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!

How not to save money!

I think I mentioned before that the year started off pretty well from a walking point of view. I'd gotten a few walks in but then it tailed off a bit with the bad weather. So the other day, as it was cold but sunny, I drove to the lake at Passy for a walk (NB while I love this walk I really need to challenge myself more as this is a totally flat walk)! Just before you turn off for the lake there is a large store called The Mountain Store so I thought I would drop in there as I needed to buy a sleeping bag. One of our family Christmas gifts is a long weekend where we need a sleeping bag. Thing is, I'd given both mine away about six months ago to the homeless shelter but now of course I need a sleeping bag. So I stopped in and got my sleeping bag, plus a new jacket (I obviously need a jacket which corresponds to every 1° change in temperature), plus a couple of tops and a new bathroom scale. The one I have at the moment was frankly cheap tat and I'm pretty sure I can change my weight by about 10 lbs depending on where I place it! I have a weakness for sports stores, forever trying to find just the right top/jacket that is waterproof/windproof but not too heavy. Anyway I came out of there having spent what to me is a small fortune and with a set of scales that does me no favours at all!!!!! So now I'm pissed and while it's not exactly a 1 January resolution I've finally realized I need to do something about my excess weight (I probably could do with losing about 30 lbs at this point). When I got home I spent an hour cleaning and preparing stuff for the next day when Jen called and asked me if I could keep Elynn as she had picked up Charlie's lurgy and was now sick too. I'd had Charlie last Wednesday and then spent the next week coughing and spluttering too so I'm hoping that's it for this winter! I guess the moral of the story is don't procrastinate because if you think you'll do a task/walk "later", something always seems to come along and bugger up the best laid plans!

When I went down to St. Pierre on Monday for yoga they were sitting in fog, which was really weird because just driving the few km back to my place we were bathed in bright sunshine. Geneva sits in a basin and is often in fog and yet if you go just a few hundred metres higher up you can get out into the sunshine (one of the benefits of going up in the mountains I guess). At the end of every yoga session we do a 10 minute relaxation and she "wakes everyone up" at the end with different kinds of sounds - often windchimey sounds. Well this time she used a handpan and the sound coming from it was so beautiful I thought how wonderful it would be to wake up to that every day, rather than the bzzzz, bzzzz, bzzzz of an alarm clock. I wasn't the only one who found it delightful but when I saw that they go for around €100++++ I thought better of it or I'll be eating bread and gruel before I know it! The handpan she used had a hole in the top of it and one of the men commented how it would make a great dish to serve fondue. Ha ha, a typical Savoyard comment!

Handpan!

Sewing was cancelled on Monday night though as the heating had conked out in the entire building, which also meant that the library and the daycare in the same building had to be closed. I'm always the one sweating cobs at sewing and to think that the one time I might have been comfortable with my penguin blood, they had to go and close the bloody place!

I had to go into town on Thursday (which is market day) so stopped by the cheap stall-holder for fruit and veg and yet again came away with a ton of stuff for just €20 (which is an absolute steal and it's decent quality stuff). However I realize that if I'm going to keep going to this guy I need to use it quickly or freeze it, so I rummaged around in my basement for the vacuum sealer I'd bought ages ago and bingo, I hope I'll get to make better use of these deals in the future! That being said, earlier this week there was a knock at my door and it turned out that market traders had come down from Normandy and were trying to sell their fruit and veg down here. Now I've seen these people before and while some people say they're just casing the houses to see which are occupied, I have bought stuff from them in the past so maybe there are the bad mixed in with the good. That being said, while we obviously can't grow everything around here because of the altitude/temperatures, I just can't fathom buying potatoes that come from 800 km away! We do get sellers coming up from Italy to sell their stuff but then most of that is coming up from the south of Italy and is harder to find here, whereas potatoes - not so much!

