This and that!

As always (or so it seems to me) it's been a while between posts yet again but as there's nothing particularly scintilating going on and the plumber has now started work I'm just so tired. I realized how difficult it was having the electrician in my house for almost six weeks and now there'll be another two or so with the plumber. He's very nice and seems to be doing a good job, but man will I be glad when it's all done. Of course there are a million other things round here that could do with being updated/replaced but (a) I don't think my bank account can take it for the time being and (b) I know my nerves certainly can't!

He found a large nest of "mason
ants" when he ripped out the cladding!!!!

The old shower - can't wait for the new units
to be put in and retiled!

I can't believe we're almost half way through May already - I mean, where has the year gone??? May 1st and May 8th are generally public holidays in France and I remember when I was still working (in Switzerland, so no holiday) my then boss used to bring all the ladies in our unit lily of the valley, which is traditional here. He was a "bit of a lothario" to say the least but he was nice to me, and when he died the death announcement was posted from "A - his partner and M his wife"! Still, I suppose they had their reasons, the main one, I would imagine being that M would remain his beneficiary after his death and A had her own pension!

The other day there was a knock at my door and two young men asking for donations to "Action Against Hunger". I told them I already donated to the local food bank so sorry, but then a couple of days later on a local FB page I saw that they had also been knocking on doors in the local town so someone had called up Action Against Hunger and they were told that they were not collecting in our area! Damn they'll try anything to find out if homes are occupied won't they!

The other week we had our latest board game evening over at Jordan and Jen's and it was so lovely to see Valérie (my previous neighbour) and her daughter there for once. They have a lovely relationship and Mary-Anne is such a hoot - a real tearaway. She and André were great friends growing up and are still very close so when he was asking her about all her tattoos, she told him she'd had six sessions of four hours over an 18 month period at a cost of €3,000! Now that's not how I'd want to be spending my money but they do look very nice and each to his (her?) own, as they say!

After being thwarted the other day, I trudged back down to the local gym to enrol and bugger me if they weren't closed again. Well actually they were open but the office staff were on a lunch break so no QR code, no entry! I finally made it on the third attempt and rightly or wrongly (probably wrongly) I've signed up for a year's contract. And now of course the plumber is here so I won't be going for the next couple of weeks at least! So to make up for it, I started following a few yoga lessons on the "Yoga with Adrienne" Youtube channel and I discovered I had muscles in places I never even knew I had places!!!

I finally got an official contract from EDF for my solar panels asking me to compete the online set up for my contract. When I got on the site my email and my telephone number were still wrong so it would seem that the left hand still doesn't know what the right hand is doing! I got that corrected and hopefully I can now start generating electricity to sell back to them but man what a palaver it's all been. Then, as luck would have it, I got an email from my telephone carrier asking for my opinion on their new fibre service - so I told them. Ha, that was fun for once!

At the end of April they held the London marathon and while I obviously didn't watch all of it, I got a real kick out of seeing the great sportsmanship and good nature of the competitors. To be honest I couldn't tell you who won (but well done to them in any case of course) but the ones that got me were the people helping those who couldn't take any more over the finishing line, or the little boy running in calipers, or the person running in a rhino suit in aid of the Save the Rhino Fund! Brilliant!

And then of course there were the VE Day celebrations to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of the war in Europe - those celebrations always get me too, particularly as so many of the veterans probably won't be around much longer to be celebrated!

And finally, I see that Clarkson's Farm's next series should be out soon and I can't wait! I don't know, maybe May wasn't so bad after all!

Thwarted!

My sister called me on Easter Sunday as she had heard about the terrible snow storms we'd been getting here and wanted to make sure I was all right, what with avalanche warnings being at level five! I told her I was more than all right as it was fine here but apparently in the mountains they had as much as 50 cm of snow (about 20 inches, I'm guessing) in one go and roads were blocked everywhere!

The road to Chamonix/Mont Blanc -
it was very much worse actually in
the mountains, but I just snapped
this off the local news!

Since it genuinely was nice here on Good Friday I considered driving down to the lake at Passy for a walk but then realized that Passy being on the way to Chamonix, traffic would probably be heaving - and heaving it was! Traditionally the Swiss get Good Friday off but the French don't, so then everyone in Switzerland decides to either go to Annecy for the day "because the French will be at work" - and Annecy gets clogged up with Swiss licence plates or everyone decides to take a long weekend in Italy - and they all get stuck getting up to the Mont Blanc tunnel, so I was soooo glad I decided against heading to Passy that day!

My sister's daughter and her family took off for a week in Marrakech and have been posting the most beautiful photos! My very first trip totally on my own after my husband left was to Marrakech but to be honest the hotel I'd been recommended was too far out of the city and apart from the walled old town and the sukh, I didn't get to see much as it meant taking a taxi every time. I would like to go back and "do it properly" though as my niece's photos were beautiful! In another piece of good news, my niece's 16 year old daughter has just been accepted for a job in a travel agent's, to start in July on a fairly decent salary for a 16 year old and I'm delighted. After two years, if they're happy with her (I'm sure they will be) she will be making more than decent money and travelling all over the world! Good for her, do it while you can, I say!

I asked my sister a bit more about the old man (seemingly with dementia) who they had recently taken in and she said it turned out he was actually 80, although he didn't look it, and was obviously quite well educated and very well spoken and what a shame it was to see such a classy man not even knowing his own name! Apparently his wife had sewn air tags into his coat but as that particular day had been warm, he'd wandered off in just a t-shirt and jeans, so now she has to think of another way to keep track of him since he won't wear one of those emergency necklaces!

I had quite a productive day the other day and finally got round to cleaning out my car and vacuuming it, so it now looks quite good, even if I do say so myself. I'm not one to dump rubbish in the car anyway, but taking frequent trips to the recycling centre or the garden centre it does tend to get a bit dirty at times. After that I came in and knocked Jordan's US taxes out in about an hour, so that's another thing off my to-do list. Since I'm getting more used to the US forms I showed Jordan what I'd done in case he wanted to do them, but he's happy to let me do them (of course). He never owes the US anything because there is a reciprocal tax agreement between the US and France but as he has to file, it's probably just easier if I do them and get them out of the way!

The other day I spotted "raised beds" in my local supermarket so bought five of them and have spent a few hours happily potting up more veggies in my regular garden and the new raised beds. I'm really pleased with them as they can stand on my terrace (easier to water than lugging the watering can up the garden) and if I haven't overshot the mark by planting too early, I'm looking forward to seeing what, if anything, comes of it!

When Chuckles, the leg-swinging telephone fibre guy, was here, he advised me to get a "CPR plug" which would give me a better wifi network throughout the house, so thinking "oh that's easy to remember - a cardio pulmonary resuscitation plug" I ran into town to buy one and they burst out laughing when I asked for a CPR plug. Apparently it's a CPL plug (but Chuckles not being French, he had a funny accent and I misunderstood him). Of course he left me high and dry on what to do with it, but eventually I got on good old Youtube and discovered where I needed to plug it in in order to activate it (no thanks to Chuckles, who never came back, if you remember). In any case, it's crap as I don't think my wifi has improved at all since they installed the fibre and the "CPR plug" seems to be about as much use as a chocolate teapot too! So lessons being learned I figured if I ever decide to get rid of my phone carrier I might lose access to quite a lot of information, so I've been slowly copying all my contacts' information into a Word document "just in case"!

