Another busy few days!

I've been offline for a few days this past week as things have been getting really busy again and at times, to be honest, I found it overwhelming (due to lack of sleep, I'm pretty sure). Once I've had a decent night's sleep I'm up and running again but I find I can't bounce back like I used to (old age?). Oddly enough I was heading out to yet another meeting at the old fogies' club on Friday when I bumped into my friend walking her dog and she started on about how overwhelming she was finding everything too. Ok she hasn't been feeling well and that doesn't help but her garden, in particular, seems to be just too much for her right now. Oh she has a new gardener who cuts the hedges and helps with the weeding but I think even just cutting the lawn is now too much for her. I suggested asking her new guy to do that too (money wouldn't be a problem) but we'll see if she goes ahead with that because obviously we're both getting older and if we want to stay in our homes it might just be easier to hire some help for the big stuff!

My own gardener came by today for the first time this year and now everything looks lovely again (he does my lawn and hedges). I don't regret hiring him one bit because while I could probably still, just about, push the lawnmower around my smallish garden, I can't take the heat at all and am more than happy to allow him and his assistant to knock the whole thing out in about 30 minutes. I did get around to putting together my third small cold frame today but screwed it up again when I realised those "weird parts" I seem to have left over from the first two are actually kinda like tent pegs and are meant to be inserted into the frame before you fill it with dirt. Maybe I'll get the hang of this assembly malarky by number six!

With it being Easter there will be no yoga for two weeks and I was looking forward to a little down time, so I was surprised when I looked at my diary on Monday and saw that I had written down "nosewing" and wracked my brain trying to think what the hell that was supposed to be. I was pretty sure I hadn't made plans to get a nose ring (even though I quite like them) but it took me a good few hours to realize that I had actually scrawled "no sewing" as for once our teacher couldn't make it that evening! I really should stop just scrawling things in my diary as I've had a few "nosewing" moments lately!

I finished listening to Cheere Denise read the Oprah book and all I can say is "uuggghhh". While you certainly can't take away from her achievements, she comes over as a horrible narcisst, particularly bearing in mind this book was published in 2010, if I remember correctly, and there have apparently been far worse things to come out about Oprah since then! I also finally finished listening to Mary's Mozaic on Audible. It took me ages as it was a very hard read, but was definitely worth finishing. It's about the apparently random murder of Mary Pinchot Meyer who was a long-time lover and confidante of John F. Kennedy. The book explores the "CIA conspiracy to murder John F. Kennedy, Mary Pinchot Meyer and their vision for world peace". The author, Peter Janney, makes a very convincing argument that the CIA were indeed behind the Mary Pinchot murder (which they tried to pin on some poor sod who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time - luckily he was exonerated) and given that her former, very bitter husband - Cord Meyer - had been pretty high up in the CIA, the book is all the more intriguing, if anyone cares to read it, although I would reiterate that it was hard going!

I went grocery shopping on Friday and just as I was hitting the motorway I noticed massive smoke plumes shooting up into the sky (again) not too far from my usual supermarket. This time it was the recycling plant that had gone up and I think I counted around 15 emergency vehicles, with police blocking off roads and rerouting traffic. The supermarket people must be wondering what the hell they signed up for with two major fires so close by in such a short period of time, but thankfully no-one was injured and again hats off to the emergency services for their sterling work!

Marignier on Friday!

On Wednesday I kept Charlie overnight for the first time and was a bit nervous in case he got upset for his mom in the middle of the night. I decided to have him sleep in my room just in case, but there was no problem at at all. I took him to the park in town for a few hours and then we came home and watched The Lion King and he was pretty tired by the time he went to bed at 9.30 pm. So was I because of being "on" all the time, which was actually made even worse by the fact that he grinds his teeth all bloody night so I didn't get a wink of sleep yet again! 

The park by the library. We never
made it to the library because
he was having so much fun!

