Day two in Corsica!

The maintenance technician came out yesterday morning to look at my heating system and after about 45 minutes showed me something they call a gicleur (nozzle/spout?) which was blocked and thus not allowing fuel to flow. He changed that to the tune of just €20 so I figured I was all set to go - but I'm not totally convinced as yet. I asked him to turn the heating off for me as the programming on that thing is probably similar to the dashboard on the space shuttle (in my humble opinion) but I still don't seem to be getting the hot water kicking in. Think I'm gonna have to call them out again if it doesn't kick in tonight! Anyway, thinking everything was going swimmingly I set off to go to Jordan and Jen's yesterday afternoon as I was going to take care of Charlie for a few hours while they were out. Only problem was, when I went to lock the front door, it wouldn't lock!!! This isn't the first time this has happened, so taking my trusty can of DW40 (which I just happened to have handy) I hosed that bugger down and set off with fingers crossed as I didn't want to be late. I'm thinking I may have to get the lock changed, which in and of itself isn't a big deal, but sometimes it's the little things that really get to you isn't it - or is that just me?

Anyway, day two of our trip was spent heading north to Ile Rousse, which was where we spent three nights in our first hotel. It was "founded by Pascal Paoli - considered to be the father of the country - in the 18th century" and while our guide went into his life in great detail I find I tend to tune out if I'm standing at the back of a group and someone near me is yacking. That being said, he seemed to have gone into exile on more than one occasion, having spent 21 years in London alone the first time, so me being a peasant I often wonder how people can "win wars" by being out of the country. I'm guessing he was more of a statesman/politician, but more than once I've wondered why de Gaulle was so revered when he spent much of the war in London - but then I guess a dead general is no use to anyone, is he!

Our first excursion this day was to the hilltop village of Sant'Antoninu, which was very pretty indeed but where my friend and I preferred to wander around on our own rather than follow the pack. After a few hours everyone headed back to the bus and guess what - the driver blew into the alcohol monitor and the bloody bus wouldn't start! He was a local driver and was mortified that he couldn't get the bus to start because of the alcohol monitor as he swore he'd had nothing to drink, so he asked our own driver - who was along as a tourist this time (talk about a busman's holiday) - to blow into it too and he confirmed that it wasn't working. So that meant waiting about an hour for the bus company to send someone out to take a look. Turns out there was something wrong with the monitor and after about 15 minutes we were on our way to lunch. Here we ended up at a great little restaurant but where our driver had to reverse the bus down a narrow winding goat track in order to be able to get back out again! Sometimes it's best just to keep your eyes shut!

Balagne - where our first hotel
was located!

Sant'Antoninu
(a google picture - it was impossible
to get a picture from the bus)

Sant'Antoninu - another google picture!

Lunch was excellent but the ceilings in the restaurant were very low, and as I'm sure you all know, some people are just extremely loud, especially with a few drinks in them. There were about four people in our group who fit the bill, one in particular being a bald guy who, while nice enough, always managed to sound like he was yelling through a foghorn! I went onto the terrace to get some fresh air, only to be joined by about another 10 people from our group who were having the same reaction!

From there we headed off to Calvi, which was, I'm guessing, a small town rather than a city, and quite a few of us chose to do our own thing here for the next few hours. There was a lady on the trip with very glacial-looking pale blue eyes (I found her eyes fascinating) and as we were sitting having a drink we got chatting. Anyway, she started telling me about how one time she had been hiking in the mountains when she and her friends came across a man hiking naked!!! I don't remember if she said he was Swiss German or Norwegian, but being a group of women you can imagine what the comments were like - we were in stitches (which was more than this guy was wearing)! Apparently he was picked up by the police and told to put some clothes on - so it would seem it was not a case of naturism as it wasn't allowed there, but rather a case of exhibitionism!

For some reason this lady and I ended up chatting for quite a long time, and she ended up telling me that "her son-in-law had killed her daughter"! I was shocked, thinking that he had murdered her, but she said that no, he was an arrogant bastard and a speed merchant with a big motorbike - hence how her daughter had been killed. Her daughter had substantial life insurance and she was fighting him in court in order for funds from that insurance to be put into trust for her grandchildren, since SIL quickly took up with a new woman and was going through the money at a rate of knots! Luckily for her, her daughter had worked for a firm of sollictors and they were taking up the case on her behalf so she was praying that she would be able to claw back at least some of the money for the children before it was all spent!

Calvi!

