'Rather Than Wait For Some Distant Authority To Scrape The Ice From The Roads, The Locals Pitch In'

This month Gillian Harvey explains how the French are far from laid-back when it counts

- Gillian Harvey

I don’t know about you, but I love the new year. Not the celebration itself (as an exhausted mum of five, staying up until midnight feels more torturous than celebratory), but the sense of freshness you get when a year stretches before you, brimming with possibilities.

Clearing up the debris from Christmas, too, feels quite cleansing – don’t get me wrong: I love a bit of tinsel as much as the next person, but by the time 6 January comes round, I’m ready to box things up and reveal a less psychedelic version of my maison.

This urge to resume the status quo clearly doesn’t exist in many of the inhabitants and retailers in my little town, however, as – in what some might describe as typical laid-back fashion – decorations often remain in place, and even lit, until well into February.

This lack of urgency seemingly exists everywhere you go: in the supermarket where the cashier exchanges bisous and chats to a friend while you drum your fingers on your trolley; in the bank, where you make an important appointment and find yourself handed a date in three weeks’ time. Comment on this, and you are looked at as if insane.