Everyone came to my place for Easter lunch, which was nice. I made Delia Smith's "spicy salmon with black bean salsa" (which went down a treat) with seven-layer salad and baked potatoes, while Jen brought the appéritif and her mom the dessert. We were all stuffed at the end of it but Charlie made us laugh when he told us Maîtresse Marianne (his teacher) was very strict that when they're eating they "have to keep their mouths closed with a zipper because nobody wants to see what you're eating"! Quite right too Maîtresse, quite right too!

After Netflix virtually doubled their prices a few months back I cancelled my subscription, until about a month ago as I wanted to watch a couple of programmes. Then just the other day I got another email from them to say that they were putting their prices up by another €2 per month as from May, so I'm thinking I will probably just cancel them again. With the exception of The Sopranos and The Serpent I can't think of anything I've really enjoyed as I find all their productions to be very "formulaic". Nothing seems to hold my interest - or then maybe I'm just too difficult to please!

So more and more I tend to be going down the Youtube rabbit hole and just the other day I discovered a relatively new channel called Rewilding Jude. Jude is a young man in his thirties who lost both his parents to cancer in a relatively short space of time and in order not to "go under" he decided to sell up in the south of England and bought a fairly remote place in Scotland which he is single-handedly trying to turn into a small-holding! You can tell immediately that he is a very sweet young man, and to prove it wasn't just me that felt that way, he seems to get all these elderly American grandmas in the comments wanting to adopt him, he really is that sweet!

Another channel I've followed is Early Retirement Wanderlust about a couple of teachers who have taken early retirement (too early to get their UK pensions) and who downsized in order to spend as much time as possible travelling either at home or abroad. I think the husband lost his brother at a very young age so that is what pushed him, in particular, to want to do this. I think what I really admire (or probably envy) about this couple is how in tune to each other they are. They both have the same dreams and seem to be totally on board with how to achieve them. I really enjoy their videos and can only say "good for you", and how lucky you are!

And finally, I decided that given that I'm not able to make it to pilates half the time, I was going to re-enrol in the gym I used to go to (occasionally) pre-covid to use the weights, so I trotted off down there today with all the relevant paperwork and bugger me, when I got there, the office is only open Monday through Thursday and today being Friday it wasn't possible to get in without a member's QR code! Do you think "someone" was trying to send me a message not to be so silly or will I end up going back on Monday to do the necessary? I'm pretty certain I'll end up going back on Monday as I'm so sick of these (relatively mild) bingo wings of mine (but bingo wings nonetheless) and really want to do something about them. Watch this space! We'll see what Monday brings!

On being an old fogy!

The weathermen have been predicting France would be hit by Storm Olivier this week so I'd been making lists of all the things I would get done during the bad weather. Well guess what, if it hit at all it's totally bypassed this region! Right now we've got a very gentle rain which is actually quite soothing and I believe it's snowing in the mountains, but other than that - nothing/nada! Oh well, I guess they get things wrong sometimes too then!

With the aim of getting one pain-in-the-butt thing crossed off every day I called up my telephone carrier and explained the situation about how my landline hadn't worked since Chuckles came by and installed the fibre. I told the young man how Chuckles couldn't get the telephone cable on the first floor free of the plaster so he just cut it and left me without the possibility of hooking up my landline. He had me turn on my camera so that he could see what was what and his conclusion was that the only place I could now actually hook up my landline was - wait for it - in my unfinished basement!!!! Can you imagine trying to run downstairs and climb over the wood pile in order to answer the phone!!!! No, me neither, so I asked them to just cancel my landline but it turns out that's not possible as it's mandatory in order to have my wifi box with them!!! Again, say what? In the end I just thought "sod it", hooked up the landline in the basement and actually now take great pleasure seeing all the missed telemarketing calls on it when I go downstairs to get something out of the freezer! Since I usually had my landline unplugged anyway because the telemarketers got on my nerves, I suppose in the end it wasn't such a big deal, but at least that's one thing crossed off the pain-in-the-butt list!

And that's when the tax people sent an email for me to get my paperwork together in order for them to prepare my French tax declaration!! Damn, my pain-in-the-butt list just got longer again! In reality I coud probably do it myself but since my pension is paid into my Swiss bank, I live in France and obviously have a French bank account and I've been receiving a small pension in my UK account since last September, I thought it better to just let them deal with it. I know quite a few people who haven't declared their UK pensions but to my mind the fine I would get for not declaring such a small pension just isn't worth it, so declare it I have!

After getting my paperwork sent off I decided to take a drive down to the lake at Passy in order to clear my head and was delighted to see that the little lakeside restaurant/bar is now open again for the season, so I'll probably be stopping off there for lunch on occasion, next time I get my knickers in a twist and need a break. While I was on my walk I finished listening to the last chapter of Traitor King and it turned out to be much better than I thought it would be. I'm currently back to listsening to The Mountbattens and Just Desserts (the Martha Stewart story) and while I'm enjoying them all, one thing that struck me in all three books is what a bunch of ball-breakers the women in these stories were - Wallis Simpson, Edwina Mountbatten and Martha Stewart. It's incredible! Wallis and Edward seemed to have had some kind of sado-masochism thing going on, Edwina Mountbatten appeared to have forgotten that she had a husband and two children and would basically screw anything that wasn't nailed down and Martha - while she is/was obviously an incredibly talented and driven woman, it seems she wouldn't hesitate to lie and step on anyone who got in her way on the way to the top - including her poor husband! While I wouldn't want to live in a world of jack-boot stomping men either, it did strike me what a sad world these women lived in where they thought it was okay to treat those they were supposed to love in such an appalling way!

I also signed back up to Netflix in order to watch the series Adolescence which everyone seemed to be raving about, and while the young actor who played 13 year old Jamie was indeed brilliant, what a depressing series that was!

At sewing the other day one of the ladies asked me if I would like a brand new pair of jeans that she'd been given and that might fit me. They had never been worn and fit me a treat except that the person who bought them must have been 6' 5" while I'm only 5' 4", so there's either a good 10 inches to be taken off the bottom or, as one of the ladies suggested, I could wear "ABBA boots", although I'd probably end up looking more like a drag queen!

ABBA!

Another of the ladies was telling us that her daughter has finally just landed her dream job as a designer at Hermès fashion house beating very, very stiff competition. I'm so pleased for her as she is very talented, but then the whole family seem to have a very creative bent - would that I should be so lucky! Then Bernadette was telling us that she pulled into a petrol station the other day just in time to see the man in front of her drive off leaving his wallet on the roof of his car. She picked it up and tried to chase him, flashing her lights and honking her horn, to the point that he eventually pulled over and came storming over to her cussing and swearing - until she held up his wallet and asked how far he thought he'd get without it. He was mortified, of course, and invited her to pull off at the next exit and bought her a drink to thank her!

Over the weekend I'd finally had enough of my sticky-out hair so took my sewing scissors to it and hacked as much off as I could. When I went to yoga Monday morning it looked dreadful of course so I had to try to think where I would find a hairdresser's open (there aren't many open on Mondays) and dashed off there for them to try to do a bit of damage control! You can still see my handiwork in parts but I think she did a really good job of saving my bacon. As I went to pay I noticed a giant bin where they were "recycling hair clippings" and when I asked what it was for she told me that it was being used in an ocean experiment "to trap certain types of pollution" (not sure what it was about really), so I'm glad I was able to do my bit!!!

