs thereof, even if he is not so good at resisting the creeping influence of the language.  Anyway, I digress.  Bilal and I are in the midst of wedding plans.  We are spending ages obsessing about what we will have for each meal.  A croquembouche will unfortunately be out the question unless we can find a gluten-free version.

Bilal would probably just have jollof rice, taguella, goat's meat and Eghajira if I left the whole thing up to him, but since most of those present will be of European origin, we want something much more sophisticated.  With the exception of Bilal, we are planning to serve some extremely dainty portions, so as to show how sophisticated we are: - they will be so dainty that even the daintiest Frenchwoman will feel no need to say, "La moitié, s'il vous plaît".  Some people will be shocked (e.g. my English relatives on my mother's side), but I will respond that they are entirely normal portions for me.

Already, some people are asking me if I am worried about how I will fit into my dress.  I respond by telling them about how I already have an absolutely perfect figure.  I am aware of an unpleasant story about a crash diet called the LighterLife diet: - a British woman followed this diet on account of a desire to look good on her wedding day and died.  I am not inclined to make extremely inappropriate, insensitive and tasteless jokes about the deceased woman, but the article I have linked to really does indicate how French women really do know best when it comes to diets (or the lack thereof).  As Mireille Guiliano explained, French women never diet: - they simply make permanent changes to their lifestyle to shed the weight, whether this means walking further each day, buying a flat further from the ground floor, cutting out sweet foods, saying "la moitié, s'il vous plaît" more often etc.  Granted, Mireille Guiliano does not have any children as far as I know, but Bilal and I want a large family and I hope in creating our large family, I will demonstrate to the world how a Frenchwoman maintains her dainty figure even during and after pregnancy.

Samantha Clowe, the lady who unfortunately lost her life to a crash diet, did not understand the rule of the harvest.  The rule of the harvest says that if you wait till two weeks before the harvest to plant your seeds, spray them with hydroponic solution, cover them with bright lamps etc, you will not reap a harvest.  There are too many people who simply do not understand the value of setting good habits early on so that they can be kept with little effort.  Non-French women think they can buy the skimpiest bridal dress and then do a crash diet to fit inside it.  If such women had read the words of Proverbs 24:27 ("Prepare thy work without, and make it fit for thyself in the field; and afterwards build thine house"), they would realise that their order of working was wrong.  Occasionally, some Anglo-Saxon women manage to fit into skimpy wedding dresses (the photo below is of Patricia Nixon-Cox), but this is the exception rather than the norm.

I have no doubt that I will look absolutely divine (in the non-religious sense of the word) in my wedding dress.  Bilal is not exactly a perfect gentleman, as he uses the term "bien faite" to refer to my physical appearance, but I know he means well.  He has done very well to restrain his desires for me all this time.  I have no doubt that he will look similarly ravishing in a morning suit.  He refuses to wear suits at work and insists upon wearing a tagelmust and his colleagues have gotten used to this.  Don't get me wrong, he looks gorgeous in that, even though one cannot see much of his face, but I am hopeful that our wedding will persuade him to wear a suit.  Anyway, back to the subject of the baffling situation of Anglo-Saxon women eating like there is no tomorrow, somehow or other finding a husband-to-be (it's beyond me how) and then crash dieting to fit into their wedding dress.  Why won't they just adopt the la-moitié-s'il-vous-plaît diet that Frnech women use?

As a believing woman, I think unnecessarily long engagements are not a good idea on account of the temptation during the engagement, but maybe some Anglo-Saxon women would do well to spend a few months getting their eating habits sorted out before they try sorting out their wedding dresses.

I'm engaged

Today, Bilal made a proposal of marriage!  This is something I have been eagerly awaiting for several months and I can now announce that it has finally happened!  I accepted without hesitation.  Bilal and I are very different people, but I appreciate his exotic nature, with him being a mix of Touareg and hip-hop influences.  This is evident in his language usage and clothing.  He is definitely my tall, dark (and heavily-built) stranger.

