And the next day ....!

About 10 days ago I received a letter from the old fogies club in St. Pierre (I really should use its proper name I suppose - it's called Carpe Diem, but old fogies club seems to just trip off the tongue more easily) announcing that the entire committee would be standing down in November and they were looking, in particular, for a new president, secretary and treasurer. Well I thought about it for a few minutes and decided against it, but on the bus heading out to the Périgord I asked Marie-Jo (also on the committee) if they had had any volunteers and she said not - and this is where I should probably ask people to fill my mouth with quick-setting cement next time I open it because I vaguely floated the idea of offering to fill in as treasurer! I knew I didn't want president, potentially wouldn't mind secretary, but figured treasurer would probably suit me better. Well her eyes lit up and before I knew it she'd called Christine (the secretary) over and was telling her that maybe I would be joining the committee!!! Why oh why do I do it!

It turns out the reason they all want out is because the current president - who is in her 80s - is becoming somewhat "over zealous" and seems to think that she gets to decide everything, as opposed to putting things to a vote! So then I got talking to Christine at dinner and she was regaling me with stories about "the one" (you know, I say there's always "the one" when I go on my trips) and I was starting to question my sanity. She did mention that if I joined the committee she might be willing to stay on as secretary, so that would just leave the president to be replaced along with the wider group of committee members! I was quite shocked when she said there were about 160 members (!!!) and quite a lot of money in the bank account, so it would be a shame if it all fell apart because people couldn't see eye to eye!

There were two Portuguese brothers on this trip, although having been in France over 50 years, you wouldn't know it from their accents. They both seemed pretty nice with José being married to Christine and the other living with "the one". After a few days I saw what they meant because she was forever taking digs at him with there being something wrong with everything he said (makes you wonder why some people stay together doesn't it). As a "for instance" when we were leaving a restaurant one day I turned round and told her to watch out for the dog poop on the pavement and she barked at me that she was not blind, thank you very much, and could see it perfectly well (I wish she'd slipped in it to be honest)! Then there was "the market lady" who used to sell clothes on her market stall and was such a rude, aggressive woman I wonder if she ever got any customers! As an example of people's feelings for her, at one point she asked "if this place was free" at the dinner table and was told words to the effect that they would rather not have it occupied by her - so she ended up sitting at our table! Apart from these two women though, pretty much everyone was really nice. There was 85 year old Carmen from Barcelona, Collette from Laos, Roger with the bald head and booming voice and 82 year old Christiane who looks about 70 and routinely hikes up the mountains at the back of my house (and who made me feel totally inadequate)!

Anyway, after giving you a flavour of the group, it was on to day two and our next outings. The first was to a local distillerie where they would pretty much distill anything into liqueurs or eau de vie with no part of the fruit going to waste. I bought a bottle of mirabelle plum liqueur and a walnut eau de vie - nice, but not something you'd want to be chugging down too often!

After lunch we set off for the Bastide de Domme, one of many fortresses in such a heavily contested region. You see when Henry Plantagenet (Henry II of England) married Eléanor of Aquitaine (France) in 1152 this region fell into the hands of the English. Local noblemen fairly routinely switched sides though, and since many of the local militia were only paid when they were actually fighting there followed the 100 year war (more than 100 years actually) between England and France (and so ends the history lesson for today)! It was a pretty little town (fort?) though and well worth the visit!

A google picture of the Bastide
de Domme

I would give my eye teeth to
own this book shop!

On the way back to our hotel the owner/guide pointed out a field of small trees and told us that they used to have a handyman who worked for them for many years. When he retired he planted "truffle oaks" (that's my translation of the French for oak trees which encourage the growth of truffles) in that field but since it usually takes about 10 years for truffles to start growing, the poor man got to enjoy them for just three months before he subsequently died!

On the property there was the daftest, sweetest dog who would roam around carrying a ball looking for anyone to throw it for him. He had all the markings of a border collie but was way bigger than any border collie I've ever seen - but man was he sweet and just wanted to play! I suppose when you have all those grounds to roam around with your ball and a never-ending supply of willing visitors to throw it for you, life can't get much better than that!

In the evening the owner gave us a lesson on how to cook foie gras! Now I know it's long been held as cruel to force feed geese and ducks to produce the foie gras, which I suppose it is, but our guide was explaining to us that they are only force fed twice a day for about two weeks and are otherwise free to roam. Compare that to battery hens and I suppose she has a point. Anyway, our foie gras was indeed cooked to perfection, but to be honest, I'm still not keen on it. I don't much like the texture so I doubt I'll be partaking again any time soon!

