Back again!

Gosh, I see it's been almost three week since I posted this time around, so I guess there either hasn't been too much going on or I've just been too busy - or a bit of both I suspect. I spent most of last week feeling pretty cruddy so that didn't help. Still, ne'er mind, all's better now. We've had mostly beautiful spring-like weather but the past few days have been grey and miserable so I suppose that doesn't do much for my enthusiasm either. I had planned on pressure washing the back terrace today but then it started to rain so there wasn't much point. That - and cutting the grass at the front of my house - is on the agenda for tomorrow, as hopefully it'll be fine again!

Prices at the petrol pumps have gone up by 25% here so far and who knows what will happen after that. And what about food prices? How far and how fast are they going to go up? I guess it's ok for me as I'm on my own but I hate to think how it will affect families on fixed incomes. Mind you, I was watching a Youtube video the other day about ridiculous food prices and while I didn't catch the first part I eventually figured out it was in Canada. One thing that shocked me was a small fruit platter with about seven different sections of pre-cut fruit going for $54!!!! Say what??? The price was right there on the pack but I do wonder where these people were shopping because that fruit bought separately might have cost you a total of €20 over here so I'm guessing these people were going for the shock factor because I'm pretty sure those were not the prices of ALDI or LIDL, Canada (assuming they have them there)! That's not to say prices aren't rising, mind you, just that some of the prices shown seemed to me to be a bit of "joke". And of course, in the case of fruit platters, I guess you can always vote with your wallet and leave it on the shelf, although that's not true for most other things, of course!

I did notice in my local supermarket pre-packed "too good to go" boxes for around €4.50 and they seemed like a deal. These are basically fruit and veggies being sold off at reduced prices rather than eventually thrown out and I did indeed pick one up last week, although not this week as there was nothing that interested me. I think they have got the right idea too in that the boxes are pre-packed and you can't pick and choose what you want from each box, because I was in ALDI a couple of weeks ago and there was a woman there basically picking through all the boxes for what she wanted rather than taking the boxes as they were on display, thereby leaving all the rubbish for the next person. Still, being on my own I don't need huge quantities of stuff anyway but I might drop in at La Roche market again one of these Thursdays to see if my good value North African stallholder has anything that might interest Jen!

I've been flicking through Amazon Prime and Netflix in the colder evenings looking for something to watch and I've just tonight finished rewatching Rain Man! I'd seen it before but it was a real pleasure to watch it again as I think it was a great film beautifully acted by both Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman! I also rewatched The Bird Cage last week (another brilliant film, in my opinion) as I think teaming up Robin Williams with Nathan Lane (and Hank Azaria) was a piece of casting genius! I seemed to remember reading that the film was based on a French film called La Cage aux Folles and vaguely remember seeing it in the early 1980s with my then boyfriend and we both thought it was hilarious. The French version has our protagonists running away from whoever and ending up in Sicilian Mafia country for some reason - which makes me think I'll look it up and see if I can still find it!

While I've been starting some basic gardening chores I've also been listening to Cheere Denise reading the 2010 Kitty Kelley book on Oprah and ho boy is it good. Not as good as the Ethel Kennedy book or some of the others but, while I haven't finished it yet, it really does a deep dive into the real Oprah behind the facade! I've always said I was never a good judge of character and in the mid-80s I thought Oprah was pretty amazing, but over time I've come to dislike her more and more and listening to this book now makes me see why! I'll hold off judgment, though, until I've actually finished it, but she's another one who comes over as a very unlikeable person!

EDITED TO ADD: I'm guessing when The Bird Cage came out, Robin Williams and Nathan Lane were doing the publicity rounds for it when they appeared together on Oprah! Nathan Lane is gay but hadn't yet come out and when Oprah started pushing him and making him feel obviously uncomfortable, Robin Williams saw what was going on and jumped straight in, cracked a joke and brought the attention back to himself. RIP Robin and screw you Oprah!

