# French Links > Not your typical expat blog! ## Posts - [The Frenchman Who Explained Spanish Houses to Me](https://www.frenchlinks.org.uk/the-frenchman-who-explained-spanish-houses-to-me/): There’s a particular humiliation that comes from being corrected about Spain by a Frenchman. It happened on Jordi’s terrace last Thursday evening, somewhere between the olives and the second bottle of something that claimed to be “natural wine” but tasted faintly of barn roof. We were talking about houses. This started because Marta had announced she was thinking of replacing the windows in her place. The old ones rattle in the wind like a skeleton playing maracas, which is charming until winter arrives and the living room begins impersonating a wind tunnel. Naturally this triggered a multilingual discussion. “Les fenêtres,” […] - [The Day I Realised I Dream in Three Languages](https://www.frenchlinks.org.uk/the-day-i-realised-i-dream-in-three-languages/): It happened on a Tuesday. Which feels about right. Nothing dramatic ever happens on a Tuesday. Just small shifts that rearrange you quietly. I woke up annoyed. Not coffee-annoyed. Proper annoyed. In the dream I had been arguing with someone. I cannot remember who. But I remember the language. It was English. Precise. Efficient. Every sentence lined up. The version of me that knows exactly how to win. Later that morning I dropped a jar of olives on the kitchen tiles and muttered an apology in French. Not to anyone in particular. Just generally. To the olives. To gravity. To […] - [The Spanish Word I Can Never Say Without Sounding Drunk](https://www.frenchlinks.org.uk/the-spanish-word-i-can-never-say-without-sounding-drunk/): There is one Spanish word that makes me sound like I’m ordering alcohol even when I’m stone cold sober. It’s not a complicated word, technically. It’s just… long. It has too many corners. Too many rolling bits. The word is ferrocarril. Railway. A normal thing. A train. Infrastructure. Very sensible. And yet every time I try to say it, my mouth does something strange, like it’s buffering. It comes out as: “feh-roh-cah…” Then I lose confidence halfway through and it turns into a sort of cough. Or a small apology. Or, once, something that sounded vaguely like a cocktail. The […] - [Dos Bieros, S’il Vous Plaît (And I Knew I Was Back)](https://www.frenchlinks.org.uk/dos-bieros-sil-vous-plait-and-i-knew-i-was-back/): I ordered two beers the other day and managed to say, out loud, with confidence: ‘Dos bieros, s’il vous plaît.’ Just me, standing there, trying to be polite in two countries at once. The problem is politeness has its own muscle memory. In Spain, you can get away with a quick “dos cervezas, por favor.” In France, you’d never survive without the full s’il vous plaît, even if you were ordering a single grape. In England, you’d probably apologise for existing before you even opened your mouth. So my mouth did what it always does now. It panicked.It blended.It produced […] - [The Aubergine Argument (and the Organic Wine That Saved Me)](https://www.frenchlinks.org.uk/the-aubergine-argument-and-the-organic-wine-that-saved-me/): There’s a woman in the village market who no longer makes eye contact with me. She used to. She even offered me free parsley once. But ever since The Incident, she’s kept a dignified distance—like I’m a contagious form of idiocy she’d rather not contract. It all started with an aubergine. Or maybe it started with my stubborn refusal to admit I don’t really speak Catalan. Either way, it ended with me red-faced in the mercat municipal, holding two very large aubergines and being accused—loudly—of saying something filthy. Apparently, the word I used for “firm” is, in certain regions, slang […] - [Cocks, Clocks, and Catalonia](https://www.frenchlinks.org.uk/cocks-clocks-and-catalonia/): There are moments when you realise—too late—that you’ve completely misunderstood the assignment. For example: showing up to a rural Catalan community gathering with a cuckoo clock in your arms, expecting praise, and instead receiving silence, confusion, and one elderly man whispering, “¿Pero qué hace