Amongst the very kind and generous feedback I received in response to last week’s blog was this from the wonderful Lottie Skuthe-Cook:

“You really do have such an eloquence with words, it’s amazing. I love reading your stuff from a pure language point of view AND equally much from a content perspective.”

What made this extra special, to me, was the reference to my supposed ability to write eloquently. Whilst I liked the bit about content too, the former gave me a confidence boost at a time when a rekindled love for writing short stories had begun to wane.

I was recently interviewed by Andrea Newton for her Really Useful conversations podcast where I talked about the increase in hate crime in the UK (with particular focus on the LGBTQ+ community) and the impact this might have on people’s willingness to bring their whole selves to work.

Getting involved in the podcast reminded me why I like writing so much - I’m less inclined to trip over my words as thoughts spill from my head. Nevertheless, it gave me pause to reflect not just on my own experiences as a gay man, but on the experiences of those from other minority groups.

Prior to the pandemic, it was easy to find excuses not to do things; it wasn’t the right time, it was risky, it was too big a step. The pandemic challenged the very fabric of our comfort zones and therefore the validity of those excuses.

If it hadn’t been for the pandemic, I wouldn’t now be living in France. It was the catalyst that made us stop and reflect on where we were, where we really wanted to be and the dreams and ambitions we’d been putting off.

As a teenager, brought up in a small village in the West Country, the idea of living anywhere else seemed inconceivable. I was very sure that I’d always live close, as generations of my family had.

The problem was I was quite talented academically and faced a general expectation that I would go to university; a big thing as I’d be the first member of our family to do this. When the time came, I applied for all the most rural universities I could find; strangely, this ‘smallness’ felt more important in terms of my Comfort Zone than proximity to home.

One of the more surprising discoveries when we moved to France was that almost no-one here has a credit card. Many banks don’t even offer them, except in the form of a deferred debit card (where the full balance is cleared every month). It feels like the attitude to personal debt here is very different, which is perhaps reflected in the fact that household debt is lower than in the UK (although national debt is higher).

And this got me thinking about resilience and our own emotional bank.

Ordinary People: We see/hear it all the time and it really bugs me. I most recently spotted it in response to a post about meeting Richard Branson, where someone had commented:

“Thanks for sharing this wonderful story. To me the best leaders are also great people who make time for ordinary people.”

It’s a well-meaning comment with positive intent, so why did it bother me?

The battle has commenced between those advocating more remote working after the pandemic and those wanting people to return to the office. Take this recent article on the BBC news website, for example, in which Paul Swinney, spokesperson for Centre for Cities, says he is “quite hopeful that we will see people return five days a week.”

And what about Apple, where staff reacted to Tim Cook’s announcement that he expected employees to return to the office by launching a campaign pushing back against the proposals.

Given that my French is still very limited, I spend a lot of time these days practising conversations in my head and working out ways to phrase what I want to say using my limited vocabulary. This is a strategy that works brilliantly, I find, right up to the point where I’ve used my practiced phrase and the person I’m speaking to responds. At that point, my strategy tends to fall apart, and I become a quivering mime artist. C’est la vie, as we say in France.

Anyway, the other day, I found myself mentally preparing for a conversation in which I envisaged using the word ‘confidence’.

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve enjoyed another little win; in fact, a huge one. After five months apart, I was finally reunited with my two horses. They’d been due to arrive in France in the first week of December, but their move was delayed by numerous Covid and Brexit related barriers, which at times felt insurmountable. The biggest problem, post Brexit, was that the folks at Defra seemed to imagine that because my old boy is not registered (i.e., not a pedigree), I might be exporting him for salami. Presumably, since he’s 27 years old, extremely tough salami.