la petite anglaise

Catherine Sanderson, aka petite anglaise, has become my new idol this last week. Her brilliant blog has had me engrossed for several reasons, which I'm about to come to, even if I'm terribly jealous of her fantastic gift she has for prose and annoyed about the fact that she's done it all first.
By checking out http://www.petiteanglaise.com/ , which I recommend to anyone, you'll soon be embroiled in the sagas of her (sometimes deeply complicated) personal life. Bridget Jones-esque (I'm sure she's sick of this particular comparison), and surprisingly candid, she has built such a rapport with her followers that thousands of people probably now feel, as I do, that they know her. The success speaks for itself as she is now a published author, firstly of her 'memoirs' and there is also an upcoming novel in the pipeline.
Before she underwent the drastic transformation from bored mum/secretary to postmodern representation of nouvelle célébrité, "petite"'s posts had a somewhat different emphasis. There she was, night after night,in her Paris appartment, waiting for her long-term Frog partner (appropriately nicknamed "Mr Frog") to return home, having put their little "tadpole" to bed. She pines for the hedonistic days of her first few years in Paris which sit in stark contrast to the metro-boulot-dodo she now exists through. She tells us what it is really like for a "little English woman" amongst all these French people - and I fully concur. They are hypochodriacs, obsessed with their bottoms and women can be very cold to other women (no offence to any froggies reading this, not least my own Monsieur Grenouille). But why did she have to write down all of these well observed and timely anecdotes before I got to get my stories out?
I had this idea that my blog would be the Romanian equivalent. Immitation is the most sincere form of flattery, hence my pseudonym, englezoaica. Yet somehow the comic events don't flow as they did when I first arrived in France. I don't understand enough of the language/culture to recognise these little "quirks" and I don't have other expat friends to compare notes with (whilst simultaneously cackling like drains).
Thinking about it, perhaps the real problem lies in the fact that this blog is making me nostalgic for my life back in France. So until that passes, there may be future indulgence of past stories that belittle the French.
Pas de problème, I hear you cry???