At yoga we worked on something called the dragon pose and while it didn't do much for me she asked what movie it brought to mind. Everyone else said The Matrix but I blurted out The Karate Kid so I think my age was showing just a little!

Can you believe the first
Karate Kid movie is 40 years old?

Talking of old fogies, the new oldies club I signed up for recently (I reckon I'm the youngest by about 15 years) sent out a flyer for a day outing on the Train de la Mure which is about four hours from here. I'd heard of this scenic train already so thought what the hell, and I signed up for it!

Train de la Mure!

Then today I got in invitation to the over-65s lunch to be held in May between the two villages of St. Laurent and St. Sixt again, so I'm signed up for that too! Who knew us oldies could have so much fun!

And finally Jen asked me if I could look after Charlie on Tuesday afternoon as his teacher was going to be absent. I wasn't busy so no problem and he and I had a great time. When Jordan and Jen arrived home they told me that my ex had asked for their summer plans so they gave him the dates when they would be away - and wouldn't you know he's booked to arrive three days before they get back!!! Jen was steaming mad as she didn't want to have to change their vacation reservations so I told her to ignore it. He's retired so let him just get on with it. He'll be staying with André in any case so I said not to alter their plans around him! Some people can be quite selfish, expecting others to adapt to them for no better reason than that they think their own plans should take precedence. I loved my oldest brother but he could also be like that and it took me years to learn that "no" is actually a complete sentence, or to maybe just say "good luck with that" and leave him to get on with it! Obviously if there had been a serious reason for making changes, then you go for it, but since Jen's having problems with her grandparents pulling the same kind of stunt, I told her the sooner she learned to say "we'll see you when we get back", the better. So I guess there really are advantages to getting older - you get to do all these fun trips - and you don't take cr@p from anyone anymore!

The IKEA Syndrome!

Things chez moi are hopefully starting to plod along slowly! I finally got the paperwork sent off to EDF (the people who will take over my solar panels) and I'm just praying that the one date I filled in is correct. There are so many different dates on the flippin' paperwork from the people who installed them that I'm not sure - fingers crossed the bloody stuff doesn't come back! Then I had a plumber come out (he was recommended by my electrician) and while the quote was a bit of a shock I decided to go with it anyway. I kept Charlie on Wednesday afternoon (they have no school on Wednesdays until they hit junior school) and I mentioned the quote to Jordan but he said if it was for the plumbing work and the tiling, he thought it was about the going rate, so I guess it's gruel and bread for me for a few months going forward! And of course the number that Chuckles the leg swinging telephone fibre guy gave me to call him back, well that doesn't work (why was I surprised)??? I was initially pissed off not having my security cameras hooked up after he left but I managed to get them plugged in to the new box he installed (i.e. hung off my basement fridge) so at least they're back up and running. The only thing that isn't running now is the landline but hell, if I'm paying for it I'm going to call them back as I want it to work (even if I keep it unplugged most of the time)!

I've missed quite a few of my pilates lessons, what with all that's been going on here on Thursdays so when one of the ladies at sewing club told me that she'd signed up for three months to a gym near the recycling centre I went and checked it out. Their prices are very reasonable (and also include pilates classes) but in the end I thought "who am I kidding, I know I won't go June, July and August when it gets hot" so if I do go back I think I'll stick with the gym I occasionally went to before and just pay on a daily basis - given how little willpower I seem to have for going to the gym regularly!

When we went to the Aquarium the other week we drove past where I used to live in Switzerland so I decided to take a drive out for a wander round a lovely garden centre there and have a walk along the lake. It really is a lovely small town but our apartment was hellish expensive even then (back in 1989) and to be honest, you know that John Denver song about Toledo, Ohio and how they "roll back the sidewalks precisely at ten and people who live there are not seen again", well it was just like that, dead as a doornail for the most part. That's when we realized that for what we were paying in rent we could easily afford to buy a house in France so move we did, although I do have fond memories of Rolle, all the same!

The château in Rolle, Canton of Vaud!

I did manage to lug my pressure washer up from the basement and hose down the back terrace. It could probably do with being relaid but given all the expenses I've had lately, it'll have to wait, and for quite some time, I think!

My sister posted an appeal on Facebook two days ago, as a man approximately in his mid-70s had wandered off the seafront path and they found him sitting on their terrace in a bewildered state. He thought his name was Dave and that he was looking for someone called Dawn but that was as much as he could tell them (poor devil). She called it in to the local police station where someone had called in a missing persons report a few hours earlier, but when the police called to pick him up, he was sitting having tea and cake and watching the football with my brother-in-law!!! I wonder if he'll be back!

And finally, on Tuesday I drove my neighbour to the hospital for some more tests and since she didn't know how long she would be I popped into a nearby GIFI shop (a bit like a poor man's IKEA) as I wanted a small stand to put the fibre box on instead of where Chuckles had left it. Trouble is, I not only got the stand but also got a good deal on eight new garden chairs - and that of course is when you realize that your car just might not be big enough to get all these treasures in the trunk!!! Somehow I did it and I didn't have to strap my neighbour to the roof to make it home! I still reckon it was nothing short of a miracle though!

Still wading through treacle - but it's getting a little easier!

Sometimes I'm just so really, really grateful that I'm very organized because I hate to think what people do in situations similar to mine if they aren't. Just about everything that could go wrong in this house does seem to have gone wrong since Christmas and while it's exhausting, at least I'm managing to keep my chaos organized! The other weekend I just thought "sod it" and basically spent the entire weekend on the sofa reading. I don't know why I feel guilty about doing this - I mean, it's not as though I owe anyone an explanation is it - but it did me a world of good to just shut the door on "all that" for a couple of days!

Starting with the best news, Elynn came out of hospital after two nights as they couldn't find anything wrong with her intestines nor any allergy to baby formula. So it seems it was just something that was going around, which was likely confirmed by a friend at sewing club who told me that her young grandchildren had had the same thing too! Phew, that's a relief!

My electrician still has to come back one more time to fix my outdoor motion detector light, but that's only minor and if he lets me know when he's coming I can just leave the side gate open for him. He did thank me for the excellent review I left on the local trades' site because "now he will probably be able to reset people's x-boxes all over Haute Savoie"! Ha, I like his style! He also gave me the name of a young plumber he had worked with so he is coming over tomorrow to give me a quote to hopefully finally get that last bathroom done (fingers crossed on that one)! As for decorating the bedroom where the fire started, I'm thinking I will probably just try painting it myself at some point and if I do a real cock-up job, well then I'll think about getting someone in later to remedy my mistakes!

Before the electrician came over last time I wanted to get a new "thingy" (as I call it - would you call that a socket?) as I needed him to fit it in a downstairs light. So I ran down to the local DIY store and I always seem to end up speaking to an extremely nerdy-looking but helpful young man. As I didn't know what it was called in French I showed him this photo and he told me it was called a douille. I could also hear that he was making fun of my accent (although not unkindly) when he went on to explain to me that he would need more than just the photo, he would need the dimensions. So I said "oh that's easy, I'll need an E27 (thank you my electrician) and the look of shock on his face as he was just about to make fun of my accent again made all my "studying" worthwhile! One-nil to me I'd say at this point!

Is the white thing a "socket"?

And of course the keys I got cut for sewing club the other day don't work but sometimes I think life's just too short to stuff a mushroom, so sod it, we'll make do!

