This and that!

I've been pretty lazy again lately and it was starting to get me down but then I realized I'm always like that this time of year - it's the heat ya see! And of course, as soon as September rolls around I'm up and running again like the Energizer Bunny! It's been hitting around 90° regularly here and not having A/C it can get pretty miserable of course. Oh I have a small ventilator unit that I sit in front of and last night I put a mobile A/C unit on for a short while in my bedroom, but more often than not homes don't have A/C here - just shops and offices!

Anyway last week I decided to take advantage of the A/C at the mall down in Annecy as I wanted to pick up some garlic salt (it's not easy to find here) and look for a couple of bottom sheets for my bed. So I called my friend and asked if she wanted to go with me and then maybe head off to the Jardins Secrets, which is only about 15 minutes from there. I first went there about five years ago and loved it. Then I took my family when they were over here four years ago for Jordan's wedding and while they liked it, they weren't as enthralled as I was. This friend had repeatedly said she wanted to go so we set off to hit the mall before the 2 p.m. opening of the gardens! When we got to the mall I commented that the parking was pretty full considering the kids were still in school, but when we got inside we realized that the July sales were still on (I never pay attention to that stuff). So was it fortuitous or disastrous? Who knows! We had a nice lunch but my garlic salt ended up costing me €192 - who knew you needed a shopping trolley to buy garlic salt?

We made it to the gardens around 2.30 p.m. and I think my friend loved it even more than I initially did (although the pictures don't do it justice). The flowers were in full bloom, there was so much to see, and sitting having a drink and a beignet at the end we were entertained by Alain, the husband side of the original man and wife team that had built the place. He was a real character!

Alain, the owner - making beignets!

The riyadh!

Then Friday was Bastille Day - French national day - and since we were planning to have our latest board game evening on Saturday Jen's mom suggested we have it at her place on the Friday instead so we could watch the fireworks. We had a lovely evening and Charlie had great fun kicking a ball around, while being watched by the little boy on the first floor balcony. Jen's mom was saying that he frequently throws things over the balcony and she has to take them up to give them back, so I suggested she get them to tie a basket and string to the balcony and do the transfer like that - and maybe she could get to know them better that way! Jen laughed because when Charlie throws things over their balcony, one of the neighbours on the ground floor just sticks whatever it is in the lift and sends them a message to say "incoming" - and Jen runs out to meet the lift door! Meanwhile Macron was booed at the Bastille Day parade, while Professor Didier Raoult was cheered (see here). Prof. Raoult is one of France's top microbiologists, specialising in infectious diseases and who went head to head with the government over its handling of covid - and was thoroughly abused for his pains)!

And what's going on with the French Post Office then! Apparently since 1 January you've pretty much got to "conjure up" your own stamps etc. online and drop your mail off at designated drop spots without ever seeing the inside of a post office if possible. Well I tried to avoid that kerfuffle for as long as possible, but I recently saw a post about a little boy in Pennsylvania suffering from leukeamia who was asking for postcards and decided to send him one. Except what I picked out was huge, too big to go in a regular mailbox and I couldn't find an envelope for it anyway, so I had to wrap it in brown paper like a parcel, and then gear up for registering my "parcel", and buying and printing my stamps online. I have to say, however, that when the little "can I help" chat box popped up I was expecting a bot, but ended up having a lovely chat with a really helpful chappie called Arnaud in Brittany. When I told him what I was doing he asked for the lad's address, so now Carson is going to get a post card from Arnaud at the French post office in Brittany too. How nice is that!

Then the other day "the guy" showed up to paint the underside of several neighbours' roofs and asked if I was interested. I don't know what you call it actually - it's the copper "plank" that sits just below the guttering. Sorry, but I'm not sure I ever knew what that was called, even in English. Anyway I told him not this year as I'd spent plenty of money on the house already, but when he looked at my roof he asked me if I realized my chimney was wobbly - and sadly I knew he was right. He also spotted a couple of tiles that had moved - I'm guessing in that dreadful storm we had a couple of weeks ago - so he's coming back tomorrow to re-do the chimney and check over the tiles that need resetting. Bugger it! When I had my new fire insert installed last month I became entitled to a €2,000 rebate from the state for putting an open fireplace out of action, and now all of a sudden I guess I'll just briefly smell that $2,000 cheque as it's being whipped out from under my nose!

Anyway, today I'd had enough of being lazy so thought I would take myself off to the lake at Passy for a walk (and possibly a glass of wine), but when I got down to Bonneville, the roads were blocked off as the bloody Tour de France (sorry Dave) was coming through! So any thoughts of getting a walk in went up in smoke and I drove back home and had lunch in the little restaurant in the village - which I have to say was absolutely delicious! I ended up sitting next to two older American cyclists who had flown over to catch the Tour and ended up having a nice chat with them before they had to dash off to ride down to Bonneville for the excitement!

The Tour in Les Gets - where Jordan is
currently working!

And finally, I was sorting through some paperwork the other day when I came across a packet of old photos. There were photos of the kids when they were little but also quite a few photos of my ex-MIL and a few of her siblings, which I'm going to send to her once I get round to writing a letter to include with them. She was number 11 of 11 siblings and there are only two left now, so I think she'll appreciate them. I also found a photo of André when he was about 10 competing in a grand slalom with the ski club. While he was never going to win, he was doing just fine - well that is until he saw our neighbour filming him and skied over to her for a chat. The crowd all started roaring at him as she was just short of the finish line, so he never actually crossed it and came last! I guess another Olympic hopeful bit the dust that day then!

André in the process of coming last!