A mishmash!

They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results! So I guess on those grounds I'm probably certifiable!!! If only I could learn to pace myself I wouldn't have the "crash and burn for a week" followed by the blahs because I overdid it again. As I've said before, I only have myself to blame but until I get it through my thick skull that everything doesn't have to be done today, I guess I'm doomed!

I was chatting to André at his place the other day and he was watching a vlog about a US family who had sold up completely in Texas and had been living on their catamaran (with their young kids) for the past few years. And he was telling me that he and his friend Matthias were thinking (more like day-dreaming) of doing the same thing - which actually made me laugh because (a) he doesn't know how to sail and (b) he gets motion sick just driving up the mountain! Buuuuuttttt, while I would push him to think long and hard about it, I would never be the one to try to talk him out of it. What right would I have anyway? I mean, I left a good-ish job and lovely boyfriend in England when I was 21 to move to Switzerland (definitely a great move). Then I resigned in 1983 to spend six months backpacking round Bali and Australia (again, another great move). The downside of that move, however, was then having to go back to work (again in Switzerland) in January 1984! Oh don't get me wrong, I was very grateful that my employer took me back but it was very hard to get back to the daily grind after all that freedom! Anyway he told me that he and Matthias were going to take sailing lessons on Lake Geneva to get their initial permits and was dumbounded when I told him I got mine in 1980. Yeah, in the five years that I lived as a single girl in Geneva I never spent even one single evening at home - I was always out! Not that I was always out partying, of course, but one of the things I did was take sailing lessons and I loved it! Oh I doubt that my permit would still be valid after all these years and I'm pretty sure I would never want to live full-time on a sail boat anyway but yep, I got the same thrill out of sailing as I did when I first took downhill skiing lessons! I'm a crap skier too, BTW, but the enthusiasm was always there!

I'm just thinking that now might be the best time to prepare and look into all this but not to do it, given the crazy situation the entire world seems to find itself in right now. On the other hand, isn't it often better to have given it a shot than to live with regrets? A lady at my sewing club finally came back to club last week after four months of hospitalisation and convalescence for a brain tumour they discovered (in May, I think). Then there's my sewing teacher's son who had just gotten his own apartment at the age of 26 (I think he's 35 now) when he was dashing down the stairs, fell and landed on his head, pushing part of his skull into his brain. She managed to keep him at home until very recently but was telling me the other night at dinner that they had had to place him in a secure institution for all their safety, given his unpredictability and furious rages! Then today I bumped into my other neighbours who I hadn't seen for a while. I knew they were off to Morocco at some point so hadn't really noticed their absence, but she was telling me that they had both been really ill with covid two weeks ago and were having a hard time recuperating - and this after both having four shots! They honestly can't say where they think they got it! I wish they'd reached out to me for any help they might need because I'm at home and could have pitched in. That being said, they have two adult children locally so I guess they didn't really need me did they! So yep, it's strange times we're going through and in any case no-one knows what tomorrow may hold, so who am I to try to discourage André?

I got both my water and electric bills this week and both have gone down again, so I'm pleased with that. Add to that that "the guy" is coming tomorrow to see if it would be possible to install a fire insert into my fireplace (fingers crossed) and then the solar panels should be fitted within the next month, it's all go again at the moment. To add to the current energy crises everyone seems to be going through at the moment, here in France we've got strikes blocking oil refineries so people are having to queue up at petrol stations - that is if they are fortunate enough to find one that has petrol! But again, we're so lucky to be just 25 minutes from Switzerland so at least we can make a trip over the border if needs be! So yep, things are tough at the moment. I was in LIDL last week and a rather handsome young man was working the cash register and I started thinking "I really hope you're only doing this as a stop-gap to make a bit of money" because to my mind LIDL shouldn't be his final destination. Not that I'm knocking shop-workers of course - hell I did it myself for five years while I was studying - but it is so mind-numbingly boring! As I watched him I realized I kinda expected him to be sullen because of that, but not a bit of it. He was chatty and friendly to everyone. And then I realized how many delivery drivers we have stopping round here every day - you know, Amazon, UPS, whoever. Boy do those guys work hard, but again are invariably polite and friendly, even if they probably don't feel like it!

Then the other day I stopped in at the very small library in Amancy to join up, even though I already have so many of my own books to read I'll probably never get them all read in my lifetime - I just wanted to support their efforts. So out of a total of - oh, I don't know - a whopping five books in English, you can imagine how thrilled I was to pick up a copy of The Road to Little Dribbling by Bill Bryson, whose writing I love! I saw the film version of his book A Walk in the Woods and didn't like it at all, but his writing I find just lovely. So I'm thinking I will also go into town and join the much bigger library (i.e. about the size of four cupboards instead of two) to have a wander round there and sit and enjoy the view. Maybe even walk there and back a few times as I really need to buck up my walking. I've written about this library before - it has the most spectacular view from the reading room, so would be well worth joining!

The view from the reading room!

I was looking after Charlie again on Friday and managed to get a great video of the two of us cracking up laughing. He now says papa and mama so I'm pushing him to say nana! In actual fact I think he was trying to say banana, because that's his favourite fruit, but I'll take that as a win for me! Anyway we were both laughing away so I showed him the video of "the little boy laughing" and he was pressing the buttons and so on - and somehow he's buggered up the apps on my phone. I guess that'll teach me to let him get too close to my phone, right?

My American friend here in France sent me a message from London the other day to say that her daughter had just given birth and included proud nana photos! Mom is American and French, and dad is Pakistani and Colombian, and since the baby was born in London he's also entitled to British citizenship. Heck he'll need a backpack to carry all those passports around with him! They had a scare a couple of days after they took him home though as the baby started "frothing at the mouth" (that's how she described it to me). As he was so little they called the emergency services, who were there within five minutes, and everything was fine in the end, thank goodness. But talk about "jammy" (as we used to say in England) - look at the view from her daughter's hospital room. Yep, the Houses of Parliament!

So while life is very much up and down for most people, I have nothing to complain about and I know it! I worked outside for an hour in the garden and if there's one way to make your house feel "too hot" (it's definitely not), then that would be to get outside for a while. It certainly chases away those blahs!