After Freedom Fries comes...

...an innocent quote from my American Mrs about French food...

You see, we were in the city of Chelmsford in Essex the other day. It's about 100 miles away from Farnborough; up the M3 and 'round the M25, through the Dartford Tunnel and along the A12.

We went for two reasons:

1) It was a rainy Saturday so I offered to take Becky shopping there and
2) It was my old home town for 7 years, or most of my childhood.

Actually, the excuse to reminisce was reason number 1 therefore an entirely selfish decision, but she fell for the lure of shopping so I got some brownie points for that.

So we took a quick tour to see the houses where I used to live, the places where I used to go to school, the barber shop on Springfield Road, the newsagent's no more, the pubs now restaurants, seeing what has changed and how much.

Then we went shopping. Chelmsford city centre is still very much the same with the 500 year old Cathedral not far from the 1970s Market, great Victorian buildings amongst crap '60s concrete. And yet some old names are long gone... no more Co-Op, no more Bolingbroke & Wenley, no more toyshop selling blister pack Citadel miniatures...

But they have completely pedestrianised the High Street where cars and buses once choked the old streets. There was a merry-go-round, a stall selling local sausages and a Frenchman making fresh crépes filled with maltesers, crépes with chocolate & banana, crépes avec sucre et citron... and this is where Becky's America meets France in England grasp of multi-culturalism excelled, she said...

"I'd love to have a crépe on the sidewalk in Paris"

I'm sure you would dear, I'm sure you would...