This and that!

Yet again it's been a while since I posted, but since the temperatures went soaring back up again (35-36°C - 95-96°F) I've been flaked out on the sofa for the most part, so much so that I'm pretty sure my Fitbit thinks I'm dead! I finally bought myself a proper pair of garden shears so that when I occasionally managed to slide my melted self off the sunbed I actually got quite a bit done in the garden, but early in the morning or late at night of course. Other than that I've been lazing around reading and pulling out a few of my favourite cookbooks (Claudia Roden's "Arabesque" is in favour at the moment) or listening to the newly-released Andrew Lownie book Entitled on Audible. I like his books so when I saw that he was bringing out this latest book on the rise and fall of Andrew and Fergie I knew I wanted to get it. When I looked for it on Amazon it hadn't yet come out in print but was available on Kindle for almost €30 - which I thought was expensive for Kindle, but since I'm pretty sure it's going to be a best-seller I'm not surprised. But then I saw that it was available on Audible for free (ie just one credit) so that's how I'm listening to it right now. It starts off pretty tame with everyone seeming to agree that Prince Andrew has always been a spoilt, entitled brat with Fergie being seen as a "breath of fresh air" (but immediately turning into the female version of Andrew upon marriage), so I sense it's going to get juicier from here on in! Cheere Denise, who is the young woman on Youtube who I have enjoyed listening to read books, has stated that she's probably no longer going to read books, but rather concentrate on celebrity gossip, so that kinda buggers it up for me listening to it through her. I'm disappointed as she introduced me to interestingg books that I never would have thought about reading otherwise. Actually I'm almost finished listening to her read the Margaret Trudeau autobiography (another entitled wild child/brat) so after that there doesn't seem to be much else for me in her repertoire - shame!

I had a dental appointment in Geneva yesterday and boy am I no longer used to the noise. It's lovely to see everyone sitting out on the terraces of course, but I now wonder how I ever put up with that kind of noise level. As I got there so early I had time to sit and have a coffee and while I was sitting there four young girls came in and asked if they had any cheap candy as they'd found five cents on the floor (five cents worth of candy between four kids???) and the lady laughed and told them no. So I thought what the hell, went up to them and rather gratefully emptied my change purse for them to get what they could with that. I guess there must have been about €6 in it and they were so grateful you'd think I'd given them the earth (but in reality I'd been delighted to get rid of all that clunky change), so we were all happy in the end!

La Roche had its annual Blue Grass festival over four days last week and while I was at one of the sessions I spotted a wallet on the floor. It contained the man's driving licence, health insurance card and bank card as far as I could see, but no money, so I took it to reception and I'm pretty sure he was one very relieved gent if/when he went to reception to enquire after it!

The never-ending saga of my solar panels kept dragging on because EDF (the French electric company I'm contracted to sell my excess electricity production to) sent me an email to say it was time for me to "bill them" for the period June 24/June 25 but when I went in to do it the site indicated that I had to bill them for June 23/June 24 first. The only problem was, my energy production was zero because the bloody things hadn't been hooked up due to a screw up on the vendors part so I couldn't figure out how to bill them for zero. In frustration I managed to find a phone number and explained my predicament to a very helpful young man who was obviously used to dealing with this kind of problem (although surely he shouldn't be!!!!) and he gave me figures to input in order to invoice the zero production. So I sent off the first year and the second year's production and blow me but I got back €1,900!!! You see, while my production had been zero, there was a rebate from EDF in the amount of €1,530 for all new solar panels - the rest was made up of recent electricity output! Good job I persevered then! I reckon the vendors' screw up cost me about €1,000 because it would seem that my excess production is, at the moment, in the region of €50 per month. I am wondering though, what it might be once my new annual bill comes in after my lovely electrician had me switch all my antiquated lightbulbs to LED - I reckon I'll find out in October, but man was it like pulling teeth!