And finally, my neighbour's moving truck came today and loaded up most (but not all) of what was left in the house. She has worked so incredibly hard these past couple of months to get rid of so much stuff and I think even she was shocked that some stuff had to be left behind. I'm guessing her kids will take what's left to their homes and ferry it over to her as and when they can. She asked me if I'll come and visit (as she was feeling a bit wobbly) and I told her of course I will once she gets herself settled! That being said, seeing what she has just gone through makes me more determined to get rid of as much stuff as possible (something I'm struggling with at the moment) because I never want to have to go through a big move ever again!

Home again!

I got home late Sunday night and am still trying to corral my thoughts so I can make them coherent in a few blog posts. Most importantly, I absolutely loved my trip to the Périgord, but more on that in a bit!

On a very sad note, remember I wrote about the local lady who went missing in early June - Lucienne - well they found her body last week on the forestry road between St. Pierre and St. Laurent wrapped up in a plastic bag! What the hell! My first thought was that she had been found by hunters now that hunting season has started but in fact the police had their eye on a young man who eventually confessed to killing her and told them where to find her body. He was doing work at her home as she was having it adapted to accommodate her disabled brother so I'm guessing he was always going to be a prime suspect. Without knowing the full story it sounds like she caught him stealing, he must have panicked - and that's where everything went sour. He's a 24 year old man from St. Laurent and while I understand panicking, and putting aside that he took the life of a good woman, what in the hell can justify (in his mind) destroying his own life and surely ruining that of his family!!! While I'm glad her children will now be able to give her a decent burial I'm so sad for them that they lost their mother in such a dreadful way!

I finished listening to Entitled and in many ways it just seems to be a listing of how people were finding ways to "donate" money to Prince Andrew who, it would appear, has always been an obnoxious w@nker. What is it with these people always having their snouts in the trough - isn't the trough big enough for them all to get their fill??? At the moment I'm listening to Frank McCourt reading his book Angela's Ashes and absolutely loving it, hearing him telling stories about his poverty-stricken childhood, but with his lilting Irish accent. I can highly recommend it!

Anyway, back to the Périgord! Well apparently there are four Périgords - the black, white, green and reddish-purple, the simple explanation being it refers to the different colours that predominate in those areas. We were in the black Périgord which, apparently, is the area where the most interesting historic attractions are and most of the over 1,000 castles!!! Can you believe that, over 1,000 castles???

The Périgord!

Our accommodation was ok but my studio could have done with a little TLC. That being said, my bed was clean and the shower was hot and since we were out every day it didn't really matter in the end. Our first outing was to the Cabanes du Breuil where the young owner showed us round the different "buildings" all made using the dry stone wall method. The land had apparently been given to his grandmother on her wedding and she and her husband wanted to retain the buildings as intact as possible to preserve them. These cabanes were sometimes used for storage and even lived in by itinerant farm workers, but one of their biggest successes had to have been as a backdrop for (I think) 17 films!

It was too cold to swim unfortunately!

The grandparents stayed true to
their desire to maintain the
authenticity of the cabanes!

The grandparents in later years!

Geese everywhere!

Les cabanes du Breuil!

After that it was back to our hotel/residence for lunch (the food was sublime, but more on that later) and then off to the Château des Milandes which was owned by American vaudeville star Josephine Baker! I get kinda fed up listening to audios or guides on these trips so I wandered off on my own, but I really want to learn more about Josephine as she seems to have been a very impressive woman indeed. She was born in St. Louis, Missouri and married at age 13! I don't know how she ended up in France but I see that there is an autobiography on Audible so I'll be listening to that after I've finished the McCourt book. She had, I believe, 12 children (10 of whom were adopted), had worked in the civil rights movement and was a very risquée star in France, earning what I would guess would have been considerable sums of money. Unfortunately she never kept her eye on her finances, repeatedly double paying bills from unscrupulous traders without checking and eventually was forced out of her castle by her unsustainable debt. As I say, she seems to have been a fascinating woman, so I'll hopefully talk more about her once I've listened to her autobiography. Until then, enjoy Josephine's castle!

Josephine Baker, 1906 - 1975

The Château des Milandes!

A falconry display in the castle
grounds!

Crikey!

I mentioned in my last post that some weirdo (that's the politest term I can find for him) has been "bothering" women at the lake in Passy and on another occasion about 10 minutes away in a place called Sallanches - seemingly the same young man. As far as I'm aware, the police haven't caught him yet but I hope they pick him up soon (the woman at the lake said she had to fight him off to get away from him)! And then yesterday, I saw on FB that there had been a landslide at Sixt Fer à Cheval (the Horseshoe Gorge) which is another one of my favourite places to go whenever I have visitors over. Well yesterday the weather was glorious so the gorge was busy with people either hiking or eating at the restaurant when part of the mountain gave way. Thankfully,despite it being a popular hiking spot the landslide missed the hiking trails and stopped short of the restaurant. There is also a small pony enclosure nearby where kids can take pony rides along the trails and, again thankfully, none of the ponies were hurt. The whole place is closed off for the time being but I'd say it was one helluva near miss!

