Les Français arrivent

I have been much cheered lately as I have started hearing french being spoken in Wanstead and Leytonstone. I first picked up on it some months ago, I cannot remember if I mentioned it, but I was on my way to work and a young mum pushing a pram with two older people I took to be her parents passed me going the other way on an early morning walk. They were speaking french.

About a month ago, again on the walk to work, I passed an open front door with goodbyes occuring on the front step. In french. On my street, in fact on the same side and just a few doors down. 

Earlier this week a couple passed me on bicycles, toddler in a bike seat, heading into Leytonstone. They too were speaking french as they pedalled along. I suppose that there is a chance that all three of these sightings could relate to just a single family as I have not been paying any attention to who these people actually are, my ears just prick up when I hear the language being spoken. But somehow I don't think so. Or I'd like not to think so. I would like to think that the French are moving in.

I spend a fair amount of time in North London and in Marylebone. They are not haunts per se, but other than Canary Wharf they're where I most often find myself when not in Wanstead. In these places French is de rigeur. See what I did there? What is notable about these places however is how nice they are. How nice the restaurants are, how posh the shops are, how beautifully people tend to be dressed. This is the French influence and I am a firm believer in Wanstead and Leytonstone needing some of this. 

The area has changed since I moved in. People are younger for instance, albeit that I am older. Maybe they're the same age as I was. But what I really mean is that it is becoming more upmarket, Wanstead particularly so. Houses are looking smarter, cars seem more expensive (particularly the Aston Martin on my street), posh coffee shops are appearing, everyone has a cargo bike and there are two M&S food halls. Were any more proof needed one of these replaced Matalan. There is a Gail's on Wanstead High Street of course, it replaced a bank I think, whether or not there was an anti-Gail's campaign I have no idea - we make our own sourdough (don't you know) so I have no skin in the game. And there is a Ginger Pig, where for stupendous amounts of money you can get pretty high quality meat and even a few bits of cheese. There's a bistro that's pretty decent, a posh deli too, an even posher greengrocer, and an independent chemist. On the other side of the coin there are a thousand betting shops, charity shops, a Pie & Mash shop of the kind that barely exists any longer, a vape shop, a couple of chippies, Boots, Sainsbury's, Tesco, Argos, Superdrug, Poundland, Iceland, and an unfathomable number of fried chicken establishments. 

Marylebone it is not, or at least not yet. But the entry of the French must surely mean that it is coming. French people can't survive without nice restaurants, bijou shops, bakeries and delis, whereas they can happily get by without fried chicken and shops specialising in frozen chips. Why are they here? I am guessing it is economics, that the people I am hearing have been priced out of north and west London. That or they heard that the birding was really good, though they wouldn't have heard that here of course. But whatever it is change is coming, I can feel it, and an upsurge in french accents is merely one small indicator. 

Frankly I am delighted. I really enjoy Marylebone and Islington, more than I enjoy Leytonstone and Wanstead. If where I live can move more in that direction I am all for it. There are those who will say that local people are being priced out, can't afford to live where they were born and raised. They are right I'm afraid, and my kids are in that same boat. The east end is being pushed east. It was ever thus I suspect, or at least that has been very much the case in recent times. Nothing you or I can do, gentrification is unstoppable. 

Wanstead 2030

There are some things of course that I don't enjoy about Marylebone. French people. Or more accurately, Parisiens. Ugh, they strut around like they own the place, all oppulence, £800 pairs of jeans, cashmere sweaters casually draped over their shoulders, living the high life, extraordinarily arrogant. More arrogant than me? Well.... Well probably actually. Mrs L and I encountered some of these people at the Bouchon Josephine last weekend. Two families with children in tow. Feral children. What was amazing was that for the entirety of the meal the children were completely ignored. When not glued to their phones they ran around the restaurant, they cried, they shouted, they whined, they moaned. Occasionally an adult would implore them to eat something - "Mais Hubert tu mange!" but by and large they were not paid the slightest attention. Meanwhile the adults conversed happily, glugged down carafes of wine and authentic bistro food, not the slightest bit concerned that at the other end of the table wars were breaking out. We wondered if they ever actually looked after their own children, and that maybe Sunday was the nanny's day off and hence they were stuck with them. This wouldn't happen in Italy. Ahh, Italy....