Thwarted!

My sister called me on Easter Sunday as she had heard about the terrible snow storms we'd been getting here and wanted to make sure I was all right, what with avalanche warnings being at level five! I told her I was more than all right as it was fine here but apparently in the mountains they had as much as 50 cm of snow (about 20 inches, I'm guessing) in one go and roads were blocked everywhere!

The road to Chamonix/Mont Blanc -
it was very much worse actually in
the mountains, but I just snapped
this off the local news!

Since it genuinely was nice here on Good Friday I considered driving down to the lake at Passy for a walk but then realized that Passy being on the way to Chamonix, traffic would probably be heaving - and heaving it was! Traditionally the Swiss get Good Friday off but the French don't, so then everyone in Switzerland decides to either go to Annecy for the day "because the French will be at work" - and Annecy gets clogged up with Swiss licence plates or everyone decides to take a long weekend in Italy - and they all get stuck getting up to the Mont Blanc tunnel, so I was soooo glad I decided against heading to Passy that day!

My sister's daughter and her family took off for a week in Marrakech and have been posting the most beautiful photos! My very first trip totally on my own after my husband left was to Marrakech but to be honest the hotel I'd been recommended was too far out of the city and apart from the walled old town and the sukh, I didn't get to see much as it meant taking a taxi every time. I would like to go back and "do it properly" though as my niece's photos were beautiful! In another piece of good news, my niece's 16 year old daughter has just been accepted for a job in a travel agent's, to start in July on a fairly decent salary for a 16 year old and I'm delighted. After two years, if they're happy with her (I'm sure they will be) she will be making more than decent money and travelling all over the world! Good for her, do it while you can, I say!

I asked my sister a bit more about the old man (seemingly with dementia) who they had recently taken in and she said it turned out he was actually 80, although he didn't look it, and was obviously quite well educated and very well spoken and what a shame it was to see such a classy man not even knowing his own name! Apparently his wife had sewn air tags into his coat but as that particular day had been warm, he'd wandered off in just a t-shirt and jeans, so now she has to think of another way to keep track of him since he won't wear one of those emergency necklaces!

I had quite a productive day the other day and finally got round to cleaning out my car and vacuuming it, so it now looks quite good, even if I do say so myself. I'm not one to dump rubbish in the car anyway, but taking frequent trips to the recycling centre or the garden centre it does tend to get a bit dirty at times. After that I came in and knocked Jordan's US taxes out in about an hour, so that's another thing off my to-do list. Since I'm getting more used to the US forms I showed Jordan what I'd done in case he wanted to do them, but he's happy to let me do them (of course). He never owes the US anything because there is a reciprocal tax agreement between the US and France but as he has to file, it's probably just easier if I do them and get them out of the way!

The other day I spotted "raised beds" in my local supermarket so bought five of them and have spent a few hours happily potting up more veggies in my regular garden and the new raised beds. I'm really pleased with them as they can stand on my terrace (easier to water than lugging the watering can up the garden) and if I haven't overshot the mark by planting too early, I'm looking forward to seeing what, if anything, comes of it!

When Chuckles, the leg-swinging telephone fibre guy, was here, he advised me to get a "CPR plug" which would give me a better wifi network throughout the house, so thinking "oh that's easy to remember - a cardio pulmonary resuscitation plug" I ran into town to buy one and they burst out laughing when I asked for a CPR plug. Apparently it's a CPL plug (but Chuckles not being French, he had a funny accent and I misunderstood him). Of course he left me high and dry on what to do with it, but eventually I got on good old Youtube and discovered where I needed to plug it in in order to activate it (no thanks to Chuckles, who never came back, if you remember). In any case, it's crap as I don't think my wifi has improved at all since they installed the fibre and the "CPR plug" seems to be about as much use as a chocolate teapot too! So lessons being learned I figured if I ever decide to get rid of my phone carrier I might lose access to quite a lot of information, so I've been slowly copying all my contacts' information into a Word document "just in case"!

