This and that!

It's been a much slower few days lately, and what with the weather being glorious I don't have a lot to complain about (although I'm sure I'll find something). I made a deliberate point of not tuning in to the US elections until the day the results were in. Not much I can do about it either way so no point getting worked up about one candidate or the other, especially when we have our own cr@p going on both in the UK and France - and believe me, we do!

We had our latest board game evening at my place on Saturday and since it was so close to Halloween we all dressed up and I left my decorations out especially (I usually take them down the day after). Halloween itself was fairly quiet with the littles starting to knock around 5 pm (when it's already pretty dark) and the last group knocking at around 8.30 - which was fine by me. Having disconnected my doorbell a couple of months ago I no longer get startled every time someone shows up and I have to admit it's one of the best decisions I've made. In retrospect I should have done it years ago but I guess, like many people, I always felt like you should answer the door, just like you should answer the phone, but while I still keep an eye out for someone at the door, I unplugged the house phone about a year ago and have no regrets about that either (fewer marketing calls)!

For some reason the other day my internet went down for a few hours so I ended up picking up another book in the series Down to Earth and thoroughly enjoyed it. I believe it was made into a television series some time ago which didn't do very well, but I actually like her books and the no-nonsense way she wrote. The series is about a couple who gave up their florist shop in London for a series of entrepreneurial ventures, mainly in Devon, with this one being about how they set up a kids's holiday retreat in the '70s. I think this was set in 1976 because it was during the scorching summer where water restrictions were imposed. I actually remember a tap being set up in the street when I was young as it hadn't rained for ages! Yeah, that actually happened in England! Seems like here in France if it hasn't rained for three days they start talking about water restrictions! Anyhoo, it made me laugh at the lack of "health and safety" concerns  because while the kids were well supervised it was in the days of "just stick your kid on the train to London and trust them to get off at the right station". The kids were also washing in the river because of the water shortages but I remember doing that on our school's very basic camping trip to Cornwall when I was 10 or 11 and nobody died, even if most of us went back home with our still untouched clean clothes in our bags! So if you like simple and old fashioned, I would recommend her books!

Queuing for water, 1976!

Talking of books, I finally finished the other book I mentioned in my last post - you know, the one written by the poet about her marriage break-up and while she did indeed write beautifully, I couldn't wait for her to get out of first gear so I won't be picking up any more of her books. Seems she had written another book about her divorce but, err, no thanks!

I had a funny incident the other Thursday when I walked down to my pilates class and decided to catch the old bone-shaker bus back home. I bought a ticket on my phone app but when I went to scan it on the QR code on the side of bus there wasn't one. The driver told me that it was a new fleet of bone-shakers and they hadn't gotten round to installing the QR codes so my trip would be free (it only cost €1.50 so it wasn't exactly going to ruin the company but I appreciated the relaxed attitude)! We got chatting about his holiday on the way back up to the village and when we got to my stop at the one and only restaurant he asked me where I lived, so I told him - and he drove me all the way home! When I hopped out right outside my front door my neighbour just looked at me in amazement saying "first the mean old farmer brings you home in his big ol' jeep (this was years ago) and now the bus driver changes his route to drop you off too"! What can I say, I like to chat!

Talking of my neighbour, last Thursday I drove her to the hospital for an appointment with her anaesthesiologist (again, sp?) and sat outside the reception to read my book while she went in. You know, now I can understand why hospitals have those painted lines on the floor ("follow the yellow line for obstetrics, the red line for radiology" etc.) because everyone that came by asked me what they should do. I mean, it said on the door "wait until 10 minutes before your appointment and then enter without knocking". Thankfully it was fairly quiet but having to answer people all day long would definitely make me murderous! Mind you, one guy that asked me had the most horrendous set of stitches running all the way down his nose and one eye twice the size of the other (so I was polite to him, imagining his injuries stemmed from a nasty street fight - but who knows)! After that I dragged her to the fabric store as I needed something for sewing club, and since it was still early we stopped off in town at the weekly market where we bumped into two other sets of neighbours and then went for a coffee. I reckon that was the longest she'd been outside the house in years! I was a bit surprised, though, when she asked if I'd mind going to her favourite butcher's shop and when I went to start walking she nearly fainted, saying there was no way she could walk that far uphill. In all honesty it would probably only have been a 15 minute walk but uphill, and I hadn't realized that she could no longer do that! Kinda shocked me, to be honest, but I drove her up there anyway and all in all we had a pretty nice morning (except for Scar)!