Since my friend and I couldn't possibly learn everyone's names on this trip, we got into the habit of giving everyone a nickname. There was "Maggie Smith" (who was nice enough but had an opinion on everything), "Saint Sixt" (the lady who had worked at the château there as a nanny), "Baldy" (for obvious reasons), "Mimi (a story to be told later) and "Madagascar", who, as my dad used to say, always had a face like a smacked arse on her (my dad came from the Bard's own country, as you can tell)! The blue eyed lady knew Madagascar from her time working at the Post Office and disliked her intensely. Apparently the man we took to be her husband had met her through the internet and brought her over to France. She was definitely no looker (I'm being polite here), was probably the only unpleasant person on the trip, bitched about everything - waiters, food, the hotels etc. - and talked to her husband like he was a piece of sh*t in front of everyone! There was hardly any difference in age between her and her husband, so she wasn't ordered from an internet bride catalogue, from what I could see! One night at the hotel our guide took a beautiful shawl to the hotel manager and said that someone had left it in the dining room. Madagascar had walked in wearing just a t-shirt and when she claimed the shawl was hers, Blue Eyes almost had a fit, saying that she was stealing the shawl. Turns out she was, as the true owner came back to reception and asked if anyone had handed it in, so Madagascar had to hand it back! Blue eyes disliked her because she had worked at the Post Office when Madagascar would come in, dragging the husband behind her and "demand" that the Post Office look into money that was disappearing from his account. So of course the PO did - the first time, the second time, the third time and so on! But of course she was spending him out of house and home and when he asked where the hell the money was going she blamed the Post Office every time! The things you hear on a bus trip eh!

Anyway, after that it was back to the hotel where after a stroll along the beach my friend and I came back to the hotel to find emergency services ferrying not one but two of our group out to waiting ambulances. Turns out the bald headed guy was having chest pains so they took him in and one gent had not felt well right from the beginning of the trip so they took him in too - with blood clots as it turned out! The bald headed guy was allowed out the next day and was able to continue on with the trip and the other guy - well they kept him in for a week - and his wife continued on the trip without him???? There's nowt so queer as folk is there - but that's a story for another time!

Headless chickens - and things that go bump in the night!

Ever had the feeling you've been running around like a headless chicken for the past while - well that's been me over the past week or so! As far as I can remember my heating and water heating system started playing up about 10 days ago, in that I'd get up in the morning and would have neither heat nor hot water. So it meant running downstairs and kicking the thing into overdrive every morning. Well this went on for about eight days until this Monday (which was the day I was to have my naturalisation interview in Grenoble) when I got up, jumped into the shower and nearly laid a square egg when the water was not only not hot - it was glacial!!! And of course, I needed to get showered and wash my hair before heading down to Grenoble. That is not fun, I can tell you, all the moreso since it is still pretty cold here - but what else could I do at that time in the morning? Anyhoo, the situation is still ongoing in that if I can get the heater to kick in it might work for about 45 minutes, at which point I might get a slightly less glacial shower than expected. Fortunately Jen works for my heater maintenance company and I have a technician coming tomorrow morning, but then I suppose I'll probably have to wait a bit longer if he needs to order a spare part! Oh well, cold showers are supposed to be invigorating, aren't they!

As I say, that very important shower was connected to having to drive to Grenoble for my interview after having whizzed into town to hand over the keys to the sewing clubroom for them to open up in my absence. The trip went well fortunately, all through pretty mountainous country and I found the Préfecture easily, although I was dreading driving round a large unknown city. I must be getting chicken in my old age!

The Préfecture is that lovely building at the top!

The lady that interviewed me was very professional but friendly enough to put me at ease. When I had previously tried to apply for citizenship as a private person I seemingly had to have a million documents (translations of everyone and his uncle's birth, death and marriage certificates, proof of having passed the language exam, that I had sufficient income, health insurance, owned my own home, and an extensive knowledge about France - as taken from the citizens' information brochure). This time, however, as I was applying by dint of being the grandmother of a French child, while I did indeed still have all those documents it occurred to me as I walked in that I hadn't looked at that citizens' brochure in about two years and hadn't got a clue about French philosophers, poets, film stars etc. but then had no choice but to just walk in and "wing it"!

Moreover in this case it stated that if I didn't speak French I could bring someone with me to interpret!!! Talk about a different set of rules! In the end, she wasn't interested in any of that, just proof that I am integrated into French society and what my relationship is like with Charlie - to whit I was able to provide proof that I am the president of the sewing club (even if I can't sew), that I set up board game evenings with my neighbours, have enrolled in plenty of courses locally and am the treasurer of our little homeowners' association (one cheque a year - tough job)! Then I showed her videos of me and Charlie cracking up while playing hide and seek so she was happy with that. One thing I thought might go against me was that I had never studied or worked in France but I'm pretty sure that won't matter in the end. She told me it could take as long as a year to find out the result, but if I'm accepted I will be invited to a swearing in ceremony in Annecy. Fingers crossed then! I even managed to find may way out of Grenoble, but I just might have driven up a tram street - not sure on that one though!

Tuesday André called me in a panic asking if I could pick him up at the Ford garage as he had just realized that his contrôle technique (a routine road-worthiness test) was three months out of date so that meant meeting him at Ford and then driving him back home, the subtext being that I would have to do the whole operation in reverse the next day for him to pick his car back up. Luckily it passed but it kinda buggered up my timings a bit as later I was to go over to Jordan and Jen's as a family member from the States was over for a few days and we were going to take him to Yvoire and then out to dinner. Bloody kid of mine, how can he be so organized at work and so lackadasical at home? Still, I made it and even though the weather forecast was grim, we managed to get through virtually the whole visit without a drop of rain - and then the heavens opened when we got back to the car!