Everyone came to my place for Easter lunch, which was nice. I made Delia Smith's "spicy salmon with black bean salsa" (which went down a treat) with seven-layer salad and baked potatoes, while Jen brought the appéritif and her mom the dessert. We were all stuffed at the end of it but Charlie made us laugh when he told us Maîtresse Marianne (his teacher) was very strict that when they're eating they "have to keep their mouths closed with a zipper because nobody wants to see what you're eating"! Quite right too Maîtresse, quite right too!

After Netflix virtually doubled their prices a few months back I cancelled my subscription, until about a month ago as I wanted to watch a couple of programmes. Then just the other day I got another email from them to say that they were putting their prices up by another €2 per month as from May, so I'm thinking I will probably just cancel them again. With the exception of The Sopranos and The Serpent I can't think of anything I've really enjoyed as I find all their productions to be very "formulaic". Nothing seems to hold my interest - or then maybe I'm just too difficult to please!

So more and more I tend to be going down the Youtube rabbit hole and just the other day I discovered a relatively new channel called Rewilding Jude. Jude is a young man in his thirties who lost both his parents to cancer in a relatively short space of time and in order not to "go under" he decided to sell up in the south of England and bought a fairly remote place in Scotland which he is single-handedly trying to turn into a small-holding! You can tell immediately that he is a very sweet young man, and to prove it wasn't just me that felt that way, he seems to get all these elderly American grandmas in the comments wanting to adopt him, he really is that sweet!

Another channel I've followed is Early Retirement Wanderlust about a couple of teachers who have taken early retirement (too early to get their UK pensions) and who downsized in order to spend as much time as possible travelling either at home or abroad. I think the husband lost his brother at a very young age so that is what pushed him, in particular, to want to do this. I think what I really admire (or probably envy) about this couple is how in tune to each other they are. They both have the same dreams and seem to be totally on board with how to achieve them. I really enjoy their videos and can only say "good for you", and how lucky you are!

And finally, I decided that given that I'm not able to make it to pilates half the time, I was going to re-enrol in the gym I used to go to (occasionally) pre-covid to use the weights, so I trotted off down there today with all the relevant paperwork and bugger me, when I got there, the office is only open Monday through Thursday and today being Friday it wasn't possible to get in without a member's QR code! Do you think "someone" was trying to send me a message not to be so silly or will I end up going back on Monday to do the necessary? I'm pretty certain I'll end up going back on Monday as I'm so sick of these (relatively mild) bingo wings of mine (but bingo wings nonetheless) and really want to do something about them. Watch this space! We'll see what Monday brings!

On being an old fogy!

The weathermen have been predicting France would be hit by Storm Olivier this week so I'd been making lists of all the things I would get done during the bad weather. Well guess what, if it hit at all it's totally bypassed this region! Right now we've got a very gentle rain which is actually quite soothing and I believe it's snowing in the mountains, but other than that - nothing/nada! Oh well, I guess they get things wrong sometimes too then!

With the aim of getting one pain-in-the-butt thing crossed off every day I called up my telephone carrier and explained the situation about how my landline hadn't worked since Chuckles came by and installed the fibre. I told the young man how Chuckles couldn't get the telephone cable on the first floor free of the plaster so he just cut it and left me without the possibility of hooking up my landline. He had me turn on my camera so that he could see what was what and his conclusion was that the only place I could now actually hook up my landline was - wait for it - in my unfinished basement!!!! Can you imagine trying to run downstairs and climb over the wood pile in order to answer the phone!!!! No, me neither, so I asked them to just cancel my landline but it turns out that's not possible as it's mandatory in order to have my wifi box with them!!! Again, say what? In the end I just thought "sod it", hooked up the landline in the basement and actually now take great pleasure seeing all the missed telemarketing calls on it when I go downstairs to get something out of the freezer! Since I usually had my landline unplugged anyway because the telemarketers got on my nerves, I suppose in the end it wasn't such a big deal, but at least that's one thing crossed off the pain-in-the-butt list!

