It's been a while!

Crikey, I see it's been almost a month since I last posted - but then to be honest how much can anyone muster up to say about our near-eternal wet weather!

While I generally don't mind the rain it's been a bit "over the top" to say the least. Add to that our temperatures are only hitting around 75°F here when they are usually in the mid-90s, so it's a very strange old time - not that I'm complaining about the lower temperatures of course! I have managed to get a few walks in (that toe splint that the podiatrist recommended for me is a miracle - no more pain) and I even managed to get in a two-hour walk on what has probably been the hottest day to-date, but otherwise, it's all a bit blah at the moment. Even Bastille Day (14 July) was pretty low key from what I saw, but since you had to pre-register to be able to get into Paris to watch the parade I understand why Macron was basically driving up and down the street on his own! That's because the Olympics are about to start shortly and there has basically been a ring-fence posted around Paris with QR codes being an absolute pre-requisite in order to get anywhere near the city. Of course the QR codes will "only be for the duration of the games" but we'll see. These things have a way of becoming permanent, a bit like emergency measures! I believe there have been threats made against the games and I wouldn't want to be anywhere near them for both the above reasons! How sad is that!

The Olympic flame is making its way to Paris and passed through this region (the Plâteau de Glières) towards the end of June, I believe. One of the bearers is apparently going to be a drag queen in full drag so I'm supposing he will not have been carrying it round here!

Plâteau de Glières!

Anyhoo, I took a break for a while because I am quite politically minded and what with the General Election in the UK, the Legislatives in France and the upcoming elections in the US I felt like my brain was being frazzled!

Unsurprisingly the Labour Party won in the UK, but I feel this was maybe not so much a vote for Labour but against the Conservatives. Either way I think both parties stink right now so, as the French say, let's see which "sauce they're gonna eat us with this time" (not good I think - I can't stand Starmer anymore than Wishywashy Rishi)! What beats me though, is that Reform UK got 14% of the votes and only five seats, while the Lib Dems got 12% of the votes and 72 seats. Make that make sense in a democratic election please someone! Mind you it was again interesting to see how main stream media and it's client journalism works yet again!

Then in France, Marine Le Pen's party won a resounding win in the first round of the elections - and the far left (sorry, I forgot - the word "far" only applies to the right) and the left rioted in Paris. The following week, after Macron's party strategically pulled over 200 of their candidates in unwinable seats, the left wing coalition took the majority - and again the far left rioted (celebrated?) in Paris! Make that make sense! As of tonight Macron has accepted the resignation of his government and France is now basically ungovernable because while the left were in agreement to form a coalition in order to keep Le Pen out, they all hate each other and won't work with Macron anyway - and all this just a couple of days away from the opening of the Olympics (insert gallic shrug here)!

And then of course this weekend there was the appalling attempt on Donald Trump's life! I don't care what your politics are that was either gross incompetence on behalf of the Secret Service (it was) or an exceptional 20 year old man who (almost) managed to kill a huge political figure. Still, at least now they have upped his security - and I would hope be offering the same to JFK Jr (who has been denied so far - edited to add - that should be RFK, Jr., thanks Ms Moon). If your only solution is to kill a political opponent there's something very wrong with this world (there is)! Hell a few months ago the Slovak PM was shot but fortunately also survived. He is anti-globalist and anti-war so I sure hope Hungary's strong man, Victor Orbán, is watching carefully!

In other non-news, I still have no word on my French citizenship request but I wasn't really expecting any this quickly. I suppose I'll just get a surprise one day et voilà I'm in! In better news I received a letter from the UK pensions department as I'll be eligible to receive my (very small) state pension as from my 66th birthday in September. I was to either fill out a form as long as a toilet roll or I could give them a call so that's what I did. I ended up getting through to an extremely helpful man in Northern Ireland and within about 15 minutes it was all done. Mind you, every contact I've ever had with the pension people they've been extremely helpful so well done to them!

So I've been spending much of this wet summer sorting and getting rid of stuff and sitting down to read actual books since I have so many to get through - and what a great pleasure and a change that's been! I've ploughed through so many books and have been delighted to find that most of them so far have been really good. In other news I'm still keeping up with my Italian lessons, although I was getting a bit sloppy recently and mixing up pretty simple words - pomeriggio (afternoon) with pommodoro (tomato). Could be intersting huh! My ex-husband's French was poor and he was forever mixing up words like "cheveux" (hair) with "chevaux" (horses) so he often went out to get his horses cut!  Tee hee!

Mind you, there was a moment the other day that I wished I'd either kept my mouth shut or actually thought before I spoke. Brigitte Macron is pretty much as unpopular as her husband but they are pushing her "fashion sense", her "figure" etc. and the other day they were talking about how much she spent per month to "get her look". Someone in the comments section asked if she polished her own "chibre" or paid to have it done and since I'd never heard that word before I asked my neighbour - who promptly burst out laughing because the commenter was asking if she "polished her own d*ck/knob"! Another word - and another lesson learned I would say!

And finally, if anyone follows Sam over at Sam Squared, I was in touch with her recently after her "Very Tired" post. She's okay, but as the post would suggest she's just so very tired with everything that is going on in her life lately. I'm sure she'll be back with us all when she feels up to it, but until then, take all the time you need Sam!