I've mentioned before that I follow a few walking/hiking groups on Facebook and any time I see what looks like a reasonable hike around here I post it to my own FB feed so I know I'll be able to find it again. I'm sure some of my family members are dead impressed by what would appear to be all the hikes I've conquered but I'll have to let them in on my secret at some point, I suppose. That being said, on the UK-based Walk 1,000 Miles group I saw a couple who I would say were in their mid-70s explaining how they'd started consistently walking an hour a day when covid hit in order not to go stir crazy and over time they'd added in greater distances and more challenging walks, so much so that this year they'd going to attempt the Camino de Santiago, a walk of about 30 days covering almost 500 miles! Crikey, puts my piddly little walks to shame, doesn't it! Mind you, someone on one of the local groups posted an open invitation to an apéritif in the mountains for anyone who could make it. Now that's something I could see me training for!

While I'm doing one of my usual routes I'm still listening to Traitor King and, as I've said before, it does get better. Heck they've got murder (mob and drugs related), money laundering, tax evasion, blatant infidelity and I'm still only on chapter 21. By this point many people are getting extremely fed up of Edward and Wallis and in particular their sponging off other people. One man commented that he had no idea what gave Wallis her hold over men (although "hold" she most certainly had) because in his opinion she was an unattractive, skeletal, flat-chested harridan who would make a "good medieval prototype for a playing card" (I'm paraphrasing, but when I pictured the queen of diamonds playing card I just burst out laughing)!

Wallis Simpson!

I've also started listening to Cheere Denise reading a book about Martha Stewart called Just Desserts, which could also prove to be very interesting. Martha is/was obviously very beautiful, very talented and very driven but I think it might not come as a great surprise to everyone to hear that she could be a pretty nasty piece of work and a prolific liar (according to the book) so I'll let you know what I think when I get round to it!

I heard just the other day that Argentina's President Xavier Milei has authorized the release of "the Hitler files" which, apparently, document the escape to Argentina of many top Nazis (including Hitler) after the war. While I knew many had indeed escaped I never really knew what to think about the rumour that it wasn't Hitler's body they found in the bunker in Berlin (apparently what was supposed to be Hitler's skull with the bullet wounds in it it was a female skull) and Hitler did seemingly live out the remainder of his life in Argentina after the war. Crikey, I wonder if that will pan out! And to add to the suspense, just yesterday Audible announced the release of Operation Paperclip, a book that I've been wanting to read for ages (one of many, obviously)! According to Wiki:

* * * * *

Operation Paperclip was a secret United States intelligence program in which more than 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians were taken from former Nazi Germany to the US for government employment after the end of World War II in Europe, between 1945 and 1959; several were confirmed to be former members of the Nazi Party, including the SS or the SA.

* * * * *

In the UK, former Reform party MP, Rupert Lowe, launched a crowd-funding initiative to fund an independent investigation into the UK grooming gangs responsible for the grooming and rape of hundreds, if not thousands of young girls over the past several decades, because seemingly no-one in power wants to "go there" (I wonder why)! He was aiming for £500,000 and after about 36 hours he's already reached over £432,000. I donated of course, but well done Rupert, one of the few MPs who is willing to stand up in Parliament and ask the questions no-one seems to want to answer!

In France some bright spark has had the idea of setting up a kind of "savings plan" for citizens to invest in whereby the state can use that money to remilitarize! There is a minimum of five years in which your money will be blocked, they can't or won't indicate what the starting interest rate will be - oh and there's no guarantee you'll even get your initial investment back! As one of France's top economists said, "even Madoff wouldn't have tried that one on"!

As I'm sure you're also aware, Marine Le Pen seems to be going the same way as Romania's Calin Georgescu, Germany's AfD party, Geert Wilders in the Netherlands etc. About the best initial explanation of the situation I can find in English can be seen here by Neil McCoy Ward (the first 10 minutes). There's obviously much more detailed information on it in French but Neil does a decent job of explaining the basics. We'll see what happens, but to say things are volatile here at the moment would be an understatement!

And finally, Friday was Charlie's fourth birthday so since the weather wasn't supposed to be great we all went off the Aquarium in Lausanne, followed by raclette at Jordan and Jen's place. At one point there was a huge fish right in front of Elynn and Jordan was trying to draw her attention to it, but she was absolutely captivated by the man standing next to her. When he looked down at her she gave him the most beautiful smile and he burst out laughing when Jordan went "oh look Elynn, it's a human"! Then Charlie was sitting with a little girl looking at the komodo dragons when the little girl squealed and shouted "look mommy, he's got a Paw Patrol hat on"! Kids eh, there's no pleasing them sometimes is there!

The Aquarium, Lausanne

Paw Patrol trumps all!

And more of the same!

While last week was another crappy week I keep hoping that the more I plough on through, the easier things will get. It's got to, right? My electrician is coming by tomorrow to finish one final thing (28 days and counting) so I got his bills sorted out and went to make a final payment last week. At this point I owed him €6,421 but when I went to make the payment a notice popped up from my bank to say that I was limited to payments of maximum €3,000 per day. Not a problem, I'll just make the payments over the next couple of days!!! So on 5 March I went to send €3,000 but my bank blocked me at €2,000, so while it was frustrating I simply went back every 24 hours for three days to make another payment - only to find out that none of them were going through, despite there being sufficient funds in the account and my authorizing these payments via an app on my phone! So I contacted the bank to see what was going on and while one payment went through the others didn't, so they told me to try again. So I try again and yet again my payments aren't going through and I'm starting to pull my hair out! Anyway on Friday I went into town to get two new keys cut for sewing club and the place that does the key cutting had a sign on the door saying "cash only" (hmm, nice little number you've got going on there buddy), so I paid cash and then went to the bank to deposit a sewing club cheque back into my account. While I was there I thought I'd try to find out what was going on so booked an appointment on the spot and sat in the waiting room to wait for the young man to call me over. While I was there I noticed a horrendous smell of alcohol which was obviously coming from the old man the employee was dealing with at that moment, but when he straightened up I realized it was Stephan, who I knew from when Stan had his little bar in the village! While Stephan was filling out some forms, the employee called me over but I asked him to step outside and turned my back to Stephan, indicating that I didn't want him to see me. The last two times I've seen Stephan in town he's asked me for money (he has plenty, he obviously just pours it down his throat), but at least I was finally able to get the remaining amount transferred to my electrician, despite both of us holding our noses because the smell coming off of Stephan was horrendous. I guess he's fallen off the wagon again then!

On Tuesday a technician from my phone carrier (SFR) showed up to get me hooked up with fibre but once he opened up the concrete trap near my neighbour's garden he was a cussin' and a swearin' like nobody's business. Whoever had worked on the phone lines before had obviously "done a terrible job" and how was he supposed to get this sorted. He had a strange gait whereby his right leg kinda swung out a bit and the madder he got the more that leg swung and I thought if he keeps going like this he's going to end up spinning himself into the ground like some kind of donar kebab! What I hadn't realized was that he had actually dropped the concrete trap into the hole and broken more wires than he fixed so now all three of our houses were cut off from the internet. Thankfully my neighbour Isabelle was there because he was trying to tell her to get somebody in to fix it but she stood her ground and said no, everything was working until you showed up, now it's up to you to fix it (spin, spin, cuss, cuss)! Eventually I got my mobile and wifi back up and running but my landline and therefore my security cameras are still not working so they have to come back again. Piss up and brewery really springs to mind with this one! And that was when my favourite neighbour came round to say that she didn't have wifi anywhere in the house either (she's also with SFR), so after much huffing and puffing I managed to get her hooked up to my own wifi, which is fine, but obviously she needs to have her own network restored! I can't believe next week will be a year since her husband died and it's amazing how much she has progressed from the beaten down timid little woman to a woman who, while not exactly ready to take on Everest, is now smiling again and I've even gotten putting her appointments into her telephone calendar "all on her own like a big girl" (her words, not mine)!