My nephew and his girlfriend
at Fer à Cheval!

You can see the landslide in the following video and exactly how close it came to the restaurant here!

Anyway, this is just a short post to say that I won't be online for a week as I'm going away tomorrow to the Périgord Noir. That's the "black Périgord" as opposed to the "white Périgord", although I have no idea how those two areas got their names. Guess I'll find out soon enough. See you in a week and stay safe!

Raising the colours!

The weather has cooled down considerably here - in fact it feels like somebody cut the cord on the summer balloon and the autumn balloon moved right in to replace it. Still, with the cooler weather I've managed to get more done around here so I'm not complaining. That being said, the other day I noticed that the lamp next to where I sit in the evenings had a bit of a wobble on it, but when I tried to straighten it up what looked like a cement base dropped out of it, scattering cement all over the TV room. I wasn't best pleased of course, but since I had nothing planned that day I decided to drop it off at the tip and run out and buy another one. There is a small LIDL-style supermarket near the tip and I was tickled to see a couple of African women carrying their shopping home on their heads. I mean, no wonder they have good posture! If I tried that I'd probably end up with scrambled eggs all over my head!

A couple of times this week a camera car from Google Earth has driven by, so I'm pretty sure at some point there will be a satellite image of my backside while I'm working in the garden! One to look out for I suppose, and maybe even a motivator to get back to the gym when I come back from vacation (I'm off to the Périgord next week)!

Last week I had another medical check-up in Geneva and as I was driving towards the border (I always park at the border and catch the bus into town), I happened to glance at my purse on the passenger seat and a ruddy great spider crawled out of it. Now I hate creepy crawlies in any case, but talk about feeling trapped, what with not being able to stop! As soon as I parked I emptied my bag and tipped it upside down but never found anything so I'm hoping Archie the arachnid has managed to escape somehow as he was a nasty looking bugger!

I swear it was this big - although my chest
isn't quite so hairy!

While I was waiting for the bus, I spotted two young girls walking what looked like greyhounds or maybe whippets and it struck me how much the girls, with their long slim legs, looked just like their dogs. Do you think we chose our dogs based on familial resemblance, in which case, I wonder what that says about me because I used to have a border collie mutt! Then when I got on the bus, a man was standing quite near me but obviously not wanting to sit down because there were plenty of spare seats. After a few stops, a couple got on the bus with two dogs and at one point the woman ordered the dogs to "sit", at which point the man immediately sat down too! I guess you had to be there, but it tickled me no end! What's the saying, "little things please little minds (and little trousers fit little behinds)"!

Anyone who has been reading my blog for any length of time has probably realized how much I enjoy going to the lake at Passy to walk. Well this week, on one of the FB hiking groups I follow, a lady posted about how she had been "bothered" by a young man when she was walking in the mountains near Passy. Just a day earlier, Jen had posted a report by another woman who had been more than "bothered" by what appeared to be the same young man while walking round the lake. She managed to get away from him and reported it to the police, so I hope they are on the look out and catch him soon before anyone gets hurt!

I see blogland's favourite troll, Rajani Rehana is back doing the rounds too. The other day I was surprised to see that all of a sudden I'd gotten 10 comments on a blog post, only to find out that this eejit (or is it a bott?) was active again! Still, it doesn't take long to hit delete does it!

I looked after Charlie again last Wednesday and I always try to take dinner for everyone so that Jen doesn't have to think about cooking when she gets home. Apparently my stuffed peppers were "delicious", according to Charlie, and I was told I could make them again any time! Then he was telling me about the visits they'd had to the local fire station and the gendarmerie and he was dead impressed! Later on he was "playing guitar" and asked me to sing a song, but he was less impressed with Old MacDonald and asked if I knew any "real songs"!!! (We're still working on pushing English, as you can probably tell)!

My ex was over here the other week for Elynn's first birthday, so we all went out to lunch and then back to Jordan and Jen's for birthday cake. At one point Charlie went over and sat on pappy's lap to show him his cars and my ex looked at me and said again how much he missed France. To be honest, while he didn't look as bad as last time, I still don't think he looked well. He has a pretty vacant stare and I feel he looks unhappy - I guess he realizes how much he is missing over here. And oddly enough, for the first time in years I realize that I no longer loath him and I can only thank God for that. I hated carrying all that anger around with me but now I realize I just feel pity for him, not anger. Mind you, that doesn't mean I'd want to live anywhere near him ever again, but it is a relief to have finally let go of that anger. He was telling me all about the problems his sister has had with her son who, for no apparent reason other than his fairly recent marriage, has cut off all contact with the family - just like my sister in Denmark did. I know the family well and know for a fact there would be no good reason for this but I guess that can sometimes happen when the new spouse seems hell bent on isolating you. Heck he never went to his sister's wedding, nor did he go to grandma's funeral the other week. I just hope he realizes what he is missing out on at some point because they really are a pretty nice family!