Bilal has moved into my parents' home (readers will note that I live in my own flat a short distance from the Vieux Port).  The reason for this is to adapt him to French culture a little bit more, as I have no willingness to live in La Savine, even if a top-floor flat would offer fantastic views of Marseille and the Mediterranean Sea.  Such a rough gangsta area is not appealing to a sophisticated haute couture Frenchwoman such as myself.  I would get tired of people greeting me by saying "Wesh-wesh toubab?" ("Wagwan honky?")  For some reason, Bilal never looks entirely at ease when in some more typically French areas in a way that he did in Mali (I cannot vouch for what he is like in La Savine, having never been there) and often appears homesick.

In the longer term, we are wondering about what sort of arrangements will be most agreeable to us.  One option we are considering is purchasing a livestock farm that would enable Bilal to feel at home.  Although the Common Agricultural Policy allows French farmers to get away with many backward and inefficient agricultural practices (hey, I suppose some compromises are necessary to produce the pure and natural products that a Frenchwoman desires), they are still a world apart from Touareg practices.  Another possibility is for us to construct a mountain home in the mountains to the north and east of Marseille to allow him to life a hill farmer lifestyle when he is not at work.  If anyone has any suggestions, please e-mail me at mariannegaboriault@gmail.com : - we are looking for countryside that is as rugged as Bilal is, MDR!

Even if we struggle to find somewhere that causes Bilal to feel completely at home, Bilal has told me he is willing to endure feelings of homesickness for the rest of his life in order to be with me, adding that I am "une femeu bien faite" (French for "a well fit bird") even by French standards: - obviously, when he is living with my parents, they will attempt to smooth some of his rough edges.  Bilal was never a macho man, but he has spent so much time around people who speak in this manner that he uses such words as if they were normal words.  He managed to restrain himself for job and university interviews, but found it too tiring to keep up a pretence beyond that.  This is partly why he tends to gravitate towards tasks that involve doing things in the background at work: - he can prove himself by the quality of his outputs and is unlikely to be obstructed by his hip-hop use of language.  At university, he would just turn up for lectures, practical assessments etc and just go home again afterwards to do his study: - he did very well academically and he was very diligent with his studies, but he never had any interest in being involved in the extracurricular life of his university, as he never really felt at home with the white middle-class liberal atheistic students the way he does in da 'hood or at church.  He feels at home at church because he knows that in this world, we are to regard ourselves as merely sojourners and if a church is a sound church, it is the closest experience a believer will have to the world to come.  Obviously, the wedding will take place in our own church (not the one shown below).

Obviously, given my obsession with food and Bilal's coeliac disease, we will need to expend a lot of thought about what food will be served at the wedding.  It will not be nice for me to have to share a marital bed with Bilal if the food served at the wedding has caused him bowel problems, MDR.  Unless a gluten-free croquembouche is available, we may unfortunately have to have an Anglo-Saxon style wedding cake.  Maybe we could have something along the lines of Mireille Guiliano's flourless chocolate cake?  Bilal is awfully fond of this recipe, but given that it is a recipe Mireille Guiliano approves of, presumably I shouldn't worry, MDR.

I think Bilal will look absolutely gorgeous in a morning suit, but he doesn't like suits and as far as I'm aware, the only time he has ever worn one in his life was for his job interview with the "Trom de Marseille" (as he and his homies call it in Verlan, MDR).  He is very fond of his Touareg attire and some of this looks gorgeous upon him though, especially the bright indigo garments.  Because he is such a handsome man, being around him requires a greater amount of self-restraint and I am pleased that with our engagement, the amount of time I will have tocontinue to exercise this self-restraint is getting shorter.

I will be looking for the most beautiful bridal dress I can find.  Apart from the fact that I am the bee's knees and worthy of the best, it would not do for a fashion magazine editor to turn up for her own wedding in an unfashionable bridal gown.  This will be my biggest worry when it comes to wedding preparations (apart from possible legal hiccups obstructing the legal validity, e.g. the registrar being sick on the day of the wedding).  However, as I have always been dainty in my eating, I will certainly not have to worry about how my figure will look in the dress as lesser women do!  All I can say is roll on the wedding day!

London-Marseille trains confirmed!