I took him home around 4 pm the next day where we were just in time to meet his dad and go pick Elynn up from daycare and then allow both kids to play in the park for an hour. Well Elynn, as it turns out, is a little bruiser and seemingly unafraid of anything, but has also managed to hit the terrible twos at just 18 months (I always knew she was "advanced") because as soon as she gets told no for whatever reason she throws herself on the floor sobbing. She's such a convincing little actress Meryl Streep had better watch out but I had to keep looking away because it's pretty darn funny too (to me at least). I know they all do this and it didn't last long with Charlie, but oh the joys of being able to just hand them back!

We had Easter at my place on Sunday and I overcooked as usual even for eight of us, but then better that than not have enough. I had been thinking about throwing out my old wooden garden table for some time so bought two cheap plastic tables and quickly assembled them during the week to accommodate us all. Only thing is, I had yet again a couple of "spare parts" for each table, and when each table started to sag as we loaded them up with food André realized that I'd put the four reinforcement bars back in the boxes in the garage!! No harm was done but I'm thinking my motto of "if in doubt, throw it out" might not be a good idea for cold frames and garden tables after all!

The "creative hedge" in the background
is the handiwork of Mrs. Gossip's
husband!

The Easter egg hunt is on!

Watering "the harvest"!

I don't remember planting that!

He was determined to drag
all my junk up from the basement
(but guess who bought the junk
in the first place)!

A lovely weekend!

The weather has been very changeable here this past week, but then that's only to be expected in March, I suppose. I'd planned to get so much done before I went away last weekend but the weather obviously had other plans. I did get to pressure spray my back terrace last Monday before the rain set in again, but I managed to get some kind of junk in my eye while doing it so I've had to make an appointment with my eye doctor to get that sorted. It doesn't hurt at all but I reckon a speck of dirt must have gotten in my eye and now it feels like I'm looking through a film with a black dot in the middle. I've tried rinsing it regularly but I reckon I'll have to leave it to the professionals now!

So the weather was good enough for me to at least get that done on Monday but when I kept Charlie on Wednesday all that changed and by the time I left Wednesday evening I was driving through a horrendous snow storm (with a naff eye) and it was really tough! It didn't last long, but long enough to make the drive home hard work and for me to realize yet again how much I hate driving in the snow! And now - well the weather has cleared up enough for me to be working outside getting my garden ready and dragging furniture up from the basement in time for the good weather to come. LIDL were advertising small fibreglass "greenhouses" for €20 so I ordered a few of them online and had them delivered last week. The first one took me four hours to assemble (I know, I know) but to be honest the biggest problem was that unlike IKEA, many of the drill holes don't line up. Still, by the time I'd gotten to number two I'd gotten assembly down to one hour and am hoping I can get the others done in about 30 minutes - a kind of assembly line production, if you will. The big problem, of course, is that they then need filling with soil but I decided to start the first two off with used cardboard followed by garden clippings/compost and then adding the soil because (a) it can get expensive and, more importantly, because (b) lugging bags of soil around at my age is "challenging" to say the least. But I hit pay dirt a couple of days ago when I realized that the new recycling bin in the village is absolutely stuffed full of used cardboard boxes!

I've mentioned before that we haven't had garbage pick-up in the local villages for about 20 years now. They have recycling spots everywhere where you sort your rubbish into household refuse, paper, cardboard and aluminium, and glass. Anything other than that has to be taken to the big recycling centre in town. But about two weeks ago I noticed another container had been added for larger cardboard boxes, you know, the kind you get with large Amazon packages or like the boxes my two new garden tables came in! So there I am fishing out as many large boxes as I can and stuffing them back into my car in order to line the base of my new mini greenhouses. Bingo, less soil for me to lug around (but I do hope they don't have security cameras to see me "stealing" their recycling. I'm pretty sure I'm good though)!

