Just call me Rosie!

I see ol' Bojo did another U-turn last week (surprised anyone?). When he was first elected PM he ousted any cabinet member who was not 100% behind a hard Brexit. It was a case of "toe the party line or you're out"! Well since the UK has left the EU they are no longer bound by EU minimum standards - environmental, food security, etc. - you get the idea - and since the UK is now having a hard time obtaining the chemicals needed to treat sewage, the government decided to give the green light to allow water companies to dump "minimally treated effluent" (i.e. untreated shit) into the country's rivers and oceans, and Conservative hard Brexiteer MPs were forced by ol' Bojo to defend this stance to their constituents. They tried blaming the problems on Britain's "antequated Victorian sewage systems" which, funnily enough, seemed to have functioned adequately until now, so go figure. An amendment was introduced into Parliament to try to prevent this and was unceremoniously shot down by the government. Not unsurprisingly there was great public outcry that resulted in Bojo doing a complete 180 and backing away from this new position, thus hanging out to dry the Conservative MPs who had just had to defend it! The power of the man's ego and his ability to deny and/or blame others is something to behold! But then I suppose as the UK is, as I write, playing host to the 26th United Nations Climate Change conference in Glasgow, we can't be having untreated turds floating down the River Clyde while the bigwigs are eating their Scottish salmon can we! And what about the much vaunted recent trade deal with New Zealand, which will, for instance, see the current 20% tariff on imports of NZ mussels dropped and effectively put another nail in the coffin of the UK's fishing industry! Probably just as well, what with trying to grow mussels in all that untreated sewage huh! I tell ya, I shouldn't read this stuff really because I find his/their behaviour more and more outrageous by the day and it just does my head in!

So with winter looming I decided that I needed to think about what projects I want to tackle round the house while there's so little going on outside. With that in mind I shot off to the local DIY place and started searching for the young(ish) man I always hone in on because he's so helpful and doesn't treat me like an idiot when I have to ask him to explain everything to me in simple terms. Oh, I play it off as being a language problem (which it is to a certain extent), but since I really don't know what I'm doing most of the time I find him to be incredibly helpful, although I'm sure next time he spots me walking in he's gonna try doing a runner first! Last time I was there I picked up a bag of mortar and re-cemented parts of my terrace that are becoming a bit "holy" (as in unstable, not religious) and it worked a treat! I probably should get some more and go over the entire terrace at some point, but for the time being it'll do. So today I told him that some of my window frames are starting to show water damage (I reckon they must have been installed about 25 years ago), and I couldn't afford to replace them just yet, so he sold me a product for outdoor use that can be used for waterproofing, and how to go about cleaning up the frames and applying it! Goal! Then it was off to get a new plug socket because I'd plugged my vacuum cleaner in the other day, yanked it too hard and pulled it out the wall, thus breaking the support! So there's job number 200 to add to my list. And I then asked him for advice on buying my own petrol-run generator as I want to be sure I have at least some electricity/heating/light this winter in the event of an extended power cut. So he showed me two, with the smaller one being €200 more expensive than the larger, more powerful one. Which didn't make sense to me but he explained that the cheaper generator - while more powerful - was also a lot noisier. But in the event of a sustained power cut do you really care about the noise? So I walked out of there with a generator too, which he kindly lugged out on a trolley and put in the back of my car after much huffing and puffing. But then of course, guess who had to get it out of the car alone when she got home? Yeah, me and damn, that thing was heavy! But I'm a stubborn bugger so I huffed and puffed (but didn't blow the house down) and got that thing into my garage all on my own! The irony is that it's actually on wheels but I needed to get it out of my car and out of the box before I could use the wheels! Anyway, I'm a few hundred euro lighter right now but have more than enough projects lined up for the coming winter - although sometimes I think doing a jigsaw puzzle might be an easier way to pass the time!

Rosie the (old) riveter!

