Ahoy!
This blog is about life, food, travelling, what it means to be human, childhood memories, love, grief, the occasional rant about skirts and their lack of pockets, and many other things.
About Ms. Unexpected
The title “Ms Unexpected” is a nod to the first book of the Mrs Pollifax series, “The Unexpected Mrs Pollifax” (1966) by American author Dorothy Gilman, in which a widow accidentally joins the CIA and starts travelling the world. I read those books when I was a child and I remain very fond of the character of Emily Pollifax. Of course, my resemblance with her is entirely limited to our common love of travelling and our tendency to befriend strangers. In other words, I am definitely not a spook undercover. (Note: Yes. Yes, I do realise that it is exactly what a spook would say. What can I do?) The part of Mrs Pollifax was even played by Angela Lansbury in 1999, so quite frankly, there’s nothing not to like about her.
Here, you will find stories, reflexive pieces, and hopefully one or two useful tips that I’ve gleaned along the way, as well as some sillier stuff. But even when I resort to using the listicle format, I’ll try my best not to produce content, for the very simple reason that I don’t enjoy reading or writing content. There’s enough of that online already, and it does not align with my values or who I am trying to be.
Once upon a time, I was a copywriter, and it was the single most soul-crushing experience I have ever had in my entire life. I hated it with the fire of a thousand suns, so I am certainly not going to spend my leisure time making sure that my posts are SEO-optimized and that my titles are no more than 55 characters, thank you very much. In the end, what really matters is that you, dear reader, have a good time reading my blog.
Categories
There really is a bit of everything on here, mainly because this started off as a travel blog, but my chaotic brain could never be happy with a single topic. Now it is a mess of restaurant reviews, bad takes on popular culture, family stories, as well as anything that catches my fancy. It is not very structured, but it has three main categories.
➤ Travel
This is where you will find my travel stories sorted out by country, from the typical tourist attractions (like this post about dolphin watching in Gibraltar) to the frankly bizarre (this story about a seashell grotto in Margate, for example). I’ve only been to Europe so far, which admittedly isn’t very exotic for a European, but I’m of the opinion that if adventure wants to find you, it will find you in your own backyard.
➤ Food
A place for my restaurant reviews, my ramblings about mussels, and maybe a recipe or two. It’s also where you’ll find all my adventures with historical recipes under the title Scrumptious History.
Food is love.
➤ Miscellaneous
This category is a catch-all drawer for everything that’s either not related to travel at all, or only loosely related to it. The subcategories are :
At Home: A collection of posts about the things I do when I’m home. Read this one about Curating Joy in dire times, which I wrote in the middle of the pandemic.
Family stories: A series of stories about some of my family members, as they were told to me, and as I can remember them. I thought it would be nice to collect and share them, like this one about my great-uncle stealing a tank before it was cool.
Languages: Once upon a time, I was an English-as-a-second language teacher, and a Spanish teacher too for a brief period. My mother tongue is French, and I’ve dabbled in other languages along the way. These posts are meant to share whatever little wisdom I’ve acquired during my linguistic journeys.
Reviews: The title says it all. Mainly restaurants and cultural products (films, tv shows, books, etc.), including a review of a terrible movie that none of you should watch.
Thoughts: A place for longer, more reflexive pieces. Probably my favourite.
➤ Diary
This one is pretty much self-explanatory. I try to write once a week, but it’s definitely subject to my schedule and motivation. I have never been very good at journaling because I lack the discipline to be consistent, so I tend to see it as an old-fashioned family newsletter like they did in the 19th century.
➤ Favourites
This section is dedicated to a (kind of) monthly series in which I share three things I really liked (plus an occasional Super Favourite), as a way to reflect upon the good things.
Note on sponsored posts
No post on Ms Unexpected is sponsored, ever. The reason for that is that I want to be able to write whatever I want without having to follow someone else’s agenda, and I want to be able to say it freely when something is bad. Also because I have no intention of turning one of my very few hobbies into a job.
Feel free to get in touch; I love getting feedback!
Happy reading!