Torri del Benaco!

After lunch in Verona it was time to board the bus again and head out to the little town of Torri del Benaco. While much of the scenery is not "new" to most of us as Haute Savoie is full of mountains and lakes, I think what makes the Italian side of the border so different is the architecture and the style of the homes. I love architecture so while the scenery may not have been that different to what I'm used to, there was very definitely an Italian feel to the place!

A google image of Torri del Benaco!

The 14th century castle

While this picture doesn't show much, in 2004
the villages on the slopes opposite were the
epicentre of a massive earthquake that spread
out over 100 km!

Nonna on her balcony watching
the world go by!

I sat on the lake front and had the
bright idea to treat myself to
a hot chocolate. I regretted it
for the next couple of hours!

Probably the best kind of car for such
a tiny parking spot!

Beautiful ornate windows!

On a side note, getting on and off these buses can be quite challenging for some of the less mobile travellers (the steps are pretty high) and in general we walked for hours, so while these trips are not specifically noted as being "easy", I'm always pleasantly surprised at just how much walking and climbing some of the less mobile participants can achieve. Often if we're waiting for a cable car or elevator, many will just start heading out on foot, but then I suppose if they've grown up in this area the're used to it!

Our group was a pretty nice group all in all and as we moved around at lunch and dinner I feel we got to know each other quite well. There was Mr. Cringe and his long-suffering wife (he was the first one to make an impression on me). On our first day he told the lady in the seat next to me to "put your seatbelt on" several times. The first couple of times she brushed it off saying she would do it when she'd gotten herself sorted, but by the third time she told him that she was an adult and would assume the consequences of her actions (she always did put her seatbelt on anyway). So he then told her that she had a sale caractère (basically she was a grump) but she just said no, I'm just an independent adult (all the while I'm cringeing in my seat)! Then when another man got up to use the bathroom, Mr. Cringe shouted out "so the old prostate's playing up again then" and my mouth dropped. His wife was quite a bit younger than him (I would put him at 80-ish) and he quite obviously had no filter, but luckily he calmed down as the trip went on and while he was still loud, he was more fun than offensive towards the end of the trip. If you're unlucky enough to have ever been somehow linked to your own Mr. Cringe, you can imagine how mortified his poor wife must have felt - I know I can!

Then there was the Brummie. One of the ladies asked me where I was from and when I said Birmingham she said "oh my husband's a Brummie too", so we got to chatting and both knew where the other one had grown up. When I asked him how come he'd ended up in France he told me he'd met a beautiful French woman while on holiday in France and was determined to marry her - and he did! They were quite obviously devoted to each other but he said that if anything happened to his wife before him, he would most likely go back to England as he had a son there. I told him not me and as a Libran who dithers about making a decision, it felt good to be so certain of what I want for the future!

Next was Mr. and Mrs. Sporty who I would guess were in their early 60s and were both absolute hiking fanatics. It was really nice to see how enthusiastic they both were about hiking in the mountains but then I guess that's much better than one of you having a passion for golf (or fishing, or bird watching, or whatever) and the other one being stuck at home bored out of their minds. Many years ago they had a smallholding and took in young people from all over the world to show them round the best hiking/skiing areas locally. Recently a man knocked at their door and when they didn't recognize him he handed them a picture and asked if they recognized the person. They did, as it turned out, and here he was as a 50 year old Englishman who had stayed with them when he was 18; he was in the area so decided to stop by on the off chance. These two were great company and full of really funny stories, so it was always a pleasure to sit with them at mealtimes!

And finally I got chatting with Laurence, who had been retired three years from one of the international organizations in Geneva. She and I got on like a house on fire and I can see that she is one of those people who never sits still - she's always off travelling, canoeing, going to art galeries or whatever. Another lady lives in Evian (where the bottled water comes from) and she took both our numbers and promised to let us know when they had interesting exhibitions on so we could all meet up again after our trip. So there you have it, a motley and diverse group who somehow pulled it all together to make pretty good travelling companions and (hopefully) a few new friends to boot!

Verona!

The following day we picked up our local guide before heading off to Verona, and oh my word, I just loved it! The place was an absolute labyrinth of piazzas and alleyways with seemingly a marketplace every 10 minutes or so. There were loads of schoolkids on day trips and I had to laugh when one of the older men said he hoped our guide wouldn't get the groups mixed up. Fat chance of that, I think, given that there was probably a 60 year age difference between us and them. On the night we arrived we had had to travel through a pretty nasty storm, but Bergamo and Verona had been hit by over 100 km/hour winds for about 15 minutes and the damage was considerable, although I believe - luckily - no-one was hurt!

