Easy come, easy go!

I'm messing about with my blog at the moment - just in case you see any weird things going on before I get this sorted. Is anyone else having problems uploading videos with new blogger? I'm not even sure if this one will work but if not, please bear with me!

So where was I? Oh yes, Russia! It has started raining today and I think it's scheduled to be wet all week so I suspect I'll be spending much more time indoors, which isn't a bad thing as goodness knows I have loads to do indoors (too)! Not that sitting down watching Dr. Zhivago achieved much but God I love that film. It is visually beautiful (I mean, who wouldn't fall in love with Yuri and Lara, as played by Omar Sharif and Julie Christie?) but the music is just so amazing it seems to transport you right there with them! Oh and the story's "not bad" either, although truth be told I haven't actually read the book. I suspect that will shortly get added to my reading list as it's a classic. Not exactly the same genre as Michael Cohen's book which I'm currently reading but the beauty of not belonging to a book club is that I get to read what I want - even if it's an eclectic mix!

Julie Christie and Omar Sharif in Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago!

Talking of Egyptians (we were weren't we), the race is on to elect a new top boss at my previous employer, and up until very recently an Egyptian former colleague had been in the running as a potential candidate from Africa. After many years living in Switzerland he is also now a Swiss national but was running on the African ticket. It turns out he is now no longer in the running and this was announced in the local Geneva newspaper. But, I was absolutely horrified when I saw some of the comments below the article (admittedly not many)! Comments such as "oh he looks like a typical Swiss doesn't he", or "I wonder how he can afford to live in Switzerland without working" (he's on a pension you idiot), and "oh I suppose he'll be trotting off back to Morocco now to sign on for unemployment" (????? since when was Egypt part of Morocco?)! I was well and truly disgusted because he is a nice man and I believe he would have been a good candidate. Whether he was the best candidate I have no idea but he certainly knew the organization inside out and was well-liked. But to hear such casual racism from people who had obviously never met the guy - well, it just defies belief (to me at least). I know people the whole world over are subject to such racisim, but it hit me hard that if any of these cave trolls actually knew the man they might see that he was a good guy! God give me strength!

Heading off on another tangent, somebody made a comment recently to the effect that now that I'd passed my French test "I would soon be French"! Ha ha, as if! I haven't even had my initial appointment in Annecy for them to look over my paperwork (although surely that can't be too much longer right? I mean, it's been 15 months in the making already). But today on FB a couple of people in the local area posted that Annecy had just accepted their paperwork and they were told that Grenoble would get in touch with them for their final interview "sometime in 2023"! Ha ha, good job I've got a sense of humour isn't it! I want to become French mainly because I want to remain an EU citizen, but also because thanks to the cock-ups of the so-called "politicians" in the U.K. I now no longer have a vote anywhere in the world! That's right, women died to get the right to vote and with the stroke of a pen some dickhead in London took that right away from me, although to be fair it wasn't Bojo - he's just a dickhead in his own right. So, long story short, if I ever do get French citizenship it looks like I will be at least 65 - I just hope I still have all my marbles at that point so I'll know who to vote for!

In other news, I was paying some bills yesterday and was surprised to see that instead of the usual over €1,000/month deduction being made as my automatic deduction for 2020 taxes (it's catch up time since the automatic deduction was only set up in June), this month, and until the end of the year, the tax people will "only" be taking out €602/month. I've tried to figure out the reasoning behind this and in any case I'd decided that I would put the "savings" into a savings account for taxes as I still don't understand it, but it was a pleasant surprise nonetheless! Well that was until I saw that Jordan was overdrawn €300 and he has another 10 days to go to pay day! I have always been able to see his own, personal account since he was a kid (not their joint/married accounts obviously) and told both my kids that I was happy for them to remove this access any time they wanted, but as I've said before, we're very open about finances and they aren't bothered that I can see their accounts. (On a side note, it's gratifying to see that André's sticking to the "envelope" budget we set up a couple of months ago, and even he's both surprised and delighted to see how easy it is to follow.) Anyway, that said, Jordan's being off work for a month during lockdown hurt his bank account because although he received some money, it was nowhere near his usual salary. Then of course he was off work for over a week when he put the nail through his hand, so again his account took a hit and he's been playing catch-up ever since. So I took a look at my new-found "excess" money and thought "sod it", and transferred €300 into his account to bring him back up to solvency. I sent him a message and told him what I had done and to consider it a belated gift from the tax man as I hadn't bought him much of a birthday present this year. He said that I didn't have to do that but I can sense he's relieved too! So since he has more need than I do of a few extra €€€€ at the moment, I guess it really is easy come, easy go as far as I'm concerned isn't it!