My ex-MIL sadly died two weeks ago and while it wasn't unexpected given her age and state of health, I was sad as I was pretty fond of her and used to enjoy our occasional chats. I sent flowers from this end (and apparently planted a tree in North Carolina too, although I have no recollection of clicking on that button!) as neither of the kids could go in such a short turnaround time! Ex's sister looks after her two very young grandchildren and will be helping with a third (due any day now, if it isn't already here). His brother is handicapped so I can kinda see ex having to empty that house pretty much on his own - which I reckon is his karma for buggering off and leaving me to empty his rented farmhouse in 2015 with everything left as is when he walked out the door - I mean, wet washing in the machine and stale coffee in the coffee pot! As far as I know he arrived here today and will be staying with André in any case as Jordan and Jen are away on the west coast of France. I don't understand his logic (never did, to be honest) because he's flying here for 10 days, then back to Pittsburgh for three days, and then flying back out to Genoa with the gf to spend a week in Italy. Genoa is about three hours from here by train so I asked why he didn't go direct to Genoa from here and wait for her there. But hey why not pay for two transatlantic flights three days apart - that might be why he's always broke! Either way, I know he'll be glad to see the kids (and meet Elynn) and the boys will be happy to see him - but if I were a betting person I'd put money on it that they all have a major blow up within the week. Watch this space!

Jordan and Jen and a couple of friends have just spent a week on the west coast of France and have had a wonderful time. I saw on Youtube that French resorts are really struggling this year, in part because people either don't have money to go away or if they do they're going to Spain or Portugal where it's cheaper. Can you imagine paying €10 for a coke or €5.5 for a coffee? No me neither, and then they wonder why the restaurants are half empty. On the positive side, the beach where they were was also pretty empty, the site where they were staying was great and the kiddies' club (for Charlie to have swimming lessons) was a dream. They also went to an acquarium and off for a visit to the salt flats where the kids could help rake in the salt (makes it sound like child labour at the salt mines, doesn't it). 

See how empty the beach is!

They stopped off at their friend's dad's place on the way back and just sent me these wonderful pictures!

This is apparently the entrance to the "cathedral
of la Saulaie - a trogolodyte in the
Loire Valley" ...

... and the restaurant
where they had lunch! Wow!

I'm soooo impressed!

I've been toying with the idea of maybe - just maybe - signing up for a trip to India in the spring, but now I'm starting to think "why not just stay here, there's so much to see"! The jury's out as yet!

Better stick to paper cups!

Temperatures dropped quite dramatically last week and are really not normal for July right now but I don't mind that one bit - I start to feel alive again! I don't doubt they'll start soaring again soon but for the moment I'm enjoying the break. Things with my favourite neighbour are still fraught and apart from the emotional turmoil she is pretty much on her knees with fatigue as she will find out this week if her buyers have been accepted for their loan - if so, then it's all systems go. Her daughter is helping her as much as she can and she really has done an amazing job already of getting rid of so much stuff but ....! They say the three most stressful things you can go through are the death of a spouse, divorce and moving so I can only begin to imagine how much she she has had on her plate. She asked me round for coffee again the other day (to talk obviously) and I could see that she was waivering so just said "you've made your bed for the time being and if you don't give it a shot you'll never know, will you (about moving back to her home town) but if you find out for whatever reason that it isn't working out, you know you can always come back - don't hesitate to do so out of pride or embarassment because nobody will care"! I think as it's coming down to the wire it's hitting her and while neither of her children want her to go, as I said, if she doesn't go for it now, she'll never know and probably regret not giving it a shot! Mind you, seeing what she's going through trying to empty what was a very orderly, well-kept house is spurring me on to get rid of more and more stuff. At the moment I'm dragging pieces of wood up from the basement to take to the tip (hopefully someone can find a use for them) and while it's hard work physically, everything that goes out of this house makes the air feel just a tad more breathable!

Thankfully I'm also finding out that I'm spending less time on Youtube going down rabbit holes. Oh I still enjoy some of it but I'm absolutely sick of AI and the "startled" AI generated memes some creators are using or the AI generated voiceovers. I find it really irritating and while I'm sure AI has many positive uses I'm not so sure it won't make things much more negative in the long run!

The other day I was awoken at 6 am by a text message from my ex-husband simply saying "what's your email"? No "hi, how are you doing, how are the kids, and/or sorry for waking you up at 6 am", just "what's your email". My first reaction was annoyance because next month we would have been married 40 years and I have always had the same email address. He obviously also has my telephone number (since that's where he sent the text message to), can access me through Facebook or through my kids, so yeah buddy, you have my email address already so look the damn thing up yourself as I no longer "wife" for you! I didn't say any of that, of course, because I know damn well if he contacts me it's only some chaos or other he will be stirring up so I just ignored it. I happened to mention it to Jen when I was watching Charlie the other day and she told me words to the effect that he said he was regretting moving back to the US and, more importantly, was missing out on the grandchildren!!! I don't know if that means he wants to move back here but while he could pretty easily do so, he would have to reapply for residency. He'd definitely meet the financial requirements but since this idiot cancelled his wonderful post-retirement medical insurance with his employer he is now under his gf's medical, so he'd have to look for something separately. They already tried to get her into France when they first got together but were refused so if he did want to come back I'm assuming it would be on his own! Cue the intrigue. Of course I may be reading waaayyyy too much into a simple text message but I can/could read this guy like a book so I'll be curious to see what's going on when he comes out here next month!