I spoke to my sister at the weekend and she told me they'd just booked a long weekend in Venice in February (for Carnaval)! They had this trip on offer with our local bus company but (a) I've been to Venice before and while it is indeed beautiful it will be very very crowded, and (b) they do Carnaval here too so nah, I'll give that one a miss (although I'm pretty sure it would probably have been fully booked the day after the catalogue came out anyway). This is the sister that just got back from a long weekend in Prague and while I have also been there I was just 15 at the time (on our way to what is now the Ukraine with the school) so I only have vague memories of it. She told me about all the high end shops in Wenceslas Square where you have to wait to be invited in (they do that in Geneva too) and while she obviously couldn't afford it anyway she would go if she had that kind of money. I guess that's the difference between me and her then, because I wouldn't be interested in those kinds of goods even if I had that kind of money - they just don't float my boat! Still, it's probably a moot point anyway, right!

The French just carried out their latest census and while the initial paperwork was dropped off in the mailbox, a lady came round to each individual house to give out a code to access the census online. I happened to mention to her that I had no idea what the surface area of my home is and had just guessed the first time I filled out the paperwork. She told me that she lived in the same model home and that I had over-estimated by about 100 squatre metres. Ha, the census people probably thought my upstairs bedroom flew off in the last storm. Then today I got to vote in my very first French election. As soon as I got my citizenship I went into town to get a passport and then stopped in at the Mairie in my village to get my name on the electoral list. But then about 10 days ago I got an email to say that my request hadn't gone through, giving several reasons, one of which might be that I'd accessed the portal more than once. I was just about to head back off to the Mairie to get it sorted out when my electoral card came through the mail. So I walked into the village this afternoon and got to vote in my very first legislative elections. It was tough though because while I have a favourite party I didn't know anything about the candidate, but then the young mayor of Jordan and Jen's little town was also on the list and everyone speaks extremely highly of him as a dynamic and engaged young man. Given that he represents my second favourite party I voted for him. If there's a run off we get to go back again next Sunday but I'm crossing my fingers that he wins first time around. It's exciting stuff isn't it - and could only be bettered, in my opinion, by a snap general election in the UK. Fingers crossed!

And finally, an "old lady blooper". Well not so much an old lady blooper but something I saw on Very British Problems on FB. True story - three elderly gents were having a pint in the pub when one of them was suddenly taken ill and an ambulance was called. When someone asked if it was serious, one of his drinking buddies said "it must have been, he didn't finish his Guinness"! I hope the old gent was ok, but I loved the comment too!

People watching!

I know New Year's has come and gone, but I still can't believe we're already two weeks into January - and how many broken resolutions already? I don't actually make resolutions but always have some vague thoughts about "getting outside more" and decluttering, and while I did indeed get three walks in in the first week, not a lot has happened since then. Mind you, while it was very sunny it was bitterly cold (even by my standards) so I hopped onto Amazon and bought myself hand and foot warmers so that I'll have no excuse in the future. I stayed in on New Year's Eve, fell asleep and then woke up at 11.50 just in time to watch the fireworks from my balcony and see the blue lights on top of Cou (the mountain to the left in my header picture). It was a lovely crisp, clear night, the fireworks lasted about 30 minutes and then, just like that, it was all over!

I've mentioned before that I tend to live in what was once a bedroom on the first floor which we turned into a kinda lounge/TV room (even though I haven't turned my TV on for four years now). Anyhoo, I was sitting reading when I happened to glance up and a paraglider whizzed straight past my window! They do jump off Cou at the back of the house but I've never seen them in front of the house before and was wondering where he was going to land. I suspect he'd either lost control a bit (I doubt it) or maybe some lucky lady further into the village was going to be receiving a large box of chocolates from some James Bond type very shortly!

