More eyebrow than highbrow....

I had a lovely evening with our guest yesterday where I managed to acquit myself reasonably well and not look a completely brainless fool. Fortunately they were more interested in asking me questions about France so I didn't have to reveal the holes in my knowledge of the democratic process of Kazakhstan or Stalin - myth or monster! I later googled them both and they really do have brains the size of a planet - but they are so incredibly nice.

V, the lady, did reveal that she was formerly married to a Russian dissident and they were expelled from Russia with 4 days notice and a 1 year old child. I can't imagine how awful that must be - although I guess there are some parallels to moving to rural France! She also told me that they went to Germany, which along with the US, was the only place that would give unconditional santuary to Russian expatriates. (Expatriate comes from the French 'expatrier' and means to be banished from one's homeland - today's bit of useful/less information). They were placed in a refugee camp in Dachau, where they had to sleep on the same bunks as the former inmates. V is a Russian Jew so you can imagine how traumatic this must have been.

Today I went to see the lovely Greer and had my eyebrows waxed and tinted. I'm a natural blonde (yes, really, I am) and normally have very blonde eyebrows. I'm now sporting a pair of rather dark brown ones which, though they look good on Ashley Olsen and Gwyneth Paltrow, make me look rather more like this!! Greer waxed (ha, ha) lyrical about how they framed my face but also commented several times that the colour would fade, which rather led me to believe it hadn't turned out exactly as planned. Who is this strange eyebrowed one looking back at me? Every time I pass a mirror I jump!