Other than that, there's not much been going on. One of the FB hiking groups made me laugh because someone posted that he'd hiked up to the Lac de Tardevant and had forgotten his trousers up there (his waterproofs, I doubt he came down in his underpants) and if anyone was going that way could they look out for them on the off chance. Well blow me but one guy said he was going up there that very morning and actually found them! Lucky man, because those kinds of trousers are not cheap!

The farmer put the cows in the field behind my house yesterday and it was so lovely to hear the cowbells close up again. Oh I can usually hear them in the field further up, but this time they were right there and so lovely!

If I figure out how to upload
the video I will!

Since I've been so lazy lately I decided to take myself off to the lake at Passy (a lazy walk but beautiful) as it is still gorgeous out. The place was pretty busy with loads of families having the same idea, but it did me the world of good to get outside in the fresh air, although methinks it's time for something a bit more difficult before the weather turns!

The Mont Blanc in all it's glory!

And finally, today is Remembrance Sunday in the UK (always the closest Sunday to 11 November), so I have been proudly wearing my poppy all week and watched the service at the Royal Albert Hall where, as always, they did everyone proud!

My niece took these pictures
in the village where my
mom used to live!

Lest we forget!

Dad!

Grandad!

A whirlwind week!

I knew last week was going to be a busy one and ho boy, was it ever. I don't usually mind as long as I can keep on top of where I've got to be and when, but sometimes it felt like I never got out of sixth gear! At least all the dashing around allowed me time to listen to my latest book on Audible - even if I'm not sure that I'm particularly enjoying it. I don't know what it is about this book - maybe it's the author's voice that grates on me, I'm not sure - but even while I think, on balance, it's a good book I'm struggling. I won't mention the name of it because I'll just sound like a peasant since she is both a successful poet and writer, but I obviously (obviously!) don't have the soul of poet and am struggling. She has a good story to tell but I feel like all I'm hearing is "so I Google earthed my home last year, and my son's bike was in the front yard" (followed by a 20 minute soliloquy), and "then I Googled it the year before and my daughter's stroller was in the yard" (followed by another soliloquy) and I'm thinking "lady, just get on with the bloody book, would ya"! So anyhoo the jury's still out on this one!

On Monday I was determined to go to yoga, despite the fact that just a couple of hours later I had my naturalisation ceremony, so it was a bit of a dash to get home and changed before showing up for that! While I was sitting listening to the speech welcoming new citizens I couldn't help thinking about how lovely I find France to be and yet how f....d up this government is trying to destroy it - oh and how they "forgot to mention the €50 billion more in debt the country is than was announced prior to the legislative elections in the summer"! There were about 20 of us receiving our déclaration de naturalisation that day and in most cases the Maires of the respective villages were there to present the papers to their new "citizens". Not in my case though but that was ok with me. When I mentioned this to my neighbour she said she had seen him the previous week at the lunch for Octobre Rose (the breast cancer support movement) and he had actually looked away from her when he walked past!!!! This man knew her husband as he had been on the local council for years and had been invited to their home on many an occasion, and knew that her husband had recently died, but didn't even acknowledge her presence, let alone extend his condolences! So nah, I didn't need that jerk handing me my paperwork, thank you very much.  After that I had to dash off to sewing club as I have the keys to open up, so all in all Monday was a very long day!

Then on Tuesday I had to drop my car off to get winter tyres put on, so thought I'd be good and walk back into town in the evening to pick it up (about 45 minutes). Wednesday I was up and out at seven to take my neighbour to drop her car off at the garage and then dash back into town for 11.30 to pick up my new French ID and passport. The ironic thing is that according to all my paperwork I have been French since last November (so two months after I applied) so it intrigues me somewhat that I had to go to Grenoble in March for my citizenshp interview. I mean, why bother if I was already French?

Since my neighbour's car wasn't ready that evening I suggested to her that the next day we both walk into the village to catch the little ol' bone-breaker of a bus into town so that she will be confident enough to know that she can find her way round the bus system (spartan as it is) if ever she's stuck. I told her it'd be like going on a girls day out and she laughed, but in the end it turns out that the young heating engineer who had been called out to service her heating system said that he was going past the garage and dropped her off on his way to Annecy! Now I'm sure this is totally against company rules (I mean, would she be covered by his insurance if he had an accident), but it did go to show that there are some nice people out there too doesn't it!