Talking of looking after Charlie, as is now our custom we went to the park and then went to a café for a drink before going to pick Elynn up from daycare. So he's sitting there telling me that when you drink from a glass you have to be sooooo careful not to break it because you can get hurt. I told him that was very true, but then he goes "and then the policeman will come and put you in jail"! Huh???? I told him that wasn't true but he insisted it was. And then if you managed to escape they would throw you into the lava from a volcano! Huh???? And then if you escaped from that you'd have to run to the ocean and try to swim away, but the nasty shark would start chasing you. So I asked him if there were no kindly dragons who could save you (we're into kindly dragons at the moment) and he said "nope, they're all asleep"! That was when the guy at the next table cracked up laughing, saying he'd got quite the imagination hadn't he. The moral of the story, therefore, would seem to be only buy paper cups from now on!

Anyhoo, back to the plot. Yesterday I went on our old fogies day trip to the Col de la Forclaz. I wasn't sure if I'd been there before (turns out I hadn't) but I can't believe such a lovely spot is only about 90 minutes from home and I'd "missed it" all these years! Our first stop was at the Ecomuseum of Wood and Forestry and we spent about 90 minutes being entertained by a very well-informed young man who knew his stuff inside out. There was us (a bus load of oldies) and a group of littles, about Charlie's age, so the noise level was pretty much off the scale. He explained to us that this particular valley had once been very lush (still is as far as I'm concerned) but deforestation had taken its toll, so as early as 1898 steps had been taken to protect it. He showed us how they bought timber down from the mountains over the ages and how it had been possible to do so much with just the use of a watermill, before the advent of electricty. As I say, it really was pretty interesting!

After that we headed up to the Col de la Forclaz for lunch and while the road up was very pretty, it did remind of that heart-stopping drive in the Gorges de Piana in Corsica. As the bus could only take us so far, we had to walk the last 15 minutes up a very steep hill to get to the restaurant. As probably the youngest on the bus, I was praying I wouldn't be on my hands and knees regurgitating a lung while all the others hopped up there like mountain goats, but that never happened. Some people walked slowly with canes but still they made it. Many of the people on the bus I now recognize but since I don't know their names I've given them names in my mind like "the lady from the Benite", "the lady from Intermarché cheese counter", "the man whose teeth don't fit", but the most impressive one has to be the 90 year old lady who was sitting behind me on the way up. I was listening to her and her 79 year old companion talking about "the good old days" and how much they appreciated everything while having pretty much nothing. It was lovely to listen (eavesdrop?) to them talking about how they wore wooden sabots/clogs, made their own butter, used to use communal ovens etc. and then, as we were almost there, she spotted paragliders close to our bus and told the other lady that her granddaughters had offered her a jump as a gift and she'd actually done a tandem jump for her 80th birthday!!! Wow, so she naturally became "Madame Intrepid" (and I want to be her when I grow up)!

Lunch was a reblochonade, which is basically a local reblochon cheese cooked in a brasier (not a brassière for those of you with warped minds), poured over boiled potatoes along with salad and a charcuterie board. As a side note, charcuterie in French refers only to cut meats and if someone volunteered to bring charcuterie to a pot luck they would bring nothing but meat - no veggies or dip. The staff were great, kept coming round to see if we wanted more of anything and I think we were all so very, very impressed with the whole set up. I'm wondering if I might invite everyone up there for Elynn's birthday (on 21st August) and André's birthday on 30th August. I'll have to see how available everyone is at any given date!

Reblochonade!

The only down side was that it was very hot and very loud, but if that's all you have to complain about life isn't too bad at all, is it. The owner came round several times to see if everything was okay and when we were ready to leave he pulled his minibus out and offered to take those with walking difficulties back down to the bus. I walked back down with my 85 year old neighbour on the bus and when he apologized for slowing me down I just laughed and told him this was my natural speed and not to worry!

Lake Annecy!