The saga with my solar panels is still ongoing, with the young woman I spoke to last time telling me that "of course your panels are hooked up to the grid" and me pointing out to her that "of course I've never received any of this paperwork because you've got my email address wrong" (honey, I may speak with an accent but I don't think with one)!!! Anyway, on Friday I called again and a rather sweet older gent explained to me that he was just the accountant but he took my number and a very nice older lady called back so I got to explain my situation to her from start to finish. And she agreed with me that my panels couldn't possibly be hooked up because I didn't have a "BTA number" from EDF. Thank god someone is finally talking to me like I'm not stupid! She gave me enough information that I was able to get in touch with EDF to get the aforementioned BTA number and has promised to get back to me tomorrow. We'll see if she does but somehow I think she will. Turns out she's the wife of the company owner and I just wish she could give her snotty employee lessons on how not to talk to people!

In other news, I was checking my lottery numbers the other week and much to my surprise I found I'd won €351!!! Oh I realize over the years I've given them much more than that but it was a nice surprise anyway, and since Jordan had the week off to take care of the kids, I met him at the supermarket and paid for their groceries (plus Charlie got a nice lego set)! 

I spoke to my sister at the weekend and she was telling me that her granddaughter was taking her O'level cookery exam on Tuesday so they'd been practicing at home. I forget what she was making for a starter but the main course was lasagne (where she had to make the lasagna sheets herself) and tiramisu for dessert! I hadn't realized that in some schools at least they've gone back to home economics lessons, and I'm delighted to hear it (and I'm sure she'll pass)!

Talking of pasta, I'd made stuffed cannelloni for Wednesday when I was to take care of Charlie in the afternoon, but Jordan sent me a message on the Tuesday evening to say that Elynn had been projectile vomiting and the emergency number Jen called told them to take her straight to the hospital as she was so little. She didn't seem to be in any pain, and didn't have diarrhoea, just the vomiting, but as they were worried it might be something to do with her intestine they kept her in overnight (Jen stayed with her of course). It was a good job I went over anyway because I was able to keep Charlie for the next 10 hours while Jordan went back to the hospital with stuff for Jen and they got him to try to give her a bottle of baby formula to see if she was allergic to that. They'd only just started trying to wean her off breast milk so potentially it could have been that, but they kept her in another night and they will get the results of her blood tests tomorrow hopefully, and can take it from there! They've all really been through the wringer lately, so I'm sure they'll be glad to know one way or the other where they go from here!

And finally, yoga started back up again on Monday and was I ever glad to be back there. We did one pose which I reckon is new to me, although the teacher says we've done it before. It's called the pigeon pose and when I commented afterwards what a great exercise that was, she said she wasn't surprised as it really works the sciatic nerve! Rather than looking like an elegant pigeon I'm pretty sure I looked like a bloated seagull hovering over a bag of chips, but ya takes the wins where ya can, right?

The pigeon pose!

Finally (hopefully?) coming up for air!

You know how sod's law dictates that when one thing goes wrong, everything else comes slamming at you like a bloody tsunami? Well the last couple of months have felt like that for me but finally/hopefully things are starting to look up. I've been absolutely exhausted for so long but I had promised to look after Charlie (school holidays) on Wednesday so duly got up at 6 a.m. to get over there by eight in order for Jen to go to work. He's a great little kid but man he wears me out. In his defence, if I had to look after him every day I'd probably have a better routine but at the moment he seems to think I'm his best friend in all the world. Mind you, if I hear just once more how his other granny doesn't colour outside the lines I may have to restrain myself!!!! I took him out to the park and into the woods for almost three hours (the weather's glorious here) in the hopes it would wear him out - which it did - but you can probably guess how I was feeling by the time I got him back home and down for a nap. Mind you, as I say, I can really only blame myself for being so tired, because as his mom walked through the door he yelled "Nanny, motorbikes" so we both dashed to our chairs (placed one in front of the other) and put our tupperware bowls on our heads (crash helmets - hygienic, right) and set off on our "motos" going vroom vroom! I swear mom thinks I'm insane, but at least Jordan is used to it!

Elynn was just getting over a nasty cough (thank you daycare) and I reckon she passed it on to me because I have been coughing enough to keep waking me up ever since. So tonight I decided I had to go through my medicine cabinet to fish out the oregano oil that worked so well last time and when I finally found it I put two drops into a very small amount of water (it's disgusting), must have coughed at the same time and promptly threw up (tmi, I know). But for the last four hours I haven't coughed once so I'm ever more convinced! Mind you, seeing the complete disaster zone that passes for a medicine cabinet, I realized right now would be a good time to start sorting it out, so if anyone needed a couple of paracetamol back in 2017, you should have just given me a call!

Friday was day 27 of the electrician being here (so over five weeks so far) but hopefully just one more day will be the end of it. However nice he is, I'm sure we will both be glad to see the back of each other! He asked what was going on with the Chuckle Brothers (the three Bangladeshi brothers - electrician/plumber/painter and decorator, where I had refused the electrican's quote but accepted the other two) and I told him nothing as I'd not seen hide nor hair of them since they first came over in January. So he told me to get down to the bank and block the deposit cheque (€965) as after 30 days their quote was no longer valid and it would be better to block it rather than try to get the money back. So then he asks what's going on with my solar panels (nothing, seemingly) and while I had noticed my bills hadn't gone down at all he told me to get right onto the installers and ask what the hell was going on. The woman told me that everything absolutely was up and running and sent me three different legal documents to show that they absolutely had sent the paperwork to me to get me hooked up to the grid. The only problem was that they'd gotten both my telephone number and my email address wrong, so it's no wonder I'd never received the paperwork (which I wasn't aware was coming and that I needed to sign). I sent her a copy of these mistakes so we'll see how that plays out next week! So then he points out how crap my wifi is (I know) and had me call my provider there and then to find out what was going on, given how much I was paying. The end result is my provider is coming to instal fibre on Tuesday, I've gotten a mobile wifi for €5 and both my landline and my mobile fees have gone down. It's not that I didn't know these things needed taken care of (except for the solar panels) but sometimes it all just feels overwhelming. So maybe I will miss this young man after all!

Edited to add: and of course I totally forgot about my security cameras. My service provider sent me a parcel containing batteries and asking me to call them in order for them to help me change the batteries in my internal camera. I thought "how difficult could that be?" (assuming you don't mind getting up a stepladder) and it was indeed easy. But then they kept sending me messages asking me to call them - which of course I ignored repeatedly because I'd changed the batteries. Eventually, as they wouldn't give up, I called back rather bad-temperedly but what they wanted to do was do a test run to make sure the cameras were functioning correctly (my bad)! So they had me move out of sight, activate the internal alarm, and then move into the line of the camera to set the alarm off so they could take a picture and tell me what I was wearing. Of course the alarm was so loud that my neighbour came running round, I ran to the door and all the camera guy was either a photo of my right foot or my backside à la Mr. Bean as I ran out of shot!!!! In the end it was okay as I just asked him what was hanging over my banister (he correctly answered a white sweater) so another thing sorted. Of course it was no big deal but all these things came hammering at me like a battering ram and to say I wasn't necessarily "gracious" (at least in my own mind) would be an understatement!

