This and that!

Life has been a bit of a roller-coaster this past week with horrible news and wonderful news mixed in with all the everyday stuff. About a week ago I was sitting in my living room when I heard emergency services racing by and eventually saw a helicopter heading in the same direction. Turns out there had been a horrific accident in the village of Amancy where sewing club is held. It involved a head on collision between a Mercedes and a small Peugeot which ultimately ended with the 82 year old Peugeot driver being killed and the 29 year old Mercedes driver being injured but not seriously so, apparently. I know it's easy to think that the 82 year old probably should no longer have been driving but about 25 years ago my colleague's son was hit in that exact same spot by a woman driving at speed on the school run, so who knows who was at fault. In a shocking turn of events it turned out that the lady who was killed was the founder of our sewing club about 25 years ago and I knew her from my early days at club until she retired from it around eight years ago. She was still very spritely so it must be awful for her family to lose her in such a horrific way. Then I was on FB about a week ago when I saw a post from the Amancy police asking for information regarding the whereabouts of L, a 73 year old local lady. Since I knew some of the ladies from sewing club would probably know her I forwarded it to the group and indeed several of them knew her very well. She's been missing for about a week now and despite extensive searches she has still not been found. Her groceries were still in her car and her phone was on the table but her handbag was missing - a really strange set of circumstances. I mean, how far could she have gotten on foot and yet even a helicopter and tracker dogs have found no trace of her. She volunteered at a domestic violence centre and one theory that I've seen floated is that someone might have taken against her for her work and decided to "act" on it. It's just a theory at this point but today, over a week since she went missing, they appear to be no closer to finding her. What a distressing time this must be for this family also!

On a much happier note, our small neighbourhood of just 20 houses has welcomed two new grandchildren in the last six weeks, thereby regenerating the community, what with two new sets of neighbours who have young children. It's nice to see the kids playing outside on the island but also reminds me how fast time has flown since it was my kids out there playing in the snow and building igloos!

While out on one of my walks I finally finished listening to the Martha Stewart book and oh boy, what a ride that was. The narrator said that if you thought you couldn't find anyone crazier than Ethel Kennedy you would be seriously misguided and man oh man was she right. I know Martha doesn't give off a friendly vibe anyway but to hear just how unhinged she allegedly is/was was something else. It was a very good "read" and I highly recommend it! I also got to watch season four of Clarkson's Farm and again, I loved it. While Jeremy doesn't depend on the farm for his income as he is independently wealthy, he does go some way to giving an insight into just how treacherous farming can be, particularly for those whose livelihoods really do depend on it!

I looked after Charlie again on Wednesday afternoon and since there was a horrible storm that day, looking after a bundle of energy like him was "challenging" to say the least. Jordan had been working on a large construction site and when he saw that they were throwing away hinged wooden "rectangles" he asked his boss if he could take one as he knew instantly that I could easily make it into a raised bed. The boss told him to take the whole lot (though thankfully he only took one) and I now have it sitting at the top of my garden full of onions, garlic, shallots and a few cabbages. I think I'll have to put some netting over it though as I'm pretty sure the local wildlife will be enjoying a few "salads" if I don't!

Sunday was our annual village fête and I initially thought I wouldn't go as I was feeling the heat quite badly, but in the end I strolled up there and ended up spending about five hours chatting with so many local people as it seems everyone and his uncle stops by at least for a few hours. I recognized an older gent from when I take stuff down to the Red Cross food bank and we always used to have a laugh together as he could never figure out how to get my collapsible grocery crate to fold back up! So I stopped by to say hallo to him and ended up getting caught up with him and his partner for about 15 minutes, telling me all that is wrong with the world (and French politics in particular - can't say I disagree with him on that) and by the time I wandered back to my own table I knew exactly how much his pension was and what they did to make ends meet. One of the young men at my table laughed and said "so I see you've met Régis then" as apparently he has a reputation for being a chatterbox!

Monday was a holiday here in France (Pentecost) but not in Switzerland so Jen asked if I would like to go with them to the Swiss Vapor Park, just across the border in Switzerland at the Montreux end of Lake Geneva so of course I said yes. It was quite a small park but there were loads of rides available on miniature steam trains that took you through different parts of a miniature Switzerland. They'd built a castle, a church, various beer halls and shops, all big enough that you could go into but still miniature. Charlie had an absolute blast as we all had to "howl like wolves" when we went through the tunnels. I had only expected to stay for a couple of hours but we stayed until they closed at 6 pm so I ended up getting a rather fetching sunburn from sitting on the trains in the bright sunshine. My own fault, of course, and there were even free stands available for people to put sunscreen on but as I hadn't "felt the burn" just yet, I didn't bother. Lesson learned though!

Instead of taking the motorway we went the
back way through a very pretty valley - but
of course it had its disadvantages!

The castle is only about 30 feet tall!

Inside the mini church!

The next day, since I obviously wasn't tired/burned enough, I'd booked a place on another old fogies trip to visit the city of Grenoble, which is about two hours away. I travelled with Véronique from my yoga class but it's amazing when you start talking to people on the bus and find out how many people you might already know anyway. The advantage of village life, I guess. When we arrived we had a short walk up to what they call "the eggs" (cable cars) to take us to the top of a smallish mountain where there was a museum visit planned, to be followed by lunch in the panoramic restaurant.

A google image - I couldn't get a very
good shot from inside the cablecar!

Our first visit was to the museum of the Chasseurs Alpins (the alpine hunters) which were set up in 1888 apparently as a fighting force of young men who knew the mountains inside out and who, presumably, were good skiers. I think if you were from this region, when you went into the military you were automatically put in the chasseurs alpins on the assumption that you could ski. Well apparently not so in all cases because I do remember skiing one day and seeing a large group of young men on 50 foot long skis weaving slowly down the mountain in the snowplough position (a basic technique to learn how to stop) and felt so sorry for the poor sods who had probably never been on skis in their lives up to this point!

A chasseur alpin!

The museum!

A very good lunch in the panoramic restaurant!

I had to zoom in to get this shot. This is the Prefecture
of Grenoble where I had to go for my naturalisation interview!

After lunch it was back down on the cable car and into the older part of town where we visited another museum dedicated to clergy and noblemen who had had links with Grenoble over the centuries. I couldn't take any pictures inside the museum but some of the artefacts were just fascinating (well, to me at least). Oh there were quite a lot of paintings (which doesn't interest me so much) but also weapons and armour dating back hundreds of years, ladies' jewellery, fine items from the homes of rich men and, what I loved the most, a few beautifully written books dating back to the 1300s! Far from being boring, it was well worth the visit. After that Véronique and I went off to explore parts of the old town for the remainder of the afternoon and ended up having a drink on the river bank. We got back around 7 pm so all in all it wasn't too bad, although I was glad not to have to get up at 5 am this morning, I must say!

And finally, when I lived in Pittsburgh I became friends with J, who was from Pittsburgh, She married, divorced and remarried and she and her new husband moved to Florida - where we ended up buying a house about 20 minutes down the road from her. What a small world. We eventually sold that house but we've remained in touch to this day and she's even threatening to come out for a visit once she and her husband get over their various health issues (thank goodness I finally got my bathrooms finished)! Anyway, she found this picture of us both in her swimming pool so sent it on to me. It must be about 25 years old at this point and my how I've changed - but I don't think she has that much! Oh to be young and frivolous again!

J on the left and me on the right!