Salut et bienvenue à mon blog. Je suis Chris and I’ll be writing predominately about cycling, drinking (wine and beer) and language learning.

A friend of mine and I made a pact a few years back to have learnt a language by the time we reach the age of 30. I was 27 by the summer of 2013 and although I’d tried and failed to relocate to Spain to learn Spanish, I was no closer to achieving the goal than when it was set.  So I decided to move to Bordeaux to immerse myself in the French language.

I chose Bordeaux specifically for a number of reasons:

• It had a large number of English and Irish bars, optimising my chances of getting a job while only knowing basic French.
• When I briefly visited in 2012 it looked like a bike friendly city.
• A smallish city, it is much more relaxed than London, but still big enough to have plenty of things to do.
• It is known for its fantastic red wine!

I already have a blog but it doesn’t have a fixed subject. It is a mélange of obscure journalism with posts including: getting fired from a magazine in Gibraltar,  going to jail in Spain, attempting to become a male fashion blogger, a case of mysterious coded letters from spys,  being haunted in an old people’s home, following my friend on his epic unicycle tour, as well as many others besides. I will continue to post on Necesscity, but think a dedicated (bilingual) blog about life in Bordeaux will be a useful tool for me to analyse my progress and for readers to gain beneficial insights into language acquisition and expat life.

I decided to call the blog ‘drinking it all in…’ because for me it is a double entendre. An expression that denotes actively absorbing everything you come into contact with, as well as being an expression that could be understood more literally i.e. more alcoholically!

The logo I have chosen is a figurine of Gaston, a cartoon character created by Franquin. I thought I could easily relate to Gaston, the cycling-while-boozing Francophone character, after seeing the image below. So, welcome again to my blog, where things get done… slowly.