I looked after Charlie again on Wednesday so we took his bike and the stroller to the park before we picked up Elynn from daycare. All of a sudden I heard crying and looked over to see him on the floor holding his ankle. Turns out he'd climbed up the top of the slide and then jumped, landing badly on his ankle. I prayed he hadn't broken it because I couldn't see how I was gonna push him (in the stroller maybe) with Elynn walking by my side, plus the bike, plus the helmet, plus the football up the bloody hill back home. Thankfully he hadn't done any damage and was up and running again by the time we went to pick up the babe, the same babe who had conjunctivitis and looked like something out of a horror movie! Bloody hell, it wasn't going well on Wednesday! Then, to top it all off, I was changing Elynn in the bathroom when I heard Lenny the horrible cat retching - and the bloody thing chucked up about a kilo what looked like chicken curry (it obviously wasn't) right next to my handbag! I swear if he'd chucked up in my bag I wouldn't have been responsible for my actions so I'm guessing maybe even Lenny knows my limits!

On Saturday morning we were to meet up near La Roche for a photo shoot with the two grandmas and the grandkids, which was a belated Christmas present from Jordan and Jen. Trouble was, the  photographer's studio was pretty hard to find and it was Carnaval so the place was heaving. Thankfully we made it in time but I was a bit of a sweaty mess by the time we got there. Talking of Carnaval, I remember getting back from Cuba on a Friday a few years ago and then having to participate in Carnaval as part of the sewing club the next day in the cold and pouring rain! So I'd gone from about 40+°C in Cuba to about 10°C back home and getting soaked through. Oh happy days!

Then on Saturday night we had our latest boardgame evening which was fun (I really like the game Time's Up) with me getting home at around 2 am! On the way back up the forestry road to my village I came round the bend in the pitch black only to come face-to-face with a massive great heavy load who took up pretty much the entire road. Damn, that's why I'm always wary on these roads, looking out for wild animals usually, but I never expected a monster truck at 2 a.m.!

Put me in mind of this truck
on the way up to Mont Saxonnex,
although this was nothing compared
to the heavy load coming at me!

So I've been really tired this week, and today in particular, but I'm hoping to feel more like my old self this coming week. Jen sent me pictures and videos of the kids having a blast at a local indoor play centre this morning and told me that André was there with his "lady friend" and her kids! Tiens, they seem to be going strong. Never thought I'd see André willing to spend a morning at a play centre but then I guess if you meet the right one .....!

Life in this part of the world!

Unlike so many other parts of the world (the Middle East in particular right now), life seems to be plodding along much the same way as always (and long may it last). I've said before that I'm quite politically minded but prefer to keep most of my opinions off this blog for obvious reasons, although I'm guessing most people could guess what I think of both the current French and British governments. Depending on where you get your news from, there could be 100 different versions of the rights and wrongs of what's going on in the Middle East and who am I to know where the truth really lies. I just feel so much for all the innocent people caught up in this nightmare and can only hope for a swift resolution to it all, with at least a semblance of peace returning as soon as possible. It's odd because I'd also mentioned that I had wanted to book a trip to India in March and if I had indeed done so I might well have been at least tangentially caught up in this horror show as I'd decided I wanted to fly with Emirates via Dubai, rather than Air India. Thankfully for me I decided to put that trip off until maybe next year, but in the end, even if my trip did get cancelled that would just be small potatoes compared to what so many innocent people are dealing with right now!

The weather here is still incredibly spring-like and I see all the gardening videos are already popping up on Youtube again. This is where I usually dash out and buy all manner of gardening supplies, plant way too early and then lose the lot to frost in a couple of weeks! I'm having to sit on my hands right now to prevent myself from doing just that - but have any of you noticed how as soon as you get home from whichever store you almost instantly get an email asking you to "rate their service"!!!! If someone has provided good service I'm always happy to oblige, but do I really need to "rate" your store if all I bought was a bloody paintbrush? I don't think so!