On the Saturday we all went into Switzerland to a park we used to go to frequently as it was just 10 minutes from the apartment we first moved to when we came back from the States in 1989. They've built it up so much and Charlie, in particular, had an absolute blast (as did my boys) - brings back happy memories of taking André up there a couple of times a week in the good weather to wear him out before bed!

And finally, you may or may not have heard about the "Raise the Colours" movement spreading throughout the UK at the moment. It started when someone put up an England flag (the red and white cross of St. George) in Birmingham - and were promptly told to take it down!! This despite the fact that the Pakistani flag, the Ukrainian flag, the Palestinian flag and the Pride flags have been allowed to fly freely for ages! So not only did they not take them down, they put more up. The Council took them down and so more and more were put up. Then they started painting pedestrian crossings and traffic islands red and white (and potholes - in the hopes that maybe the Council would do something about them too). The whole movement has escalated throughout the UK and people are now also flying the Scottish, Welsh and Irish flags - and I'm delighted. I mean, can you imagine trying to tell someone in the States to take down their own flag??? From what I'm hearing, the movement is starting to spread across Europe (Spain and Germany for sure, and now starting in France). Peaceful protest at its best!

The caption under this photo was:
"try taking this one down you w@nkers"!

Manchester!

And the best of all:

You can watch the video here. Pure genius!

This and that!

Yet again it's been a while since I posted, but since the temperatures went soaring back up again (35-36°C - 95-96°F) I've been flaked out on the sofa for the most part, so much so that I'm pretty sure my Fitbit thinks I'm dead! I finally bought myself a proper pair of garden shears so that when I occasionally managed to slide my melted self off the sunbed I actually got quite a bit done in the garden, but early in the morning or late at night of course. Other than that I've been lazing around reading and pulling out a few of my favourite cookbooks (Claudia Roden's "Arabesque" is in favour at the moment) or listening to the newly-released Andrew Lownie book Entitled on Audible. I like his books so when I saw that he was bringing out this latest book on the rise and fall of Andrew and Fergie I knew I wanted to get it. When I looked for it on Amazon it hadn't yet come out in print but was available on Kindle for almost €30 - which I thought was expensive for Kindle, but since I'm pretty sure it's going to be a best-seller I'm not surprised. But then I saw that it was available on Audible for free (ie just one credit) so that's how I'm listening to it right now. It starts off pretty tame with everyone seeming to agree that Prince Andrew has always been a spoilt, entitled brat with Fergie being seen as a "breath of fresh air" (but immediately turning into the female version of Andrew upon marriage), so I sense it's going to get juicier from here on in! Cheere Denise, who is the young woman on Youtube who I have enjoyed listening to read books, has stated that she's probably no longer going to read books, but rather concentrate on celebrity gossip, so that kinda buggers it up for me listening to it through her. I'm disappointed as she introduced me to interesting books that I never would have thought about reading otherwise. Actually I'm almost finished listening to her read the Margaret Trudeau autobiography (another entitled wild child/brat) so after that there doesn't seem to be much else for me in her repertoire - shame!

I had a dental appointment in Geneva yesterday and boy am I no longer used to the noise. It's lovely to see everyone sitting out on the terraces of course, but I now wonder how I ever put up with that kind of noise level. As I got there so early I had time to sit and have a coffee and while I was sitting there four young girls came in and asked if they had any cheap candy as they'd found five cents on the floor (five cents worth of candy between four kids???) and the lady laughed and told them no. So I thought what the hell, went up to them and rather gratefully emptied my change purse for them to get what they could with that. I guess there must have been about €6 in it and they were so grateful you'd think I'd given them the earth (but in reality I'd been delighted to get rid of all that clunky change), so we were all happy in the end!

La Roche had its annual Blue Grass festival over four days last week and while I was at one of the sessions I spotted a wallet on the floor. It contained the man's driving licence, health insurance card and bank card as far as I could see, but no money, so I took it to reception and I'm pretty sure he was one very relieved gent if/when he went to reception to enquire after it!