After I'd finished sorting all that out there was a knock at my door and it was my neighbour come round for a chat as she said she hadn't seen me for ages and was concerned that I might be "holed up" too much on my own! I probably am actually but I'm ok with it really. So I told her that no, I was just going into "hibernation" mode, and while I actually go to yoga and out walking most weeks, (plus I see the Munchkin a couple of times a week), maybe I hadn't been as sociable as I should have been! Then she asked me a strange question - "have you heard much coming from my house lately?" When I told her that yes, unfortunately I'd heard quite a bit over the last few days because you just can't help it with these houses, so she told me that, as I suspected, the tension between them had been getting worse and worse and she couldn't take it any more. Actually I suspect that was the real reason she came round - she needed someone to just listen to her. Her hatred of her husband is growing by the day and when he more or less told her that if she didn't like it she could just "bugger off", I asked why she didn't make an appointment with a lawyer to find out just where she stood if she decided to divorce him. She doesn't have to do anything with that information of course, but at least she would know, and I suspect having been married 50 years next year she would be in a much better position than she thinks! Like I've said before, I don't think she would ever divorce him because she's afraid of striking out on her own at nearly 70, but at least if she gets that information she knows where she stands right? So then she mentioned that he has to go back into hospital for yet another operation to put more stents in his legs (over 50 years of smoking will do that for ya), but she didn't know how she would get him there since she's terrified of motorway driving, driving in the dark (and anywhere out of her comfort zone really), and her daughter will be back at work full-time at that point. So I told her it's not a problem, I will take them both as long as it's not the same day I have to take my friend to a different hospital for her colonoscopy! Heck, if it comes to that I can manage both as long as we know the dates and times of both procedures. But she makes me so sad, she's so beaten down and her world is becoming smaller and smaller as she's had her confidence sucked dry over the years! Still, I'm glad she came round because sometimes just having someone to listen to you can help, right?

And finally, I've just started reading Wintering, The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times, by Katherine May, and I'm really enjoying it (sorry I can't remember who recommended it)!

As far as I've gotten, she had to take time off work when her husband became ill, and then as soon as he got better she became ill and had to take sick leave herself. As a mother working outside the home (the term "working mother" being completely redundant - all mothers work), she was riddled with guilt and finding it so difficult to just slow down, having been used to going 100 miles an hour from the get-go. And then she realizes that she is starting to enjoy the enforced slow down and to question the need to be busy 100% of the time and achieve more and more! This is what struck a chord with me, the fact that she remembers when her son was born and then not much after that - why would we aspire to that if we could help it? She always enjoyed cooking but was now realizing that "... the butcher can sell me exact quantities of meat, which I know I will use that same day. I no longer have to act out the cycle of freezing a packet of chicken, defrosting it a week later, then not having time to eat it and so throwing it away [guilty as charged]. I feel as though I'm cooking autumn into my house"! ... "Life is clearly teaching me some kind of lesson, but I can't decipher it yet"! ... and "Life begins to happen again, and that makes for more compelling memories"!

As I say, I haven't finished it yet but so far I'm enjoying it very much and it's turning into one of those books I can't put down. When I see the shockingly high - and unexpected - figures for the number of people who, having worked from home during lockdown, are now deciding they don't want to go back to the rat race and are resigning in their droves, maybe more people really are deciding to get off the hamster wheel and work less (assuming they have the financial means to do so) and I can only say "good on yer mate" - it took me way too long to figure that one out - but then I'm slow!

All quiet!

There's not much going on here at the moment just more of the same old, same old. The weather is glorious, however, and I kick myself sometimes for not getting out and enjoying it every day - but I guess we can't be all gung ho and enthusiastic every day, can we! In any case, I ached all over for a couple of days after my last walk and switching my walking boots out to another pair didn't really help - I just got a nasty blister in a different place! I have good quality hiking boots but I always feel they are too heavy. Maybe I should really try to get them worn in because wearing the cheap and nasty boots just isn't working!

