Neighbours!

It's been a pretty meh week this week, with just one day of decent-ish weather and the rest being wet and cool, so a crappy May all in all! My friend came over on Thursday (the only decent day) and we drove out to the lake at Thyez and then walked on into Cluses - which he seems to really like for some reason. The restrictions on café terraces have just been lifted so we were able to sit outside and have a drink once we got there and it was so nice to see people outside having lunch and a chat after so many months of restrictions. I think we've got about another three weeks (not sure of the date) before we'll be allowed to eat indoors but hopefully by then the weather will be hot and no-one will want to eat indoors anyway. Goodness knows the cafés and restaurants could do with a break right? On the way back I realized that Cluses' market is an all-day market so we had a quick wander round there and again it was really nice. There's quite a large North African community in Cluses so there were lots of lovely spices, dates, olives, almonds and cakes on sale and the smell was just wonderful. Maybe not as strong as the souks in Istanbul or Marrakech, but lovely all the same! All that and I clocked up another 14 km, which is just as well because I haven't done much else this week!

I also got a message from my friend this week to say that she'd finally been granted French citizenship, and I'm delighted for her. She jumped on it as soon as the Brexit vote went down so she's at least a couple of years ahead of me. So while it takes ages, I guess the wheels of bureaucracy finally get there in the end don't they. I'm not really expecting anything for another two/three years anyway, but in two years time I will be 65 (yikes) and then having been in France over 25 years (nearer 35 at that point) and having a French grandchild I will be able to apply by ascendency so half this stuff I've been studying up on will no longer be necessary! It'll happen in the end, I suppose, and that time will go by whether or not I've started the process anyway, won't it!

I was feeling a bit lethargic this weekend so finally gave myself a metaphorical kick up the butt and started sorting a few clothes out to put in the charity bin. When I tried some of them on I can only think "what on earth was I thinking????" so I quickly bundled them up and dropped them off immediately before I changed my mind! So just another - oh I don't know - 10,000 hours of sorting and I'll be good then! 

André has worked from home all week this week as there are major roadworks going on in Geneva, so I think he's getting a bit restless. That being said, he showed me a Youtube video of some guy having facial and nasal hair waxed which was pretty funny - well at least, the friend sitting in the background seemed to think it was hilarious as he was doubled up! I don't know which country they were in but the scream that this guy lets out when they yank his nasal hair out is quite something - not that we'll have an awful lot of sympathy for him, eh ladies?

Eewww yuck!

As I said, we've had so much rain this past week I realized I'd have to do something about my little greenhouse as the sheer weight of the accumulated rain was making the top sag. I've managed to wedge a few cross-poles up to the roof to hopefully keep it at a slope and help the rain to drain off it before it tears it. Note to self, "when you go out in the morning to push the roof up with a broom and, hopefully, clear the rain water do it from the inside if you don't want to get a shower!" I've actually taken to leaving an old spoon up by my raised beds too in order to do a bit of "slug-flinging" as the buggers keep getting into my lettuce beds! Well that and having a dedicated bucket and trowel for shit-shovelling deposits left by neighbours' dogs!!!! I've mentioned before that my back garden is open so my lawn seems to be fair game for quite a few dogs to come and "relieve themselves", including a dog belonging to one family who would go absolutely ballistic if someone else's dog left them a gift on their lawn! Still, I guess you have to take the good with the bad and on balance I'd say the "good" far outweighs the bad as far as my neighbours are concerned!

The other day, just as I was on my way out, my immediate neighbour rang the doorbell and asked if she could come in for a coffee. She was wound up tighter than a coil so I put my plans to one side and sat with her for about half an hour. It was the usual, how much she hates her husband, if she had any money she'd leave him and how he treats her with utter contempt. Thing is, she won't (or probably can't) leave him at this point (she's nearly 70 and has no money) so it's a question of "putting up" I guess. That being said, I asked her to come out walking with me when the weather picks up as surely he is more than capable of making himself a sandwich right? We'll see how that works but if she's never said no to him in the past it will be difficult to start doing so now won't it. But there's an awful lot of truth to the saying that they treat you as bad as you allow yourself to be treated too isn't there!

After that the doorbell went again and I'm already starting to do my Mutley impersonation ("sazzafrazzarazza") because I tend to live upstairs - and it was another neighbour who wanted to know if I had any harissa (I did) as she'd made couscous for 10 and had forgotten the harissa!

Then a few minutes later, another doorbell! Thankfully I didn't yank the door open like an ungracious clod because it was another neighbour whose husband had been picking Lily of the Valley in the woods and she'd brought some round for me - shortly to be followed by yet another neighbour who'd been given some expensive tea by a salesman and she wanted to give it to me as she knows I'm a tea drinker! Add to that the fact that André stayed in Geneva last night at a friend's and then came crashing home around mid-day, took a shower and dashed back out to another friend's for a birthday lunch - it's been like Grand Central Station here! I shouldn't complain though because in all honesty I'll take the noise and the bustle over silence and solitude any day, I guess!