Yvoire!
(A google picture)

John is married to my ex-husband's cousin and she couldn't make it this time, but he is now talking of asking for a transfer either to Switzerland or France so is desperately working on his French. He is a nice guy and was a real pleasure to have as a visitor!

So the rest of the week has been spent trying to catch my tail, what with the heating engineer coming tomorrow morning and then having to take care of Charlie in the afternoon. Then this morning I realized I had the reflexology appointment that I had booked when I won those vouchers just before Christmas. I had always wanted to give it a try but just never got around to it. And OMG did I ever love it. I was feeling pretty tired after a busy week but I kinda bounced out of there like Tigger and feel pretty sure I will be adding reflexology to my "list of essentials", along with my yoga class - and a good glass of white wine!

Corsica!

After coming back from Thailand and knowing Corsica was shortly to follow I pretty much just washed the clothes in my suitcase and then repacked them. I thought maybe a pair of shorts were looking less than stellar so decided to see if I could find another pair to replace them, maybe in a different colour (i.e. not white for a change). So I nipped into a local clothes store and saw a nice pair of green shorts and matching top which I thought were okay. Well that is until I put them on at home. Oh man, I've got to lose some weight - I looked like a green pepper on legs - so needless to say out came the trusty old white pair which are veterans of a few trips!

Then to add to my angst didn't I finally get a letter from the immigration and naturalisation people after five years, fixing my appointment with them in Grenoble for Thursday, 2 May - smack bang in the middle of my trip to Corsica!!! Damn, you wait five years and it gets scheduled at the worst possible time! The letter stated that the appointment was impérative, i.e. changes could be made only under exceptional circumstances, but what could I do? I was leaving the next day!!! So I wrote back to them immediately with a copy of my travel booking and crossed my fingers - and lo and behold they pushed it back to next Monday. Phew! So I've just spent the last hour getting together some additional paperwork that they requested (although why they couldn't request this the first time round I have no idea) and hopefully (again fingers crossed) I'm good to go!

Anyhoo, we set off for Corsica at 6 a.m. on the Friday morning, stopping around 9.30 a.m. for a picnic en route provided by the bus company. After that it was full speed ahead direction Toulon with another stop at a restaurant for lunch, again included in the price of the holiday (all meals and drinks were provided, actually - my kind of holiday)! The driver warned us ahead of time that there would be a film crew in the restaurant as they were making a documentary about the owner but the crew would respect anyone's wishes not to be filmed if they let it be known. I didn't particularly want to be filmed but a few of our group spoke to the crew, complimenting the food and so on, and then last night I saw the documentary on TF1 (a national TV channel) and caught a glimpse of my friend and myself but only from a distance, thank goodness. It was actually quite interesting because the owner had been an engineer who chucked everything in to open an all-you-can-eat restaurant, got it all set up - and then covid hit. But ever resourceful he went into providing take-out food (not particularly prevalent here pre-covid) and then on to fine tune his set up down to the last centime by having the food for his now two restaurants cooked in one central kitchen, from scratch and wasting absolutely nothing. He may not have trained as a chef but he was obviously a helluv'an entrepreneur!

After that we were to head on to the port of Toulon to catch the ferry, but as we were way ahead of schedule, the driver volunteered to drive us up over the route des Crêts to take in the scenery - and that was when our bus stalled half way up a mountain!!! Talk about nail-biting when you're on a bus at 45° on a narrow winding road! It may have seemed like ages to us, but in reality it was probably more like 10 minutes that we were stuck there. Turns out the bus's automatic gears didn't like the sudden climb and blocked the driver from switching it into manual and first gear. It got sorted in the end but what a great way to start your holiday!

The port of Toulon - a google picture,
mine was crap!

When we finally got to the
top of the route des Crêts!

We eventually boarded our ferry where we had dinner in a rather nice restaurant and then headed to our cabins for the overnight journey. Next morning my friend and I ended up sitting next to an older Swiss couple (he was 86 and she was 82) and found out what an interesting life they'd lead! The lady had been a ballerina back in the '60s and '70s and had travelled all over the world with her dance company, including to Iran (where they had been invited to a dinner with the Shah), Somalia, Afghanistan, Sudan and so on - all places that would probably be off limits today. At the time though she said they had no hesitation in getting into a taxi and taking off to visit the sites. The people were wonderful and they felt completely safe, which goes to show what a sad world we have become! Anyway next morning we sat with them for breakfast and they started bitching at each other - "have you taken your tablets?", "those aren't your heart tablets", "yes they are" and so on but I found it amusing to think that such an interesting couple could be bitching about their tablets. I like people watching and generally like most people, and this holiday more than fulfilled my "people watching" quota! As we were about to get up I thought my friend was kicking my foot under the table regarding their shenanigans but when I looked down I saw that my bloody tennis shoe had finally given up the ghost and the sole had come off!!!!! Now I have plenty of hiking boots and tennis shoes but I only took this one pair, and to make matters worse, the flipflops that I had packed were in my suitcase on the coach - and we weren't allowed to go down to the car deck of course! So my friend was doubled up laughing as I limped along like Hopalong Cassidy with one leg now shorter than the other and making farting sounds to boot - but what else could I do?