I sent my friend a message last Tuesday to say that I was going down to the GAL offices (our favourite travel agent) to book a couple of trips before they filled up. So we dashed off there together and wouldn't you know it, the trip to Sardinia in April had filled up the day after the presentation, as had the three dates for the Swiss railway tours. Damn, I guess next time we'll know to move faster. We did get ourselves booked on the December trip to the Châteaux de la Loire, plus about four other one or two-day trips, and I booked myself on a five day trip to Lake Garda as I understand it's beautiful. What with already having a trip to Spain booked for September and still being on a waiting list for Sardinia, it's not looking like India is on the books - well not for this year at least. Shame!

Talking of Lake Garda, I understand ol' gorgeous George (Clooney) has a house there (maybe we'll get an invite for a cup of tea). And I see that he and Amal have recently been granted French citizenship! That's weird because the French have recently made the French exam more difficult, the "citizenship" exam more complex, have stated that the majority of your income should be earned in France, but that the five-year minimum residency still holds. I wonder how George fitted all that in, what with his super busy acting career and all! Oh yeah, of course, he's loaded! Apparently the reason they got citizenship was because they made France look "more enticing"! If only I'd thought of that!

The other night I was watching a Youtube video by someone reacting to a person I find extremely crass and vulgar and could never watch personally, but can occasionally stomach an abridged version of her vlogs by someone else of what is her car crash life. Anyhoo, I swear she was driving along listening to music and raging about how she hated this kind of music and "couldn't bear to hear people singing in Acapulco"! It made me laugh so much that I got to thinking about all the other "old lady bloopers" so I might throw one in here and there in my next few posts as I think of them!

And finally I think I'm just about getting caught up with all the work I've had to do for the old fogies club. What I thought was going to be just a Tuesday afternoon thing turns out to be a whole lot more work than that. They had their AGM in November, which meant the Committee showing up on the Thursday afternoon to set out 140-ish place settings for the meal to go with it. Then Christmas lunch (same thing, show up on Thursday and get it all ready for the next day). Then we had the Three Kings on January 9th, so much of the same (buying the food/drinks/galettes for 140-ish peope) then clearing it all away and taking down the Christmas decorations - so all in all it's been a busy time of year, although it should calm down a little from now on!

The galette des rois!

Anyway on Tuesday it was to be a normal weekly card game afternoon, except being the beginning of the new year we had everyone lining up pay their yearly subscriptions. So think almost 180 people coming at you from all directions to hand over their cheques and pick up their membership cards! It was chaos as I obviously don't know most of the names. So that's when Martine starts hissing at me that no, Mr. and Mrs. Ravoire should not be given a joint card because even though they're married they hate each other and there's no way they would accept a joint card. Then "Claudine" announced that she had separated from "Serge" (who is apparently an alcoholic) and that we were to find out her new address and forward her card there (they would both appear to be nearly 80). Then there's the older guy who grew up my village and always comes over to give me a hug and "do you know the Blandin family (no), well how about the Ducrets up at the farm (no). Oh they now live in the house that used to be painted blue!!! Again, no! Anyway I like him enough but Martine told me never to play cards with him (I don't play anyway) because he cheats and whatever happens during the card game, his score is always 160! So as the games were winding down we edged over to where his team was counting their scores and guess how much he scored. Go on, I bet you can't guess! Yep, he scored 160! As I said in my heading, I've always enjoyed people watching, so this club might just be right up my alley - but 160 my arse!

Down time!

After all the anticipation and hype of Christmas doesn't it sometimes feel that you put in all that work and energy and then blink and it's over! Well I guess technically it isn't all over because we've still got New Year's to come but since I never go anywhere on New Year's, it's actually over for me. In fact I really enjoy snuggling down on the sofa on the 31st with a good book or a good movie and just drinking in the peace and quiet - well in my house at least. My new neighbours forewarned me that they would be having people over on the 31st and "they might be a bit noisy", so I told them to knock themselves out as I never go to bed much before 3 a.m. anyway (I like to stay up to watch the fireworks in London). But to be honest, I'm usually glad when it's all over and things can get back to normal!