As we walked down we passed a "more relaxed" little place next to the gift shops and quite honestly I like these places just as much as the bigger, fancier restaurants!

Burger bar!

Drinks bar (when it's open)!

When we got back to the bus our driver asked if we had had time for a digestif and suggested that he bring round his homemade hooch for anyone that wanted to try it. They all do this, and really you only get a thimblefull of firewater (the driver obviously doesn't partake) but it's a nice touch and is a way of saying thank you for the generous hat that is passed around on the way back!

From there he dropped us in Annecy for a couple of hours but since I'm pretty sure everyone on the bus had been to Annecy hundreds of times, most of us walked through the park and sat and had a drink on the lake's edge.

I took this picture not because I'm a creep that likes to hang around kiddies' play areas, but because this is the park where that monster stabbed three babies (and two adults) about three years ago. Thankfully everyone survived but I hope he is rotting in hell in a French prison and will do so for a very, very long time! I ended up having a drink at the local pétanque club where it was nice to watch the games that were taking place. Jordan is trying to teach Charlie but as you might imagine, Charlie just wants to see how far he can throw the ball. Hopefully he will pick it up sooner rather than later because the French take pétanque very, very seriously!

Cooler now!

The horrendously hot weather finally broke last week and we, unusually, are getting temperatures around 25°C (77°F), so just perfect! The cooler weather allows me to get so much more done around here including the "irritating stuff"! When the electrician was here he commented how useless my downstairs vacuum was so I bought a new one for downstairs and then a second for the first floor. The first floor vacuum is working just fine but about two weeks ago I was finding that the ground floor one just wouldn't pick anything up! I was really pissed off as it is less than six months old so I just shoved it into a corner of the garage until I could summon up the energy to tear the bloody thing apart. When I finally did I found that one end of the hose was as near as dammit totally blocked with hard core trash and nothing was getting through to the actual bag! I'm guessing some of that was stuff I'd hoovered up following both the electrician and the plumber's visits but I never expected to find anything so rock solid blocking it. Still, at least it's now sorted. Actually I find that when things malfunction on me (like the AC unit that was shredding wasps) if I leave it until I'm in a better mood, I inevitably end up getting it sorted without throwing a tantrum!

Then to add to my woes, my security system started malfunctioning. I would often get a notification to say that there was a "suspicious vibration" which made me think that their sensors were becoming overly sensitive to any slamming doors, but then I was finding that I couldn't set the alarm via my keyfob so had to go into the app on my phone and do it from there. So I left it and left it until one day I read a message indicating a "sabotage" on access point X. Now I knew darn well that nobody had tried to get in the house but in any case I went round all the downstairs windows/doors and checked the sensors and wouldn't you know it one of them seemed to have moved just a little bit, and was thus preventing my keyfob from working! Thankfully it's all now up and running but don't the little things get you down - or maybe it's just the straw that breaks the camel's back! (As a useless aside, in French that would be "the drop that made the vase overflow")!

Jordan came over the other day as I had offered to give them the AC unit I had on my upper floor and a huge parasol that I had in the basement, which their apartment block can use with the picnic table they've bought for the little park area outside their building. I then asked him to take a look at the enormous wood supply I had down there (not firewood, just old pieces of wood that my ex had stored for "one day when") and he said he might be interested in some of the larger pieces but the rest I could get rid of. So bit by bit I've lugged upstairs an old stereo and music system of my ex's that got dumped in my basement and am now starting hauling the wood too, but I may have to give that a rest for a few days as my elbows are starting to hurt, what with lugging all this heavy stuff up a flight of stairs and then off to the tip!

The other day I got a call from André who had had to take his car to the garage as there seemed to be a problem with the turbo. He's had to leave it for a few days and needed a lift home so off I trotted to pick him up. He was telling me that while much of his organization's budget comes from government contributions, they also have large projects funded by individual grants. Apparently his unit has just received a huge grant for a specific project so his boss told him that he has put him on a post funded by that grant in order to ensure he's on a securely funded post (as much as anything can be secure at the moment) - so that's a bit of good news, at least!

There's been a big hooha in the UK regarding the upcoming film version of Raynor Winn's The Salt Path with information coming out that calls into question much of what she wrote about the reasons behind their losing their home and embarking on the grueling journey along the southern coastal path, and the claims that her husband is/was suffering from a terminal illness! I read the book because everyone was raving about it, but to be honest I got fed up of it after a while. Oh she writes beautifully but I just found it too much "this day it poured and we were soaked, and that day was scorching and we burned", so no, the book didn't do it for me at all. I'm assuming the film will be a success, even though I suspect we haven't heard the last of the revelations (true or otherwise) about the veracity of their story!

