Early afternoon drinking decaffeinated espresso at a cafe just off Lille's Place du Général de Gaulle, the placarded stragglers from a trade union protest against austerity measures adding to the hustle and bustle on the cobbled street, and the Englishman abroad seems at ease. Content, even. Joe Cole has training scheduled for later in the day before he and his wife, Carly, attend a first classroom French lesson since their schooldays. Life is hectic but, as the drone from the strikers' megaphones recedes, there is time to take it all in.
"Our feet haven't touched the floor since we arrived but we're slowly getting the most important things sorted out, like the French classes," Cole says. "When I can, I've been doing this: sitting in cafes, flicking through L'Equipe. I've been trying to immerse myself in the culture. I've just stopped short of putting a beret on and a string of onions round my neck. This is a beautiful city. I didn't know what to expect but life is good. There's a saying here: 'When you arrive in the north of France, you cry. But when you leave, you cry even more.' People fall in love with the place and its sense of community. It just feels right."
It is refreshing to find Cole so positive. The 29-year-old's career appeared to have veered off course, the expiry of his contract at Chelsea in the summer of 2010 confirmed as he lingered on the fringes of an England side labouring ignominiously at the World Cup finals in South Africa. A free transfer to Liverpool was supposed to rejuvenate, the move initially appearing a natural fit, only for patchy form, a sending-off, niggling injuries, a managerial change and upheaval in the boardroom to cast him back to the periphery. The real surprise is that it has taken a season-long loan move across the Channel to Ligue 1, a path not trodden by an England international who should be in his pomp since Chris Waddle joined Marseille 22 years ago, to spark Cole back to life.
Some five games into his domestic career at Lille Olympique Sporting Club (Losc) and the midfielder is already adored. A stream of autograph hunters interrupts the conversation over coffee, with most wandering up merely to say "thank you". Presumably for signing in the first place. A shimmy, swerve, dart and assist in his first involvement as a substitute at Saint-Etienne last month set Cole's upbeat tone. A blistering 25-yard goal that burst beyond Lorient's Fabien Audard maintained the grand entrance. Lille are fifth, four points from money-flushed Paris Saint-Germain, and entertain Internazionale, now coached by Cole's former Chelsea manager Claudio Ranieri, in the Champions League on Tuesday. They are a team prospering in one of the most technically proficient leagues in Europe, and a club who will move to a 55,000-seat stadium next summer. Cole has reason to suppose his luck has turned.
Feeling as if he belongs still requires work. "People think of the Englishman abroad and it's typically about sinking 10 pints of lager and attacking the karaoke but, regardless of the football, this was a chance for me and my family to live in another country," he says. "I'm a lad from Camden Town who never dreamed he'd have the opportunity to live or play football in France. Notoriously, we don't export our players often. But I'd like to hope I could help change that perception. It's about flinging yourself in. I've seen foreigners come to England and the ones who mix, go on the nights out with team-mates and buy into the English mentality, settle better. Those who are a bit tentative or shy struggle. So I'm trying to mix as much as I can.
"The language is part of that. If I'd had a crystal ball I'd have paid more attention back at school in my French lessons but it just didn't interest me. Now I'm starting almost from scratch. We're doing the Michel Thomas audio book French course, and we'll have classroom lessons every week. I can order a coffee, a mineral water, and am picking up silly things. I asked the guys this morning 'à quelle heure' we would be training 'cet après-midi'. Little things like that."
Proper integration takes time. The midfielder departed Losc's training complex Domaine de Luchin clutching a well-thumbed copy of Alexandre Dellal's Le foot en 7 langues. His 19-month-old daughter, Ruby, starts nursery next week and will grow used to the family speaking French around the rented apartment in central Lille. When Cole finally gets round to buying a television they will watch local channels, their intake of the Premier League limited to Canal Plus's Match of ze Day.
