More this and that!

For those of you that celebrate Easter/Passover, I hope you had a lovely time, either with family/friends or just doing your own thing. Jen's mom very kindly invited us to her place for lunch on Sunday and we lucked out because the weather was lovely and we were able to have the windows and doors open! Charlie's foray into Easter egg hunting wasn't exactly a roaring succes as he was more interested in his new bike, but still, it was nice to get together with everyone and be able to sit outside!

My gardener came earlier this week for the first cut of the season and everything just looks so nice now. As he'd brought his tractor I asked him if he would cut the island in front of our houses at some point, so he set to and did that too - which means I'm now off the hook for the rest of the season! The menfolk round here generally take it in turns to cut the island but there's no way I'm doing it. Heck I don't even cut my own grass any more so paying the gardener to do it for me leaves me with a clear conscience - and the island looks good too, so win/win!

I stayed away from the French news for a few days and boy does it all seem to go mad when I do that! There was an apartment building that collapsed in Marseille a couple of days ago, with a second one also being evacuated. I haven't heard the final death toll from that tragedy yet but I imagine it's still climbing, sadly. Then two days ago there was an avalanche just up the road here that killed six people (two guides and four clients) who were skiing in an area that was marked as only a 2/5 risk for avalanches. So they seemingly were following the guidelines and yet still got caught out! And then just the other day a fire broke out on a ride at Futuroscope (a theme park in western France) where people were trapped on the ride as they couldn't get their seatbelts off. They think it was caused by a lithium battery catching fire, yet again calling into question potential safety issues with electric vehicles. I saw this article (here) back in January, where a Norwegian ferry company has banned electric, hybrid and hydrogen vehicles because of the safety risk, so I'm guessing we won't all be switching to EVs as early as the powers that be would like us to, all the more so given their limited range and difficulties in finding recharging points. My neighbours were just telling me the other day that they drove down to Lyon (about 90 minutes away) a couple of months ago, ran out of battery and had to get the train back, so nah, I think I'll hang on to my old jalopy as long as I can!

April Fools came and went, with Jen sending us a picture of a pregnant belly, but I knew it wasn't her (not yet, at least) because just a couple of weeks ago she was as flat as an ironing board (unlike me)! But that reminded me of an April Fools prank that I saw on TV when I was a kid. I actually fell for it, but in my defence I was a very little kid! At the end of the news bulletin they played a short clip showing that year's "tremendous spaghetti crop" in Ticino (Switzerland), but since they were having problems bringing the harvest in they were looking to recruit temporary workers to help. Sounded like a great idea to me (and again, I was a very little kid - it was filmed in 1957) and I believe quite a few people actually contacted them about temporary contracts! Ha ha, it must have been a good one if I remember it all these years later (spaghetti harvest in Ticino)! I've been a bit restless recently - you know, thinking of chucking it all in, buying a one-bedroomed apartment and a decent backpack - but at least I wouldn't fall for this gag now second time round!

I'm still doing pretty well decluttering and am trying to drop stuff off at the tip every time I go into town and, if possible, do a charity shop run once a week. Last week I actually got rid of a couple of leather carry-on bags that belonged to my brother. They were lovely and had a sentimental value for me, but I know myself well enough to realize that eventually there will come a time where I'm ready to pass these things on and now was the time. I also dropped off a brand new ice-cream maker and a bread machine (used just once), both with the instruction manuals, so I'm hoping someone will get more pleasure out of them than I did! 

Talking of travel gear, I lugged a suitcase up from the basement today as I'm off to Holland on Saturday. I used to have a list of everything (non-clothes) I needed to take with me (you know, phone charger, adaptor plugs, etc.) but I'm buggered if I know what I did with that list as it's been four years since I went anywhere. So I've drawn up another list on my computer and am adding to it as I think of stuff, and as long as I don't add it to my "freezer contents list" by mistake I'm good to go. The other day we received notice to say that the itinerary had to be changed slightly. I think we might get a little less free time in Amsterdam and more time on the cruise, but I'm not sure. Still, as long as I get to wander round Amsterdam I'm good with that! I also have a course on Ayurvedic medicine tomorrow night, which I'm quite excited about as it's something that really interests me, so I'm curious to see how that turns out!

Again in the spirit of letting things go, I gave Jen four cake moulds that I'd had for ages. Well obviously I'd had them for ages because they were for a dalmation dog cake, Winnie the Poo, a dinosaur and a lion - and my kids are in their 30s! As it was Charlie's second birthday the other week, Jen had us over for birthday cake and made a lovely brownie cake using the dinosaur mould. It came out perfectly as she obviously greased the mould much better than I did because I remember making a Winnie the Poo cake for one of my kids and it stuck to the pan so badly poor Winnie looked like he'd got a bad case of psoriasis! They'd blown up a bunch of balloons too so Charlie, me and another little one ended up having a few balloon fights. Charlie was strangely obsessed with fighting only using the green balloon, so me being a nasty granny would rush over and grab the green balloon first - at which point he'd throw a hissy fit. Tee hee! But jeez Louise, he's now two years old - you'd think he'd be a bit more mature about it!

Anyway, I don't know if I'll get round to posting again before I leave, and I'm pretty sure I won't be posting using my phone (fat fingers), so I hope you all keep well and I'll try to post lots of nice tulip photos if we don't get rained out!