Recently, I learned that direct London-Marseille trains have finally been confirmed.  Yay!  I am pleased with this, given my unfortunate regular need to visit London on business.  As far as I am concerned, after having spent a few days in London and coming close to death on account of the lack of sophistication, the sooner the train can get me back to Marseille, the better, MDR.  Maybe in the future, Marseille will be the city where everything is happening (or at the least, maybe Paris will regain that title), but until that happens, I will need to keep going to London to ply my trade.

Bilal is also happy on account of the fact that he can visit his "homies" who he met during visits to the Elephant & Castle and Stratford areas of London much more easily.  Both of these areas have direct connections to St. Pancras International via the Thameslink and Southeastern High-Speed services respectively.  He e-mailed his homies in London as soon as he found out the news (his English isn't yet up to phone calls, though he is a regular visitor to http://www.urbandictionary.com for practice) and they were similarly delighted, as they have heard all about La Savine with its rappers from Bilal and can't wait to visit.  He has kept in regular touch with them, sending them occasional gifts, which resulted in them sending him gluten-free products from a local store, plus a cap with "Sorry I'm hip-hop and you're not" written on it, both of which he was delighted to receive.  I wasn't so pleased that they had sent him cake mixes for sickly sweet-looking cakes, but hey, he does not have any flab on account of the enormous amount of exercise he does, so I suppose I shouldn't worry too much about this.

I don't know if they will use the older or the newer rolling stock, but we shall see: - given that the whole route from London to the outskirts of Marseille (bypasses where applicable) uses the TVM (Transmission Voie-Machine) in-cab signalling system, there is no need to use the new rolling stock from a signalling point of view (from what I heard, the lack of space for ERTMS equipment was the main reason they were procured).  There is also no speed advantage, given that the existing rolling stock allows for 300km/h, the maximum speed already allowable on that route (the new rolling stock can do 320km/h).

I am hopeful that the new services will cause ignorant Britons to be cognizant of Marseille's value as a tourist destination.  Obviously, too many tourists is not a good situation: - we certainly don't want drunken British tourists who will just gulp down large quantities of pastis without appreciating the craftsmanship that has gone into the drink and barf up all over the streets.  However, there is a perception that Marseille is a run-down and dangerous city, i.e. that La Savine is a microcosm thereof.  I would welcome the idea of more adventurous and discerning tourists visiting the city to see how wonderfully sophisticated it is and how much it has been regenerated over the years.

Some of the less sophisticated tourists who like hip-hop culture could obviously head for the quarter (or "tchéquar", as Bilal would say, given his tendency to use verlan) of La Savine, where Bilal lives: - though he loves hip-hop fashion, being a sophisticated haute couture person is not one of his strengths.  He and other people in the area would be able to give such people tours to show them the other side of the city, perhaps introducing them to the aspiring rappers, as well as show them where the members of Psy 4 De La Rime and Puissance Nord and Soosol grew up.  Some people have contacted me to ask me why Bilal is my boyfriend, given these things I say about him.  I respond by saying that everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses and Bilal's strengths more than make up for his weaknesses, e.g  what I said in the last post about how he is so attractive that I will give him my full cooperation in whatever attempts he makes to create a large family.  That is before I go into his credentials as a believer.  But that is beside the point.  Even though I don't have any taste for hip-hop culture, I have no doubt that Bilal will be delighted by the influx of tourists who he will be able to introduce to the Marseille hip-hop scene.

The tourists who love great scenery will love Marseille as well.  I have never been to La Savine, though Bilal tells me there are great views of the area from there.  The city is surrounded by mountains and though the Basilica of Notre-Dame de la Garde has no spiritual beauty to speak of (it is part of the Church of Rome), there are great views from the hill it sits upon, both of the city and the Mediterranean Sea.  It doesn't take too long to walk from the Gare de Marseille-St. Charles (or "réga", as Bilal calls it) to the top of the hill: - naturally, a dainty Frenchwoman such as myself would not consider taking the metro (or the "trom", as Bilal calls it).