The never-ending saga of my solar panels kept dragging on because EDF (the French electric company I'm contracted to sell my excess electricity production to) sent me an email to say it was time for me to "bill them" for the period June 24/June 25 but when I went in to do it the site indicated that I had to bill them for June 23/June 24 first. The only problem was, my energy production was zero because the bloody things hadn't been hooked up due to a screw up on the vendors part so I couldn't figure out how to bill them for zero. In frustration I managed to find a phone number and explained my predicament to a very helpful young man who was obviously used to dealing with this kind of problem (although surely he shouldn't be!!!!) and he gave me figures to input in order to invoice the zero production. So I sent off the first year and the second year's production and blow me but I got back €1,900!!! You see, while my production had been zero, there was a rebate from EDF in the amount of €1,530 for all new solar panels - the rest was made up of recent electricity output! Good job I persevered then! I reckon the vendors' screw up cost me about €1,000 because it would seem that my excess production is, at the moment, in the region of €50 per month. I am wondering though, what it might be once my new annual bill comes in after my lovely electrician had me switch all my antiquated lightbulbs to LED - I reckon I'll find out in October, but man was it like pulling teeth!

My ex-MIL sadly died two weeks ago and while it wasn't unexpected given her age and state of health, I was sad as I was pretty fond of her and used to enjoy our occasional chats. I sent flowers from this end (and apparently planted a tree in North Carolina too, although I have no recollection of clicking on that button!) as neither of the kids could go in such a short turnaround time! Ex's sister looks after her two very young grandchildren and will be helping with a third (due any day now, if it isn't already here). His brother is handicapped so I can kinda see ex having to empty that house pretty much on his own - which I reckon is his karma for buggering off and leaving me to empty his rented farmhouse in 2015 with everything left as is when he walked out the door - I mean, wet washing in the machine and stale coffee in the coffee pot! As far as I know he arrived here today and will be staying with André in any case as Jordan and Jen are away on the west coast of France. I don't understand his logic (never did, to be honest) because he's flying here for 10 days, then back to Pittsburgh for three days, and then flying back out to Genoa with the gf to spend a week in Italy. Genoa is about three hours from here by train so I asked why he didn't go direct to Genoa from here and wait for her there. But hey why not pay for two transatlantic flights three days apart - that might be why he's always broke! Either way, I know he'll be glad to see the kids (and meet Elynn) and the boys will be happy to see him - but if I were a betting person I'd put money on it that they all have a major blow up within the week. Watch this space!

Jordan and Jen and a couple of friends have just spent a week on the west coast of France and have had a wonderful time. I saw on Youtube that French resorts are really struggling this year, in part because people either don't have money to go away or if they do they're going to Spain or Portugal where it's cheaper. Can you imagine paying €10 for a coke or €5.5 for a coffee? No me neither, and then they wonder why the restaurants are half empty. On the positive side, the beach where they were was also pretty empty, the site where they were staying was great and the kiddies' club (for Charlie to have swimming lessons) was a dream. They also went to an acquarium and off for a visit to the salt flats where the kids could help rake in the salt (makes it sound like child labour at the salt mines, doesn't it). 

See how empty the beach is!

They stopped off at their friend's dad's place on the way back and just sent me these wonderful pictures!

This is apparently the entrance to the "cathedral
of la Saulaie - a trogolodyte in the
Loire Valley" ...

... and the restaurant
where they had lunch! Wow!

I'm soooo impressed!

I've been toying with the idea of maybe - just maybe - signing up for a trip to India in the spring, but now I'm starting to think "why not just stay here, there's so much to see"! The jury's out as yet!

Better stick to paper cups!

Temperatures dropped quite dramatically last week and are really not normal for July right now but I don't mind that one bit - I start to feel alive again! I don't doubt they'll start soaring again soon but for the moment I'm enjoying the break. Things with my favourite neighbour are still fraught and apart from the emotional turmoil she is pretty much on her knees with fatigue as she will find out this week if her buyers have been accepted for their loan - if so, then it's all systems go. Her daughter is helping her as much as she can and she really has done an amazing job already of getting rid of so much stuff but ....! They say the three most stressful things you can go through are the death of a spouse, divorce and moving so I can only begin to imagine how much she she has had on her plate. She asked me round for coffee again the other day (to talk obviously) and I could see that she was waivering so just said "you've made your bed for the time being and if you don't give it a shot you'll never know, will you (about moving back to her home town) but if you find out for whatever reason that it isn't working out, you know you can always come back - don't hesitate to do so out of pride or embarassment because nobody will care"! I think as it's coming down to the wire it's hitting her and while neither of her children want her to go, as I said, if she doesn't go for it now, she'll never know and probably regret not giving it a shot! Mind you, seeing what she's going through trying to empty what was a very orderly, well-kept house is spurring me on to get rid of more and more stuff. At the moment I'm dragging pieces of wood up from the basement to take to the tip (hopefully someone can find a use for them) and while it's hard work physically, everything that goes out of this house makes the air feel just a tad more breathable!

