Old lady knees!

I'm still waiting to hear from the plumber - he said he would call this week to set up a final walk through - so until that's done I don't really feel like I can make any plans. Trust my luck they'll end up starting work the week of 16 June - which is the day my fireplace insert is also being installed!! I foresee a stressful and dusty few days ahead, but I suppose it'll be worth it in the end!

I spent a few minutes the other day deleting blogs from my favourites list again because while I obviously liked them enough to bookmark them, I found I just wasn't reading them. Can you believe I actually deleted about 50 blogs???? Just as well really I suppose because if I'd spent my time reading all those blogs I'd never get anything done and in any case, do you really want to spend your time reading about someone else living their life while spending your own life in front of a compter? I think not, right? I also cleaned up my main email address too. Not that I ever let it get that bad but I really hate having a ton of emails sitting there in my inbox. I was just thinking to myself that I hadn't had so many scam emails lately either - you know, Colonel Ghadaffi's only surviving daughter who wants to give me $10 million! But then as I was playing Words With Friends on my phone the other day, xfwxyag.na tried to start a game with me and then immediately sent me a "hallo Treaders" message, so I hit "block" on that one right away!

The last few evenings I've watched a couple of episodes of Social Catfish on Youtube and boy are some of those stories sad. It's mainly women (although not always) who are getting scammed out of quite a lot of money and I find it hard to understand how they can fall for this crap, although I guess when you're lonely it must feel nice to have someone who seems interested in you. One woman was convinced she was in an online relationship with Johnny Depp???? and another one with an Australian actor from Stranger Things who was "getting tired of his beautiful girlfriend but had to be careful because she was very jealous"! Say what??? They did do an episode on a rather lovely English woman who turned out to be the first person who did not send any money. She said she was not on any dating websites but had been contacted by Mr. Handsome via her Linkedin profile and while she was initially cautious, he did manage to draw her in after a couple of months chatting. Where she was smart though was when he started telling her that he just needed $5,000 to buy a plane ticket because his bank account had been blocked in the Middle East, she would just ask him what he was going to do about it. She must have driven him nuts because he kept getting more and more angry and demanding, to which she just kept on asking him what he was going to do about it. Smart lady!

Things are still just as fraught here in France as the protests are not going away. Macron was due to give a speech about a month ago and I reckon all of Paris took to the streets with saucepans and wooden spoons - so much so that they tried to ban the "casserolade" but that didn't fly! So now every time he or his senior ministers go anywhere they are greeted by a saucepan serenade!

I did manage to get my back terrace pressure washed the other day and it looks decidedly better with most of the winter muck washed off. I suspect at some point I'm going to have to redo my terrace but that will have to wait for the time being. Then later that night my bloody knee gave out. Oh it wasn't anything like arthritis, but just felt like something had been dislocated. So then I was stuck trying to get around without putting any pressure on my right leg. I can tell you, getting up and downstairs was a laugh a minute (not)! The worst thing was that I had to go into Geneva that night to pick my friend up from the airport but luckily my leg didn't bother me at all to drive - just when walking about. This has happened before but after a night's sleep it had cleared up by the morning. So yesterday morning when I couldn't feel any pain in my knee, I swung myself out of bed - and went down like a sack of spuds! Seems it hadn't cured itself overnight this time after all! But I'm stubborn as hell so I was determined to go out shopping and duly hopped into the supermarket on one leg. The strange thing is though, when I was leaving the store and putting my cart back, I realized the pain had completely gone! I don't know, maybe the act of walking (hopping?) was what cured it but either way I'm glad it didn't last too long! On the way home I stopped in at the Chinese market and at the cash register I realized I'd forgotten to buy ice cream, so I picked up a tub of strawberry ice cream for later. When I got it home I looked at the label and saw that it was "red bean ice cream"!!! Seriously, red bean, as in the stuff you put in chili!! God it was gross - I won't make that mistake again!

So today I took my granny basket down to the market and when I finally found a parking space (it isn't easy) I had a good old wander and bought a week's worth of fruit and veg. On the way home I got stuck behind one of those little "licence-less" cars - the cars that have an engine about the size of a sewing machine and which you can drive without a licence. That thing must have been going about five miles an hour all the way home, but when I saw it swerving in order to avoid pot holes, I realized that the back bumper was held on with duct tape and it was looking very rough indeed. I know how you feel mate, I know how you feel!