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!