At least the inner part hung on
for a bit longer!

When we arrived in Bastia we picked up our guide (who turned out to be wonderful) and had a wander round the old town before heading on to our first hotel. There was quite a bit of "go home you French bast@@@rds" graffiti as there is a fairly strong separatist movement in Corsica, but then if the French really do stay away how will the Corsicans make their money? Certainly not from agriculture! I get it, to a certain extent, and can see why many feel the "mainlanders" are pricing the locals out of their own homes, but to my mind isn't it better to stop second home owners (as they are trying to do) rather than discourage tourism from the mainland altogether?

As we were walking round one of the ladies said to me "oh you're English, I have a friend who is English. Her name is Wendy, do you know her"? I laughed because I didn't like to point out that the population of England is around 56 million, but bugger me if I didn't actually know her friend!!! Yep, we had met years ago when our kids took skiing lessons together so I guess the joke was on me!

After that we drove up through the tiny villages of Pinu and Nonza, and then along the Golfe de Saint Florent to arrive at the first hotel in the north of the island. It had been a tiring journey but guess what - things were about to get worse!

(A few of the scenic pictures below are google images because you really can't get much of a shot from a moving bus on a winding goat track!)

Nonza!

Pinu (thank you Mr. Google)!

Golfe de Saint Laurent

This and that!

I made it back from Corsica this weekend, but only after our ferry was delayed 10 hours, meaning we got home at 1 a.m. on Sunday morning, so we're pretty tired here. What's more, I still haven't finished writing up the last days of my trip to Thailand, so here goes before I totally forget!

On the last night in Thailand our guide took us to a lovely restaurant high up in the hills above Krabi. I wasn't particularly hungry so got distracted by a young man leading his girlfriend to a lovely vantage point, then getting down on one knee and asking her to marry him. She gasped in surprise and we all cheered, thinking how lovely that was. Well turns out there was a photographer just out of our line of sight and apparently they weren't happy with the "spontaneous shot" so went through the whole thing maybe another 10 times over the next 20 minutes, surprised gasp and all! C and I wondered aloud at what point it would be appropriate to no longer cheer and I had to laugh when C said the photography session would probably last longer than the marriage at this rate - but maybe we are both just old and jaded!

The Hilltop Restaurant!

The next day I flew from Krabi to Bangkok where the Novotel Hotel very kindly upgraded my accommodation from a standard room to a suite - it was just a pity I didn't get to spend more time there to enjoy it, I guess, but by this point I was glad to be on my way home. Thailand was lovely and I only saw maybe two "dubious" couples of a very young Thai girl walking along holding the hand of an older pot-bellied western man, so that side of things was better than I originally thought it would be!

Anyway, after a few days back home I was off again to Corsica (which was just lovely), but I want to sort out my photos etc. before writing about that! So in other news I had to be up and out again the next day as I had accepted an invitation to an "old fogies" lunch starting at 11.30! It was a lunch organized jointly by my village and the next village over and as a fairly newly minted 65 year old I was now on the invitation list. And you know what, it was really good! The two associations had worked really hard setting up tables for around 150 people. The food was excellent and they had a group of young kids (the local village youth council) running around with the aperitifs, collecting plates and generally doing a great job!

The youngsters did a wonderful job (and
don't they look cute in their French sashes)!

My elderly neighbours who recently moved into more secure accommodation were also there, but I don't think it's going too well! They gave up a house and community which they both loved to move into a very small apartment in a seniors' living community, and all this for the not insignificant sum of €2,300 per month! He is very definitely missing his workshop, his beehives and his garden and she is missing the contact she had with neighbours they have known for over 40 years. I hope things work out better for them as time goes on but so far it doesn't look great. And then to top it all I heard that one of our younger neighbours kinda insulted another set of neighbours (the Bs) by saying that rather than doing all this renovation work on their home maybe they should just sell up and move into an elderly community like the first couple!!!! The B family are maybe not even quite 70 yet, are extremely fit, go cross country skiing and hiking and K (the younger neighbour) had the gall to try to compare them to two 90 year olds with dementia. I must admit I burst out laughing when I heard that because if you were going to pick a fight with anybody in this community, they should be the last couple on that list. I found it funny and hope they do too (eventually). If not, watch this space! Things just got interesting!

Forgot to mention…!

I’m in Corsica right now. Absolutely beautiful but going over narrow mountain passes on a 50 seater bus is terrifying, even if I’m not the one driving! And talk about eat!!!! They could probably just roll me down to the port at this rate! Still it’s lovely and well worth the trip!

Ca ira!