Anyhoo, Friday lunchtime we set off for the Jura mountains for our Christmas present from Jen's mom and partner and in order to celebrate Charlie's fifth birthday. The Jura mountains are shared between France and Switzerland and are to the north of Lake Geneva, whereas the Alps (where I live) are to the south. They're very different too, in that I would call the Jura "brooding" and the Alps "majestic" - that's about the best way I can describe them to be honest. It took us about two hours to get there and the short-term rental turned out to be lovely, so nice in fact that Jen's mom really fell in love with it. It was a 4-bed, 2 1/2 bath prefabricated home on the site of an old barn. Jen's mom moved into an apartment about 4-5 years ago but is not happy there so she's been looking for an all-on-one level home and this place seemed to be exactly what she is looking for. Oddly enough, I saw an article on post-war prefabs in England not so long ago and asked my sister if my memory was correct in that Uncle Bob had lived in one in the early '60s. She confirmed that he had, and that he had loved it. Birmingham was very heavily bombed during WWII so I guess people were just happy to have anywhere to call home at that point!

Post WWII prefab!

This house was of course nothing like the picture above and was indeed so lovely that not only Jen's mom, but also Jordan and Jen said they would be very interested in looking further into prefabs in our area!

The view from our rental. To say it was
"isolated" would be an understatement!

The whole point of being up there was to visit a local polar park, which we promptly did on Saturday morning and were lucky enough to be one of the first groups on the guided tour. Our guide explained to us about the different types of deer/reindeer they had in the park and then went on to tell us the history of the bison that had been bred in captivity throughout Europe. Apparently at one time there were only 50 bison in the whole of Europe but by working with other parks they had managed to get that number up to 10,000 - which was still not enough but, as he said, was a very definite improvement over 50! The little kids were starting to get bored at one point though as what they really wanted to do was play in the snow so Charlie asked him "when we were going to get to see the mamoths" and was most put out when the guide told him never!

The deer will often come over to the visitors
as they are quite tame, but it wasn't our lucky day!

The wolf enclosure!

By the time we were able to get closer to the bison and to pet the deer and goats it had started to snow and since we were already up to our ankles in snow we decided to call it a day!

Saturday was also Charlie's fifth birthday so we staggered presents out over the day and he was one very happy little boy. I'd bought him a magic set and we (or more likely "I") had great fun figuring the different tricks out. The first one was pulling a rabbit out of a hat but I had a helluva time with my sausage fingers fumbling around inside the hat to pull the rabbit out of a hidden pocket, while Elynn found it straight away. After a short while Charlie was producing a flower out of a magic wand and miraculously producing a silk hankerchief from his "empty" hand. It was great fun, so much so that Jen's mom asked if I'd actually bought it for Charlie or for myself (the jury's still out on that one)!

There were a couple of tricks that neither André nor I could figure out for love nor money, but when we handed them over to Jordan he managed to figure them out in a couple of minutes flat. I was telling one of the ladies at sewing club about my theory of "right brain/left brain" and how Jordan could figure out things that had stumped both André and me, and she said they have exactly the same thing in her family. Three of her family are dyslexic (as is Jordan) and they are all extremely creative/artistic but not at all practical. I'm extremely practical but, much to my regret, not in the slightest bit creative or artistic. I have no idea if my/our theory holds water but I'm more and more convinced that the right brain/left brain thing really is "a thing"!

A picture of the church opposite sewing club
as a storm was about to roll in - just
because I love it!

Back again!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Life in this part of the world!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cirque Imagine!

More this and that!

It's almost the end of February and some days you might just think spring was on its way - just! The weather's been glorious, then grey and wet, then glorious again, so maybe spring really is trying to bulldoze it's way through. When I was still working I used to love to wander round Geneva's Botanical Gardens, and that was when you could tell if spring really was on its way because the crocuses (crocii?) would be tentatively popping their heads up. Not here where I live of course because of the higher altitude but lower down you might already be starting to get lucky! I don't miss much about work but I do miss wandering round the gardens or strolling along the lake. Still, that wouldn't be enough to ever convince me to go back!