The parking situation in town is now absolutely hell, even though the Thursday market has now been moved from the town square to the side streets. The problem is that when the commuter train (the Léman Express) was inaugurated people were (rightly) encouraged to use that to travel into Geneva for work. Trouble is, while "park 'n ride" is a great idea, there's not much point "riding" if they hadn't given any thought to the "park" side of the equation. This Maire is the guy who decided it wasn't necessary to have any kind of ramp or elevator at the train station to allow people to get across the train tracks, and now it would seem that encouraging people to catch the train all while not making sufficient parking spaces available to them - well you just end up with people parked all the way into town and a lot of pisssed off local shopkeepers whose customers just give up! So on Thursday, knowing I wouldn't be able to park because of (a) the market and (b) the commuters, I again got up at the crack of dawn and caught the bone-shaker bus into town for my pilates lesson, and while that was fine I subsequently learned that the jacket I routinely wear in this weather - well it's not totally waterproof! Damn! Since I got there so early I was chatting to our teacher and nearly fainted when she told me that she teaches 28 classes a week! She's in her early 60s and has thighs that could probably crack walnuts, so talk about feeling deflated after feeling so proud of myself for walking into town on Tuesday!

Anyhoo, on Friday I decided that I was going to go out and treat myself to a totally waterproof jacket - (which would obviously be necessary if I was going to keep up with all this walking)! So I drove down to the Mountain Store in Passy, found exactly what I wanted, along with a more appropriate (read "waterproof") backpack and then headed out for a walk around the lake - one of my favourite places round here. When I picked up my passport on Thursday I asked about how to go about getting on the electoral register and she told me to take x,y,z paperwork to my local Mairie on Monday. Well I looked it up online instead when I got back from the lake and within about five minutes it was done! And the next day I got a phone call from the secretary to say that I was registered! Talk about efficient!

Then on Saturday a group of us from sewing club agreed to meet up in Scientrier to drop off the beanies we had made for the cancer survivors' association and would you believe we had actually made 85 all told for the association to hand out to any of the ladies who wanted them. Then we went off to enrol in the 8km walk that was also being held to raise funds for the Association, and given the size of the crowd (maybe a couple of hundred) I'm pretty sure they easily raised over €1,000 just from the walk participants alone. When we got back there was a zumba class for anyone who wanted to join in (no thanks), but I thoroughly enjoyed myself that day and when you're yacking non-stop, 8km goes by very quickly!

Anyone for zumba!

And finally today I made it down to the château for the exhibition of work by local artists. I've mentioned before that "art" usually doesn't do much for me - well too much of it, at least - but by golly there was some talented artists' work on display!

The château in La Roche!

Then I met up with Jordan and Jen in the château's grounds as we knew that La Roche was having its annual Venetian-style carnaval parade. We didn't know where or when, but as luck would have it, we were seated exactly where the parade started and got to see everyone up close and personal. The weather was lovely and having a bird's eye view of the parade was the icing on top of a very lovely cake!

It's been a couple of weeks (again)!

Looking at my posting history I see that I'm only posting approximately every two weeks (unless I've just come back from holiday I guess), so you can probably tell life is just wending along in its usual very routine way! There's nothing wrong with that of course as long as (in my opinion) I'm not wasting too much time on the computer going down rabbit holes. First thing I usually do when I get up is read a few blogs and then see what's happening in the news, although I sometimes wonder about doing that too as there might be a good case to be made for "if you can't do anything about it, why not leave it where it is"! When I was still working I would put Sky News UK on while I was getting breakfast but I just heard tonight that (allegedly) they are shutting down!!! If that's true I'm afraid I can easily see why. They went from being a pretty decent news outlet (in my opinion) to absolutely biased one-sided crap so I was happy to drop them when I disconnected my TV three years ago now. That being said Sky News Australia are great and can also be very funny, so I have to wonder how two news outlets seem to have fared so differently!

Mind you, the other day the death of a Youtube "personality" during a muckbang came across my news feed. I mean, have you any idea what a muckbang is? For those of you with dirty minds ha ha, because it is apparently an "event" where the person buys a ton of food and then films themselves gorging on it! Seriously? Are people that desperate for fame that they would stoop this low? I understand that some people have an eating disorder but I think in so many of these cases they have a "fame hunger" disorder instead. This young woman was either from Japan or Korea (I can't remember now) and gorged herself to such an extent that her stomach burst and she died! How sad is that, and what a waste of young life!

In other news, last Saturday 12 of us went out to lunch to celebrate the three Libran birthdays in the family (me, Jen's mom and Jen). It was a really nice (if loud) time, and as I was walking back to Jordan and Jen's place with André for birthday cake, he was telling me that his mates were pushing him to ask the Israeli girl he knows out. It's quite obvious that they both like each other very much, religion would never be a problem (I lived with a Muslim for five years and our different religions were never an issue), but he was also quite enjoying his single guy life too. I haven't heard from him since but we'll see how that plays out, I guess!