In other news, last Saturday was our latest board game evening and I was asking the host, Philippe, how his mom was coping since his 62 year old sister had died suddenly just before Christmas. It turns out his mom had died about 10 days later! I felt bad as I obviously had no idea, but he reckons his mom just gave up after his sister died. Even so, that's a hard blow for anyone to bear in such a short space of time!

The lady from sewing club who had me buy stuff from Amazon for her sent me a message today asking if I could get something else for her urgently as it was needed for a grandchild's birthday on Friday!!! I ignored her for a while but in the end I looked it up and the smaller version that she wanted was not available, and the bigger one wouldn't ship until 20th March, so I suggested she try one of the other sites where she'd found the photo. And can you believe it - she asked me if I had accounts with these other sites!!! I told her no, I only felt comfortable putting my credit card information on Amazon as I trust them and said she might want to ask one of her own children! Can you believe the nerve of some people!

What with not sleeping and then being constantly on the go, I really have been tired these past few weeks, so yesterday I decided I had to get myself down to Passy for a walk and then again off out into the woods today to try to blow these cobwebs away. While I was walking I picked back up listening to Traitor King and I have to admit that by the time she gets to Chapter 8 it starts to get much more interesting, so yeah, if you have the patience to get through the first few chapters it's another book I would recommend. And again, Edward comes over as a weak, pompous and very entitled alpha wimp who, Churchill knew, was flapping his jaws to the Nazis, either via Wallis and one of her many lovers (von Ribbentrop, who was Nazi Germany's Foreign Affairs Minister) or just generally around any dinner table where, given the time, would have been comprised 50% of foreign spies!

And finally, I did end up taking the kids' friend, Julien, up to Avoriaz for his dog-sledding outing. He was sooooo nervous as (according to him) he's always been a wimp. He went yadda, yadda, yadda the entire 60 km drive up to Avoriaz until in the end I just looked at him and said "you do realize I'm not listening to a word you're saying don't you"? He bought me lunch and I stood outside to watch them getting the dogs ready and filmed him as he set off (he did pretty darn well "for a wimp"). And he loved it so I'm so glad I made the effort!

Avoriaz

The intrepid Julien!

So hopefully things are starting to calm down a little here. This weekend was the start of the Venetian carnaval in Annecy but as I knew you wouldn't be able to get anywhere near Annecy right now, I'll just have to wait until they come back to La Roche again!

Aaarrgghh!

Bugger, bugger, bugger! Well now I've got that out of my system ... what a crappy couple of days I've had! And breath! I didn't end up going snow-shoeing with my neighbour the other day as she called to say she wasn't well (she suffers from migraines) so I ended up sitting on my backside doing bugger all! Shame on me though because getting out there shouldn't depend on having someone else to go with!

My electrician came again the other day (day 18 at this point) and I just left him to it as I had things to do. But bugger it wouldn't you know it when I came back he told me he had miscalculated one of my plug sockets and had not only gotten an electric shock when he plugged in my vacuum cleaner but had buggered up the vacuum also! At this point I just shook my head because heck, if I can't leave him alone for 15 minutes....!!! Actually he was okay but realized afterwards that that particular plug socket hadn't been secured yet! So now I've gotten an almost frazzled electrician and a definitely buggered up vacuum cleaner! (I have one on every floor so as not to have to lug the bloody things up and down stairs)! Anyway, he was profusely apologetic but as it was a cheapo I told him to forget it. So then I get on to looking for a replacement and found one at a local French store but he told me to wait a few minutes and check out the same vacuum cleaner on Amazon and lo and behold, the price dropped from €138 to €75 - the result of cookies, apparently! I was told to expect a delivery shortly but at the same time I was expecting a new French cheque book so I was a bit confused when the mail lady delivered a humongous parcel when I was only expecting my cheque book! Anyway, the electrical work is still ongoing but dare I hope that I can see a light at the end of the tunnel and it isn't a train coming the other way!

Then on Tuesday I ran down to drop stuff off at the recycling centre and when I went to drive off my bloody car wouldn't start! Zip, nada, zilch! One of the men working there very kindly came over and said he thought it might be my key fob and since the battery I had in my glove compartment wasn't the right size, he took the battery out of his own key fob to see if that worked. And that was when I realized I'd handed him the key fob that opens the door to the sewing clubroom!!! Oh man, did I ever feel stupid - but he was very patient with me and switched the battery into the car fob - but still it wouldn't work, so I had no choice but to call Thiery at the Ford garage! I'm guessing it wasn't a good time for him as they were flat out, but he came out and tried to work his magic on my car but still couldn't get it going. In the end he gave me their loaner car for me to drive back home to get my spare key but still we couldn't get the car going - even after jumping it! At this point I'm thinking "oh sod it" because my window was down and the car was seemingly going nowhere - well that was until Thiery tried one more thing - tightening up the bolts on the battery and bingo, it bloomin' well started. I could have (and did) kissed him I was so relieved but when I got outside the recycling centre I couldn't find my phone, so dashed back off to Ford to see if I had left it in the loaner car. Except said loaner car had just disappeared, having been lent to another client. Again, bugger it! I ended up being without my phone for 48 hours (until the client came back with the loaner car) and boy did it bring home to me just how dependent I (we?) am on the bloody thing. The biggest worry for me was that without the app on my phone I had no access to my Swiss salary account, and indeed my bank account in the UK, although that was less serious! In France I was still good, but not being able to access my pension in my Swiss account could have been really problematic. Then I realized I couldn't access my security cameras, and of course all my appointments were in my phone calendar - although here I was relieved because I also write everything in my paper calendar too. I mean the list just goes on and on of what could have been lost with that phone, although again, I do keep a separate paper list of all my important passwords! As I said to my neighbour, imagine breaking down somewhere and having no phone to call someone. Then imagine someone lends you a phone but can you remember any of your contacts' phone numbers anyway? The only number I could remember was my friend's landline because it's very similar to my own, but seriously, what a nightmare. I was so, so glad to eventually get it back that I dropped off a good bottle of red wine to the guy at the recycling centre and two for Thiery at Ford!!! And then when I got home, I tried to shut the door to the spare bedroom, and the bloody door handle came off in my hand!!!! Sod's law of course, but at that point I just thought "oh to hell with it, I'll sort that tomorrow"! And I did!

I'm still limping along listening to Traitor King but it's not doing it for me so much as I find Edward to be so self-centred and spoilt - but then to be fair, if you've been fawned over your entire life and told how wonderful you are simply because of the accident of your birth, well I suppose it's understandable really that he should have been such a navel-gazer! I want to finish it though because I'm really interested in what the historical consequences could have been if things had turned out differently! I remember reading one time that the powers that be thought they could have accommodated his marriage to Wallis Simpson despite her being a twice-divorced woman, but they were extremely worried about both their sympathies for Nazi Germany, and that apparently is where they had to put their foot down! Seemingly Edward believed that when Hitler won the war, he would be re-installed as the King, with Wallis by his side as Queen. Thankfully fate had other ideas!

Wallis and Edward meeting Hitler!