And that's when the tax people sent an email for me to get my paperwork together in order for them to prepare my French tax declaration!! Damn, my pain-in-the-butt list just got longer again! In reality I coud probably do it myself but since my pension is paid into my Swiss bank, I live in France and obviously have a French bank account and I've been receiving a small pension in my UK account since last September, I thought it better to just let them deal with it. I know quite a few people who haven't declared their UK pensions but to my mind the fine I would get for not declaring such a small pension just isn't worth it, so declare it I have!

After getting my paperwork sent off I decided to take a drive down to the lake at Passy in order to clear my head and was delighted to see that the little lakeside restaurant/bar is now open again for the season, so I'll probably be stopping off there for lunch on occasion, next time I get my knickers in a twist and need a break. While I was on my walk I finished listening to the last chapter of Traitor King and it turned out to be much better than I thought it would be. I'm currently back to listsening to The Mountbattens and Just Desserts (the Martha Stewart story) and while I'm enjoying them all, one thing that struck me in all three books is what a bunch of ball-breakers the women in these stories were - Wallis Simpson, Edwina Mountbatten and Martha Stewart. It's incredible! Wallis and Edward seemed to have had some kind of sado-masochism thing going on, Edwina Mountbatten appeared to have forgotten that she had a husband and two children and would basically screw anything that wasn't nailed down and Martha - while she is/was obviously an incredibly talented and driven woman, it seems she wouldn't hesitate to lie and step on anyone who got in her way on the way to the top - including her poor husband! While I wouldn't want to live in a world of jack-boot stomping men either, it did strike me what a sad world these women lived in where they thought it was okay to treat those they were supposed to love in such an appalling way!

I also signed back up to Netflix in order to watch the series Adolescence which everyone seemed to be raving about, and while the young actor who played 13 year old Jamie was indeed brilliant, what a depressing series that was!

At sewing the other day one of the ladies asked me if I would like a brand new pair of jeans that she'd been given and that might fit me. They had never been worn and fit me a treat except that the person who bought them must have been 6' 5" while I'm only 5' 4", so there's either a good 10 inches to be taken off the bottom or, as one of the ladies suggested, I could wear "ABBA boots", although I'd probably end up looking more like a drag queen!

ABBA!

Another of the ladies was telling us that her daughter has finally just landed her dream job as a designer at Hermès fashion house beating very, very stiff competition. I'm so pleased for her as she is very talented, but then the whole family seem to have a very creative bent - would that I should be so lucky! Then Bernadette was telling us that she pulled into a petrol station the other day just in time to see the man in front of her drive off leaving his wallet on the roof of his car. She picked it up and tried to chase him, flashing her lights and honking her horn, to the point that he eventually pulled over and came storming over to her cussing and swearing - until she held up his wallet and asked how far he thought he'd get without it. He was mortified, of course, and invited her to pull off at the next exit and bought her a drink to thank her!

Over the weekend I'd finally had enough of my sticky-out hair so took my sewing scissors to it and hacked as much off as I could. When I went to yoga Monday morning it looked dreadful of course so I had to try to think where I would find a hairdresser's open (there aren't many open on Mondays) and dashed off there for them to try to do a bit of damage control! You can still see my handiwork in parts but I think she did a really good job of saving my bacon. As I went to pay I noticed a giant bin where they were "recycling hair clippings" and when I asked what it was for she told me that it was being used in an ocean experiment "to trap certain types of pollution" (not sure what it was about really), so I'm glad I was able to do my bit!!!

At yoga we worked on something called the dragon pose and while it didn't do much for me she asked what movie it brought to mind. Everyone else said The Matrix but I blurted out The Karate Kid so I think my age was showing just a little!

Can you believe the first
Karate Kid movie is 40 years old?