When we got back to their place, Jordan discovered that their cat (Lenni the Horrible Cat) had caught a small lizard on the balcony and bitten its tail off, so we were faced with the bizarre task of trying to catch a wriggling tail-less lizard and another wriggling body-less tail. My suggestion to put the tail into the double cream to whip it up to go with dessert didn't go down too well, unfortunately!

I had to drive into Geneva the other week for my bi-annual mammogram (always fun) at the very modern hospital with about five parking places the size of a Mini Cooper. Of course if you were lucky enough to find a parking place you'd still probably have to climb out through the trunk of your car but even so, it would probably be a good enough omen to go buy a lottery ticket! I finally figured out the best way to get there on public transport was to catch a bus from the border into central Geneva and then a tram back out towards the border which stopped at the hospital. Much more efficient, but afterwards I just decided to walk back to the border to the parking garage as it was only about a 45 minute walk if you're not in a hurry. Years ago, when I was working in D.C., I remember reading about an older lady in the poorer part of D.C. who got so tired of waiting for public transport that she just started walking everywhere instead and never stopped. I'm not so sure how advisable that would be nowadays but she certainly looked as slim and graceful as some of those African tribespeople you see pictured in glossy magazines, so maybe there's something to be said for this walking business!

With that in mind, a couple of ladies at sewing club mentioned that there was going to be an event in the local village to raise money for October Rose (do they call it Pink October in English?), the charity movement that supports breast cancer sufferers. Two of our ladies have had cancer and indeed one is still wearing what I would call a "skull cap" or beanie to cover her hair loss, so she asked if we would be up for making a few beanies to donate to the local hospital. They have to be very soft because apparently it is difficult to wear anything on your head if you've just lost your hair, so the club bought several metres of soft fabric and for two weeks we have kinda set up a production line and had made around 50 at last count. I was shocked when they told me that these things go for between €40 and €60 so I was really glad she asked us to do that. Moreover on the day we hand them over there will be an 8 km walk (not sponsored - they make their money from the food and drinks set up) so a few of us will be doing that also!

The production line!

Then the other day my favourite neighbour came round and asked if I would mind terribly taking her to a hospital appointment near the Swiss border to see the anaesthesiologist (sp?) for an upcoming operation as she's too afraid to drive on the motorway. So I'll be taking her (quite happily) to that appointment, plus her operation and to drop her car off in town at the garage. When I mentioned this to my other friend she told me to give her a call if ever she was stuck as she would be happy to help out too! My life doesn't have the fullest schedule as you can see so between us I'm sure we can sort it out! This is the lady who lost her husband in March of this year and can you believe she has only just received her first widow's pension - after six months!!! I think that's scandalous as she is in her 70s and not working, but she has always been very good with money and was always able to squirrel money away "just in case". Given how bad her late husband (the bank manager?) was with money I'm actually not surprised she always handled the money and was able to make it, even despite my other neighbour and I both offering to help out!

And finally today was the day Charlie's school had organized the "cross country run" to raise money for student activites. As I said above, they don't make money from these events by having you get people to sponsor you (which I always hated), but on the food and drinks. The younger children were asked to go in costume, so Charlie went as the fastest creature known to man - the panda!!

The younger children had just one circuit of a flat route to run and surprise of surprises, Charlie actually won it - not that he was that bothered as he was more excited by the packet of mini Smarties they all got when they crossed the finish line!

The little girl in second place is
his best friend - and just as 
loud as him!

There were about 10 races in all, getting progressively more difficult with the age of the children. Everyone cheered everyone on, but I think the loudest cheers were for the kids who came in last, and quite rightly so. I had thought about volunteering to run with them but since the later races involved running downhill to the parking lot and then back up again, I'm so glad I didn't offer! At the end they sprung a surprise on the four teachers and the school's director and asked the five older ladies to run with the last kids. I'm not so sure how much of it they ran, but they were good sports and all five crossed the finish line holding hands - and in last place! It was a lovely morning and I offered to walk back down to Jordan and Jen's apartment rather than trying to squeeze into a space between two car seats. It wasn't a long or difficult walk and since I'm going to walk into town (and maybe back up) tomorrow to see an art exhibitioin at the château, and maybe do the same later in the week to pick up my new French passport, who knows, keep this up and I too may soon start looking like an African tribeswoman!

The château in St. Jeoire

Where has this year gone?

I don't know about you but I can't believe it's almost October already. I mean, where on earth has 2024 gone?? Maybe I should make an effort to do more one-off things during the year as just maintaining the same routine day in, day out, seems to make time just fly by, don't you think!

