Just a cautionary word for any French going to England and any British coming to France – don’t make first-time assumptions according to window dressings.

It’s a small cultural difference, but one that was a source of confusion for me the first time I visited France… but just because the shutters are closed doesn’t mean the inhabitants have fled to Mexico. Just letting you all know…

French window shutters are an invention both magnificent aesthetically and practically. How else can fellow light sleepers have a few more hours in bed of a morning? Plus, they must be a far more efficient way of conserving energy and regulating temperature than curtains. However, I couldn’t shake the distinct feeling on my first visit(s) to France that either no one was home, or they wanted to create the impression that this was the case. I felt almost claustrophobic being on the street when everything was shut, like I was surrounded by walls rather than dwellings. I couldn’t quite shake the feeling that the shutters were strange, despite their obvious rustically “French” appeal.

Similarly, and here is where it gets funny, Guillaume never felt quite right on his first visit to England. It wasn’t anything that he could clearly put his finger on, but just that equal awkwardness about the windows – that somehow a more open impression was created somewhere through the psychology of curtains. He felt that English windows lacked privacy as the eye is brazenly invited to wander in to the familial intimacy of the living room.

During the summer holidays, we went hiking in the Pyrenees. On passing through a thermal mineral water town which was abandoned after its 19th century heydays, it was pointed out to me that it was practically a ghost town, that no one really lived there anymore. I saw my chance…“But how can you tell?”

“Well, the shutters are closed”.

I couldn’t help but suppress a smile.