Thankfully I'm also finding out that I'm spending less time on Youtube going down rabbit holes. Oh I still enjoy some of it but I'm absolutely sick of AI and the "startled" AI generated memes some creators are using or the AI generated voiceovers. I find it really irritating and while I'm sure AI has many positive uses I'm not so sure it won't make things much more negative in the long run!

The other day I was awoken at 6 am by a text message from my ex-husband simply saying "what's your email"? No "hi, how are you doing, how are the kids, and/or sorry for waking you up at 6 am", just "what's your email". My first reaction was annoyance because next month we would have been married 40 years and I have always had the same email address. He obviously also has my telephone number (since that's where he sent the text message to), can access me through Facebook or through my kids, so yeah buddy, you have my email address already so look the damn thing up yourself as I no longer "wife" for you! I didn't say any of that, of course, because I know damn well if he contacts me it's only some chaos or other he will be stirring up so I just ignored it. I happened to mention it to Jen when I was watching Charlie the other day and she told me words to the effect that he said he was regretting moving back to the US and, more importantly, was missing out on the grandchildren!!! I don't know if that means he wants to move back here but while he could pretty easily do so, he would have to reapply for residency. He'd definitely meet the financial requirements but since this idiot cancelled his wonderful post-retirement medical insurance with his employer he is now under his gf's medical, so he'd have to look for something separately. They already tried to get her into France when they first got together but were refused so if he did want to come back I'm assuming it would be on his own! Cue the intrigue. Of course I may be reading waaayyyy too much into a simple text message but I can/could read this guy like a book so I'll be curious to see what's going on when he comes out here next month!

Talking of looking after Charlie, as is now our custom we went to the park and then went to a café for a drink before going to pick Elynn up from daycare. So he's sitting there telling me that when you drink from a glass you have to be sooooo careful not to break it because you can get hurt. I told him that was very true, but then he goes "and then the policeman will come and put you in jail"! Huh???? I told him that wasn't true but he insisted it was. And then if you managed to escape they would throw you into the lava from a volcano! Huh???? And then if you escaped from that you'd have to run to the ocean and try to swim away, but the nasty shark would start chasing you. So I asked him if there were no kindly dragons who could save you (we're into kindly dragons at the moment) and he said "nope, they're all asleep"! That was when the guy at the next table cracked up laughing, saying he'd got quite the imagination hadn't he. The moral of the story, therefore, would seem to be only buy paper cups from now on!

Anyhoo, back to the plot. Yesterday I went on our old fogies day trip to the Col de la Forclaz. I wasn't sure if I'd been there before (turns out I hadn't) but I can't believe such a lovely spot is only about 90 minutes from home and I'd "missed it" all these years! Our first stop was at the Ecomuseum of Wood and Forestry and we spent about 90 minutes being entertained by a very well-informed young man who knew his stuff inside out. There was us (a bus load of oldies) and a group of littles, about Charlie's age, so the noise level was pretty much off the scale. He explained to us that this particular valley had once been very lush (still is as far as I'm concerned) but deforestation had taken its toll, so as early as 1898 steps had been taken to protect it. He showed us how they bought timber down from the mountains over the ages and how it had been possible to do so much with just the use of a watermill, before the advent of electricty. As I say, it really was pretty interesting!

After that we headed up to the Col de la Forclaz for lunch and while the road up was very pretty, it did remind of that heart-stopping drive in the Gorges de Piana in Corsica. As the bus could only take us so far, we had to walk the last 15 minutes up a very steep hill to get to the restaurant. As probably the youngest on the bus, I was praying I wouldn't be on my hands and knees regurgitating a lung while all the others hopped up there like mountain goats, but that never happened. Some people walked slowly with canes but still they made it. Many of the people on the bus I now recognize but since I don't know their names I've given them names in my mind like "the lady from the Benite", "the lady from Intermarché cheese counter", "the man whose teeth don't fit", but the most impressive one has to be the 90 year old lady who was sitting behind me on the way up. I was listening to her and her 79 year old companion talking about "the good old days" and how much they appreciated everything while having pretty much nothing. It was lovely to listen (eavesdrop?) to them talking about how they wore wooden sabots/clogs, made their own butter, used to use communal ovens etc. and then, as we were almost there, she spotted paragliders close to our bus and told the other lady that her granddaughters had offered her a jump as a gift and she'd actually done a tandem jump for her 80th birthday!!! Wow, so she naturally became "Madame Intrepid" (and I want to be her when I grow up)!