Mind you, that's not to say we didn't have a good time over Christmas. On Christmas Eve we went to Jordan and Jen's (it's easier for them to put Elynn to bed) and snacked on smoked salmon, pâté de foie gras, olives, cheese and so on and had a really nice relaxed time. I never stay very late as I'm sure they're pretty tired and in any case I want to get back and make a few last minute preparations for the next day when everyone comes to my house. Driving back from their place the road follows the river Giffre through a smallish valley where you really have to be careful about the wildlife so I take it easy. Then there's a couple of km on the flat before starting up a winding forestry road to my village - again watching out for deer and boar! I'd gotten up to the village of St. Laurent and was back on the flat again when all of a sudden I spotted the most magnificent stag standing in a field just off the road!!!! I've seen loads of deer and been hit by a family of wild boar, but thank god this beauty was just standing still because if he'd run at me I'd probably have ended up like an olive on a toothpick - those antlers looked deadly! But I was sooooo pleased that I spotted him - it felt a bit like Santa had sent out an advance posse - he was just stunning!

I'd gone shopping on the Monday before Christmas and while I spent a small fortune I'd let my store credit points build up over most of the year so €65 came off the top of the bill and it wasn't too bad in the end. I'd made amuses-bouches (little cheesy pastries) with blinis and pâté I bought in the Périgord. I'd also prepared oven-baked rice (from An Oregon Cottage website - she's brilliant) and Delia Smith's black bean salsa, while Jen's mom bought salmon en papillote followed by my friend's wonderful individual cheesecakes (a Facebook recipe - I must look for it), so while there was more than enough food (Jen took home the leftover salsa), for once we didn't go crazy. Elynn was starting to get a bit stroppy by the end although that's not surprising as she'd missed her nap, but when Jordan told her off for deliberately throwing things on the floor she started batting her eyelashes at him (she must have just learned that) and I had to walk back into the kitchen for a good laugh! Ain't it great being a grandparent because while you should never undermine the parents, by god that was funny!

André and Melissa seem to still be going strong, although it is still very early days as yet. He's great with her kids as he knew them anyway, and as long as they're both happy and enjoy each other's company, long may it last!

After the "presentation" that we went to the other day for our local travel company, Monique (the new lady president of the old fogies club) asked my friend and I if we'd like to go for a drink afterwards, so we stopped in town and wandered round the Christmas market before having a drink in one of the bars on the main square. Monique's husband was 16 years older than her and died some time ago (I'm guessing she's nearly 80) and I had kinda imagined a sweet little old couple separated only by death. Well it turns out not a bit of it as he had apparently cheated on her pretty much from the get-go!!!! When I mentioned my neighbour and her finding a telephone number in her husband's suit pocket and tracking it down through the telephone book, she burst out laughing because she'd done the same thing and found the address of his latest fling the same way. So one night when she reckoned he was heading out to meet the girlfriend, she showed up at a bar just outside the woman's house and "accidentally" bumped into them. He was furious and oddly enough was incredibly jealous of her! Mind you, I don't think "oddly enough" is the right expression here because my ex was jealous and thought I was going off to be with my lover every Saturday because "you take far too long to do the grocery shopping"! Rules for thee and not for me, I guess. Anyway, she was a hoot and it confirms yet again how so many of these older ladies can be hilarious (and probably why I enjoy my solos trips so much)!