My favourite spot was the biggest market place (of course) and while I'm sure much of the stuff was made in China there were an awful lot of beautiful leather bags and ceramic knick-knacks too - the latter being one of my great weaknesses. I was very good though because in reality I don't actually need any more bags (or knick-knacks for that matter) so I ended up spending a grand total of just €10 for a 2027 wall calendar. Gosh, I don't think I've ever shown such restraint!

The market square!

Dante - Dante's Inferno is
mandatory reading in local
schools apparently!

A google image - we couldn't get close
to the Romeo and Juliet balcony
because of the crowds. The balcony itself
was apparently the invention of
Franco Zeffirelli, Director of the
1968 film Romeo and Juliet!

As we were leaving the market square, our guide stopped to talk to a local restaurant owner and he introduced her to a young man with Down's Syndrome that they had just taken on to work with them on a temporary basis. It's always difficult to tell actual ages of Down's people because they look so young but he was oh so dapper in his black and white outfit and black bowtie. I would have loved to have taken his picture and I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have minded either, but it's just not done to take other people's pictures, even if he looked like the bee's knees and knew it. Well done to that restaurant for giving him a chance!

The last part of our morning visit was spent at the arena. We weren't able to go inside as maintenance work was being carried out, but our guide explained that they still hold concerts there, it has a capacity of 30,000 people, and no microphones are used during the concerts as the accoustics are so good!

Arena

The main square next to the arena is pedestrian only and people whiz by on their bikes at quite an alarming speed. While I was sitting having a drink an older lady came off her bike and people rushed over to help her up. Fortunately she didn't seem to be hurt but any thoughts I may have had about getting myself an e-bike kinda went out the window after that - think I'll stick to my two feet and a pair of walking boots, just to be on the safe side!

Back home!

Well even though that was a whirlwind trip, crikey did we pack a lot in in just a few days. The weather was forecast as very iffy - which would have been pretty miserable to trudge around in - but as luck would have it it only rained on the way there and then on the way back when we got to the Mont Blanc tunnel. So perfect in every way!

I got up at 4 am to be sure to be ready for "kick off" at 6 am, but in reality I think 5 am would have been fine too. Still, I'd rather be early than run the risk of something throwing a spanner in the works. As I was getting ready to put my luggage in the car I realized that I'd left my front door open all night!!!! It was shut, but I must have forgotten to lock it, but then I reckon if anyone had tried to get in they would have set my alarms off anyway. Still, I'll have to be a bit more serious about this security business in future!

It poured all the way for the first few hours, but as I'd seen this scenery so many times before I wasn't too bothered about what I was missing so just plugged my earplugs in and listened to my book. We stopped for a picnic snack (provided by GAL - the tour operator) after about two hours so that the driver could take a break. Their picnics are always really good - ham, salami, different cheeses, bread, cake, coffee and the ubiquitous couple of bottles of red wine! Yep, that shocked me the first time I saw it because it was only 9 am but then I guess if you've been up since 5 am your stomach probably feels it's lunchtime anyway. To be honest, only one or two men ever partake anyway, but even so, it still surprises me. As the driver was setting up, someone on the bus started honking the horn which was when he realized that he'd been in such a hurry to get the picnic stuff out of the rain that he'd locked about six people on the bus!! Still, no harm, no foul as there was plenty for everyone!

While we were standing chatting a woman walked over to me and said "you're Treaders aren't you", and I realized it was my neighbour's sister, the one I'd previously met on our trip up to the Col de la Forclaz. My kids and her nephew had been friends until K was killed in a horrific car crash 16 years ago that involved four kids from our village. I don't see so much of K's mom, Isa, anymore as she and her partner are often up in the mountains but we've remained friends nevertheless. So I asked Thérèse if she had any news of Isa's ex-husband. The last time I'd seen him he was very "confused" and quite obviously didn't recognize me, even though our kids had been good friends and we'd been neighbours for 25 years. Turns out he's been in a nursing home for the past several years with what I'm guessing is early onset dementia. He would be about 66 now and was definitely unwell when I saw him about five years ago, but it still came as a real shock to know that he is now institutionalized. His family are a nasty piece of work (as was he, truth be told) and while Isa (his ex-wife) would gladly go visit him, they're keeping her away from him and won't allow any visits. Even now, 14 years after the divorce, they treat her terribly if they bump into her so I guess in the end she's better off staying away from her ex if she's going to face their nastiness. In all honesty, now that they are no longer married and his only son has passed, they're just waiting for him to die so that the brother can inherit. He has openly said as much actually, but what a sad way to live out your remaining time on this earth!