"Ca ira" means "that'll do" in English, and I'm at that stage with my bathroom renovations. Well actually, I'm pretty much like that with everything (my attempts at patchwork can testify to that)! Anyhoo, the plumber came back earlier this week as he wanted to install the shower screen in the larger bathroom, leave the tiler to finish his bit, and then attack the smaller bathroom. I mentioned before that as my wall is not a perfect vertical, there is a tiny (less than half a cm) gap between the bottom of the shower and the wall which he said I should get the tiler to "fill in" to make it look better. Frankly at this point I couldn't care less about aesthetics and in any case I knew it would be hidden by the shelving unit I intended to put there so I told him not to worry about it as ça ira! He wasn't happy about that but seriously it would take another plumber to spot it (so Jordan will probably notice it), and of course if the tiler wants to do something with it so be it, but at this point I just wanted to start moving stuff back into the bathroom and getting things sorted. While it isn't completely finished (I have to get window dressings and clean up some of the paintwork) I'm so happy with my new bathroom. I had thought it might end up looking a bit like a sanatorium, but nope, I'm good with it. So now onto the smaller bathroom which hopefully won't take so long to complete - but in any case, as long as they put the toilet in immediately I can live with it because ça ira!

Before - excuse the mess but I
never used that bath!

After - could probably do with
a bit more colour but I'm working
on it!

Before!

After!

In other news, when I was heading over to Jordan and Jen's last Friday to take care of Charlie, about five minutes into my journey an older lady flagged me down, asking if I had a mobile phone as there was "a man lying on the ground down in the woods"! She was coming up from a woodland path so I told her I would park up and headed back into the woods to join her. There was a man, probably in his 40s, lying on the ground. I tried tapping his cheek and speaking gently to him but got no response - and then we spotted that he was lying on top of a pile of beer cans! At this point another man joined us saying that he had called an ambulance and while it was seemingly quite obvious that he was passed out drunk, the ambulance came out anyway and, I presume, took him to hospital! Quite the drama, although I hate to think what might have happened to him if he'd still been lying out in the woods when night fell!

Getting back to Thailand, on our penultimate day a few of us talked to our guide about setting up a trip to an elephant sanctuary, rather than just spending the day on the beach. So she set that up for us and it was great. Being a sanctuary there was obviously no riding on the elephants and at that time they were only looking after four older females. They didn't work with males with tourists because they are more aggressive, but I was a bit disappointed that we didn't get to meet any babies (like André did). Still it was fun, with about 30 tourists "sharing" three of the elephants who spontaneously wandered down to the stream when they realized we were there. We all made up a kind of protein ball (think something about the size of a baseball) and each fed two of them and a couple of bananas to whichever elephant took our fancy (they actually seem to inhale, rather than "eat"), after being given strict instructions that if the elephant wanted to go in x direction it was up to us to get out of their way, not the other way around - though seriously, who would want to argue with an elephant????

After that we got into the stream with them, caked them in mud (to help keep them cool) and when that dried we rinsed them off and scrubbed them down. From there we had to walk about a mile through the woods to a watering hole where we were invited to get into the water with them and "hose them down". I didn't bother going in the water with them as I figured, rightly, that a few people would monopolize the elephants, but I was happy anyway. I just wish I had been able to get a picture of our little group following the elephants through the woods to the watering hole - it was like a scene out of Jungle Book, but I wasn't quick enough - I just got a picture of the last elephant's bum!

When we got back we all headed out to dinner together and I finally dropped off my copy of The Power of Now in one of those freebie bookshelves they have in all the hotels. I tried four times to read that book and four times I failed so I decided to let someone else suffer for their sins. I was done!

Just one more day to write up on Thailand now, but that can wait until the next time!

Sometimes it feels like my feet never touch the ground - and I don't even work anymore!!!

Crikey, if I don't finish writing up the end of my trip to Thailand soon I'm sure I'll forget half of it - and I don't want to do that! That being said, I was away again this weekend and between coming back from Thailand and going away this weekend it feels like my feet haven't touched the ground! I went a bit mad and made a ton of appointments - you know, the kind that keep getting put on the "to do list" and then nothing gets done about them. Well eventually I get mad at myself and must have made 10 appointments (winter tyres, dentist, optician etc.) in the space of 15 minutes. That'll teach me to let things slip, I guess!

I had just gotten back from picking my car up when my gardener showed up for the first time this year. He comes and goes as and when possible and as long as I'm up for continuing to have him cut my grass, we just take up where we left off. I must admit everywhere looked really nice once he'd left as I had pressure sprayed the back patio area just last week. Then Jen asked if I could look after Charlie for a few hours on Friday as she needed to go out and Jordan hadn't arrived home from work yet. No problem there. We went out to the park and then were playing "balloons" on the balcony, when the inevitable happened and it ended up landing in the park below. But just as we were about to go down to pick it up, the older lady who lives on the ground floor yelled up that she would put it in the lift and send it up! I get the impression most of the older folks are enjoying having young children around playing in the park again (as one of them already told me), and I thought it was very sweet of her to send Charlie his balloon back! I'm also trying to keep up the English with him after their trip to the States, but I'm not sure how much is sinking in because every time I ask him something he just says "oui" so I don't really know how much he is understanding!

Anyway, Friday after work was our time to set off to enjoy the Christmas present that Jen's mom, C, and her partner, F, had bought for us all. Her mom paid for an air BnB for seven of us for two nights and F paid for us all to get into a lovely little theme park about 90 minutes away called Walibi! I've been to Walibi a few times but not recently, so it was a real treat to go there again. It's not big like Disney but I much prefer it, and even with some of the attractions being closed off or under maintenance, it was still lovely. So on Friday night we arrived at a very rustic air BnB about 15 minutes from Walibi which was really lovely. Very simple, dead quiet and seemingly capable of accommodating maybe 12 people if necessary. By the time we got there it was already quite late so we had dinner, sat around and chatted for a while, and then all hit the sack around 11 p.m. in order to be on form for the next day!