With the spring of course comes the ever increasing risk of avalanches and there have been quite a few "biggies" in Europe this past week, with one just up the road from here. It takes about 45 minutes to drive to Chamonix (where the Mont Blanc is) and from there you can go through the Mont Blanc tunnel and when you come out the other side you're in the Aosta Valley in Italy. I always say you can feel the atmosphere change instantly, but then maybe that's just because the border guards have Italian accents! The first town you come to is called Cormayeur and that is where they had a huge avalanche earlier this week. Last I knew there were two French people killed, but that may well have changed as there were still quite a few people missing last time I caught up with the news! Someone posted a short video on Youtube where you can see the avalanche careening down the mountain opposite and yet people were still continuing to ski down the mountain towards it! My first thought was "how stupid do you have to be to ski towards an oncoming avalanche" but in reality they may just have been tetanised by what was heading towards them and not thinking straight. Either way, I saw that over 100 people have been killed in various avalanches in Europe already this year and ski season isn't even nearing the end. How sad for all concerned! (You can see the Cormayeur footage here).

I got back from club on Tuesday night and was scrolling through a few Youtube favourites when every time I tried to "like" a particular video, Youtube suggested that "hey Viviane, maybe you'd like to start your own channel". So I kept trying and over and over again YT called me Viviane and suggested I get involved. I finally figured out that I'd logged onto the club's email and hadn't logged back out and as that email address was set up in the name of "Viviane" (the previous president) it must have thought that I was her! Mind you, talking of the previous president, I spoke to Monique (the new president) and Martine (the new secretary) and told them that I couldn't make head nor tail out of one of the tables in the previous financial report and wondered if I was going mad. There were several tables included in the report, one of which was a breakdown of all expenses in connection with "events", i.e. meals, trips etc. where I would attribute certain costs in order to have a realistic idea of exactly how much each event cost (musicians, caterer, table decorations, drinks etc.). Then we have what I would call the master table which was supposed to include all expenses - and that was where I was having a problem. To my mind, if you start the year with XXX in the bank account and then have expenses of YYY, well logically you should have a final balance of ZZZ right? But nope, not a bit of it. I asked both ladies where they would attribute the €61 Monique had spent on bread for the Christmas lunch or the €271 Martine had spent on soft drinks and wine, and they agreed they couldn't find it. According to the previous president the auditor found the accounts "correct down to the last centime", but I call BS on that because it was waaayyy off! The prevous treasurer had also recognized that the accounts were off but Viviane insisted they were to be done the way she wanted - and that was one of the reasons the previous treasurer had quit. So this week I went through every penny spent since we took over (thankfully I had been keeping my own master list as I went along) and posted every penny into set budget lines and guess what, the accounts tally (as they bloody well should)! To be honest I don't believe Viviane had her fingers in the till (although that's what she accused Monique of many years ago) but it does seem more than weird that she wouldn't let the treasurer have access to the bank accounts and would print off partial statements only when asked. Now all three of us can access the bank accounts - which suits me just fine. I'm more inclined to think that maybe Viviane got a few freebies from the various travel agents when she put work their way, but regardless, I'm glad the three of us spotted this early and have agreed on how to handle it going forward!

Last week the club was contacted by a young man who has just started up his own clinic offering diagnostic hearing tests and who was willing to come to club to carry out evaluations on anyone who might be interested. Monique was all for it but none of the rest of us were up for spending a Friday afternoon herding club members into the room for their tests, not so much because of the time spent but rather that none of us wanted to get involved with the "oh, I can't make it on this date, can you switch it for another date"! Actually I do mind giving up my Friday afternoon for something that has nothing remotely to do with the club (and the others all felt the same, except for Monique), so we agreed to add a flyer to our latest mailing giving details of how to contact this man and indicating that the test was free with no expectation of any purchase being made. I learned a long time ago that you hand responsibility for making arrangements over to the party concerned rather than acting as a go-between, because people tend to be far less inclined to constantly make changes if they are responsible for doing it themselves!

