The article recounts the author's experience in a rural French boulangerie after a long drive from a comedy gig in London. Dressed in flamboyant stage attire, he feels out of place in the local setting. Despite the peace of life in France, he confronts the challenges of fitting in, struggling with language barriers and cultural differences. The author expresses complex feelings about his English identity and the idyllic, yet sharply contrasting, French countryside lifestyle he encounters.
I had never really fit in locally anyway. We had moved there about 10 years earlier, in 2005—a catastrophic decision, according to my agent, but a happy one for me, my wife, and our then four-year-old son.
Although I desperately wanted to melt into the background, my Englishness felt painfully in contrast with the sheer Frenchness of the vine-growing, goat-farming bucolia where I now lived.
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