Now I'm guessing this was probably the first weekend of open season but the car park was pretty full, probably something to do with it being spring holidays in this region and great weather. Charlie was too small to do quite a few of the rides and Jen was also limited because of being pregnant, but everyone had a good time and what one person thought was "a great ride" others said would make them want to throw up, and vice versa. I wouldn't go on a roller coaster ride because I don't like being thrown forward, but anything that spins me round and round - no problem, although those bloody pictures that they take of you on the rides always showed me with my face screwed up and looking like I was facing a firing squad!

Charlie's favourite ride!

I would have gone on this one, but
nobody wanted to go with me at the time!

No way was I shooting up in the
air in that thing!

I did the log flume with my two sons.
I was sitting at the back and they both
ducked when we hit the water so I got soaked!
I seem to remember saying something derogatory
about their parentage! (Photo curtesy of google)!

Charlie did this one with us - he wasn't too
sure at first but he hung in there! Again, a
google photo!

Jordan did this one on his own. I
probably would have thrown up!
Another google photo - it just went
by so fast I couldn't catch it!

We stayed at the park until closing time, went home and ate and since I had missed Charlie's birthday when he was in the States, the kids brought his French gifts with them so he got to blow candles out a second time and play on his new bike! We left after lunch today and while we were only away for two nights, it feels like I was gone for a week, so maybe a change really is as a good as a rest. It did bring home to me, though, that you really don't have to go very far in France to be able to get off the beaten track and still enjoy some beautiful scenery! I'll have to give some thought to maybe booking a small place a bit later in the year - but first I've got to repack shortly because I'm off to Corsica at the end of next week. Having all these trips one after another was beyond my control - but then I wouldn't have it any other way!

 

So, getting back to Thailand ...!

Anyhoo, the next day - whenever that was - we left the islands and made our way back to mainland Krabi, where we would spend our final few days in Thailand. While Krabi was not nearly as pretty as the islands, it was more of a resort town so I guess if you were looking for entertainment this was the place to be. Our tour company was offering a tour of the Phi Phi islands, but C and I decided we wouldn't bother as I think we were pretty tired by this time. Later that evening we went out to dinner with R, who had taken the tour but he said that while it was indeed very beautiful, it was sooooo crowded it just wasn't worth it. Too many boats and too many people in the water trying to snorkel. This was where they filmed The Beach and not long after the film was released they temporarily closed down trips to tourists in order to preserve the islands! From what R was saying, I can see why! So I would say that while some of them enjoyed the trip, a few thought it was not money well spent, given the overcrowding!

R's photos, not mine, obviously!

C and I had a wander round the town and were surprised to see how many places were advertising cannabis for sale. It's legal for the time being, but there is talk about making it illegal at some future date. I'm not sure what the sellers will do in the event it's outlawed, though in the meantime I'm not surprised the people are so "smiley"!

Our guide had told us we should check out the night market, but unfortunately the first night we turned the wrong way out onto the main road and found the market to be nothing special. Turns out we hadn't actually found the real market but when we did, man was that an assault on your senses. The heat, the smells, the noise were all so intense! A couple from our group spotted a whole crocodile roasting on a spit (wish they'd gotten a photo of it) - and the entire place was just heaving. Well worth the visit but I was glad to get out of there too!

A google picture - I couldn't get anything worth posting!

After that we had just two more days left, but I'll leave that for another time as it's already quite late here. Back home the weather has been picking up and I finally got around to doing my annual pressure wash of the back terrace. It's a bit of a faff but I quite enjoy it really as it's so satisfying to see the crud being washed away after the snow has melted. I was working on the moss in the front driveway when my neighbour wandered over for a chat and a coffee. Now while I know I must have looked pretty grim after almost two hours of power washing, when I caught sight of myself in the mirror I was mortified - Worzel Gummige had nothing on me!

Wurzel Gummige!

And finally, the kids arrived back from the States today after spending two weeks with my ex's family. They said it went well and I'm glad Ammy got to see both my kids and Charlie, of course. I suspect I will hear about a few tensions later but on the whole it went well, and I'm happy for that. I thought I'd surprise them by shooting out to the airport to meet them, even though they'd already got transport arranged. Well I stopped off at the baker's to buy bread and croissants for everyone and then sailed easily through the border to arrive at the airport about 15 minutes after they'd landed. So I sat there people watching, and I sat there, and I sat there - and after about an hour I sent Jordan a message to ask where they were. Turns out they were half way home as they must have whizzed through immigration, customs and baggage reclaim in less than 15 minutes. Damn, I reckon I missed them by a matter of minutes, if not seconds! Well you know what they say about best laid plans? Man makes plans and God laughs, apparently!

 

This and that!