Yesterday I looked after Charlie as he doesn't have school on Wednesdays. He was as good as gold so after his nap we went to the park where he met three little girls and chased them around pretending to be a lion!!!! Thing is, I reckon he's having a growth spurt so he's growing taller but getting skinnier and the poor devil had to run around being a scary lion while holding his trousers up as they kept falling off his backside! After that we went for a walk and when I saw a bridge over a little stream I showed him how to play Pooh sticks - where you throw a stick over one side of the bridge and then dash over to the other side to see whose stick comes out first! He loved it - such a silly game but we ended up staying there for about 30 minutes. Mind you, I'm sure a couple of engineers further downstream were probably cussing out "those damn beavers" for blocking the stream again. Never mind - but thank you Winnie the Pooh all the same!

Playing Pooh sticks!

And finally last night Jen called to ask if I was doing anything tomorrow (well we're having our board game evening, that's all). She told me that Julien (her friend that comes to our board game evenings) had been given a birthday gift certificate for a sleigh ride up at Avoriaz tomorrow but his car was playing up and everyone else was either busy or not around to take him up there and what did I think? Now I hate driving on the snow but in the end thought "what the hell", so tomorrow I'm driving him up to Avoriaz for his birthday present and I'll get to wander around for a couple of hours while he's gone. Let's hope the good weather holds. Fingers crossed!

A man of many talents!

Well my electricity saga is ongoing - 16 days and counting to get the top two floors of my house re-wired etc. and then he will start on the ground floor next week. I'm really hoping it will all get done by next Friday, but if not, oh well. We can't be far off now! That being said, I was so happy the weather was good today that I took myself off for a walk through the local woods just to get some fresh air. It's supposed to be nice again tomorrow too so I was trying to decide where I should go - further afield - in order to be able to deal with the cabin fever next week! But then my neighbour sent me a message asking if I wanted to go out walking with her tomorrow so I jumped at the chance. She's the one who has lived here about 20 years but since her husband isn't interested in going out exploring she really has little idea what lovely walks there are out there. Just in case we're going to take our snow shoes with us - you know the ones we were desperate to get hold of during lockdown and which we've never used yet!!! We'll see how it goes tomorrow but I actually don't think we'll need them at this point! On my walk today I noticed yet again the house with what looks like loads of antennae all over the place. Probably five on the roof and a massive satellite dish (maybe five feet in diameter) in the front garden! I've often wondered what's up with all that equipment and assuming he's probably not a very indiscreet spy, I reckon E.T. will definitely be able to phone home from his place if he ever comes back to earth somewhere near here!

The other week after yoga class one of the ladies asked me if I would be interested in taking a trip to the Périgord region (south-western France) with their old fogies group in September. I don't have anything planned, what with all the expense of getting this place put right, but in the end I decided to go for it. I know this lady a little as she was on the trip to Corsica with us so I thought "what the hell" and headed off to St. Pierre on Tuesday to sign up. The lady president of the St. Pierre club asked me if I was interested in playing cards with them (there were about 80 people there playing when I showed up), but as we were chatting two older gentlemen came over to her bitching, apparently, that so-and-so wouldn't switch tables and "you know we're all supposed to move around after every game"! Ehhhh, no thanks, I'll pass. I had signed up a couple of years ago for card club in the village where my sewing club is but gave up in the end because it was around this time that Jordan and Jen needed baby-sitting help with Charlie so I dropped out. At our last annual meeting (where each club's financial statements are handed in) I learned that there was a lot of bickering going on in this card club too so the then lady president had resigned and someone else had taken over! Maybe card games bring out the worst in people, I don't know, but the average age seemed to be around 105 so I suppose if they're bitching at least it means they're still breathing! In any case, we'll see what this trip to the Périgord is like and if it's any good I might go on some of the various day trips with them too if they appeal!

Now that I've finished listening to the Ethel Kennedy book, I've switched over to listening to Cheere Denise reading the Andrew Lowney book, Traitor King, about Edward and Mrs. Simpson. It's obviously very very different to the Kennedy book but it could well prove interesting. What is amazing, however, are the similarities between them and Harry and Meghan - they really do seem to have been Harry and Meghan Mark I! Oh I don't mean in the sense that they both married very domineering American divorcées - that's the least of it - but in the apparent similarities between the two men's personalities and their relationships with their wives! Edward was raised never having to think for himself for even one minute. Every day someone decided what he would wear, what he would say, where he would go and so on, and he seems to have been a totally self-absorbed, selfish, entitled and mean man. After his abdication but before he and Wallis could get married (I'm guessing they were waiting for her divorce to come through) he was invited to stay with Kitty Rothschild and her husband in one of their homes. His days seemed to have been spent navel-gazing or shopping - and then having his bills forwarded to Kitty for them to pay!!!!! What is it with these fabulously wealthy people thinking other people are just dying to pay their way for them? On the day Kitty finally left because she'd had enough of him, he couldn't even be bothered to get out of bed to thank her and say goodbye!!! Good grief! What's even weirder is that Wallis Simpson didn't actually want to marry him. Oh he was good enough to have as one of her dalliances - another notch on the bedpost so to speak - but she apparently found him so incredibly boring and "soppy" she really, really did not want to marry him. The book states that the day after the wedding he smiled at her and said "so what do we do now?" and she later confided to Gore Vidal that it was at that moment she knew she was going to have take over where palace staff had left off and become his new mommy!!! Yikes! It's harder going than the Kennedy book but so far (I'm on chapter six) the parallels between them and H and M are amazing! The author actually chipped in in the comment section of chapter two to say that he very much appreciated the way Cheere Denise was presenting his book, so I'm looking forward to listening to the rest of it!

My friend came over the other day to ask if I wanted some apples as she'd over-ordered on her grocery delivery. She'd wanted four apples and ended up with 4 kg of apples (about 20 apples)! She told me that she hadn't been well as she'd strained a ligament in her left shoulder - she thinks lugging bags of firewood around - and ended up at the ER as she was in such pain. They decided to send her for a scan, but by the time the scan appointment came around the pain had greatly diminished so she cancelled it - only to end up in the same situation the following day but this time in her right shoulder. I told her for god's sake call me if she needs me to drive her somewhere but being stubborn (aren't we all) she'd managed on her own. Then I spotted my favourite neighbour trying to hump a 20 kg gas bottle (about 45 lbs) out of her car and into her kitchen, so I went running round to carry it with her before she did herself an injury too. We don't have mains gas here so use gas bottles if we want a gas hob - but changing those bottles is no joke as they are extremely heavy. Again I understand why people don't like to ask for help but ....! And bugger me but didn't my own gas bottle run out the next day, but at least I only have to lug it into the garage from the car so it's easier for me! I told them we should get a bigger place and have some kind of Golden Girls set up! It might not be such a bad idea, come to think of it!

I mentioned before that I've ordered so many different kinds of lightbulbs off Amazon these past couple of weeks that as he was leaving the other night my electrician picked up one of the duds that I was going to take to the recycling centre and asked me what reference this particular bulb was. I invented a reference off the top of my head and he started laughing. So he tried again, and again I got it wrong, and it ended with him patiently explaining to me that any bulb that started with reference letter E was a screw in bulb and the other numbers referred to the different dimensions. He told me he'd test me on it again next time, so as he was on his way out the door I asked him to name the six official languages of the United Nations without looking them up. So he closes the door and comes back in and of course he couldn't do it! As of right now we're one all!