Talking of old fogies, the new oldies club I signed up for recently (I reckon I'm the youngest by about 15 years) sent out a flyer for a day outing on the Train de la Mure which is about four hours from here. I'd heard of this scenic train already so thought what the hell, and I signed up for it!

Train de la Mure!

Then today I got in invitation to the over-65s lunch to be held in May between the two villages of St. Laurent and St. Sixt again, so I'm signed up for that too! Who knew us oldies could have so much fun!

And finally Jen asked me if I could look after Charlie on Tuesday afternoon as his teacher was going to be absent. I wasn't busy so no problem and he and I had a great time. When Jordan and Jen arrived home they told me that my ex had asked for their summer plans so they gave him the dates when they would be away - and wouldn't you know he's booked to arrive three days before they get back!!! Jen was steaming mad as she didn't want to have to change their vacation reservations so I told her to ignore it. He's retired so let him just get on with it. He'll be staying with André in any case so I said not to alter their plans around him! Some people can be quite selfish, expecting others to adapt to them for no better reason than that they think their own plans should take precedence. I loved my oldest brother but he could also be like that and it took me years to learn that "no" is actually a complete sentence, or to maybe just say "good luck with that" and leave him to get on with it! Obviously if there had been a serious reason for making changes, then you go for it, but since Jen's having problems with her grandparents pulling the same kind of stunt, I told her the sooner she learned to say "we'll see you when we get back", the better. So I guess there really are advantages to getting older - you get to do all these fun trips - and you don't take cr@p from anyone anymore!

The IKEA Syndrome!

Things chez moi are hopefully starting to plod along slowly! I finally got the paperwork sent off to EDF (the people who will take over my solar panels) and I'm just praying that the one date I filled in is correct. There are so many different dates on the flippin' paperwork from the people who installed them that I'm not sure - fingers crossed the bloody stuff doesn't come back! Then I had a plumber come out (he was recommended by my electrician) and while the quote was a bit of a shock I decided to go with it anyway. I kept Charlie on Wednesday afternoon (they have no school on Wednesdays until they hit junior school) and I mentioned the quote to Jordan but he said if it was for the plumbing work and the tiling, he thought it was about the going rate, so I guess it's gruel and bread for me for a few months going forward! And of course the number that Chuckles the leg swinging telephone fibre guy gave me to call him back, well that doesn't work (why was I surprised)??? I was initially pissed off not having my security cameras hooked up after he left but I managed to get them plugged in to the new box he installed (i.e. hung off my basement fridge) so at least they're back up and running. The only thing that isn't running now is the landline but hell, if I'm paying for it I'm going to call them back as I want it to work (even if I keep it unplugged most of the time)!

I've missed quite a few of my pilates lessons, what with all that's been going on here on Thursdays so when one of the ladies at sewing club told me that she'd signed up for three months to a gym near the recycling centre I went and checked it out. Their prices are very reasonable (and also include pilates classes) but in the end I thought "who am I kidding, I know I won't go June, July and August when it gets hot" so if I do go back I think I'll stick with the gym I occasionally went to before and just pay on a daily basis - given how little willpower I seem to have for going to the gym regularly!

When we went to the Aquarium the other week we drove past where I used to live in Switzerland so I decided to take a drive out for a wander round a lovely garden centre there and have a walk along the lake. It really is a lovely small town but our apartment was hellish expensive even then (back in 1989) and to be honest, you know that John Denver song about Toledo, Ohio and how they "roll back the sidewalks precisely at ten and people who live there are not seen again", well it was just like that, dead as a doornail for the most part. That's when we realized that for what we were paying in rent we could easily afford to buy a house in France so move we did, although I do have fond memories of Rolle, all the same!

The château in Rolle, Canton of Vaud!

I did manage to lug my pressure washer up from the basement and hose down the back terrace. It could probably do with being relaid but given all the expenses I've had lately, it'll have to wait, and for quite some time, I think!