ella con eso?” Let me explain. It started with a conversation I only half-understood (as usual). Pilar—who somehow manages to balance total chaos with village diplomacy—asked if I could bring “el cucut” to the fiesta petita. I nodded like I knew. I assumed she meant “cock,” as in rooster. I panicked, obviously. I don’t own a […] - [La lessive n’est pas une sauce: The Laundry Sauce Incident (feat. Dublin, of course)](https://www.frenchlinks.org.uk/la-lessive-nest-pas-une-sauce-the-laundry-sauce-incident-feat-dublin-of-course/): I marinated a chicken in laundry detergent. Not on purpose. I wasn’t having a breakdown. I was trying to be rustic. That brand of accidentally-French rustic you think you’ve absorbed through osmosis from a cheese label or an overpriced cookbook with no photos. I thought it was garlic sauce. It was not garlic sauce. It was something called Blanc Floral, which—come on—sounds exactly like something you’d drizzle over courgettes in Saint-Rémy. It even had a spoon on the label. A spoon! That’s entrapment. It wasn’t until the third bite that I realised I’d slow-cooked dinner in what was essentially bubble […] - [The Swedish Man Who Stole My Towel (and Other Spa Disasters)](https://www.frenchlinks.org.uk/the-swedish-man-who-stole-my-towel-and-other-spa-disasters/): I thought I understood European spas.You go in. You float around. You come out slightly calmer, a bit pink, and then eat something with olives. That was before Miquel told me about the one in town. Proper hydrotherapy, Paula. Scandinavian circuit. Ice, heat, more ice, more heat. It’s very good for your aura.Which is how I found myself one Thursday morning trying not to fall over in the cold plunge pool while an elderly Swedish man sat directly opposite, making unbroken, terrifying eye contact. Let’s back up. The spa itself is lovely, in theory. You move between hot rooms and […] - [The Day I Mistook a Bidet for a Sink](https://www.frenchlinks.org.uk/the-day-i-mistook-a-bidet-for-a-sink/): There are moments in life when you realise you’ve lost touch with your home country.One of them is when you mistake a bidet for a sink — in front of a man who once saw you throw up behind a kebab van in Wolverhampton and still sends you birthday cards. Let me explain. Robert — or “Big Fresh Rob” as he’s known online now — was in the area. We hadn’t seen each other in years. He used to be one of those blokes who carried around a spare pair of socks just in case the night got unexpectedly long. […] - [Flirting in Two Languages](https://www.frenchlinks.org.uk/flirting-in-two-languages/): There’s a particular type of danger that comes from thinking you’re funnier in a foreign language than you actually are. It starts small — a joke, a pun, a little idiomatic wink. But somewhere between your brain and your mouth, it transforms into something that lands either as confusing, vaguely offensive, or weirdly romantic. Or, if you’re me, all three. Take last Thursday. Marta had organised a “language mingle” at the bar behind the pharmacy. The concept: conversation tables, wine, tapas, and gentle linguistic cross-pollination. What actually happened: two hours of linguistic car crashes and poorly translated pick-up lines. Miquel, […] - [French Film, Spanish Wine, English Hangover](https://www.frenchlinks.org.uk/french-film-spanish-wine-english-hangover/): It was meant to be a cultural night. That’s what Marta called it when she posted the flyer in the bakery: “Cinéma, vino y conversación”. A trilingual promise of enlightenment. We were going to watch a French classic, sip something locally fermented, and have what she described as “a reflective group discussion.” I should have known. The film: Les Parapluies de Cherbourg. The wine: red, from a box someone brought that had clearly been opened before Spain won the World Cup. The people: well-meaning, chaotic, multilingual. Marta lit candles. Miquel turned up with anchovy crisps and a Bluetooth speaker for […] - [Three Languages, Two Gin Tonics, One Arrest](https://www.frenchlinks.org.uk/three-languages-two-gin-tonics-one-arrest/): It started with a ham raffle. As