We did have another ad hoc meeting last week (hence I wasn't interested in also giving up my Friday afternoon) to meet up with a rep to try to set up another "event" in April. Once a year they do a kind of "tupperware party" where the seller sometimes organizes a free day trip (last year it was to Evian) in return for participants sitting through some kind of spiel (somewhat akin to a tupperware party). This year they are not offering a trip but are willing to pay for lunch for up to 50 participants using our usual caterer, plus make a donation to the club. When I saw what was going to be promoted I had to stiffle a giggle because it was obviously aimed at the "mature" audience. You know, self-raising armchairs, saucepans made of lighter materials for people who no longer have much physical strength, jar openers for arthritic hands, and so on. All good stuff but to say it was "targeted" would be an understatement. Being wicked I thought "if he comes out with self-heating incontinence pads I'm gonna lose it", but it never actually sank to that level. That being said, I'm sure a talented comedian could make comedy gold out of some of this stuff! While I'm willing to help organize it, I don't intend to attend because I'm sure we can put together a group of up to 50 people who would be willing (and maybe even genuinely interested) to attend for a free lunch (although they always say there's no such thing as a free lunch don't they)!

Last week Jen asked both grandmas if we would be willing to look after Charlie overnight in the summer for the first time. I was always willing to do this but obviously felt that Charlie needed to be old enough and that the request should come from Jen. Charlie was so excited as I told him I would take him swimming to his favourite lake but then Jen suggested it might be good to have a trial run in April. Now there isn't an awful lot to do round here so I was racking my brains trying to come up with something I could do with him in April when the weather might not be so good. And then I had a brainwave - how about rejoining the local library and he could pick out a few books to read! La Roche library is stunning and I'm sure we could happily spend a couple of hours there, then either visit the castle or go to the cinema next door, followed by the park and/or lunch in town. I joined the library pre-covid but never went back because I've go so many books to read at home, plus my kindle, plus Audible, but I went back on Friday to rejoin and took a couple of cookery books out to have a shufty at - because I obviously don't have enough cookery books here, do I. So if all goes to plan, we'll be giving it a trial run in April. Fingers crossed for good weather and a laid back Charlie!

The view from the library looking towards
my house!

Looking down towards the church!

La Roche Château

The park just outside the library. If the weather
is good we could even walk home, but it
would probably take about 40 minutes. We'll see!

Hooooo boy!!!!

I didn't think I'd be posting again so soon (I usually don't, as you know) but something Jen mentioned yesterday made me rethink. More on that in a moment. Anyhoo, the other Saturday we had our latest board game evening at my neighbours' house and it was really fun. The first game we played was one of Charlie's so he could feel included. We split into two teams and one member of each team had to get his side to guess whatever was written on a card and do this as many times as they could while up against a timer (although Charlie got extra time, of course). Anyway, at one point Charlie ran up to his team and then just stood there completely still. Philippe burst out laughing but since Jen has played this game with him before she was able to guess "a tree" - so maybe he was better at this stuff than we all thought. Mind you I laughed so hard that I leaned back in my chair and nearly went arse over t..t when I realized it was actually a bar stool!!! Julian managed to grab me and I never went all the way over (nor did I hurt myself) but we were all in fits of laughter after that, although for all the wrong reasons!

One of my ex's nieces posted on FB a video of her husband and seven year old son playing ice hockey and I was dead impressed. They live in Pittsburgh and dad is a Penguins fan so I guess it's not so unreasonable to imagine that the little boy would already be playing ice hockey, but wow, colour me impressed. Then again, Charlie is going with the school for another skiing lesson next week (weather permitting) so I guess it's only natural for kids to be somewhat good at local sports. In fact that was how Stan's son, Sam, ended up representing Nigeria in the cross country skiing (he didn't place sadly). He was born in France to a French mother and Nigerian father and grew up here, so yeah, that's how come that young Nigerian man can ski so well!