So I haven't really been doing a lot these past few days. I did, however, decide to get the baby crib that my neighbour's daughter gave me out of the small spare bedroom and into my own bedroom. It was driving me bonkers and so I hauled that baby out onto my balcony and into my bedroom - nearly putting my back out at the same time because that thing is heavy! Still, it fits much better in the larger bedroom and has freed up a whole pile of space in the spare bedroom. I also realized I could quite easily get a bunch of stuff out of the house and down into my basement so I lugged spares of all my supplies down two flights of stairs to my basement and have now got a fairly nice set-up going with stuff being put onto the shelves of my two little temporary greenhouses! Why I didn't do this years ago I have no idea, but seeing it sorted and properly stacked also allows me to see what I need more of (nothing at the moment) and what I have plenty of and won't need to buy for months probably. That's the trouble with shoving eveything into a cupboard isn't it - you don't realize just what you have!

As I was going out the other day I realized we had our first frost of the year and, yet again, how much I appreciated not having to start scraping my car windshield at six in the morning!!!! I'm easily pleased obviously! On the way out today I saw my neighbour and chatted to her for a while and she looks so unhappy. I reckon they're going through a rough(er) patch at the moment because when I sit here reading I'm hearing more and more yelling coming from next door. It really triggers me, actually, because that used to be happening in our house - yeah, we were the screaming neighbours - and I absolutely hate to hear yelling now!

On Sunday nights a few of us former colleagues get together for a quick zoom chat, and after not making it these past couple of weeks, I finally remembered and joined another two friends for a chinwag. It was odd though because one friend had just arrived back from a visit to family in England and said to me "oh, I bet you'll be happy, guess who's got covid - me"! Say what, why would I be happy she's got covid? I know we have differing opinions on the jab but I wouldn't wish anyone to get ill! She started getting an itchy throat and has now come down with a dreadful cold, but as at Sunday she said she really wasn't particularly unwell. Her husband reckons it was the guy that sat next to her on the plane and coughed all over her the entire time, but who knows. One thing is certain though, is that plane full of fully vaccinated people had at least one covid case on board didn't it! Scary stuff! So I told her I hoped she was ok and that while I didn't intend to get jabbed, I also wasn't dumb enough to be out nightclubbing (as if I could) or going to crowded places either, my idea of having a good time being out and about in the mountains! Still, she's very no-nonsense and I'm sure she'll be fine (fingers crossed)!

While I haven't got as much done as I would have liked to these past few days, I did at least spend a good few hours working in the garden the other day and got that sorted. Somebody (I have no idea who) placed a 50 litre bag of compost by my back gate and while I am extremely grateful I kept leaving it where it was because I never buy anything heavier than the 20 litre bags. Still, needs must, and I lugged that baby up to the top of my garden to spread the soil over the top of the grass clippings I just dumped on my raised beds. I also shoved a few sprouted potatoes into one bed and garlic into another so we'll see what, if anything, pops up next spring!

I also got a message from my gardener who said my neighbour had told him that I had more pruning work for him if he wanted it. I had thought about trying to do it myself, but in the end I realize I have neither the right equipment nor the muscles for this stuff any more and in three hours he ploughed his way through two hazelnut trees, the damson bush, the buddleia, the peach tree and a few other things. How lucky am I that I get to just pansy about pretending to garden and yet Mr. Muscle does all the hard grift! I'm not quite as bad as Margot but sometimes I feel like it!

For those that don't know it, The Good Life is a UK series from the '70s and just one of the sweetest series ever. Tom and Jerry (ha ha) are two executives working at the same firm when Tom and his wife, Barbara, decide they want to drop out of the rat race and become self-sufficient. They live in a posh part of London, next door to Jerry and his snobby wife, Margo, and we got to watch their trials and tribulations over a few series and, more importantly, how the friendship between the two couples developed despite their differences!

And finally, we put the clocks back on Saturday night/Sunday morning this weekend, but does anyone seriously want 2021 to last another hour longer than necessary? Answers on a postcard!

Ouch!

My friend got back from a month in Spain recently so we decided that we should get out walking again before the snow comes. We both like the cold weather but walking on snow is not a favourite! Actually she slipped and fell on the ice last winter, banging her knee heavily, and is pretty much convinced that is how the pulmonary embolism she got in February came about! Either way, her stay in hospital frightened her so since leaving hospital she has been extremely disciplined about getting out walking and losing a fair amount of weight, so hats off to her! Anyway as the weather was good we set off on Tuesday to do an "uphill", although yet again we ended up doing more "uphill" than I think either of us wanted! Yeah, if one of us learned just a little about orienteering we might do very well!