Anyhoo, since I wasn't particularly busy the other day I decided to sit down and apply for my French passport. In reality it wasn't too difficult but it is a real faff having to set up an account for this (to get my appointment at the Mairie in La Roche to hand in my application) and make an account for that (to obtain an administrative number for .... goodness know what, I can't remember now). Then I had to buy what they call a timbre fiscal in the amount of €86, which I guess is just a way of paying the cost of the passport directly to the State. So I'm online filling out the form for a first time applicant and when I get to the end they ask me for my credit card number to pay the €120 fee! Say what, it costs €86 and I'd already paid it! But when I looked into it I realized the site, while looking like an official government site, was in fact just one of those promotional sites that "will do the work for you for a fee". But I'd already done all the work hadn't I! It's a bit like when you apply for a visa to visit a foreign country and up pops the "for profit" sites rather than the official government site. I'm pretty sure they're mostly legit, but I was damned if I was going to pay them €40 to just forward my paperwork for me! That being said, I'm so glad I got my citizenship before they see my photo - oh my word, it wouldn't look out of place on a wanted poster! Anyway, when I fetched the mail the other day I see that I have also received an invitation to a "citizenship ceremony" at the local Préfecture for 12 October. I don't have to go but feel I should anyway as it's the right thing to do!

September 24th was my birthday and I got a FB message from Karon, who I met in St. Lucia eight years ago. Honestly we chatted like it was just yesterday First thing she mentioned was the bloody hair nets that we had to wear when we went ziplining (she signed me up without my knowledge). Honestly we looked like a bunch of dinner ladies but we had to wear them in order to prevent us being scalped in the event of an accident(!!!)! 

Then we got on to the older lady who sampled every one of the 19 varieties of rum when we visited the rum factory. To be honest, the tasters were really tiny, but 19??? And then of course she mentioned the four of us sitting in the sea with our rum punches in our hand and going wheeeeee every time a wave came in and threatened to spill our drinks!!! The locals got a real kick out of us apparently. Happy days indeed, and it's so nice to think that after all these years we can still have a laugh together!

On Wednesday this week we set off for our latest, overnight trip to the Fortress of Guédelon. The fort has been built using the methods used in the 13th century and is very impressive. Stick me in an art gallery and I'll be nodding off at the coffee shop within 10 minutes, but anything like this I absolutely adore! The very big down side was the bloody awful weather but since we were expecting it everyone was well equipped. I'd bought a sturdy poncho to take with me to Thailand (I forgot it), but it certainly came in handy this week. At one point my friend was trying to take a photo of a bunch of geese wandering round the village when one of the males took umbrage and started running towards her. My first thought was to start flapping my poncho at him but thankfully it didn't come to that 'cos as soon as he'd scared her off he went back to his lady friends.

In the internal courtyard there was a little kid of about four years old having an absolute blast jumping in the puddles. Thankfully he was totally dressed for it and he was an absolute joy to watch. Then at lunch when one of the older men in our party heard us speaking English he started telling us that the only time he had ever visited England was many years ago when his school won a free trip to London and as he was one of he younger teachers he was asked to accompany them. Problem was, when they went to board the bus back to the airport they were six kids short!!! Turns out they'd started chatting up a young English girl and she ended up giving them a lift to the airport. Of course in those days there were no cell phones so I can't even begin to imagine the panic they must have been in trying to find them!

While we were wandering round my friend was telling me about a former colleague of ours (who went back to England many years ago). She might just be 60 at this point and as my friend was due to meet up with her and her husband the next day, the husband had sent her a message to say that P (the former colleague) was not doing well at all and would seem to be suffering from pretty fast developing Alzheimers/dementia (I don't know the difference). So they all met up for lunch and my friend was telling me that P was quite obviously not well, very unsure of herself and stressed out just at the idea of having to find the ladies' bathrooms. I know 60 might not be considered "early onset", but I am totally shocked and saddened to hear of her decline at what, after all, is still a pretty young age!

A google picture of the fortress (the
weather was too bad for me to get a
decent picture of the whole fort)!

The archers would shoot through
these gaps at the invading hordes!

On the way back we went "through" the most stunning rainbow I have ever seen. It was a complete arch (double arch actually) and the colours were spectacular. I couldn't do it justice but I have honestly never seen such a beautiful rainbow in my life!