My sister posted an appeal on Facebook two days ago, as a man approximately in his mid-70s had wandered off the seafront path and they found him sitting on their terrace in a bewildered state. He thought his name was Dave and that he was looking for someone called Dawn but that was as much as he could tell them (poor devil). She called it in to the local police station where someone had called in a missing persons report a few hours earlier, but when the police called to pick him up, he was sitting having tea and cake and watching the football with my brother-in-law!!! I wonder if he'll be back!

And finally, on Tuesday I drove my neighbour to the hospital for some more tests and since she didn't know how long she would be I popped into a nearby GIFI shop (a bit like a poor man's IKEA) as I wanted a small stand to put the fibre box on instead of where Chuckles had left it. Trouble is, I not only got the stand but also got a good deal on eight new garden chairs - and that of course is when you realize that your car just might not be big enough to get all these treasures in the trunk!!! Somehow I did it and I didn't have to strap my neighbour to the roof to make it home! I still reckon it was nothing short of a miracle though!

Still wading through treacle - but it's getting a little easier!

Sometimes I'm just so really, really grateful that I'm very organized because I hate to think what people do in situations similar to mine if they aren't. Just about everything that could go wrong in this house does seem to have gone wrong since Christmas and while it's exhausting, at least I'm managing to keep my chaos organized! The other weekend I just thought "sod it" and basically spent the entire weekend on the sofa reading. I don't know why I feel guilty about doing this - I mean, it's not as though I owe anyone an explanation is it - but it did me a world of good to just shut the door on "all that" for a couple of days!

Starting with the best news, Elynn came out of hospital after two nights as they couldn't find anything wrong with her intestines nor any allergy to baby formula. So it seems it was just something that was going around, which was likely confirmed by a friend at sewing club who told me that her young grandchildren had had the same thing too! Phew, that's a relief!

My electrician still has to come back one more time to fix my outdoor motion detector light, but that's only minor and if he lets me know when he's coming I can just leave the side gate open for him. He did thank me for the excellent review I left on the local trades' site because "now he will probably be able to reset people's x-boxes all over Haute Savoie"! Ha, I like his style! He also gave me the name of a young plumber he had worked with so he is coming over tomorrow to give me a quote to hopefully finally get that last bathroom done (fingers crossed on that one)! As for decorating the bedroom where the fire started, I'm thinking I will probably just try painting it myself at some point and if I do a real cock-up job, well then I'll think about getting someone in later to remedy my mistakes!

Before the electrician came over last time I wanted to get a new "thingy" (as I call it - would you call that a socket?) as I needed him to fit it in a downstairs light. So I ran down to the local DIY store and I always seem to end up speaking to an extremely nerdy-looking but helpful young man. As I didn't know what it was called in French I showed him this photo and he told me it was called a douille. I could also hear that he was making fun of my accent (although not unkindly) when he went on to explain to me that he would need more than just the photo, he would need the dimensions. So I said "oh that's easy, I'll need an E27 (thank you my electrician) and the look of shock on his face as he was just about to make fun of my accent again made all my "studying" worthwhile! One-nil to me I'd say at this point!

Is the white thing a "socket"?

And of course the keys I got cut for sewing club the other day don't work but sometimes I think life's just too short to stuff a mushroom, so sod it, we'll make do!

I've mentioned before that I follow a few walking/hiking groups on Facebook and any time I see what looks like a reasonable hike around here I post it to my own FB feed so I know I'll be able to find it again. I'm sure some of my family members are dead impressed by what would appear to be all the hikes I've conquered but I'll have to let them in on my secret at some point, I suppose. That being said, on the UK-based Walk 1,000 Miles group I saw a couple who I would say were in their mid-70s explaining how they'd started consistently walking an hour a day when covid hit in order not to go stir crazy and over time they'd added in greater distances and more challenging walks, so much so that this year they'd going to attempt the Camino de Santiago, a walk of about 30 days covering almost 500 miles! Crikey, puts my piddly little walks to shame, doesn't it! Mind you, someone on one of the local groups posted an open invitation to an apéritif in the mountains for anyone who could make it. Now that's something I could see me training for!