Since I had to drop my car off to get my snow tyres put on we took her car and set off for Plaine Joux, which has got to be one of the most beautiful spots around here, even though pretty much everywhere is lovely. We decided to park down at the lac Vert (the green lake), which is very small but beautiful, particularly at this time of year obvs. 

Lac Vert

She told me she had been out this way a few days previously and had "found the new 'Himalayan footbridge'" but had been too scared to cross it. Now this is the bridge I had gone looking for about a year ago and couldn't find it (again, my map-reading skills leave a lot to be desired), but it turned out it was just a 30 minute walk from the lac Vert so off we went. On the way there we passed two forestry workers sitting on a bench having their lunch and I commented to them that they must have the world's most scenic lunch spot - and of course they agreed!

The view from the bench (that's the Mont Blanc in the distance)!

Well we found the footbridge and my friend told me that she turned back last time. So I said I would turn back with her if she wanted but I was happy to go over the bridge too - and she took the bait! Yep it was wobbly and she mentioned that not long after they'd built it they'd had problems with one of the cables and had to close it for a while (now that's reassuring isn't it), but over it we went and it was great! On a side note, as a follow-up to her stay in hospital my friend has had to have a whole barrage of tests (you know, half of which she should have been doing routinely but never got round to) and so she's got to go back shortly for a colonoscopy - which she is dreading! And she was saying how awful it is to have to provide poop samples on three consecutive days if you don't usually go every day (I know, don't we have wonderful conversations) so I told her that if one of the cables on the bridge looked a bit iffy this time I don't think she'd have any problem providing those stool samples (nor would I, I suspect)!

Anyway, we made it, feeling very proud of ourselves and decided to take a break for lunch - and look at the cute little picnic table we found!

After that we got a bit side-tracked because our intended route was closed off due to forestry work so we ended up chasing our tails and hoping there be no damn bears in these woods because we went way out of our way before finally making it back to the road where we were appalled to see it indicated 6 km uphill to get back to the lac Vert! Damn! We were starting to get to the point where we'd had enough but if you need to walk another 6 km to get back to the car what choice do you have?

But we made it back up to Plaine Joux which, as I say, is probably one of the most beautiful spots around!

Plaine Joux

We stopped here for a drink and a breather and were lucky enough to see a few people setting off paragliding because it was the most perfect day for it. Oh, and Anne (in Alabam), that wasn't me in the picture - sorry about that! I asked my friend if she would do it and said I thought I could probably throw myself off the side of the mountain (in a tandem jump, of course) but would have bigger concerns about the landing. Then my stupid sense of humour kicks in because at this spot we're about 15 minutes from the Italian border so I let my imagination run and was saying what if you couldn't "steer" the bloody thing and you ended up in Italy with the Italian border guards looking up at the sky yelling "passaporti per favore"!!!! Oh well, it made the lady behind me giggle!

After that we got to call it a day (thank God) because I had to get back to Ford to pick up my car. But I did over 17 km (10.5 miles) and more than 21,000 steps and I'm knackered! I've really felt the front of my thighs today and was hobbling down the stairs like a little old lady - and I seriously reckon I could crack walnuts with my butt cheeks at this point, but it was a great day out and I'm so glad we did it!

In other news I took a shufty at the book exchange in our local supermarket and was pleasantly surprised to find Simon Wiesenthal's book Justice Is Not Vengeance (or at least that's my translation of the French title - not sure what it's called in English), so that should be an interesting read!

And finally, I just received a message from my friend to say that the French have given her an appointment for her citizenship interview end-November - just 3.5 years after she submitted her paperwork!!! Ha, by the time I started preparing mine it had all gone online and I have only been able to submit a certain number of required documents so goodness knows where that leaves me! But, in two years time I will be 65 and since I've lived in France over 25 years (both of which are pre-requisites) and am now the grandmother of a French child, I can request citizenship by ascendency at that point and, from what I understand, it's a given - no more tests, French exams, nothing, as long as I'm not a career criminal I guess. So all that work for nothing eh! Oh well, I'll take it!

This and that!