Then the other day when I picked André up from the Ford garage he was telling me how stressed he was because one of their computer systems had screwed up and they had a massive job to complete for their upcoming conference. He told me that they use Teams to communicate and he has a colleague who is very nice, but who can never "just send a message". It goes something like this: "ping, hi André", so André says hi. Then "ping, all ok?" - André yep! "Ping, can I ask you a favour?" and so it goes on and on. He doesn't seem to get the idea that he can put his entire message into one "ping" and they would get a lot more done a lot faster! The ping is driving him mad! That made me laugh because I remember reading one time that a man (in the US I think) came home from work one evening and, as ever, called out "hi honey, I'm home" - and she shot him!!! My ex used to walk in every night (when he wasn't at the bar) and say "so, what's the game plan?", but luckily for him I don't own a gun!

And finally André has been telling me for some time now that when he goes to the local pub in Geneva he has become friendly with a man from my work called Juan. Well I went through all the Juans I could think of but we could never figure out who it was. Eventually he sent me a photo of Juan and another former colleague, Carlos (who I remember very well), so now it turns out we're all going out for a drink and to a concert together at some date to be arranged by André. Just hope nobody uses Teams (ping)!

This and that!

It's been a fairly quiet few days again, although with the weather being glorious it has allowed me to get outside on a few walks and/or work in the garden and then try to find something half way decent to watch on either Amazon or Netflix in the evenings. I had noticed on a few occasions that when I maybe spotted a film on Netflix I might like to watch at some point, the next time I logged on I'd find out that said film had now become "for payment only". Okay once or twice I might have made a mistake, but by the third time, I realized that if I earmarked a relatively well known film to watch later, it would very often change status from free to "for rent" when I went back. Sneaky buggers! And then this morning I got an email from Netflix to say that my bog standard contract with them for €5.99 per month had been cancelled and would be going up to €13.99 per month as from end October!!!! I don't think so! I've been starting series and not finishing them because they just don't hold my interest, so I've put a note in my diary to cancel it before the new contract kicks in! Maybe if they didn't pay out ridiculous sums of money for some of the less than stellar productions they wouldn't need to more than double their contract price without warning! Mind you, I probably need to start cutting back because apparently I've yet again been hacked and "caught looking at porn sites which could seriously damage my reputation but if I just pay $1,300 into the following bitcoin account they will delete all their evidence"! Jeez, and I thought I was being so discreet!

Then the other day I went to pick up André from the Ford garage and when he saw that I had my ear buds in listening to a book on Audible he told me that his friend just got done the other day for the same "crime"! Huh? How can that be a crime? I get that they don't want you having your phone in your hands, but surely listening to a book is no more dangerous than listening to the radio? Well apparently that's not so because it would seem that the ear buds can "diminish my awareness of what's going on around me while driving". Again, huh? I still don't see how it is any different from listening to the radio but it is, apparently, and his friend got fined €90!!!! So what with that and my porn habit, I guess I'd better be more careful!

Earlier this week my Nigerian friend's wife, M, stopped by for a chat as she's going to be around more now that she's been made redundant. It wasn't how she had planned to retire but she realizes she is lucky because she actually can retire, whereas many of the younger journalists are struggling to find new jobs. When I asked after her husband she told me that he had had to come back from Nigeria (his happy place) as he had been taken ill with blood clots on the lungs and diagnosed with stage three prostate cancer. When I asked if it was possible to get good medical care in Nigeria she said it was - but only if you had money as there is no medical insurance!! I guess I've always taken good medical coverage for granted but when you realize that many people don't have that it's pretty humbling!

On Saturday we had our latest board game evening at Jordan and Jen's place so everyone got to meet Elynn, then the following day we had our latest "clean up the neighbourhood" get together, which allowed us to meet two new sets of neighbours who have recently moved in. Honestly if everyone pitches in for just an hour we can have the place looking pretty nice and after that - well, it's party time. Everyone cooks and brings a bottle and as the weather was nice we were able to stay out until it got dark and cold. One of the young kids is called Loris and while I don't know him very well, he is a very polite, well brought up young lad. He was excitedly telling me that in a year's time he is hoping to be going to New York for four years to study dance. When I asked him what kind of dance (with me thinking classical dance/ballet) he said hip hop! I was stunned because having been responsible for the education grant at work I have seen people whose kids studied in New York and it ain't cheap, but to spend four years studying hip hop??? I'm not sure how that's even possible but then maybe I'm just an old lady. I hope he gets to achieve his pipe dream, even if I somehow doubt it!

I stopped in at the local exhibition centre this afternoon to visit the annual creative arts fair and while everything was indeed lovely, all I bought was a pair of electric scissors for sewing club. I also spotted a poster announcing what I would call a freebie exchange mart where people can bring whatever they want to get rid of and take anything that takes their fancy, the only proviso being that everything is free. I think it's a great idea and am hoping it will really motivate me to get working on decluttering to take stuff over there!