most stories do in this village. There was a fiesta in Lladó. I didn’t fully understand what it was celebrating—maybe a saint, maybe the olive harvest, maybe just the town surviving another month without municipal collapse—but there was music, churros, cava, and a large cured pig’s leg hanging from a string like a meaty disco ball. I was invited by Pilar who said, “Bring good shoes and no expectations.” Which, incidentally, is also how I approach dating. The evening began innocently. A few drinks. Some awkward dancing. Me trying to follow the sardana […] - [Why Bees Smell Like Love (And Miquel)](https://www.frenchlinks.org.uk/why-bees-smell-like-love-and-miquel/): There’s a particular smell in the air around 8:47 AM in Lladó. It’s part lavender, part sweat, part Is that an almond tree or is my brain lying again? But mostly… it’s bees. Honeybees. And pollen. And longing. Which brings me to Miquel. I should not be in love with a man who wears cargo shorts in November. I should not be enchanted by someone whose conversational range spans two topics: the yield and the weather. I should especially not be dreaming about someone who once referred to my compost pile as “sluggish.” But I am. Because Miquel smells like home. Or at least the version […] - [Brie and the Loneliness of Soft Centres](https://www.frenchlinks.org.uk/brie-and-the-loneliness-of-soft-centres/): You’d think I’d start with something Spanish. Manchego. Cabrales. That weird pink triangle cheese Miquel tried to hand me at the market that looked like it had been soaked in sangria and shame. But no. We’re starting with Brie. Because Brie understands me. Brie is the friend who shows up slightly late but brings good wine. The one who listens without judgment while you cry about a man who makes honey but doesn’t return texts. The one who says, “No, Clara, you don’t need new tiles. You need to lie on the floor and eat this entire round of cheese with […] - [French Isn’t Catalan, Apparently](https://www.frenchlinks.org.uk/french-isnt-catalan-apparently/): I made a terrible mistake last Thursday. Actually, I made six, but the main one involved cheese, a well-meaning compliment, and the Catalan word for “sweaty.” Let’s rewind. After three weeks of only speaking to the builder (who mostly just grunts and occasionally says “mañana” like a death threat), I decided it was time to integrate. Brave the village. Buy things from actual humans. Practice the language(s). The bakery was my target. Simple enough. Smells good, sells carbs, no confusing bureaucracy or public forms. In I stroll—hair slightly brushed, linen shirt suggesting breezy European competence. I see her. The baker. Rosa. A Catalan […] - [The Inheritance Clause & the Compost Toilet](https://www.frenchlinks.org.uk/the-inheritance-clause-the-compost-toilet/): I didn’t mean to move to Spain. I meant to deal with Spain. You know—fly in, sign some papers, take a few tragic selfies in front of a crumbling stone house, flog it to a Dutch couple with a yoga mat fetish, then disappear back to Streatham and continue my very British spiral into middle-aged wine dependence. But then Margaux had to go and die. Margaux, my mother’s aunt, who once threw a piece of Roquefort at a priest and spent her retirement arguing with postmen. She left me her house in Lladó. A village so small it makes hamlets look like […] ## Pages - [Blog](https://www.frenchlinks.org.uk/blog/) - [About](https://www.frenchlinks.org.uk/about/): Bonjour. Hola. Hello. I’m Clara. Yes, all three greetings are necessary. I never know what language I’m meant to be using anymore. Let me explain. I’m a half-English, half-French woman of undisclosed age (fine, I’m 46, but it’s a youthful 46) who accidentally moved to Spain three years ago. I say “accidentally” because I came to sort out a crumbling townhouse I inherited from my late great-aunt Margaux (who, in life, had all the warmth of a garden rake), and somehow I forgot to leave. There were reasons. The British weather. The ex-husband. The plumbing in my flat in Streatham. Also, the local olives […] [comment]: # (Generated by Hostinger Tools Plugin)