So what's new? Not a lot really as I seem to be just treading water at the moment - which is annoying because the weather is glorious and I really wanted to be out there enjoying it - but I just don't seem to have the oomph right now. Oh well, it'll come back I suppose! That being said I got my 1,000 miles in sometime in September, which is pretty pathetic really because it doesn't entail an awful lot of walking on a consistant daily basis but I suppose taking into account bad weather (and the constant rain this year), it's not too bad, even if it could be a lot better!

The figures on the left are km, and
the miles are on the right!

My friend suggested we go out walking the other week so I took him to the Lac Bleu (where the three lakes are) and I'm pretty sure he's now found his new favourite spot to walk, so much so that a couple of days later he came over again and we went to the small lake at La Tour. This lake is just five minutes from André's place so we stopped in there for a coffee too. It wasn't much in the way of km walked but I guess every little helps!

Lac de la Tour

On a different note, I got a shock the other day because I received a monthly bill for my mobile, one for my wifi and another one for my landline which hasn't worked in six weeks! Well that put a bee in my bonnet and I got straight on to SFR (my phone carrier) intending to read the riot act to someone - anyone - because while I didn't care about the phone not working, I was damned if I was going to pay €40 a month for the privilege! Now I hate making these calls because they must outsource them to Africa (just like the calls in the UK seem to go to India) and I have a hard time with their accents, especially when they usually have their microphone stuck in their left ear half the time! (That being said, I'll take the African accents over the French-Canadian accents any day)! Oh don't get me wrong, they are always very helpful but I hate having to tell the first person (North African) what the problem is, and then she puts me through to the next person (French-speaking African - that is if the line doesn't cut off) and I have to go through it all again. Anyway, while the second guy was, indeed, hard to understand, after I asked him to speak up we managed to figure out what the problem was. And it turned out it was me!!! Good job I never gave anyone a bollocking then isn't it!! When he asked me how I'd ended up with that particular wifi box I told him I'd been online and that was the one recommended after I'd put in my post code, but, turns out it wasn't compatible with my landline, unlike my last one, so it was never going to work! Anyway, long story short, he sorted me out with a new box against the return of the old one and guess what, the damn thing works now! What's more, since the telemarketers started up immediately, I've had the bloody thing unplugged ever since! Still, at least it's sorted and I did apologize to the young man for him getting the "little old lady call who doesn't understand anything" and he just laughed and said "no problem"! So I'm sorted, although André still isn't, but I think that might have more to do with his place being brand new and him being one of the first tenants!

Moving swiftly on, the other day I was on FB and I'm starting to realize that if it wasn't for being able to keep in touch with family and friends dotted all over the place I'd probably just get rid of it because I don't like being "advertised at" constantly. I actually have two FB accounts because when I was leaving work I realized that I'd used my work's email as my log-in email and when I tried to switch it to my private email it wouldn't go through. So today I finally went in and deleted that account and may get rid of the main one too - but I'll have to think about that for a while! Anyhoo, a couple of days ago I got a message from Sharon, a Scottish lady I'd met in St. Lucia about six years ago, just sending a short message to ask how I was doing. A few of us did exchange contact details and very occasionally would shoot off a quick message to each other so this didn't surprise me too much. BUT, after a couple of messages "Sharon" asked if I wanted her to tell me about the government windfall that she'd just received and I should be interested in it because she'd "seen my name on the list too" - which frankly would be a bloody miracle because the U.K. population is pushing up to near 70 million and I was using my married name when we met! And then I remembered when my Words With Friends buddy in New York sent me the same message. Now this was a pretty generous offer considering I haven't lived in the U.S. for over 30 years and it's been over 40 years since I left the U.K! So I told "Sharon" where to shove it and now "Sharon" is threatening to kill me! Oh dear, some people don't take rejection at all well do they! I did get in touch with the real Sharon to let her know her page had been hacked and we ended up having a chat but gosh, these scammers/creeps are everywhere aren't they!