When I was over at Jordan and Jen's the other day, Jordan showed me an article where several local Italian restaurants had been raided in connection with money laundering linked to the Calabrese mafia! We used to go to one of those restaurants pretty often as we were quite friendly with the owners. Thankfully they sold up about 20 years ago and are not (I hope) linked to this in any way. Apparently what tipped investigators off was the high turnover of staff, most of whom couldn't speak anything other than Italian!

Then the other day there was a knock at my door and my favourite neighbour just stood there unable to speak. I told her to come in and sit down and she just burst into tears. The sale of her house was signed last week although a moving date has yet to be agreed, so she's in the middle of getting rid of as much as she can and packing up whatever she plans to take with her. She said that the fatigue was getting to her and she found herself ruminating on what the hell she had ever done to deserve being treated so badly by her late husband, with him trying to write her out of her share of the house and block her from receiving a widow's pension (he was unsuccessful in both but managed to screw her over in other ways)! She knew he started cheating on her within two years of their marriage (if not before) and managed to get a job transfer to another area in order to get away from him quite early in their marraige, but he got wind of it and arranged a transfer for himself too and subsequently, over their 50+ year marriage, she had her spirit broken. She said if he hated her that much he could easily have divorced her early on (makes me wonder why his first marriage ended so quickly) but I told her that in my opinion sometimes men like that want all the convenience of having a "wife appliance" at home, the legitimacy of being a "family man" and hey, who was gonna cook his meals and scrub his skivvies if he divorced her. I can't help but think that men (or women) who behave like that have to make "you" into the baddie in order to justify in their own minds their appalling treatment of you! After about an hour she said she felt better and that she was going to go to bed, but I just hate to see her so bruised and battered having, as she said, wasted 50 years of her life on that arsehole!

Last week I drove down to Passy again, but this time not to the lake but to the large outdoor/mountain store as I wanted to get a few things for my walking trips. They have a cafeteria and a restaurant there so I decided to treat myself to lunch in the restaurant and boy was it good. The starter was a mixed melon, olive and feta cheese salad followed by really tender chicken on a bed of bulgur wheat (I didn't bother with dessert). It was so good that I decided I wanted to try and duplicate it myself but haven't gotten around to it just yet. Then this afternoon I decided to pull out a very old Good Food Guide magazine (I must have about 20 years worth) and flick through it while sitting in the garden and low and behold they had the almost identical recipe in a magazine going back to 2016, so I'll definitely be giving this a try now!

Good Food Guide, January 2016

While I was there I noticed that there were quite a few workmen having lunch too, so decided to mention it to Jordan in case he's ever working in the vicinity. Because they move around between different work sites, his employer has a contract with many local restaurants where the employees can spend up to €20 per meal "on the house" and the bill is submitted directly to the employer. The set menu I had was €19 so if they aren't already, it would be a good idea to have this place set up a contract with his employer. Another thing the employer does is put €30 per month onto a kind of credit card for each employee and credits an annual or bi-annual bonus onto it where they can get all kinds of discounts on local attractions, on household goods, or employing a cleaning lady, for example - or use it for pretty much whatever they want. Jordan currently has €800 on his card so they will be using that when they go on holiday in August. It's a pretty nice set up (and fairly common in France) so at least they won't have to worry about spending money when they go away!

And finally, today is Bastille Day (French national day) so yesterday Jen's mom invited us all down to her place to watch the local fireworks. Most people celebrate on 13th because 14th is a holiday and while it poured rain in the morning, the rest of the day was hot and dry. For such a small town the fireworks were very good. We all took a dish and drinks and I made two different vegetarian dishes as one of our crowd is vegetarian. I'm in the mood to cook at the moment and having pulled out that foodie magazine, I'm thinking it might be fun to pick a couple of recipes from each magazine and try to replicate them, in order to expand my reptertoire, as it were. At the moment I'm all gung ho, but we'll see how long that lasts, I suppose! Still, you never know if you don't try, right?

Lazy!