Lunch was a reblochonade, which is basically a local reblochon cheese cooked in a brasier (not a brassière for those of you with warped minds), poured over boiled potatoes along with salad and a charcuterie board. As a side note, charcuterie in French refers only to cut meats and if someone volunteered to bring charcuterie to a pot luck they would bring nothing but meat - no veggies or dip. The staff were great, kept coming round to see if we wanted more of anything and I think we were all so very, very impressed with the whole set up. I'm wondering if I might invite everyone up there for Elynn's birthday (on 21st August) and André's birthday on 30th August. I'll have to see how available everyone is at any given date!

Reblochonade!

The only down side was that it was very hot and very loud, but if that's all you have to complain about life isn't too bad at all, is it. The owner came round several times to see if everything was okay and when we were ready to leave he pulled his minibus out and offered to take those with walking difficulties back down to the bus. I walked back down with my 85 year old neighbour on the bus and when he apologized for slowing me down I just laughed and told him this was my natural speed and not to worry!

Lake Annecy!

As we walked down we passed a "more relaxed" little place next to the gift shops and quite honestly I like these places just as much as the bigger, fancier restaurants!

Burger bar!

Drinks bar (when it's open)!

When we got back to the bus our driver asked if we had had time for a digestif and suggested that he bring round his homemade hooch for anyone that wanted to try it. They all do this, and really you only get a thimblefull of firewater (the driver obviously doesn't partake) but it's a nice touch and is a way of saying thank you for the generous hat that is passed around on the way back!

From there he dropped us in Annecy for a couple of hours but since I'm pretty sure everyone on the bus had been to Annecy hundreds of times, most of us walked through the park and sat and had a drink on the lake's edge.

I took this picture not because I'm a creep that likes to hang around kiddies' play areas, but because this is the park where that monster stabbed three babies (and two adults) about three years ago. Thankfully everyone survived but I hope he is rotting in hell in a French prison and will do so for a very, very long time! I ended up having a drink at the local pétanque club where it was nice to watch the games that were taking place. Jordan is trying to teach Charlie but as you might imagine, Charlie just wants to see how far he can throw the ball. Hopefully he will pick it up sooner rather than later because the French take pétanque very, very seriously!

Cooler now!

The horrendously hot weather finally broke last week and we, unusually, are getting temperatures around 25°C (77°F), so just perfect! The cooler weather allows me to get so much more done around here including the "irritating stuff"! When the electrician was here he commented how useless my downstairs vacuum was so I bought a new one for downstairs and then a second for the first floor. The first floor vacuum is working just fine but about two weeks ago I was finding that the ground floor one just wouldn't pick anything up! I was really pissed off as it is less than six months old so I just shoved it into a corner of the garage until I could summon up the energy to tear the bloody thing apart. When I finally did I found that one end of the hose was as near as dammit totally blocked with hard core trash and nothing was getting through to the actual bag! I'm guessing some of that was stuff I'd hoovered up following both the electrician and the plumber's visits but I never expected to find anything so rock solid blocking it. Still, at least it's now sorted. Actually I find that when things malfunction on me (like the AC unit that was shredding wasps) if I leave it until I'm in a better mood, I inevitably end up getting it sorted without throwing a tantrum!

Then to add to my woes, my security system started malfunctioning. I would often get a notification to say that there was a "suspicious vibration" which made me think that their sensors were becoming overly sensitive to any slamming doors, but then I was finding that I couldn't set the alarm via my keyfob so had to go into the app on my phone and do it from there. So I left it and left it until one day I read a message indicating a "sabotage" on access point X. Now I knew darn well that nobody had tried to get in the house but in any case I went round all the downstairs windows/doors and checked the sensors and wouldn't you know it one of them seemed to have moved just a little bit, and was thus preventing my keyfob from working! Thankfully it's all now up and running but don't the little things get you down - or maybe it's just the straw that breaks the camel's back! (As a useless aside, in French that would be "the drop that made the vase overflow")!

Jordan came over the other day as I had offered to give them the AC unit I had on my upper floor and a huge parasol that I had in the basement, which their apartment block can use with the picnic table they've bought for the little park area outside their building. I then asked him to take a look at the enormous wood supply I had down there (not firewood, just old pieces of wood that my ex had stored for "one day when") and he said he might be interested in some of the larger pieces but the rest I could get rid of. So bit by bit I've lugged upstairs an old stereo and music system of my ex's that got dumped in my basement and am now starting hauling the wood too, but I may have to give that a rest for a few days as my elbows are starting to hurt, what with lugging all this heavy stuff up a flight of stairs and then off to the tip!

The other day I got a call from André who had had to take his car to the garage as there seemed to be a problem with the turbo. He's had to leave it for a few days and needed a lift home so off I trotted to pick him up. He was telling me that while much of his organization's budget comes from government contributions, they also have large projects funded by individual grants. Apparently his unit has just received a huge grant for a specific project so his boss told him that he has put him on a post funded by that grant in order to ensure he's on a securely funded post (as much as anything can be secure at the moment) - so that's a bit of good news, at least!

