Life goes on!

When I went back to the flooring place to return the samples, the sales rep was very helpful and full of ideas about how it might work best (aren't they all though). But, like I said previously, I have had work done by these people before and have been very pleased with them, so I went ahead and ordered my new floor! I guess I tend to be like that in most things - think about it for quite a while - chew the cud if you like - and then just go for it. I tend not to spend an awful lot of time going back and forth once the decision is made, so I went ahead and ordered the tiling I posted pictures of the other day. The rep is coming out later this month to do the final measuring up and then a few weeks later they will come to lay it. Which means that I will have to get everything out of the rather large living/dining room beforehand - and I mean everything! Apparently, they clean and pre-treat the original floor so there is no question of just moving furniture around - it all has to go! While we were looking at numbers I told her there was no way I could move some of that furniture on my own, so included in my quote is the cost of two half days' manual labour by a second person (hope he's got bigger muscles than mine) to get everything moved out and then back again on the final day. They reckon it should take 4-5 days all told, so that'll be more chaos to look forward to. Still, it should be pretty nice once it's all done. And, I must be getting good at this "gestimating" business because the quote has come in at €200 less than I had reckoned on spending, so I'm happy with that!

Problem is, Max and his team have to have my new heating installed before they can start on the flooring so it looks like I won't be able to go to Steve's funeral. I could make it out to the UK over the weekend but need to be back here by Tuesday morning and from what I can see there are no suitable flights. I know his family will understand and I'm actually ok with that as I wouldn't know anyone anyway. I would basically have to show up and then dash back to the airport so I'm not sure what the point would be really. I will send Josie a cheque, however, and ask her to donate it to a charity of her choosing in memory of her dad. As a "no fuss" Yorkshireman, I know Steve would understand!

And moving swiftly on, our latest board game evening was scheduled at my place on Saturday night, but Jordan and Jen asked if they could host it at their new place as a kind of "housewarming". When I got there I realized they had already moved in - they had spent their first night there the night before - and had it all set up pretty nicely to host our evening. We had a lovely time and spent the entire evening playing Cranium. I was useless, but in my defence, a lot of the questions were "French-biased". Buuut Jordan surprised me and his brother with one of his answers to a puzzle. I gave up before I even started - not my kind of thing obviously, or maybe I'm just thick! Just in case you want to try it: "A woman has two pairs of red socks, two pairs of black socks and two pairs of white socks in her drawer. What is the minimum number of individual socks she can remove from the drawer before she cannot fail to have a matching pair of red socks?" When Jordan came up with the right answer I was stunned - as was his brother! I guess the facility for logical thinking wasn't something I ever recognized in him before. Just as well he has it, I guess, what with being a plumber and all and installing complicated heating systems. (Oh, I'll put the answer in another post if you're interested)!

To play Cranium we split into three teams of four and towards the end of the evening Jordan was wandering around making sure everyone had drinks and Jen's mom and her partner actually nodded off, so my poor neighbour, Philippe, whose team they were all on, said "I guess it looks like I'm now relegated to a team of one since the rest of my team seem to be either sleeping or have gone AWOL"! Not to worry, as he's probably smart enough to beat the rest of us all on his own!

The day before it had been André's 32nd birthday so I took two bottles of champagne over, one for the house-warming and one for André's birthday. As this was the first time André and Lily had come to one of our get-togethers it ended up being a very nice evening, for me in particular, spending time with both my kids and their wives, although getting home at 2 a.m. knocked me for six the next day, I can tell you!

André and Lily

Lily

Alexandre - 17 years old and one smart cookie. He was the one that answered 

the question re "Beethoven's Ode to Joy"!

As we were leaving we set the date for the next get-together (at my place) and Alexandre's parents asked if I might be interested in joining them for an "enigma challenge" which will take place in Annecy later this month. Apparently as a team you're given a set of clues and have to find various "staging points" around Annecy - or at least that's the way I understand it - a bit like geocaching (or Pokemon Go, I guess)! The last one they went to was in Lyon and there were over 600 participants so it could be quite fun!

And moving seamlessly on, the lovely young woman that was giving the yoga classes on Tuesdays contacted me to say that she will now be giving classes to a small group on Monday afternoons and was I interested? Yes, very much so, in fact. She was a replacement teacher when the other, Tuesday afternoon, teacher was placed on long-term sick leave and my friend and I agreed that we both preferred Tiphaine's classes so are happy to go to her Monday class, in addition to the Tuesday class we went to previously. My neighbour popped round the other day and asked if she could go with me as she has terrible back pain due to having scoliosis, so I called the organizers and she can have a couple of free sessions at both classes to see if she likes them (I think she would enjoy the Monday class more, so will be interested to see what she thinks). I've also decided to go to the Thursday pilates/gym class at the local community centre that I mentioned previously. It's only for an hour - so I added up all the time I would be spending at these various classes and in the end it doesn't really eat up much of my time so I reckon I have no excuse!

And finally - and I have no idea why I did this - but haven't I just gone ahead and enrolled for Wednesday evening beginners' Italian classes! I suppose I got the feeling that I needed to do something to actually use my brain and since I have always loved languages I thought I would give Italian a shot. It's a beautiful language and as we are only an hour from the Italian border I might well be able to use it sooner rather than later. I'll be curious to see how fast I can pick it up as when we learned languages at school, of necessity it would have been rather slow going since "we were kids and obviously not that quick" (my interpretation of the snails' pace we worked at). Could be interesting and a good way to start using my brain again. So until the next time "Ciao"!