They say March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb, and it's certainly seeming that way at the moment. We've got howling winds, especially in the evenings and throughout the night, and then the next day the weather is relatively stable - well stable enough for me to be out pottering in the garden anyway! And I'm really enjoying pottering about after a fairly hectic few weeks! 

I mentioned previously that life wasn't being quite as kind to a few people I care about. There've been a couple of incidents with people ending up in the emergency room, and while things are seemingly much improved they are not resolved as yet. Then my poor sewing teacher - you know, the lady whose son fell down the stairs about eight years ago and has had to be institutionalized ever since - well she and her husband have recently lost their home through no fault of their own. It's complicated, but despite being up-to-date with their payments, upon asking to switch their mortgage from Swiss francs to euros, the bank called in the entire loan - not just the outstanding amount, but the entire 100% of the loan so their house was sold as of last week! They went to court but seemingly the bank was absolutely entitled to do this (legalized robbery springs to mind) and while they should be able to recoup everything they've paid out so far (around €200,000) it will take a few years to get back so they've had to sell their home. While her husband can transfer further inland to a cheaper part of France, she does not want to leave this region as her daughter lives here and her son is institutionalized here (they're her children by her first husband), so they've had to move into rental accommodation. How is any of that fair, or even legal???? On top of that she told me about six weeks ago that she's just found out that her husband has been cheating on her for the last three years - and then her beloved dog died!!!! She always likes to play "tough" but she's really a big old softie at heart, though how she's holding up right now I have no idea!

Much closer to home my favourite neighbour's husband died about 10 days ago, and while it was probably not unexpected (lung cancer) in the end it took him so quickly I think the shock knocked her off her feet. He had been due to start treatment on the Thursday but actually died on the Friday, with a private funeral being held yesterday. She came in for coffee this afternoon and while there was no love lost between them for the longest time, she admits she wishes things could have been different. She and her children did right by him to the end, though, and can be proud of themselves! She knows there is such a lot ahead of her, both emotionally and practically, so I told her to reach out anytime I can be of help, rather than asking her kids to drive over. I mean that as much in the physical sense as anything (I know what it's like to try to shift gas canisters and heavy logs alone), and I can always help her on the computer, but I'm heartened to see that she is determined to make as much a go of things as she can on her own - after so many years of being afraid of her own shadow!

I told her I'd done her a huge favour though as there is a lady we call Mrs. Tupperware who called me today to pass on an invitation to lunch "for the old fogies" (being 65 I now qualify) and as she'd just heard about the death she said she would go over there to speak to my neighbour. I asked her to wait a little as my neighbour had expressed the wish to be alone for a while, but that I'm sure she'd appreciate a card in the mailbox. Now this woman can yack for France, and by the time you've finished the conversation you know all about her first cousin's second husband's vasectomy. She's also very opinionated and was telling me how scandalised she was that no-one was allowed to go to the funeral and that it was "in poor taste"!!! Thankfully I took this call rather than my poor neighbour as I'm sure there would have been fisticuffs! I told her that those were his express wishes and had been respected. Moreover, I personally wanted to leave this earth in much the same way. Thankfully that shut her up and she hasn't showed up at my neighbour's house - so far. Now this lady is not actually unkind, and has been through an awful lot - the death of her husband, the death of her 34 year old daughter and the suicide of her 28 year old son - but she is totally overpowering and I don't think anyone should have to deal with that while they're grieving, however well intentioned!

She told me she'd stop by with my invitation to this lunch so I told her to just leave it in my mailbox as I "was working in my back garden" - so of course that was a cue for her to tell me that now wasn't the time to be working in the garden, everything would freeze, the soil is still cold .....! You see what I mean? Mind you, these things go in one ear and out the other for me, so I'm glad it was me that got the brunt of it, rather than my neighbour!

But - and this one makes me really mad - my neighbour was telling me that she and the children were at the hospital with her husband and they knew the end was near. As the kids wanted to stay on she'd called my other neighbour - Mrs. Gossip - to see if she could pick her up from the hospital, which of course they kindly offered to do (I was out). Reception was very poor inside the hospital and once they realized that her husband had passed she went back out into the parking lot to let Mrs. Gossip know not to come. Well by the time she got back up to the room and they were unhooking all the tubes etc., her phone was ringing off the hook, including a call from a lady who had been on the village council with her husband, expressing her condolences. So in the time it took my neighbour to get from the parking lot to the hospital room, Mrs. Gossip had already spread the news!!!! I'm disgusted - this was the lady who let everyone know that my son was getting divorced (hence he'd moved back in with me) before we'd had chance to do it ourselves!! And the same lady who when her own husband had a minor stroke, swore everyone to secrecy!  Now I know this couple can be kind and would do just about anything for you, but to not have the decency to allow the family to grieve in peace for fifteen minutes - well, at least, as my neighbour said, she now knows where she stands on that score!

In more pleasant news, my sister and her husband were to head off to their house in Spain for two months the other day, but the weather was so bad that the channel ferry crossings were cancelled. Her daughter works for the ferry company and so was able to quickly get them on a crossing tomorrow as the places were selling like hot cakes! I'd call that insider trading wouldn't you! In any case she said if I wanted to fly down to Spain while they're there I was welcome, but I'm off to Corsica soon (overland and ferry) so I doubt I'll be able to fit it in!