I was due to look after Charlie again on Wednesday but Jen asked if I could keep Elynn too as she had developed what Jen thought was otitis (again). However the daycare then sent out a message to say that they had several cases of mastoiditis and asked everyone to get their child checked as they would not accept any child where this was confirmed. I'd never heard of it but apparently it is an infection of the large bone behind the ear and can lead to permanent hearing loss and/or meningitis!!!! Wow, no wonder the daycare wanted those children isolated! Anyway Jen got a doctor's appointment the next day and it was confirmed to be just otitis but as she'd had such a bad night the night before I kept her at home anyway. I reckon the antibiotics and pain medication kicked right in because she was as good as gold (they both were) and I'm pleased to say they're both doing okay again now. Jen was explaining to me that Elynn makes certain hand gestures to express herself (so do I sometimes, but usually only when I'm driving) and it turns out that the daycare teach basic sign language to all the kids so that they can express themselves even if they can't yet talk! How brilliant is that!

So I found a bunch of stickers in a draw and we started sticking them all over our faces to send a photo to mom to show that we'd all gone down with strawberry-itis! That was great fun until someone buzzed at the intercom and I took in a package from the mail lady with a couple of strawberry stickers on my forehead (the ones I'd missed when we were taking them all off)! Luckily I had Elynn in my arms so I hope she doesn't think I'm actually insane! On the Wednesdays when I have Charlie, if the weather is good we'll walk down to daycare with the stroller and pick her up early. While it was cold on Wednesday it wasn't wet so I asked Jen who was picking Elynn up today - me or her. She just looked at me like I was mad when she said "nobody, she's sitting right next to you"! Oops, old lady bloopers again!

Anyhoo, the reason I wanted to post again today was because of something that happened after the old fogies spat with Chantal on Tuesday. I didn't mention it yesterday because I thought it was gross but when Jen made her comment I was intrigued. I'm not a very good judge of character (never have been) so here goes. I mentioned that I had been over at the bank when the spat happened and that I'd bumped into Chantal on her way out as I was on my way back. After I found out what happened I did comment to the others that I bet Luis (her Portuguese partner) was gonna get it in the neck when she got home (he hadn't been at club that day). Either way, she looked perfectly fine and I just waved to her. Not long after I'd heard about all the drama one of the ladies asked for the key to the ladies' bathroom and then came back with a disgusted look on her face. Apparently someone had pooped in one of the stalls and smeared it all over the place! Turns out that Chantal had said she had a bad stomach and was the last person to have used the bathroom key. My first reaction was that she hadn't looked at all unwell when I crossed paths with her and in any case, I don't care how ill you are (or if it's your child) you always make an attempt, at least, to clean up after yourself - but she hadn't done this! She's not one of the older ladies either (she's probably around 60) and would appear to be in good health. I happened to mention the spat and the filthy bathroom to Jen yesterday and without batting an eyelid she said "that was your payback for the fight"! Now Jen used to be a psychiatric nurse, something she intitially loved but ended up hating, what with all the physical abuse the nurses endure and finally quit after covid. Hearing her say that made it all seem so obvious but of course that was never on my radar. If Jen is right, I think Luis is in much more trouble than anyone would imagine - that woman gives off Kathy Bates vibes in Misery! The only thing I wish I'd asked Jen was did she think Chantal would show up to club next Tuesday or would we never see her again. They're both booked on our day trip to Lyon at the end of the month and, I believe, the trip to Spain in September. Will they show as a couple, will just Luis show up, will he dump her? Hmmm, I'm not a psychiatric nurse so I wouldn't know what to think but boy talk about the drama. Peyton Place had nothing on this!

This and that!

I see it's been a while since I last posted but then again nothing much of interest has actually been happening either. Oh, tell a lie, we got snow one day and as I had to dash out that day I didn't get to shovel it, but within about 48 hours it had all gone again, so that was obviously enough excitement for two days, I guess!