There's been a big hooha in the UK regarding the upcoming film version of Raynor Winn's The Salt Path with information coming out that calls into question much of what she wrote about the reasons behind their losing their home and embarking on the grueling journey along the southern coastal path, and the claims that her husband is/was suffering from a terminal illness! I read the book because everyone was raving about it, but to be honest I got fed up of it after a while. Oh she writes beautifully but I just found it too much "this day it poured and we were soaked, and that day was scorching and we burned", so no, the book didn't do it for me at all. I'm assuming the film will be a success, even though I suspect we haven't heard the last of the revelations (true or otherwise) about the veracity of their story!

When I was over at Jordan and Jen's the other day, Jordan showed me an article where several local Italian restaurants had been raided in connection with money laundering linked to the Calabrese mafia! We used to go to one of those restaurants pretty often as we were quite friendly with the owners. Thankfully they sold up about 20 years ago and are not (I hope) linked to this in any way. Apparently what tipped investigators off was the high turnover of staff, most of whom couldn't speak anything other than Italian!

Then the other day there was a knock at my door and my favourite neighbour just stood there unable to speak. I told her to come in and sit down and she just burst into tears. The sale of her house was signed last week although a moving date has yet to be agreed, so she's in the middle of getting rid of as much as she can and packing up whatever she plans to take with her. She said that the fatigue was getting to her and she found herself ruminating on what the hell she had ever done to deserve being treated so badly by her late husband, with him trying to write her out of her share of the house and block her from receiving a widow's pension (he was unsuccessful in both but managed to screw her over in other ways)! She knew he started cheating on her within two years of their marriage (if not before) and managed to get a job transfer to another area in order to get away from him quite early in their marraige, but he got wind of it and arranged a transfer for himself too and subsequently, over their 50+ year marriage, she had her spirit broken. She said if he hated her that much he could easily have divorced her early on (makes me wonder why his first marriage ended so quickly) but I told her that in my opinion sometimes men like that want all the convenience of having a "wife appliance" at home, the legitimacy of being a "family man" and hey, who was gonna cook his meals and scrub his skivvies if he divorced her. I can't help but think that men (or women) who behave like that have to make "you" into the baddie in order to justify in their own minds their appalling treatment of you! After about an hour she said she felt better and that she was going to go to bed, but I just hate to see her so bruised and battered having, as she said, wasted 50 years of her life on that arsehole!

Last week I drove down to Passy again, but this time not to the lake but to the large outdoor/mountain store as I wanted to get a few things for my walking trips. They have a cafeteria and a restaurant there so I decided to treat myself to lunch in the restaurant and boy was it good. The starter was a mixed melon, olive and feta cheese salad followed by really tender chicken on a bed of bulgur wheat (I didn't bother with dessert). It was so good that I decided I wanted to try and duplicate it myself but haven't gotten around to it just yet. Then this afternoon I decided to pull out a very old Good Food Guide magazine (I must have about 20 years worth) and flick through it while sitting in the garden and low and behold they had the almost identical recipe in a magazine going back to 2016, so I'll definitely be giving this a try now!

Good Food Guide, January 2016

While I was there I noticed that there were quite a few workmen having lunch too, so decided to mention it to Jordan in case he's ever working in the vicinity. Because they move around between different work sites, his employer has a contract with many local restaurants where the employees can spend up to €20 per meal "on the house" and the bill is submitted directly to the employer. The set menu I had was €19 so if they aren't already, it would be a good idea to have this place set up a contract with his employer. Another thing the employer does is put €30 per month onto a kind of credit card for each employee and credits an annual or bi-annual bonus onto it where they can get all kinds of discounts on local attractions, on household goods, or employing a cleaning lady, for example - or use it for pretty much whatever they want. Jordan currently has €800 on his card so they will be using that when they go on holiday in August. It's a pretty nice set up (and fairly common in France) so at least they won't have to worry about spending money when they go away!

And finally, today is Bastille Day (French national day) so yesterday Jen's mom invited us all down to her place to watch the local fireworks. Most people celebrate on 13th because 14th is a holiday and while it poured rain in the morning, the rest of the day was hot and dry. For such a small town the fireworks were very good. We all took a dish and drinks and I made two different vegetarian dishes as one of our crowd is vegetarian. I'm in the mood to cook at the moment and having pulled out that foodie magazine, I'm thinking it might be fun to pick a couple of recipes from each magazine and try to replicate them, in order to expand my reptertoire, as it were. At the moment I'm all gung ho, but we'll see how long that lasts, I suppose! Still, you never know if you don't try, right?