All in all, Marseille has something for everyone.  It has a huge hip-hop scene for the less discerning tourists and immense sophistication in things such as Pastis de Marseille, Bouillabaise and Frenchwomen saying "la moitié, s'il vous plaît" for the more discerning tourists.  If anyone reading this wants to know more details, or even if they want me to give them a tour of Marseille (I am very happy to do this), they should contact me at mariannegaboriault@gmail.com .

Postpartum dainty figures

Recently, Bilal and I had a discussion about the subject of childbearing.  I asked him what his views were on the subject of how many children to have.  Eventually, after several questions that were essentially identical, but done from different angles, he said he would definitely like to have a "famille nombreuse" (large family).  When I probed why, he cited Psalm 127:4 (which talks about how a large family is a blessing to a man) and his love for the Touareg culture i.e. his desire not to "westernise" and turn his back on his culture by having a smaller family.  The fertility rate for Touareg women in Mali is apparently 6.6 (admittedly using out-of-date statistics).  Also, it is plain for me to see that Bilal is very fond of small children: - he is not as reticent about initiating interactions with them as he is with non-Touareg adults.  The wife of someone he is reasonably friendly with at church gave birth to a son a few weeks ago and I regularly see Bilal cradling the baby, obviously entranced.

Bilal said that he didn't want to push this on me, given that he would not be carrying the children around for 9 months each, but said he would be overjoyed if he did have a large family.  I said that although I don't yet know first-hand what stresses pregnancy puts on a woman's body, once we are married, my plan is to offer no obstruction at all to creating a large family, even if this means no sleep and working at home for a few days each month.  Why?  Because I love him so much.  He has brought me so much happiness and if children and more children will bring him enormous joy, then that's what I plan to give him.  After all, provided we are married at the time, given that he is the most attractive man I have ever seen, why would I ever have any desire resist him?  I would also enjoy a large family myself.  Visiting people from the United Kingdom have told me that they have noticed that in France, having children makes you that much more socially acceptable.  All part of impossible French perfection I suppose.  I know I am always grumbling about taxes in France, but one thing that is great about France is how the income tax brackets favour  couples with lots of children, even if I don't like the way the tax advantages diminsh steeply after the first child.  Then there are various other advantages, including the Carte Famille Nombreuse for discounts when travelling on the trains: - I don't suggest that anyone has children for the sake of financial advantages, but I think it is great that France is doing things to incentivise people to have children.

Some people might call me an enemy of feminism because I plan to give Bilal as many children as he wants and I am always preaching about the importance of having a dainty figure.  How would I respond to such suggestions of betraying feminism?  If I were a Frenchwoman with the characteristics portrayed by Zoë Williams, I would just light up another Gauloise and say, "bof", MDR.

"But aren't you bothered about your figure any more?", Bilal asked me.  I said I didn't think it was a dichotomy.  It is quite possible for a woman to have a wonderful figure very soon after giving birth or even immediately thereafter.  I recall a photo of Catherine Zeta-Jones that appeared around the time after her wedding showing how much baby weight she had lost on account of her desire to look good in her wedding dress: - unusually for a British (in this case, Welsh) woman, she had a fabulous figure in the photo.  I have no expectation of being in this situation, because neither I nor Bilal approve of fornication, so I would argue that Catherine Zeta-Jones could have saved herself the bother of crash-dieting prior to her wedding by not committing fornication, but anyway.  That example aside, I also remember the controversy over the Norwegian WAG Caroline Berg Eriksen's postpartum selfie of her figure.  What would I say in response to this controversy?  I say you go for it girl!

If you've got a lovely figure like that so soon after giving birth, show it to everyone so that women will be willing to aim high!  Why should this woman listen to the grumblings of women who are just jealous that they don't have such a wonderful postpartum figure?  This is what I would call the "crab mentality" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_mentality): - people become jealous at the success of others and try to "pull them back down".  Of course, such wonderful postpartum figures are the norm in France.  There is the perception that a Frenchwoman is so stupid that she doesn't know that heavy drinking and smoking during pregnancy are bad for the unborn child's health, but none of this is well-founded: - in fact, heavy drinking is characteristic of a British ladette, rather than a Frenchwoman.  A pregnant Frenchwoman eats a little bit more than usual (given the need to nourish the unborn child), but her self-discipline when it comes to dainty portions means she has absolutely no weight to lose after she gives birth.  She looks with derision on Anglo-Saxon women who view pregnancy as a time to indulge themselves and then find themselves miserable when they find they have lots of surplus weight after having given birth, possibly suffering post-natal depression as a result of their weight gain, though I admit I would find it hard to avoid post-natal depression if I gained as much weight as Anglo-Saxon women do during pregnancy!  MDR!