While I was online my niece in England sent me a message to thank me for her son's birthday card and the money I sent for both her kids. She also mentioned that her 11 year old daughter had covid as she had tested positive on Sunday night. Now I'm not sure if weekly testing is mandatory for schoolkids in England or if it was just something they did for themselves, but her daughter tested positive a second time when they had a pcr test done through a testing centre! She said she'd complained of a headache a couple of days earlier and then lost her sense of smell, but other than that she was fit as a fiddle (thank God) and really annoyed that she couldn't see her friends for 10 days, while her younger brother was equally annoyed that he consistently tested negative and didn't get to take the week off school!

In other news, flamboyant French businessman, Bernard Tapie, died last week and there was seemingly a great outpouring of sympathy - although not from round here I reckon. At one time he had owned Adidas, the Marseille football team and La Vie Claire (a large organic store) - had I known he was the owner I wouldn't have shopped there! I remember my colleague telling me years ago that Tapie was after buying a large factory in a nearby town and did the showman thing of landing in their parking lot in a helicopter and swearing to the workforce that their jobs were safe - and of course as soon as the sale went through he laid them all off! So nah, I don't think too many older men round here will care too much about that one!

But talking of showmen, Boris (the Clown) Johnson makes me want to scream anytime I see him on TV - you know, he of the walking bloody comedy act! Oh the comedy act might - just might - have been funny before he became PM but every time I hear that buffoon crack another joke when asked a serious question I want to reach through the TV and strangle him. That's how little he cares about the country and working people. He and his cronies pushed through a hardline Brexit and even though the country's quickly going to hell in a handbasket he just doesn't care! They have already started culling thousands of pigs because they don't have the skilled workers to butcher them, nor the truck drivers to deliver them to market. So they are being culled - and Johnson's joke on TV was "well they were going to die anyway, I mean, you eat bacon sandwiches don't you"! Ha, ha very funny, but nope they are being "culled" which means the farmers will get little, if anything, for their hard work. Whichever way you go on meat-eating, surely if the animal is going to die it shouldn't be like that! Oh and then there is the truck driver shortage, which admittedly is a shortage throughout Europe and not just the U.K. But Johnson's hard Brexit meant they kicked most of those "bloody foreigners" out of the country and now they're short approximately 100,000 truck drivers! Then when the haulage companies finally got through to the eejit that this was serious he offered up 5,000 short-term work visas for drivers. Have a guess how many "bloody foreigners wanted to come over here and steal those jobs"! Can't guess? They had 27 applications for tanker drivers (of which 20 were suitable) and 100 applications for HGV drivers! If it wasn't so pathetic it would be funny! And I swear this is true, people who had obtained their driving licences pre-1999 (so that would be me then) started receiving letters from the government asking if they would like a job driving trucks because (apparently) those licences were automatically valid for someone to drive a 7.5 ton truck! Ha, I wonder if the Queen got one because not only did she get her licence pre-1999 (obviously) but she also drove a truck during WWII! Well it turns out that those letters were addressed to German citizens living in the U.K. because it was only their licences that gave them the truck-driving licence, not the U.K. licences. Still, the Queen has German blood in her doesn't she? And then there was the issue of just one cabotage stop allowed. Cabotage is, say, when you get a Polish driver comes over with a load to drop in Glasgow and previously he would have been able to pick up another load for Manchester, and then another for London, for instance, before heading back to Poland. Well they put a stop to that and were only allowing one cabotage stop so tell me where the interest would be for any haulier to be driving round Britain with an empty truck and a line 100 trucks long to process the new customs formalities and not a pot for them to piss in? I think he's had to back down on that too and allow extra cabotage stops, but can you just see the madness - and why I just want to reach through the TV screen and wring this clown's neck - and I don't even live in the U.K.? Or how about the "wonderful deal" they've agreed with the U.S. where they will be exporting Welsh lamb to the States? Great huh? But then why the hell would they be importing Australian lamb into the U.K. at the same time? Now I know I'm no economist but can anybody else see a simpler solution to this here? How about have Australia export their lamb direct to the U.S. instead and let folks in the U.K. eat the lamb that's being raised just a few miles down the road? I don't know, maybe that's why I'll never be rich, because that one has me completely befuddled!

The U.K.'s Clown-in-Chief!

