{"id":13165,"date":"2026-08-11T16:06:39","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T04:06:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/?p=13165"},"modified":"2026-08-11T16:06:39","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T04:06:39","slug":"bon-voyage-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/11\/bon-voyage-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Bon voyage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Did I mention I was going back to France in a few weeks?<\/p>\n

Currently it\u2019s on fire and under a heat dome but Simon assures me it will have all settled down by the time we get there. We\u2019re doing a week long road trip North of Paris, then flying to Romania for a cycling trip. Romania is currently under a state of emergency for a record breaking drought, but again apparently I\u2019m making much ado about nothing according to Simon. Yes, the Danube has dried up, but we\u2019re miles away, somewhere safe up by the Ukrainian border. Just kidding! (I think – my geography is not very good) we\u2019re actually going to be in Transylvania, so quite safe as long as we don\u2019t hang around any isolated castles on a hill at night or spend time with bats.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been working hard on my French. I\u2019ve found a nice podcast, called Inner French, <\/em>to listen to in the car, and I\u2019m plugging away at Duolingo. Sadly I never screwed up the courage to contact my old French tutor again, so I\u2019m just working away by myself. I\u2019m probably a solid intermediate student now, after 45 years, so should be nearly fluent by the time I die, if medical science can get its act together in the next couple of decades and help me reach triple figures. I\u2019m fairly sure I\u2019ve reached the point now that my French is too good to be cute and endearing for the locals, so that instead of being friendly and encouraging, they\u2019ll be mocking me for my mistakes (Ha ha! \u00a0\u201cLa croissant\u201d! It\u2019s masculine, you moron! Esp\u00e8ce d\u2019idiot!)<\/p>\n

My French has never been good enough before to confidently read a novel, but recently I\u2019ve found the perfect solution: a medical romance.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It\u2019s choc full of cliches and jargon, so a cinch to follow along to. Funnily enough, it\u2019s actually translated from English, hence the heroine of the first book is called Kate Stewart, who hails from a picturesque village in the south of England somewhere. Her ex, Jeremy, has done the dirty on her with another female colleague, so she flees to darkest Africa, as you do. (Do people still say darkest Africa? It feels wrong, somehow, \u00a0especially as I don\u2019t really know what it means). I don\u2019t want to give anything away, but she meets another doctor over there, Sam, who seems initially rude and obnoxious\u2026Enemies to lovers is a romance novel staple (so I\u2019m told\u2026), and you won\u2019t be surprised that it\u2019s not the last time we see Jeremy. Anyway, harmless fun and good practice for me. I\u2019m looking forward to \u201cThe perfect man\u2026or nearly\u201d Two books for the price of one! Very good value.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Did I mention I was going back to France in a few weeks?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8Ukf-3ql","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6522,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2021\/05\/28\/bon-voyage\/","url_meta":{"origin":13165,"position":0},"title":"Bon voyage","author":"Interloper11","date":"May 28, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Did I mention we were going to Rarotonga? In fact we\u2019re in the Air NZ lounge right now, sharing with a large contingent of burly young men wearing Highlanders kit. They are off to Australia in search of game time, whereas we are just in search of warmth. Here are\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/528B1515-0468-4755-A6B6-9956DFC5D6E0-542x1024.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/528B1515-0468-4755-A6B6-9956DFC5D6E0-542x1024.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/528B1515-0468-4755-A6B6-9956DFC5D6E0-542x1024.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":13331,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2026\/09\/10\/wednesday-9-september-transylvanian-cycle-trip-day-4\/","url_meta":{"origin":13165,"position":1},"title":"Wednesday 9 September Transylvanian cycle trip day 4","author":"Interloper11","date":"September 10, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"We have been steadily heading more and more rurally over the last couple of days. On the one hand there is less and less traffic, and we\u2019re seeing more horse drawn carts. On the other, many of these villages that are further away from civilisation actually look to be having\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/IMG_7285-300x269.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13230,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/29\/friday-28-august-fontainebleau\/","url_meta":{"origin":13165,"position":2},"title":"Friday 28 August Fontainebleau","author":"Interloper11","date":"August 29, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"A good nights sleep until I woke up with a headache around 5 am. Some painkillers and an hour or so of mindfulness talks via my wireless sleep mask allowed me to snooze a little longer, and we finally checked out around 10am. There was intermittent heavy rain all morning\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/IMG_6821-300x225.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12106,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/11\/friday-12-september-singapore\/","url_meta":{"origin":13165,"position":3},"title":"Friday 12 September Singapore","author":"Interloper11","date":"September 11, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Did I mention I was leaving the country again? I\u2019ve had a number of people rolling their eyes this week when they heard I was going overseas: \u201cAgain?? Where to this time?\u201d which left me feeling vaguely offended. I don\u2019t go on holiday that often, do I? But then I\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_0955.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_0955.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_0955.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_0955.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":12422,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/23\/weekend-update\/","url_meta":{"origin":13165,"position":4},"title":"Weekend update","author":"Interloper11","date":"November 23, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Nothing much has happened this weekend but I haven\u2019t posted anything for a week so I\u2019ll fill you in anyway. It\u2019s been a long weekend for me up at the beach house since I\u2019ve got today (Monday) off. I arrived on Thursday night and on Friday morning did an endoscopy\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/IMG_4199-768x1024.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/IMG_4199-768x1024.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/IMG_4199-768x1024.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":12226,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/28\/still-at-sea-west-of-bergen-sunday-28-september\/","url_meta":{"origin":13165,"position":5},"title":"Still at sea west of Bergen Sunday 28 September","author":"Interloper11","date":"September 28, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Lovely long sleep, unfortunately Simon no better today. On the plus side, he managed his biggest meal in a week, completely fat free, for breakfast. I thought I\u2019d show you a photo of the pavilion. You can see the enormous glass roof is retractable so in nice weather it can\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/IMG_3592-300x225.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13165\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}