I recall the Little Britain character Marjorie Dawes (one of the few British people with the good sense to realise the benefits of halving portions), who commented to two of the fatties at Fat Fighters who had gotten married and were expecting a baby that their decision to have a child was somewhat selfish, given that the child would be born with an addiction to food and would therefore have to go cold turkey.  As far as I know, an addiction to food is not heritable: - after all, my English-born mother was overweight before she began to spend time in France, yet here we are, both with very dainty figures.  However, if an addiction to food were heritable, I would whole-heartedly agree with Ms. Dawes' assertion that they were selfish.

In conclusion, I have absolutely no apprehension about what pregnancy will do to my impossibly dainty French figure.  I am not doing to do a Scarlett O'Hara and refuse to have any more children on account of such fears, knowing that continuing to eat dainty portions, rather than birth control, will preserve my impossibly perfect and dainty French figure.

Stratford, an area of London that Bilal loved

I enjoy travelling with Bilal and, as can be deduced from my posts, theology is a shared interest of ours.  We were aware of a church conference taking place in London that we knew would be promoting sound theology, so we decided we would visit the conference.  Bilal and I both found the conference edifying, but there is so much to be said about it that it is probably best discussed on a blog about theology, rather than a blog about how wonderfully dainty we Frenchwomen are!  Naturally, I also decided I wanted to do some business: - given that the UK has absolutely no plans to introduce a 75% tax rate, there are far more opportunities for business than in France!  This is just about the only favourable comparison I can make with France!  MDR!One thing I often tend to do is leave Bilal to his own devices to explore while I am doing business trying to promote my fashion magazine and then travel over to where he is if he has found something that interests him.

Being a railway aficionado like my father, Bilal observes the route keenly during train journeys and he has often noticed that on the final approach to St. Pancras International, in between the two long tunnels (named London Tunnel 1 and London Tunnel 2), the Eurostar trains pass by, but never stop at, a station.  Bilal looked up this station and found out that it is called Stratford International.  During one of my business meetings, Bilal decided to Stratford International and watch the trains pass for a little while.  The British high-speed rail line (known as the Channel Tunnel Rail Link) is unusual in that the trains go very fast through city centres: - in Ashford, this is by means of a flyover and in Stratford (an area of London), this is by means of a box.

When he started to feel hungry, Bilal ventured into the adjacent Stratford Westfield shopping centre.  I had forgotten to make him something for lunch that day, given my desire to make sure he only eats high-quality food!  MDR!  Poor Bilal didn't find things very easy.  He has coeliac disease and although he is learning English, he is not particularly fluent at present.  Almost immediately upon entry to the shopping centre, there is a shop prominently selling artesan bread!  He has a long way to go when it comes to written English as well and so he struggled to understand the labels to see if food contains gluten or not: - this is very different to Spain where gluten-free foods tend to contain a label to this effect!  Eventually, after a lot of fruitless exploring, he overheard some people talking in French and decided to ask them if they could offer him some advice regarding seeking-gluten free food.  Someone then explained that British supermarkets sometimes have a "free from" section and suggested trying Marks and Spencer (middle class, but still low quality in comparison to the worst France can offer).

On the way to Marks and Spencer, he walked passed a shop called New Era that he made a mental note of.  After having bought a few items from the "free from" section of Marks and Spencer (he was feeling rather faint by this point), he walked back to the New Era store.  Surprisingly for a hip-hop person such as him, Bilal was not aware of the existence of the New Era headwear company.  Bilal was delighted to enter the door of the Stratford branch and see a whole shop filled with hip-hop baseball caps.  Bilal had great fun trying them on, but after a while, it was proving difficult to find one for his head size, so he called me on my mobile and asked for me to tell the shop assistant by phone that he wanted to know if there were some caps in his size.  The shop assistant said there were and opened some drawers containing the correct size.  Bilal had a whale of a time trying on the caps and bought several.  Unusually, he was so entranced by the variety of hip-hop baseball caps around that he didn't seem to mind the fact that  his head was uncovered in public between trying different caps on!