And finally, I got a phone call from our local Mairie on Friday to say that they had received my paperwork back from Grenoble and guess what? After goodness knows how many years/attempts, it would seem that I'm now French! So Vive la France (finally)!

Gonna send off for my new passport when I 
get back from Guédelon next week!

Feel the burn!

The last few days following our visit to the Parc de Merlet have been somewhat telling as to just how long it's been since I did any exercise (a couple of months probably)! Oh I've done a couple of walks on the flat round the lake at Passy and also into Cluses but actually doing something even slightly strenous? Nope, I've been avoiding that like the plague, so the climb from the parking lot to the park entrance the other day was a struggle, even though, being perfectly honest, it shouldn't have been difficult at all. Anyway. all that to say that for the past couple of days I've been falling out of bed and hobbling around as my poor old muscles try to figure out what on earth just happened! As things calmed down a bit I decided that I didn't want to keep going through that every time I made any effort so the best thing to do - apparently - is to keep at it!

I mentioned before that I follow a few hiking groups on FB and when I see anything that looks relatively easy and somewhat local I've been making a note of it with a view to "getting round to it someday"! To be honest, if I don't do it in the autumn with the cooler weather I'm probably not going to do it when the snow comes am I, so my friend and I decided that since today was supposed to be nice we'd take a trip out to a place called the Gorges de Diosaz, which turned out to be only about 20 minutes from the Parc de Merlet, so not far at all. Then this morning my friend let me know that she had had a bad night and hadn't slept so I decided to head off on my own because I knew I'd soon be getting cabin fever again if I didn't get out and walk!

At the entrance to the park there was a signpost to a small cave which I'm presuming had indeed started off as a cave but which had later been hollowed out further and used to store dynamite for mining purposes!

According to the signs posted outside, it appears that some poor family had actually lived in this cave for three years (????) in the late1800s and a pitiful young (unmarried) woman had been forced to give birth there - a child which was promptly proclaimed an orphan and adopted into what I'm presuming was a noble family (given the name) and raised alongside their nine other children!

Cralin, the little boy born in the cave, I believe!

After visiting the cave I couldn't find any valid excuse to delay the hike up to the end of the gorge - all 600 steps of it! Now to be honest it wasn't actually that bad because there were "landing areas" every so many steps so it wasn't as though you had to keep going non-stop. As I set off I bumped into an older English couple and when we got chatting the man asked if I was "a scouser" (i.e. from Liverpool), which wasn't a bad shot I suppose as I'm actually from Birmingham and some people think the accents are alike. They were actually living in a smallish village in Herefordshire right near the village where I got married!! It's a small world isn't it! They were only over here for a few days for their niece's wedding, which was going to be taking place the next day at 2,000 metres, so I told them to pack something warm (I'm thinking cable car ride up) and wished them luck. What a lovely place to get married!

After that it was simply a question of trudging my way up which, as I say, really wasn't that bad if you managed to avoid the ice cold water dripping off some of the overhanging rocks. All in all it took me about an hour to get to the top and since tomorrow is also scheduled to be nice, I might see if I can get another walk in before the bad weather hits on Sunday!

So what's new?

For the past couple of months life has been pretty much "samey" in that the heat is hard to bear and very lethargy-inducing. I've been getting round it by trying to get stuff sorted in the house in the mornings (downstairs is quite cool and the basement is wonderful) and then working a little in the garden in the evenings but I must admit I'm starting to get cabin fever right around now - so it's a good thing the weather is cooling and my various classes start up again next week!

Charlie started school (or is it pre-school at age three?) on Monday and I suppose one of the great advantages of having been in day care from a young age is that he skipped off quite happily to his new class without looking back. The only person that got a kiss was Elynn so I guess that let's everyone know where they stand in the pecking order!

I woke up Monday morning to see that I'd missed a video call at 2.30 a.m. from Jordan - not a good feeling at all. Turns out everything was fine though as he reckoned he must have sat on his phone and bum-dialled me. Logically too, if anything serious happened in the middle of the night they would either wake up one of the neighbours or take both kids with them to the hospital because it would take me around 45 minutes to get there anyway. Still, all's well that ends well!