"It'll be very difficult to be fluent in nine months but I'd like to be able to get by. I guess you need to put this into context. I grew up with Richard Garcia at West Ham and he'd left Australia at 15 to come to England. That's leaving home. My career had taken me from east to west London before Liverpool, and you can be in London in no time on the Eurostar from here but we don't have a house in England and it's not something I'll do often. You have to broaden your horizons sometimes. Experience different things. Like I had frogs' legs the other day, and they were really nice. Just like oily chicken wings. Beautiful. There's a place in central Lille that does them. You should try them."
That was said with a chuckle but this is a player who is attacking a new life with gusto on and off the pitch. The form he has already displayed for Losc will baffle Liverpudlians frustrated that lingering memories of Cole's first year at the club are more of a dismissal on Premier League debut and only sporadic flashes of his talent thereafter. The club who are supplementing his wages, and could take him back next summer, confront Manchester United on Saturday.
"I just didn't play enough," he says. "I was suspended and then came back into a struggling side and, under Roy [Hodgson], the tactics didn't suit me. I'd never criticise him – he had a tough job at the time – but the team weren't playing well and, when that happens, the first players to be dropped are always the flair players and the youngsters. That's just the way it is.
Under Kenny [Dalglish] I'd had a few injuries and the side was settled. As a youngster, at West Ham and Chelsea, I'd been lucky enough to make an impact when I came on and earned the chance to stay involved. At Liverpool, I felt like a young player again. I always needed to do something special just to earn another chance. And it didn't happen for me. I'm not going to blame anyone else and I like the club and I'm sure they'll get where they need to go. But I had to come here and play again. Traditionally, it takes players time to settle in a new country. It's rare you get one who hits the ground running like Luis Suárez. But I don't have that luxury. I've not signed for four years. I'm here initially for nine months."
His own explosive start suggests he is suited to Ligue 1, where referees offer more protection than in the Premier League and the pace of the game is more precise than helter-skelter. Rudi Garcia's attack-minded Lille side share his philosophy. The only shock has been the reality that he has to clean his own boots – "In England, once you're a pro, you leave all that behind" – with Cole revelling alongside the talented Eden Hazard. "Domestic games are tactically like Champions League matches but everyone in the division we've come up against so far has tried to play football the right way," he says. "European referees allow technical players to flourish, whereas they let more go back in the Premier League.
"The tempo of the game doesn't change in the final third, the urgent part of the pitch where defenders still shut you down. But, sometimes, teams drop off and we get to be a bit more patient in our buildup. You have to be cleverer with your movement. I've been making runs I don't need to make, charging forward to close down a full-back as I would in the Premier League. That's what I've been programmed to do. Back home, you'd have team-mates screaming at you to 'push up on him'. But when I do it over here I look back over my shoulder and my team-mates are, like: 'What are you doing? Conserve your energy.' I'm learning but that's to be expected. Once you stop learning, there's no point playing. You'd have mastered it. And no one's mastered football yet."
Still, should the momentum of his first six weeks be maintained, then Cole could yet have a long-term future in France, perhaps thrusting him up alongside Waddle as a cult figure across the Channel. Certainly, success at the top of the division and in Europe would offer Fabio Capello a reminder that here is a player who would relish adding to his 56 caps, the last of which came in humiliation to Germany in Bloemfontein. "I miss playing for my country," he says. "I was a regular in the squad for 10 years and perhaps took it for granted I would always be there. Now, having not been picked for a year, turning 30 next month and with the young players having come in and done well, you start to wonder: 'Are they still looking at me?'
"I hope I will be noticed. A lot of people in England questioned why I came over here and maybe wrote me off. Perhaps they're now thinking I'm not finished after all. It's not that I want to prove them wrong – that would be the wrong motivation – but I do want to prove to myself that I'm still a top player. This an environment where I can do that. I see John Terry mentioned the other day that he and I had wanted to go swimming with sharks in South Africa. In a cage, of course. We weren't allowed but I'm one for trying different things. Swimming with sharks. Living in France … " This Englishman abroad already feels at home.