After buying several caps from the New Era store, Bilal started exploring the Stratford area and very quickly, he fell in love with it, as everywhere he looked, he saw people of African origin dressed up in hip-hop clothing more often than not wearing baseball caps of the style sold by New Era.  Bilal had no way of identifying who was a French speaker beforehand, so he waited for me to finish my business dealings elsewhere in the city and travel over to Stratford so that I could interpret for him.  He had a great time socialising, even though he had to conduct his conversations through me.

Again, just as with our visit to the Aylesbury estate a few months ago, my interpretation abilities were tested to the max, given the large number of hip-hop slang words used by both Bilal and the locals!  Some people were keen to learn French, but said that it didn't seem a very cool when they were taught it at school.  Bilal suggested that if anyone genuinely thought that, they should seek to learn new vocabulary using a website he is intimately familiar with called Dictionnaire De La Zone.  The locals in turn suggested that Bilal get himself acquainted with Urban Dictionary in order to familiarise himself with English-language hip-hop slang.

Apart from the New Era shop, Bilal also discovered a new chain store that interested him called Arabian Oud, which sells Arab-style perfume.  The scents reminded him of when he visited Saudi Arabia, where the population as a whole is very keen on fragrances.  Unfortunately, Bilal was performing the Hajj when he was in Saudi Arabia, in a way, this trip was part of the old man that needs to be mortified when one becomes a new creature in Christ, but he still thought it was a beautiful country and thought it was a shame that such a beautiful nation is under the yoke of Islam.  Bilal bought some spicy men's perfume and I thought it smelled absolutely divine (in the non-religious sense of the word) on him.  I respect many things Mireille Guiliano writes, but I don't agree with what she wrote about spicy fragrances not smelling good in hot weather!  Bilal was very pleased to learn that there is a branch in Paris.  In fact, I also remember one on Oxford Street that I saw on that occasion when I went to Selfridges to buy some Mariage Frères tea.

Bilal also spoke with a Muslim evangelist outside Stratford station  who happened to be from Algeria.  The Muslim evangelist made some very silly claims.  Firstly, he claimed that there is no place in the Bible where it says Jesus and God are the same person: - Bilal suggested that perhaps he was half asleep when he read John 10:30.  The Muslim evangelist then claimed that the Bible never says that Jesus is the Son of God.  Bilal then pointed to our Lord's baptism and the Transfiguration and suggested that if, as he claimed, he had genuinely read through the entire Bible and reached the conclusion that the Bible never says Jesus is the Son of God, he must have been reading it using glasses with wooden lenses.

As per custom in areas like these, Bilal and the locals parted, friends for life, with a fist bump.  Unfortunately, we hadn't left enough time for Bilal to spend more time with the locals: - we needed to get back to Marseille so that we could discharge our duties at our church in Marseille the following day, as well as doing some set up work for the various activities that take place on Sundays the day before.  I also thought it a shame I didn't have more time to explore the uncountably large number of fashion stores in Westfield Stratford.

However, on the Eurostar to Paris, Bilal announced that he had enjoyed his time in Stratford (and previously the Walworth area) that he was planning to buy properties in both these areas to add to his investment portfolio.  He is not sure if he plans to use them for short-term rentals, staying in them during holidays in London, or whether he will use them for longer-term rentals, but he will look into that in time.

Bilal and I are very different people: - he is what we French refer to as a "zoulou" (a lover of hip-hop culture) and I am obsessed with fashion and eating ever daintier portions!  MDR!  However, I really do love him and I am glad he was willing to persist in asking my father's permission to court me for several years until my father agreed.  No surprise though, given that I'm worth it!  Anyway, jokes aside, I hope he proposes soon, as he is quite rightly keeping distance between the two of us until we get married and I don't want to be in suspense much longer.