I stopped over at André's place on Friday to drop off his birthday present and he was telling me that he has to go to Istanbul soon to help with setting up one of his organization's upcoming conferences there. I told him to check to see if a good friend, M, might be there as I'm sure he would love to see him. M was a Turkish colleague of my ex who organized a fabulous long weekend for us in Istanbul, his home city. It was wonderful - all the moreso for being shown around by a native, of course - and I think hearing the call to prayer when the sun was going down over the Blue Mosque is a memory that will stay with me forever! Anyhoo, that was when I realized that 31st August would have been my 39th wedding anniversary. We limped along to 26 years but for my part at least, they were mostly pretty miserable years. How sad is that?

Moving swiftly on, my friend and I are off on an overnighter to the fortress village of Guédelon on 25th September, so I'm looking forward to that. We'll get to spend the day exploring the fortress and village at our leisure and then board a boat for an overnight cruise down the river (can't remember which one) before heading back home. I don't have anything else planned for this year, except for my sister and her husband coming out at some point, but I think I might look into another "last long haul" after Christmas. We'll see how I feel in the new year, I suppose!

While I've been puttering around sorting stuff, I've taken to listening to a wonderful young woman on Youtube who goes by the name Cheere Denise! I sometimes listen to my audiobooks but if not, she is my go-to if I want to get an insight into other books. She is one of a number of Youtubers who read extracts from popular books and give their thoughts on it (they can't read the entire book for copyright reasons). So I was pleasantly surprised to hear her read the book The Housekeeper's Diaries, which was written by a woman who worked as a housekeeper at Highgrove to the then Prince Charles and Princess Diana. When I was initially looking for this book (it was written in the '80s, I think) I found out that it had been banned from sale in the UK and the only copies available from outside the UK were going for ridiculous amounts of $$$$$ and no way was I going to pay that. I think the author was fair to both Charles and Diana, but showed that Diana was absolutely not the fairytale princess she was portrayed to be, and that Charles was not a total monster either. She was nowhere near as kind to Andrew and Fergie though (which seems to be pretty much on par with what I've read about them from other sources). What really struck me though is the shocking amount of ££££ that was wasted when, for instance, Diana sent the housekeeper back to London (a journey of about 90 minutes) to get her favourite hairbrush (???) and how when truckloads of gifts were sent to Highgrove, either for C and/or D or the kids, or just from companies trying to curry favour, after taking their pick of what was on offer, the rest was burned??? Again ?????? I think anyone from a normal background would be utterly shocked by this and then maybe they had their reasons, but if so, I can't think of one!

Right now she's going through a book on the Mountbattens and the recent book by Maureen Callahan called Ask Not - about the Kennedys and "how they destroyed the lives of the women that married into the family"! That's still ongoing for me, but again, it is pretty horrific and does much to destroy the Camelot myth!

I'm also reading the book Gomorrah by Roberto Saviano, an investigative journalist who infliltrated the Neapolitan mafia. It's hard going, what with all the Italian names - and then of course everyone also had a nickname - but it goes into great detail about the inner workings of the various clans. The main "commodity" was, of course, cocaine, but surprisingly the next biggest venture, according to him, was arms traficking, followed oddly enough by "cement". I suppose when you think about it, if you control all the component parts of the construction industry you are powerful indeed! Another interesting facet was the "knock off" fashion sweatshops, although in many instances, again according to him, much of the fashion produced in these sweatshops also made it into the big fashion houses in Italy and around the world!

He became quite friendly with a talented tailor called Pasquale, who had such talent and such exquisite taste that he was often sent to pick out the quality fabrics to be imported "duty free" from Asia. He went on to recount how Pasquale was given the measurements of a very famous person and told to create a trouser suit for her out of the recently purchased top notch white fabric. Apparently he loved his work but was horrified to be watching television one night and saw Angelina Jolie wearing "his" trouser suit (to the Oscars? to the Vogue gala? - I can't remember which)! There was no insinuation that Angelina Jolie knew her suit's background, but when he realized that he was being paid just €600 a month to create the exquisite clothes that then went on to sell for thousands of dollars, he refused to work as a tailor anymore and took a job as a mob truck driver instead!

And finally, as I said previously, I was beginning to get cabin fever from spending so much time at home, so my friend and I decided to set off today to visit the Parc de Merlet. The weather was perfect and I can't believe I have never been to this park before when it is only one hour up the road towards Italy!!! Being completely out of shape we struggled even just walking up from the parking lot, but we made it, and apart from a pretty disappointing meal at the one and only restaurant there, we had such a good time we've decided to head out to a local gorge to go walking again on Friday, weather permitting!

Parc de Merlet!

We gave these guys a wide berth!
They can obviously run and jump
better than we can!

The Mont Blanc!

A llama enjoying the view of
the Glacier des Bossons!

And finally, I came across this old "short" the other day and it tickled me so much I just had to share it!