Then yesterday after he'd spent a good 30 minutes on his hands and knees pulling cable through a very low crawl space I told him to give it a break and offered him a cup of coffee. As we were sitting there he commented on my X-box but I said I couldn't use it because last time I turned it on it needed to update settings and I couldn't figure it out! So he told me it was pretty easy and he would do it for me. After about 10 minutes he'd got it up and running and as I told him the only thing I ever played was the tennis he had me standing in front of the camera so that it could adjust itself, then told me to put my right arm up (I'm going to serve you see) and throw the "ball" up in the air with my left arm. While we're doing this I didn't hear my neighbour come round and she was half way up the stairs listening to us roaring laughing and must have wondered what on earth I was paying my electrician to do all day! It genuinely was just a 10 minute thing while he took a break, but I'm sure she now thinks I have money to burn paying an electrician by the hour to play X-box with me! Oh just think of the gossip!

It's been a hard day's night (and day and night and day and night and ...)!

Once again I've been offline for a while and am now trying to catch up with my blog reading after an exhausting week or so, but more on that later. I see that Sky News UK is officially finished - well not so much finished, but their viewing figures were dropping so badly that I think one thought was to make it now "pay to view" (if you'll forgive the expression)! I wonder which bright spark had that idea, I mean, if you can no longer entice viewers for free because of your biased "reporting" what makes you think people are now going to pay to watch your biased reporting??? Seems they're all going for each other's throats at the moment and while I think it's a shame because at one time they were a good news channel, given what they devolved into, I won't miss them at all!

In other news I see quite a few of the UK's large supermarkets are now going to be doing away with most, if not all, of their self-service cash registers due to the large amount of theft. Again, good news if it helps keep actual humans in work!

I finally finished listening to Cheere Denise' abridged readings of the book, The Other Mrs. Kennedy, and oh my goodness was that book ever a surprise! I was very young at the height of the "Camelot" era and always took Ethel to be the mousey little side-kick to the supposedly very glamorous Jackie (though I never saw it myself) but what a wild ride that book was! I tend to agree with Cheere Denise in that she thought Ethel had some kind of mental illness - and a breakdown would certainly have been understandable after Bobby's death - but she seemed to have been batshit crazy waaaayyyy before that! Her own mother banged out seven (I think) kids and then more or less dumped them on any paid help she could find in order to go off travelling with her newly-wealthy husband and spend his money. It seems to me that Ethel - never having had a better role model - did exactly the same! Oh she was bound and determined that she was going to have more children than Rose Kennedy (hence the 11 kids) but from the way the story is told, she had no particular interest in raising them after they were born. The house was total chaos, the kids were pretty much feral and they had numerous pets (including a pig) that were kept indoors and crapped all over the place. Eventually they had to start advertising for hired help anonymously because if they put the Kennedy name in there nobody would apply. One chef lasted just 12 hours, she punched and slapped the staff and had the most weird "sense of humour" where she would push her guests fully-clothed into the swimming pool or pour a glass of red wine over Andy Williams' head because it was "funny". She even rode her horse into Teddy Kennedy's brand new house, absolutely ruining the floor, and roared laughing at how hysterical it was - Teddy didn't agree! She seemed to have an intense dislike of Bobby Jr. and David in particular and physically chased them out of the house to fend for themselves as teenagers. David eventually died of a drug overdose and in a magazine interview (can't remember which one now) he described their family life as looking all picture perfect from the outside but chaos and bedlam on the inside, keeping his worst vitriol for his mother, Ethel. When she died Bobby Jr.'s "tribute" was far more restrained and not vitriolic, but if one of my kids ever delivered a eulogy like that about me, I think I'd be glad I was dead in order not to have to hear it! Honestly I think if you tried to sell her life to make as a film you would probably get turned down because it would just be seen as too ridiculous. It would appear, however, that some people actually do live lives that are beyond belief!

Aaaannnnd on to the main reason for my absence - welll the electrician has been here for about 12 days so far and thinks he might be able to get it all finished by the end of next week - although I'm not so sure. Every time I hear him say oh bon dieu I realize he's discovered yet another nightmare. The original fire was caused by the previous owner's handiwork in not putting an earthed plug socket in the top bedroom. Then we had an internal balcony knocked out and a false ceiling with spotlights installed. Turns out these light bulbs were on transformers, which were overheating gradually, and nestled into the insulation! That crap could have gone up at any time - we were just lucky it didn't. He was telling me that as an electrician you try to keep all your wiring in any particular room in one central place (apologies to any electricians out there but I can't remember what he called it), but the wiring in my house is all over the place so he's had to have his camera up in the ceiling of every room trying to locate where each block of wiring starts. Then he told me that all of my light bulbs were way too powerful - they were around 40W when they should be LED lights up to a maximum of 5W so Amazon have been having a field day with my credit card as I've been ordering lightbulbs galore for the past week. It should make a significant difference to my electric bill by the time I get them all changed but I now feel like they can probably also see my house from outer space - along with the Great Wall of China!

I was expecting a delivery on Friday and then received a text message from the driver to say that I had missed my delivery spot and to follow this link to either arrange another delivery to my home for €3 or pick up at a drop off point for €2 the next day. So I followed the link on my phone but I can't be doing with all that diddy text so typed the link into my computer - and it didn't seem to exist. And then I took another look at the order number and something made me go back into my Amazon account to check it and lo and behold it had nothing to do with my genuine order. I'm so so glad I didn't get any further on my phone because right that very moment the real Amazon driver rang my doorbell and there was my parcel!!!

This electrician is a really nice young man and usually if I'm cooking something I always offer workmen to eat with me, but with my electric being all over the place I wasn't exactly cooking up a storm so every day I ran into town and picked up sandwiches and pastries for both of us. He told me no-one had ever done that for him before, so I just laughed and told him I should introduce him to my Kosovan tiler as he'd soon put him straight. Then on Friday he showed up a bit late but walked in the door with croissants for both of us for breakfast and sandwiches and pastries for lunch! How nice is that!!!! He is up and down the stairs like a bride's nightie and as a result I have to admit he has the most gorgeous bum! Huh, and I thought all of that was dead in me but apparently not, on occasion!!!! He works extremely hard and while I'll eventually be glad to see the back of him, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend him to anyone that asks!

On Friday Charlie had his first "skiing lesson" (think walking on skis) which he absolutely adored but he sure was knocked out on the way home. I'm delighted because I loved sports as a kid and starting skiing at three is right up my alley!

And finally, I was so glad to have the weekend to myself before the "home improvements" start up again on Monday that I decided to get out to Passy for a walk at the lake. It was glorious as always and I was just sitting in my car having a cup of tea and enjoying the peace and calm, when all of a sudden some eejit with a ghettoblaster came roaring up on his bike like a displaced Rasta. Two older men threw their hands up in the air as he cycled past and then all of a sudden he stopped right in front of me, got off his bike and went striding up to them! I thought oh bloody hell what do I do here - do I film it if there's an altercation or get in the middle of it (like he'd be afraid of me, right), when he ran over to the men, kissed them on both cheeks and shook their hands! Phew thank God for that as I don't think my Bruce Lee impersonation would have impressed anyone!

So it's onwards and upwards again from tomorrow and I hope the electrics get finished by the end of next week. What with the electrician, the decorator, the new plumber (to finish the bathroom that the other guy didn't finish) and the tiler, I'm looking at a pretty steep hit to my bank account. I had the money but I don't think there'll be any long haul travel for me for a while!