After our picnic we drove maybe another three hours for a lunch break. In Italy it tickles me because pasta is always served as a separate dish and before the main course. I suppose in the end it all evens out in that you get some form of pasta, followed by a meat and veg dish, but over there pasta is king and is rightly given the respect it deserves!!! One of the local specialities is "nettle" pasta and it's surprisingly good, although I'm not sure I would ever have tried it if it hadn't been on the set menu. Kudos to our driver though because to get out of that parking lot he had to manoeuver a 50-seater bus between a hedge and a brick wall with literally only an inch to spare on either side!

Our first stop was Bergamo, where we were met by our lady guide who was to show us round Upper Bergamo. We had to take a funicular to get up there and while we were waiting the heavens opened, but for only about 10 minutes, and that was the end of the bad weather for the duration of our stay!

A google image of the
funicular - you can't get a 
picture from the lower level!

Our guide was a wealth of knowledge but, like most people, I suppose, I can only take so much in. I know the library dates back to the 16th century and that Julius Caesar had also been there, but beyond that I couldn't tell you an awful lot more because of brain overwhelm.

The Basilica

An ancient form of "sundial".
The markings and where the sunlight
fell allowed them to calculate
the date and hour at any given time of year!

Inside the Basilica

Julius Caesar

The bridge is 2,000 years old - and the
river is apparently great for trout fishing!
Editing me: she definitely said this
bridge was 2,000 years old twice, but I
have a hard time believing that.
Maybe she misspoke!

Bergamo!

After that it was on to our hotel to unpack, clean up and go down for another four course meal! You don't go to Italy if you're trying to lose weight!

Still busy!

The delivery guy showed up (as always, on time) last week - or was it the week before - to deliver the 1,700 litres of heating fuel I'd ordered and yikes, the bloody price of it. As I mentioned before it had increased by 80% but what can you do when you're almost out. He told me I'd done the right thing by not trying to wait it out as I was down to around my last 100 litres, but then I knew this and didn't want any muck from the bottom of my tank to go through the pipes. As always I offered him a coffee and was surprised when he actually accepted this time. While we were doing the paperwork he told me he only had two more deliveries to do that day as people were indeed "hanging on", so I told him I was so relieved to be able to get it and he laughed. Told me that they had no problem getting supplies as in the south of France it comes from Algeria, in the west it comes from the US and in the north it comes from the North Sea!!!! You mean the North Sea where the UK has an abundant oil and gas supply but where the government will no longer allow drilling to take place because, well, "climate change"? Given that the UK also has an abundant supply of coal under the ground I think the government is insane (to put it mildly) but then again, they might just be marching to the beat of a different drum. Yep, let's stop using our natural resources, kill of all those farting cows and then we'll all be saved - or starved and frozen to death. Rant over (not quite sure where that came from but it felt good)!

Yoga started back up again the other Monday after the Easter break and the ladies were talking about the previous Sunday's all day retreat organized by our teacher. They had a conference (so not for me), chanting (definitely not for me) and guided meditation (see above), but Eva, one of the older ladies waxed lyrical about the guided meditation and how she felt herself "floating" as it neared the end. Now she's not some new age type at all, but rather like someone's older grandma, so as always I'm surprised just what everyone gets out of the different aspects of yoga. For me all I would have gotten out of any of it would have been an extended shopping list so as you can probably guess, I was glad I hadn't signed up!

As the week started out lovely I also took myself back out to the lake at Passy to get some easy walking in. It had been ages since I'd been there so while it really is a gentle stroll, and I'm very much aware I need to get more serious about walking, it was truly a pleasure to be out and about in one of my favourite spots!

Lac de Passy

I quite unintentionally got a rather more difficult walk in the next day though as I'd taken my car to Ford to get my winter tyres off but the return bus had been rerouted due to the annual fun fair being set up. So I decided to walk into town and catch it from there, only to miss it by about 30 seconds. When I looked up the next bus it was two hours later so I had no choice but to start legging it uphill all the way home. I always tend to make a mountain (literally) out of a molehill and while it did take me just over an hour, in the end it wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting, thank goodness!