I've probably spent about 12 hours over the holidays working on the books for the St. Pierre club. That's not to say they were in a mess (not at all), but trying to go over everything and understand the reasoning for why things were done as they were (pretty sound reasoning at that). But I'm setting up my own excel tables and getting much more of a feel for it, although I'm still incredibly grateful that the secretary lasted only three weeks and that Martine, the previous treasurer, is now back as secretary. She and Monique are little dynamos and I think together we'll make a good team, along with help from other committee members who are always willing to pitch in even if they don't have defined roles. Mind you, I nearly had a coronary the other day when the bank left a voicemail message for me, words to the effect that she had "all these lists and no cheques"????? I'd just dropped off almost €5,000 worth of cheques in connection with the Christmas lunch and she couldn't find any cheques???? Well it turns out I'd dropped off the cheques in batches of 10 per envelope with a list detailing the name of the bank, the name of the signatory and the amount, but whoever had credited the cheques to the account hadn't thrown the lists away after checking them so I'd had a call from one of the supervisors. Thank goodness that got sorted out quickly!

I saw on the news that Citroen were possibly thinking about bringing back the old Citroen Diane 2CV car and since I'll be looking into buying a new car in the not too distant future I was really thrilled. I have always loved these cars (a bit like the old Renault IV) and in fact there used to be one further up the valley from here that was bright yellow with a black pistol painted on the side and "007" underneath. Those things seemed to last forever, even if they did lean when you went round corners and while I'm not sure it would be the most practical of cars for my needs I was disappointed to hear that Citroen have seemingly decided against it! It's a shame as I'm sure they would have done a roaring trade in such an iconic "statement" car - although what statement I'd be making remains to be seen!

The window flaps used to open
upwards and it would lean when
you went round a bend - I just
loved this car!

Since it's colder here I've been trying to watch a few films on Netflix but I'm not having much luck. I watched Taken and while I love Liam Neeson it really was a load of ol' codswallop with him being "special forces" who singlle-handedly tracks down his trafficked daughter to Paris and takes out an entire legion of Albanian people traffickers with a sling shot and a whoopee cushion (okay, I made that bit up). The stunt driving was amazing but I'd give the film about 3/10 for entertainment. Then I struggled over an entire week to watch Frankenstein and while the special effects were amazing and the acting good, I again had a hard time with all the flying wolves and invincible monsters. Maybe it's just the wrong genre for me. After that I snored my way through Dead Poets Society and was really disappointed because I'd heard it was good and love Robin Williams in anything, but nope, even though it was a different genre I could barely keep my eyes open. So then I started watching Goodwill Hunting and finally realized that this was probably the Robin Williams film I'd been thinking of when I started watching Dead Poets Society. I'm happy to say that this is much, much better (even though I haven't finished it yet - I can never sit through a film in one go) and again I love Robin Williams so I'm pleased that I've finally discovered something I like. I do remember him in a serious role in Photo Booth (I think that's the name of the film) and he was excellent as the creepy incel-type guy who developed people's pictures at the local store. That one was definitely worth watching. Ultimately I guess it's more likely a case of me being difficult to please rather than films not being particularly good, but it'd be nice if I could find another film/series to start watching over new year!

My tally for walking this year has been pretty abysmal, topping out at just 700 miles, so I'm hoping to get right back into it in the new year. I'm also in the mood to cook right now so want to experiment more, plus declutter, so I've got things to be going on with at the moment. I also have a list as long as my arm of trips that I would like to do in 2026 and while I know realistically that I can probably only do maybe two, it's fun looking to see what fits timewise and financially.

Then today I was watching someone on Youtube and I got to wondering if it would be fun to set up a Youtube channel. Well technically I actually do have a channel because one time I was struggling to post a video on here (of cows with their cowbells at the back of my house) so I inadvertently made a Youtube channel of my own where there is just one 30 second video on it. Strangely enough it got four "likes" so maybe there is the making of a new Youtube superstar somewhere in my future! I was thinking about it because I really would like to film some of the places round here or that I visit on my trips rather than just take photos, and learning how to edit videos might be fun, but ultimately I know I value my privacy far too much to put anything out there that could be so easily accessible to everyone and his donkey, so I think maybe I'll just stick to blogging. Shame really, as I think it might have been an interesting challenge!

So with all that being said, I'll sign off for 2025 and wish you all a happy and healthy 2026. See you next year!