Still, there is a bit of good news in this hard Brexit because I hear Tim Martin, the rampant xenophobic boss of the Wetherspoon's pub chain, has posted a loss of around £195 million for the 12 months leading up to July 2021. I'd read a different figure but either way it was a lot, because Mr. Hardline Brexit now can't get the slaves low-paid workers to staff his establishments! Couldn't happen to a nicer fella, I reckon - the cheek of those "damn foreigners"!

I'm back!

It was Arnie that said that right? I'm not sure - but anyways, I'm back! I realized during my self-imposed exile how much I kinda needed to put my thoughts down on paper in order to keep my brain free of mental "static". I never considered myself particularly political but when I think about all the things that get my blood boiling maybe I am. Anyhoo, I went offline because someone I trusted to respect my blogging privacy did just the opposite and flapped their jaws. More fool me for trusting that person! I wanted my blog to remain anonymous "over here" and that trust was betrayed but in the end, who cares if their need to gossip was greater than their respect for my privacy! But man was I furious! I knew I had to give it some time for me to cool down and I have because damn, if I'd written what I really thought at the beginning it would have been blue! But you know what, it doesn't matter! I considered making my blog permanently private, but ultimately I didn't want to do that. I also considering moving my blog (I have another blog) but sod it, I wanted my blog all in one place because damn it, I like occasionally reading back through it. After all, that was the reason I started my blog - well that and hopefully having someone further down the line happy to read what grandma/great grandma wrote. Maybe that will never happen - who knows - but I know I would have loved having access to my grandma or, even better, my great grandma's thoughts. So here I am, back again. I've pulled a couple of posts (thank you Marksgran for telling me how to do that) and I'm up and raring to go because, dammit, I have so much I want to get out of my head and down on paper!

So what's happening here? Not an awful lot in reality, but the weather is glorious - just my kind of weather actually. It was funny because my neighbour came out of her house in a huge jacket and scarf wrapped three times round her neck and I'm out in shorts and T-shirt! Give me the cool weather any time! I had been talking to my sweet Honduran colleague about us getting together to go out walking and we finally managed it this weekend. Oh we didn't manage much walking because she has a little two-year old and we fit in our activities around what the babe wanted to do - but you know what, it was lovely. We drove down to the lake at Passy and the babe had a wonderful time playing on the swings and making sandcastles. She and I hit it off immediately because I did all the stupid "oh what smelly feet you have" - and I loved it - and we have plans to expand our outings to a much bigger mom and baby group (even though my "baby" is 29 and a daddy himself)! I don't know, I just feel I live in such a beautiful area that I need to let others in on the secret!

A couple of weeks ago I went to the funeral of my dear colleague C and it was so sad. I knew where this crematorium was because I'd had the misfortune to go there before when my friend V lost her son at the young age of 21. But, what I hadn't realized was that due to all the roadworks around there my GPS sent me all over the place and I ended up making it just as the ceremony was starting! Damn! And it really was one of the saddest funerals I have ever attended. I would say the room was only about 2/3 full and the weather, being grey and miserable, certainly added to the sadness. But C's children gave her a loving send off, all the while most of us were thinking why? I guess we will never know, but somehow I feel she just might have been another victim of this pandemic. Maybe, just maybe, if people had been in work, working in their offices someone might have seen that things weren't going too well for her! Who knows!

And finally (for now), Jordan and Jen invited us all over for dinner the other week. Jen, Jen's mom and I have birthdays all within a short period of time so we all got together and did a pot luck (repas canadien?) and it was really lovely. Charlie hadn't got enough sleep so while I can't say he was cranky, he definitely wasn't going to go down without a fight so I (happily) walked around with him in my arms singing to him to try to get him to settle. Well my lullabys might not have worked on the Munchkin but damn, when I turned round Jen's mom's boyfriend had fallen asleep and this is how we found Leni, the horrible cat! Ah bless!

Gonna make my blog private for a while!

While I enjoy writing my blog as a kind of personal diary, I want it to remain as anonymous as possible in my real life, so I'm going to make my blog "private reader access" only for a while. I'll still be reading your blogs and will most likely keep posting but ... see you soon! Take care and stay safe!