On the Wednesday I bumped into André's girlfriend and her oldest son at the supermarket and she was telling me they'd just booked up to go away together to Antibes (South of France) for 10 days in August. Sooo, things seem to be on the up and up for both of them - which I'm really pleased about, as I haven't seen him this happy in a long time!

When I was pressure-washing my back terrace in March, something shot into my eye and has been bothering me ever since. It wasn't painful but just felt like I could see a fly out the corner of my eye all the time so I had an appointment today to get it looked at. She said there isn't actually anything in my eye so maybe it's a scratch and I'm to come back when I return from vacation and she'll try to get it sorted out. The place was very efficient and the whole experience only cost me €52 (90% of which being covered by my insurance and which would have been around six times that amount in Switzerland) but the building is quite old and has that "old people's home" smell of boiled cabbage to it for some reason. Still, I'll take that over a €300 bill anytime!

I went to club on Tuesday even though I wasn't feeling so great (apparently there's "something" going around) as I wanted to get as much done as possible before my trip next week. After we'd cleared away all the washing up and put the place back to rights our small group were sat there having a drink when someone got onto the subject of April's Fool pranks. Cathy started telling us how one time they'd come home from work and found all their washing hanging from the cherry trees in their yard. Then Monique told how her son and his friends had managed to get hold of two bidets (don't ask me how) and hoisted them on top of the pillars at the entrance to her driveway. They'd also manufactured a huge sign saying "The Two Bidets Restaurant" and even put an ad in the paper. She was roaring laughing when she said they'd gotten calls for weeks after that with people wanting to make reservations! While she may be getting a bit forgetful and a bit "sensitive" now, she most certainly was (and probably still is) a good sport for someone who is almost 80!

And finally, yep I'm off for a short vacation (four nights) to Lake Garda in Italy on Monday. The initial paperwork from the travel agents said "departure at 00.00h from the depot", which I thought was madness for what is maybe a six hour drive, maximum. So I called them up and asked if this was correct and they very hastily sent out a correction to everyone saying "departure at 5.50 am". Apparently, with the younger members of the family taking over now, things are a bit slapdash as this isn't the first time this has happened, with a busload of people previously having showed up at midnight and no-one there to meet them, so I'm so glad I queried it. Will let you know how it goes when I get back!

Lake Garda (a google image, since
I haven't been there yet)!

This and that!

For the past few weeks (months?) I've been having a few problems with some aspects of the old fogies' club accounts. On 24 December I transferred a nearly €13,000 deposit to the travel agent who will be dealing with our trip to Spain in September, and it went through no problem. At the same time I did a bank transfer to the caterer who had catered our Christmas lunch. Again, no problem - or so I thought. About a month later Monique (the president) asked me if I'd made the payment and I confirmed I'd done the two transfers on Christmas Eve, but apparently the caterer hadn't received the money. We tried chasing it up but the bank could find no record of it (even though I'd printed the receipt) so in the end we decided I'd just cut a cheque and mail it to them - which I did! Then about a month later Monique tells me that they still hadn't received the money - and I'm starting to get paranoid that they must think I'm a bloody idiot and I'm also completely flumoxed! In the end we were talking last week about putting a block on the cheque and hand delivering a new one to them, so Monique called them to confirm that was what we were going to do. And then we get a call back to say they'd found the cheque - in their mailbox!!!! Huh??? Turns out that apparently their usual mailman brings the mail into their offices and puts it on the desk, but our cheque had apparently been sitting in their mailbox for about a month! Again, huh????? While I definitely felt relieved to know it wasn't anything to do with me, I do wonder about their "accounting department" somewhat if they don't even check their mailbox every day! Still, no harm, no foul in the end I guess!

In connection with the trip to Spain, people have been giving us cheques pretty much every month as the club well understands that not everyone has a large pension and can afford to pay for the trip in one go. This is all well and good until I realized, when I was going through my file, that while my own cheque for €500 had indeed been deposited in the club's bank account, as treasurer, I had no official paper trail for that and about seven other cheques, which meant that mine and Monique's figures didn't tally! And that's when I found out that the one Tuesday I hadn't gone to club, someone had deposited cheques at the bank but no-one had thought to give me a copy, so now I'm going to have to go through every cheque deposited for this trip so we don't look like a bunch of eejits when it comes time to give everyone their final statements in June! While I think Monique is very good at her job, given a few things that have happened recently (and from what her son said to me at Christmas) she either hasn't realized (or can't accept) that she isn't the same club president as she was when she last did the job 20 years ago! Don't get me wrong she is doing a good job and is very dynamic, but Martine (the secretary) and I have realized we're going to have to be very careful with everything we do and make sure we each have back-up copies of everything "just in case"!