Things at the old fogies club are heating up a bit now that I've gotten to know a few of the characters better. Some people had complained that those playing cards needed to move around and not stick to the same old groups and since the majority voted for this Martine (the little dynamo) set up a "pick a number out of a hat" system which was meant to switch people around. Problem is, when people found they'd gotten landed with Carmen or Lily they were in uproar and refused to move!!!! I don't know Lily at all (though she's obviously disliked) but Carmen is the older lady who talked all the way through the young man's spiel when we were at the forestry museum last year so people couldn't hear him!!! Then they found out that people had been hanging on to their numbers every week so that they could more or less pick who they wanted to play the following week. I tell ya, it's like taking 50 five year olds on a picnic in the woods - you'd actually hope for the big bad wolf to come and pick a few off!!!

Then today I walked over the bank to drop off a bunch of cheques for our next outing (a trip to Lyon to see something akin to Cirque du Soleil with dinner included). On the way back I bumped into one of the unpleasant Chantals on the way out - she who lives with one of the nice Portuguese brothers - so just said goodbye to her - and then walked into an absolute wall of outrage when I got back in the hall! I don't quite know what happened but Chantal would seem to be someone who always has to "mouth off" (pretty sure she'd be called a Karen in the US - with apologies to any Karens out there) and the old guy from my village apparently asked loudly if someone wanted to go out and buy the old donkey some carrots to sweeten her up "so she'd be less of an ass"!!!! The general consensus is that nobody can understand why the bf doesn't kick her out (it's his house) as she treats him so badly and even his brother and son want nothing to do with her. It sure as hell ain't love so maybe they're just stuck in some kind of limbo. That being said, I don't take any of it to heart and it kind of amuses me to hear them bickering but I guess on occasion that big bad wolf might be welcome in some quarters again. In all honesty though, it really is just one or two who are the problem - but then it's not my problem to solve either, is it!

Earlier in the week I was heading into town when I found the road blocked off. Apparently one of the buildings a little further down the road had gone up in flames during the night and the fire brigade had spent over 12 hours bringing it under control. Hats off to them because while the fire was devastating, no-one was hurt! Jen's mom used to be a theatre sister in A&E and she said she could never do what the first responders did because they got to clean the victims up before they even arrived at the hospital and that some of them were in such a state it was hard to stomach even for an experienced nurse!

This picture makes it look rather "tame"
but it most definitely wasn't!

Then last week I decided I needed to up my walking so did a walk at Passy (for a change) and then the next day I walked into Cluses to visit the Yves Rocher shop. That at least got me a 90 minute walk each way and I'm pretty sure I saw someone being life-lifted off the mountains right above Cluses. Again the emergency services can only be commended for their skill and dedication!

Not a great picture but they kept going in to the
mountain and pulling back out for about 20 minutes!

 

On the third day I thought I'd visit a place called the three lakes, but when I got there there was so much dredging going on that only one of the lakes was accessible. Still I got a walk in and got to revisit a small town and le vieux pont (the old bridge) that I like very much so it wasn't a complete waste of time!

The view from the third lake!

I think the bridge dates from the 1500s
but I can't be certain!

Near the school in Cluses!

We had a second round of voting for the legislative elections and the young mayor of Jordan and Jen's town was elected to parliament in a landslide victory. Mind you I was horrified when Jen told me that he and his family (including his four month old baby!!!!) had received death threats! I told her I would not let that go and she said he wasn't so I hope he brings the hammer down hard on these idiots and makes them pay for what is hopefully just a bunch of keyboard warriors waging war from their mommy's basement!

And finally, my Nigerian friend's (Stan) son, Samuel, is once again competing in the winter olympics. I can't believe it's already been four years to be honest but Sam is again representing Nigeria in the 10 km cross country skiing! In fact, as you can tell from this picture, he is the entire Nigerian team and while I would love for him to make it to the podium, I just think he's up against so much talent (who also have tremendous financial backing) from the Scandinavian countries and France itself. Still, he can be very very proud of himself as he's done it all pretty much on his own!

Not too sure about the trousers, but well done Sam!

I would seem to be down about six pounds from the other week when I got annoyed at myself and swore to do something about my weight and while I'm very pleased with this, I guess most of us ladies can go up and down (like a bride's nightie?) over the space of just a few days, so it's important to be realistic too! I guess I've still got a way to go before I can start competing with Sam then!