While I'm doing one of my usual routes I'm still listening to Traitor King and, as I've said before, it does get better. Heck they've got murder (mob and drugs related), money laundering, tax evasion, blatant infidelity and I'm still only on chapter 21. By this point many people are getting extremely fed up of Edward and Wallis and in particular their sponging off other people. One man commented that he had no idea what gave Wallis her hold over men (although "hold" she most certainly had) because in his opinion she was an unattractive, skeletal, flat-chested harridan who would make a "good medieval prototype for a playing card" (I'm paraphrasing, but when I pictured the queen of diamonds playing card I just burst out laughing)!

Wallis Simpson!

I've also started listening to Cheere Denise reading a book about Martha Stewart called Just Desserts, which could also prove to be very interesting. Martha is/was obviously very beautiful, very talented and very driven but I think it might not come as a great surprise to everyone to hear that she could be a pretty nasty piece of work and a prolific liar (according to the book) so I'll let you know what I think when I get round to it!

I heard just the other day that Argentina's President Xavier Milei has authorized the release of "the Hitler files" which, apparently, document the escape to Argentina of many top Nazis (including Hitler) after the war. While I knew many had indeed escaped I never really knew what to think about the rumour that it wasn't Hitler's body they found in the bunker in Berlin (apparently what was supposed to be Hitler's skull with the bullet wounds in it it was a female skull) and Hitler did seemingly live out the remainder of his life in Argentina after the war. Crikey, I wonder if that will pan out! And to add to the suspense, just yesterday Audible announced the release of Operation Paperclip, a book that I've been wanting to read for ages (one of many, obviously)! According to Wiki:

* * * * *

Operation Paperclip was a secret United States intelligence program in which more than 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians were taken from former Nazi Germany to the US for government employment after the end of World War II in Europe, between 1945 and 1959; several were confirmed to be former members of the Nazi Party, including the SS or the SA.

* * * * *

In the UK, former Reform party MP, Rupert Lowe, launched a crowd-funding initiative to fund an independent investigation into the UK grooming gangs responsible for the grooming and rape of hundreds, if not thousands of young girls over the past several decades, because seemingly no-one in power wants to "go there" (I wonder why)! He was aiming for £500,000 and after about 36 hours he's already reached over £432,000. I donated of course, but well done Rupert, one of the few MPs who is willing to stand up in Parliament and ask the questions no-one seems to want to answer!

In France some bright spark has had the idea of setting up a kind of "savings plan" for citizens to invest in whereby the state can use that money to remilitarize! There is a minimum of five years in which your money will be blocked, they can't or won't indicate what the starting interest rate will be - oh and there's no guarantee you'll even get your initial investment back! As one of France's top economists said, "even Madoff wouldn't have tried that one on"!

As I'm sure you're also aware, Marine Le Pen seems to be going the same way as Romania's Calin Georgescu, Germany's AfD party, Geert Wilders in the Netherlands etc. About the best initial explanation of the situation I can find in English can be seen here by Neil McCoy Ward (the first 10 minutes). There's obviously much more detailed information on it in French but Neil does a decent job of explaining the basics. We'll see what happens, but to say things are volatile here at the moment would be an understatement!

And finally, Friday was Charlie's fourth birthday so since the weather wasn't supposed to be great we all went off the Aquarium in Lausanne, followed by raclette at Jordan and Jen's place. At one point there was a huge fish right in front of Elynn and Jordan was trying to draw her attention to it, but she was absolutely captivated by the man standing next to her. When he looked down at her she gave him the most beautiful smile and he burst out laughing when Jordan went "oh look Elynn, it's a human"! Then Charlie was sitting with a little girl looking at the komodo dragons when the little girl squealed and shouted "look mommy, he's got a Paw Patrol hat on"! Kids eh, there's no pleasing them sometimes is there!

The Aquarium, Lausanne

Paw Patrol trumps all!