That being said, Monique and I were chatting after helping with clean up the other week and she started telling me more stories about her late husband. By all accounts - and quite apart from the fact that he was a veritable tom cat - he was a very domineering man who thought his word was law. One time (and she had no idea what made her do this) she had a feeling that something was brewing, so took the gun and ammunition (that he legally possessed) and deposited it in a safe deposit box at the local bank. Well that evening he kicked off and "threatened to do something" - whether he meant to her or to himself she didn't know - and went apeshit when he couldn't find his gun. It's very unusual in France for people to own guns if they're not farmers or hunters, and while she had no idea why she got that gun out of the house, she reckons it probably saved either his or her life - or even both. You never know about other people's lives do you because she's had a heck of a life in many respects and yet to look at her you wouldn't think she was anything other than a gentle Miss Marple-type character!

On Friday the club had a lunch for what I would describe as a kind of old people's tupperware party. Apparently once a year a company will contact them and offer them either a free outing or lunch if participants will sit through a sales spiel - i.e. buy some of their stuff. The young man that set this up told us a bit about what they had on offer (special mattresses, lightweight saucepans for arthritic hands, self-raising lazy boy chairs etc.) but he wasn't the one doing the presentation on Friday. I told them I wouldn't be going as we had the kids' baptism the following day but when I asked how it went they said it was a real wash out. The salesman spent most of his time trying to sell mattresses, a set of five saucepans cost over €500 (???), to which Martine pointed out that most of these people were on their own and why would they need five saucepans anyway? One woman bought what they referred to as a "vaporiser" (cleaner?) for €2,500 and I nearly passed out. I'd want a cleaning service for a decade for that kind of money but when they tried to get him onto the subject of the self-raising chairs he seemed to be in a hurry to get out of there and just skipped over it. So all in all it was a flop, the salesman totally misjudged his target audience and their prices were horrendous. I'm so glad I didn't go "to show support" as there really is no such thing as a free lunch!

On Saturday we had the kids' naming ceremony (rather than a baptism). We're not religious so this was done at the Mairie (the town hall) with the acting Maire doing the ceremony. Basically it was a way to recognize the named godparents, the kids received a gift each from the Maire, and then we all went to lunch, where the restaurant was given totally over to our group. The restaurant was small and with seven kids under seven IT WAS VERY NOISY, but we all had a good time and then walked down to the local park so the kids could run off some of that energy. Charlie and Elynn looked lovely in their new clothes - and then like a bag of sh@t after about 10 minutes playing at the park. Still, that's what it was all about, wasn't it!

With all the blossoms floating around at the moment, my allergies are playing up a treat. I didn't start getting hay fever until I was about 40 and then not every year, but this year, while everything is really pretty, it's been playing hell, with me trying not to sneeze and cough at the same time. I've fished out the trusty oregano oil again and it definitely works (for me at least), so I'm hoping that's about it for this year!

Tomorrow morning they are coming to deliver my heating fuel as I'm nearly out. When I called to (timidly) ask if they'd got any and could I please have more than 100 litres, she laughed and said of course I could have what I want (1,700 litres) so phew - and ouch, when I see that the price is up over 80% compared to this time last year! Still, since I also heat my water with fuel I don't really have a choice do I. I'll just have to grin (through gritted teeth) and bear it!

And finally, I went into town to my lovely Thai lady for a facial today. When I had a coughing fit she asked if it was allergies and I told that yes, I'd been working in the garden. She likes to garden too, and given all the beautiful home-made decorations she makes for her salon, I'm sure her garden looks 1,000 per cent better than mine. So she asked me what I'd been doing and I told her that I'd just seen a Youtube video on how to make dandelion "tea" as a fertilizer. I knew you could make it out of stinging nettles but had never heard of using dandelions. Apparently, the principal is the same as both are full of nitrogen and are extremely beneficial to plants but they both stink to high heaven so it's best to put the bucket well away from your home. So then she told me that her husband had made nettle "tea" (it's called purin in French) but had left the bucket by the kitchen door. When she went to move it she realized the handle was broken and the purin went all over her. He yelled at her for wasting his tea and she yelled back at him because she now smelled like a skunk and had to go to work getting "up close and personal" with her clients! I burst out laughing - as did the lady that was waiting for the appointment after mine! I couldn't imagine having to give someone a facial or a massage while smelling like skunk. I bet she didn't get too many repeat customers that day!

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!