Just waiting!

The other day I received a strange FB message from André - strange, because it really wasn't his style and stranger still, because he was sitting about 10 feet away from me. Turns out he'd been hacked, of course, so he spent the next 30 minutes messaging his FB friends telling them not to open the link. What was really nice, though, is that as he was sending the messages he started getting replies from friends all over the world. See, having attended an international school here in Geneva his friends are all different nationalities, and within minutes he got a reply from Macnos, who is working in Australia, Chris in Dubai, Abdelazziz in Saudi and so on, and it was really nice. I guess that's one of the positives of FB really, isn't it. A friend's son went to the Hotel School in Lausanne (which is hellish expensive) and as a result has friends working all over the world. One time he wanted to go to Hong Kong (I think it was) for a vacation, so sent out a message asking if anyone could put him up for a few days and bingo, a mate replied offering him a room. It's all very different from our family camping holidays in Stratford-on-Avon, I can tell ya! Still, I shouldn't whinge because my former boss just sent me a message telling me to "reserve the date" in order to go to Edinburgh in August to celebrate his and his wife's 50th wedding anniversary. Covid-permitting, I'll definitely be going!

In other news, it came out this week that the young girl who had gone home from school last October and told her father that their teacher had shown them the offensive Charlie Hebdo cartoons in class in order to talk about freedom of speech, hadn't actually been in class that day! Apparently, the teacher, Samuel Paty, had asked any of the kids who wished to leave class at that point to do so, but the girl in question had been suspended by the school for absenteeism so lied to her father to try to get herself off the hook. The father started ranting on FB and this "inspired" a young lunatic, who took it upon himself to behead Samuel Paty as an act of revenge!!! And all that stemming from a young girl's stupid lie!

Samuel Paty!

The other day I received a copy of the monthly Haute Savoie Magazine, which lets you know what's going on in the region politically and economically, and also has a section promoting tourism. I actually tore this page out because I'm thinking I might start a "let's visit local châteaux" gig in order to check out the sights and see if there are any interesting walks. I spotted two châteaux that took my fancy, all the more so when I realized that the Château de Clermont is only about 50 km away, when for some reason I'd had it in my head that it was in Clermont-Ferrand, which is about five hours away! Covid-permitting, it'll be opening up on 1 April so I think that could be on the agenda pretty soon!

Château de Clermont

I guess I'm getting a little bit "antsy" in general, because I've started looking up potential trips for next spring. I'm thinking Mexico, Thailand, Viet Nam or Cambodia at the moment - although that could change - but in any case I won't be going anywhere until this whole pandemic business settles down. Maybe potentially somewhere in Europe in the autumn but, again, it depends on so many external factors. Then just last night I was watching some gardening videos on Youtube (spring is in the air I guess) and somehow got sucked in to two blogs, one by an American retiree who has made his home in Costa Rica for the last five years and the other by a Canadian lady who went to Guatemala at the age of 52 and is still going strong out there six years later. I don't know, sometimes I guess I just get the "itch" to try something else. In reality I know I won't be leaving France because I have everything I ever wanted here - my kids, my soon-to-be grandchild, my friends and my life in general and I'm happy here, but I can't help it - I still do sometimes get that Backpacker Granny feeling (you should check out her blog, she's amazing)! I suppose it might have something to do with the fact that most of my long haul trips have been around this period of the year and FB keeps reminding me of them. Yesterday it also reminded me that Jordan and Jen got married two years ago on 16 March and then, sadly, that André and Lily got married four years ago on 17 March. That's life, I guess! Still, André's having a blast picking out stuff for his apartment and I can tell he's happy so he'll be all right!

I finished watching The Crown this weekend and thoroughly enjoyed it, and since whenever someone recommends a series/film I write it down I ended up watching the first two episodes of Unorthodox the other night, and boy is it hard going! It's about a young woman who runs away from a Hasidic community in New York and how her husband and someone who looks like a mafia hitman try to find her and bring her back. I haven't watched all of it but it is pretty raw. That being said, I have enjoyed seeing some (although by no means all) of the rituals of their daily life! I remember many years ago, when Jordan was about four, I took my family up to Zermatt for the day to see the Matterhorn. It was scorching hot and we were at goodness knows how many metres altitude so the sun's rays were fierce, when all of a sudden an Orthodox Jewish family passed us, all dressed in heavy clothing, with the females also wearing black woollen tights. When I made an "oh my God" remark to my brother because I was just dying from the heat, he said "don't feel sorry for them, they don't envy you at all", which I thought was a weird thing to say, but actually I think he was right! I've downloaded to my kindle a sample of the book this series is based on, but I'm pretty sure I'll end up buying it as I just know I'm going to want to read it!

Talking of books, I seem to be playing "book tag" with someone at the local supermarket. I was hesitant to leave my books at their book exchange shelf, thinking that as mine are mostly in English they will just hang around cluttering the place up - but not a bit of it! Every time I stop in at that supermarket I have a quick look and they seem to disappear every week, so it's nice to know that someone is getting pleasure out of my second-hand books. Well it's either that or they just throw them away once I've left the shop, I guess, but somehow I doubt it!

And finally, I saw an article in the paper the other day where Stephen Fry was saying that since he's taken up serious walking, he's lost five stone (70 lbs) over a period of about a year. Damn - well, good for him really, but somehow I think he must be transmitting his lost pounds to me telepathically because I haven't shifted an ounce despite all the walking I've been doing. Gotta start upping my game methinks! That's the trouble with men actually - as soon as they make up their mind to lose weight it just seems to fall off them. It's not fair is it ladies (and Dave, I'm looking at you, you know that, right?)! Not that I've been getting much walking in this week. It's snowed and/or rained all week, and I've also been running Jen around quite a bit as she's afraid to drive now, what with getting fairly constant contractions. I took her out to get some blood work done today and she is very uncomfortable so here's hoping Biboo will be putting in an appearance pretty soon and that all goes well!