With the great weather we're already starting to see hot air balloons round here, and just yesterday I saw one hovering over the mountains behind my house, although how "hot" the air would have been at that altitude beats me. Unfortunately I wasn't quick enough to get a photo, but it was somewhat surreal to see it drifting in and out of the clouds with the sun highlighting its silhouette every now and then!

I stopped in at St. Pierre on Saturday for a couple of things and man was it busy. Saturday is change over day for the ski accommodation rentals and St. Pierre is at the start of the gorge that leads up to three great ski resorts. The supermarket there was pretty much heaving with skiers buying supplies for their stay (rather than paying the inflated prices in the resorts), then the Saturday farmers market was on and, since we have municipal elections coming up on 15th March, local political candidates were out canvassing in earnest. We have two "lists" for our village and they seem to be running on pretty similar programmes because, to be honest, there's not an awful lot of change you can make in such a small village, except to say that the miserable Maire is not up for re-election and my neighbour is also running on one of the lists so I'll probably vote for them!

For about the last three months I've been going to a lady in town to get mani-pedis and massages every month and we chat quite a bit. She had a Laotian father and a Thai mother and came to France at the age of eight. When I asked why they came here she said that her father had been in the Laotian military and they had come here as refugees. She was telling me that they were housed in large complexes with each family having its own dormitory. They also arranged French lessons for everyone and skills learning, particularly for the women, plus help in finding work and subsequent independent accommodation. Surely that's how every refugee situation should be handled, but I guess maybe in Europe - right now at least - countries are just too overwhelmed with the sheer numbers of people claiming asylum to be able to provide that kind of help. She did make me laugh, though, when she said how excited they would all get when the little van used to come round about once a month selling "real food" (ie their food) and how they would all have a big party that night because for once they wouldn't be eating cheese, potatoes and cured meat!

My sister and BIL just got back from their trip to Carnaval in Venice and absolutely loved it. The weather was kind and it wasn't as crowded as she thought it might be, but what really impressed her was the food (no shit Sherlock) and how elegant the people were (I guess that meant no-one was slobbing round in jogging pants and sneakers then). My former colleague spent a year in Italy as an au pair and said that appearances were everything to Italians so I'm guessing what my sister said rings true!

Talking of "appearances" I finally made it back to the gym again last week and dusted off the box with the weights I must have bought about five years ago and never used. I hate bingo wings (floppy arms), although to be fair mine aren't as bad as they could be, so I decided I'd start using the arm machines at the gym and the weights at home. Only thing is, I thought I'd bought 2 kg weights but now I remember the lightest ones they had at the time were 5 kg (about 11 lbs) so I nearly fell over backwards the first time I tried doing arm lifts with them! It's getting marginally easier now but I don't see myself entering body-building competitions anytime soon!

In other news, I decided to give up on the Arabic lessons I started recently because I just wasn't enjoying them and didn't really see the point because I'm pretty sure the UN won't be calling on me to do simultaneous interpretation Arabic/English anytime soon. I'm still keeping on with the Italian lessons though and was thinking of asking my friend if she fancied another trip to the market in Turin this year as we haven't been for a couple of years! And speaking of languages, I remember many many years ago playing cards with my oldest brother when he started adding up his score in German! I asked him where he'd learned German and he told me he'd been offered a job in Zurich at one point and had started a crash course in German, only for his wife to back out at the last minute, hence they ended up staying in England/Wales! I wonder if he ever regretted it, although it's too late to find out now as this is the brother that died seven years ago last month, just as I retired!

And finally, on Thursday the old fogies club had its day trip to Lyon for the Cirque Imagine (a bit like a poor man's Cirque du Soleil) and very nice it was too. The compere really hammed it up with deliberately poor magic tricks, there were performances by jugglers, acrobats and gymnasts (many of them from Eastern Europe) all while we ate an excellent meal with equally excellent service. Would I go again? No I don't think so, but am I glad I went the first time - yes, absolutely!

Cirque Imagine!