Desperate Anglo Housewives : Bordeaux > she's back and dating in her 50s

Something to celebrate...any excuse! Everytime I bring out my grandmother's champagne bowls, all the chaps launch into a frenzy about how they were designed around Marie Antoinette's boobs so that France could drink to her health... I always silently wonder who my oversized Ikea champagne flute was designed after ...  After having read article after article about the global-crisis, trying to decipher any hints that we are coming out of it, I finally have a piece of good news. Market indicator...? Champagne sales rose globally by 8% in 2010!! Not only have sales risen but the sales of quality champagne have also increased. No more "under 10 Euro" bottles next year..the consumer prefers to pay more for better quality.  Does this mean we are coming out of the doldrums? Could this be an indicator that we are rolling out of the crisis? This DesperateAngloHousewife has been smiling ever since she heard the good news... I may even buy a bottle this weekend an

With the year, with each other.... You know you are "over" childbearing age when you pass push-chairs in the street and, instead of peering in and googling over the wee bairn, you speed up, sniggering to yourself,..." if only you knew...!! " Something about having a bickering 16 and 12 year old under my roof has marked the end of any baby desire..a case of rigid, hormonal shut down!! Anecdote : Thursday evening after a 12 hour teaching day. Husband in Paris. Myself too brain-dead to be even remotely responsible in a kitchen, I call my children and tell them to meet me in our local noodle café for a quick meal. I get there first and sit down to a fabulously large glass of crisp dry white. Vibratio ns of the negative kind approach my table as the progeny slouch into restaurant already wrangling. They sit down, so far no salutations to the mother, admist a slinging match of insults " you stink, you are so ugly, pimple face, 4 eyes, thick head, brain de