Howcome I can declutter several times a week and yet everywhere is still messy ??

[nutcracker]

I don't get where I am going wrong.

I'm English. But I have lived here for a very long time and as a teenager I lived in another continental European country.

I'm probably as bad as any teenager when it comes to leaving things around. I often have a glass of juice or something in one room, put it on the windowsill or the side, go to another room, can't see my drink, so I make another. This continues throughout the day, and I also take a drink to bed with me or to the bathroom when I get ready. DP comes home form work and goes upstairs to get changed bringing about 6 glasses back with him.
I know there were never plates left around when I was young because I wasn't allowed to eat anywhere other than the table at any time other than mealtimes, but clothes were a different matter.

We did have a rule when we couldn't afford a cleaner and were both working full time that the 3 oldest children must never take food out of the kitchen which very much saved on mess. Bit harder to control with teenagers and now someone else hoovers and cleans up during the week we've got lax about it again. It's harder when you have older children. My oldest was making home made soup until about 10pm last night which is brilliant, healthy eating, cooking and she has important exams this week and next so I willingly tidied it up this morning. And she does it to save money so she doesn't buy lunches out. But it certainly creates mess.

My sister goes bonkers when her (French) MIL stays because of all the wine glasses she finds under the bed when she leaves

"The mug is an unknown piece of crockery in France."

In affluent homes in the heart of Paris, perhaps...

Anna, sometimes I read your posts and feel a little like an inhabitant of Achiltibuie or Moss Side might if someone from Chelsea was emphatically describing life and traditions in the UK based upon that one individual's specific habits and customs. There are mugs aplenty down here.

She's an unmarried mother living in a flat who doesn't work/earn as far as posted here anyway. I wouldn't make too much of it but we'd all be bored if we didn't have interesting posters.

When my mother died I dealt with tidying up. She'd really lived in her room for a few years. It was like a horror film in some ways, things falling off the walls, lots of old food everywhere you looked, stubbed out cigarettes. No mess the children will ever create will be as bad.

Who is Xenia??

AA - you cannot buy a mug in Paris, unless you go to a specialist Anglo shop that sells English china.

Anna as far as I can recall you don't work, your dd is in preschool for at least the morning for 5 days. You only have one child. Although you do have step sons.

If I only had one child and she was out for half the day I would ponce about arranging my dds dolls house too.

As it is things are a little more busy than that for most people.

I boggle at your life I really do, it seems so erm atypical.

No, I do work. I started working again a month ago.

I'll take your word for it Anna, but that's truly bizarre. Any old Carrefour, Hyper U, Champion or Casino has them here, not to mention Casa and the like.
It was the same in Réunion.
Paris is clearly the last fortress of anti-mug activism on the French territory.

Isn't eating little and often actually better for the body and also more natural? I remember reading about it in the New Scientist.

But there aren't any of the shops you mention in Paris, AA.

There's Monoprix and maybe if I hunted in the basement I could find some horrible orange mug in a corner - I'll check it out next time I go.

Otherwise it's all discount (Ed, Franprix) that don't do housewares. Or department stores.

But really, I never see anyone wandering around with a mug of Nescafé or tea in this place. But a bottle of Contrex or Evian, oui.

JodieG - I don't know, it always strikes me how in grazing cultures people are fatter than in cultures where meal times are set.

So how is it working? Isn't it easier just being home. How can you give the man full priority if you work?

Frankly it's easy-peasy so far . I had accumulated so many ideas and collected so much data, so many articles etc while I wasn't working, thought through so many things that I'm living on the research I did while I wasn't working. But I knew that was the case, just as much as when I stopped working I was "worked out" and didn't have any new ideas.

I'll give you a more realistic assessment in six months time when I have to research as well as write up .

Happy to oblige. Can't link directly, but in addresses it says there are 3 in Paris: Convention, St. Antoine & St. Lazare.

CASA

Get thee down there and trawl through the tat and mugs. 'Twill make a change from Av. Montaigne, I'll warrant

Write materials (mostly case studies) for seminars for companies. I used to work in executive education (ie academia) but am now working for a private company.

So - 70% research / 20% writing up / 10% teaching time.

AA - nowhere near me, I'm afraid

So you can get mugs in Paris, just not in your neck of the woods.

There are lots of mugs for sale in Habitat and Starbuck's in Paris. Also downstairs in ?BHV on Rue Tivoli.

Well, Habitat and Starbuck's aren't French... I said earlier, you can get mugs in Anglo stores . And BHV probably does sell mugs - it sells lots of grim things - but that still doesn't make mugs a feature of French crockery, cos they ain't