Both my kids are now in the States so Ammy (great grandma) finally got to meet Charlie for the first time. I spoke to Charlie yesterday and he was telling me had had a gros gros gâteau (a huuuugggge cake) as he celebrated his third birthday on the 28th. I then got to speak to Ammy and she was telling me how much she was loving having them all there and that she would keep them if she could. Once Charlie got over his shyness, he has taken to all of them like a duck to water and is even coming out with a few words in English!

As for me, as I said, I'm appreciating just pottering and enjoying the arrival of spring. You can tell spring is on the way because the lambs are in the fields, everyone is contentedly wandering around the farmers' markets, someone cut the grass on the island yesterday ... and the lead up to the Mont Blanc tunnel (which goes into Italy) is backed up for about three kilometres! Happy Easter everyone!

After that ...!

It's been a few days since I last posted but things have been pretty hectic here. There's been some horrible news affecting a few people - thankfully not my immediate family, but people I care about nevertheless - so I didn't feel much like posting. I wanted to write about the rest of my trip to Thailand before I forgot it, though, because, as I've said before, I want this blog to serve as my online diary for later!

So, I can't even remember which island I'm on at the minute but as they're all very pretty I don't suppose it matters much, does it! Anyway, on this day - whichever one it happened to be - we didn't have much planned, other than a morning trip into town to wander round the local market. And that was when I realized I had a searing pain running down my left leg. I could just about manage to walk, but trying to get in and out of the tuk tuks was horrendous. I remember thinking "hell, I turned into a little old lady overnight" and while I am indeed a little old lady I've never really felt like one - that is, until now. In the end I went to the local pharmacy and as the lady spoke excellent English she felt pretty positive diagnosing sciatic pain due to my massage - something which can apparently be rather common if you're not lucky! Anyway, she gave me pain medication which - according to the others - is only available on prescription in England (I'd never heard of it) and told me to take one or two a day. So I limped around like a big baby for another four hours, tried a few yoga exercises when I got back to my room, decided I'd take the medication later that evening, fell asleep instead and wouldn't you know it the pain had completely gone by the next morning!!! I've never known not taking medication to work so quickly but I felt like a real fraud at breakfast the next day!

The restaurant at this hotel used a cute little "vanity caravan" as their bar, so since it was so dinky I asked the staff if I could take a photo of them in front of it.

C, the Welsh lady who I had become very friendly with, told me that she'd been sitting by the bar earlier that evening when a young woman came up, installed her phone camera and proceeded to take "influencer type" photos of herself in front of the van (and the staff) - complete with "trout pout" and "come hither" poses. She'd walk back to check the photo and when she didn't like it she started over and must have taken about 10 all told! Now I would be mortified doing something like that (C said she was trying not to laugh) but I guess it just shows our age doesn't it - well that and my Hopalong Cassidy act the day before!

In fact tonight I discovered a YouTuber who dissects some of these "influencers' videos" where they show off their perfect, jetset lifestyles and she was so funny pointing out how they faked it. I was talking to my friend this afternoon and telling her that there is at least one place in the US (although I imagine there are loads more) where they have a set designed to look like a private jet and for about $80 per half hour you can take all the photos that you want inside "your" private jet, followed by posing up a storm next to "your" Bentley (or whatever floats your boat)! And you know what, I would love to do that because I think it would be a hoot taking pictures of me with my gammy leg and flipflops inside my private jet!

While she was still sitting there a man came down to the beach with a monkey on his shoulder (beats a parrot and a peg leg, I guess), put a leash on the monkey and it shot up a tree and started throwing coconuts down!!!! How come I missed all the best bits then??? The staff were telling her that these men treat the monkeys well, of course, and since the monkey is only doing what comes naturally they would appear to have it well sussed!

As we were all chatting later that evening R (the oldest of our group at age 80) showed us a quick video he was able to snap of a "giant lizard" (although I'm sure David Attenborough wouldn't call it that) just outside the ladies toilets on the way back to the hotel. Man, you get some real creeps hanging around the ladies' loos don't you!

Video curtesy of R!

We were such a mixed bunch but all got along really well so someone mentioned setting up a retirement home in Thailand where we could all retire together (despite the 60 year disparity in age)!!! I think they had something along the lines of The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel in mind! Could be fun!

The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel!

Anyway, it's almost midnight here so I'm going to have to wrap this up soon. I have to admit it was nice to be able to keep a remote eye on my home through my new security cameras and while I might not have been able to stop a potential burglary, at least I could see what the weather was like - and be glad I was still in Thailand!

And finally, I recently watched a video by a US comedian who I hadn't heard of before. She was saying how her generation - Gen X - were the toughest ever. Now I'd probably dispute that but some of the things she was saying they, as children, just took for granted made them as tough as it comes - no helicopter parenting there! It was obviously designed to make the older generation laugh and it surely did - but not nearly as much as the comments!

God we used to fly off the end of that
thing straight onto concrete! And yes it
really was as steep as I remember it!

No comment!

We used penknives!

Those things were lethal!

Click clacks!