Boy have I gotten lazy this past week! I put a lot of it down to the heat but something's gotta give as I don't feel I can/should sit on my sofa for much longer when there's so much that needs doing! I have wasted a lot of time these past few months going down Youtube rabbit holes but hopefully that's going to ease up because in all honesty there's only so many times you can watch the same stuff over and over again, isn't there. Mind you, talking of Youtube, the channel I mentioned not so long ago as a new-to-me channel that I was enjoying (Rewilding Jude) has recently been nominated in one of the "best newcomers" categories in the UK, so I hopped on over to the site and added my vote. He started his channel about nine months ago and has amassed almost 100,000 subscribers already and a few sponsors, so I'm glad to see things are positive for him after a rough few years and wish him and his channel well!

While I haven't done much walking lately due to the heat, I have started listening to Cheere Denise reading Margaret Trudeau's autobiography, Changing My Mind! I'm not very far into it but already you can see what a "wild child" she was, even from a very young age. I'm just at the point where she and Pierre are about to get married and while I understand many people had no time for either of them, her book, so far, is refreshingly blunt!

It was so hot the other day that I decided to turn my stand-alone AC unit on for a couple of hours in order to cool my bedroom down, but when I went into the bedroom I realized that something (most likely "mason wasps") had made a nest inside the unit as far as I could tell, and turning it on blasted shredded wasp appendages all over the floor, so I've had to take it to pieces and clean the crap out of it!!! How come nothing comes easy when it's almost 100°???

Then just the other day I was checking out my niece's prom photos on FB when I happened to glance over at my contacts in FB Messenger and spotted "Je m'appelle Katie" in amongst them. Huh? I have no idea who that might be so I clicked on the name and it took me to a suspicious looking page so I quickly went in and blocked "them"! Usually when this happens, if I click on the name I find out that "Katie" has 120 "friends" all based in Nigeria but seemingly not this time. Within about 10 minutes, however, there was another "unknown contact" showing up so I blocked that one too and logged off. So far they haven't come back but I guess that is how they take over your FB page and start sending desperate messages to family and friends about how you're trapped in Africa and just need a few $$$$ to get home safely! My niece and her friends looked lovely in their prom dresses but it's something new to me as we didn't have that kind of thing when I was at school. I remember walking out of school on my last day and going "thank God for that", while my brother dumped his satchel full of books in the River Cole and never looked back. Different times I guess!

Whenever I leave home I always take a water bottle with me, especially in this heat, and the other day when I got home I happened to notice a little hedgehog hiding under the honeysuckle bush by my garage door, so I emptied my water bottle into a plastic dish and left it out for him. Later that evening I heard a noise outside so I turned on my security cameras and there he has was having a good ol' swim in half an inch of water. Cute huh! I've no idea what other creatures are helping themselves but the water is pretty much gone by the next morning, although the birds who have nested in the roof beams seem to have cottoned on and I now get to sweep bird poop up every morning when I open up!

I also got fed up of my sloth mindset the other day and decided to make all the routine doctor's appointments that are shortly coming due. I had an eye exam on Wednesday (no change) and was very impressed with how efficient their whole set up was. Right next door is an optician's so I stopped in there with my new prescription and within 10 minutes had walked out having ordered two new pairs of glasses. Then when I got home I submitted the bills to my medical insurance provider and within about an hour I'd been reimbursed. Again, I can't knock them for efficiency!

On Saturday I went to the end-of-year kermesse (fair?) at Charlie's school where we'd signed up for their couscous dish to support the school's fundraiser. While I know couscous is the actual grain, in France if you order "couscous" you get a particular kind of north African dish which is really delicious. The one we got wasn't so great but then it was all for a good cause!

Couscous!

There was what I believe was a Moroccan wedding at the Mairie next door and when the bride and groom came out the women did the "youyou", which is "an expression of joy" - and very nice they looked too!

It was scorching hot so we decided to sit on the grass in the shade to eat. Luckily I'd thought to pack a few water pistols and while André and Charlie probably had the most fun, by the time I'd passed them out to the non-grownups, there were quite a few soaking wet kids and parents!

The next day we all decided to meet up at the swimming pool in Bonneville and while the car park was packed there was plenty of room outside under the trees for everyone. They had one of those attractions where a huge bucket slowly fills up with water and when it reaches tipping point, over it goes and everyone gets soaked. Charlie yelled at me to run, but when it went over he and Jordan were standing in exactly the wrong spot and they were the ones that got drenched! It was such a hot day, though, that I think everyone was glad to get drenched just to get some relief!

And finally, when I was in town yesterday I spotted a new-to-me place that apparently takes in ironing and organizes home cleaners. I never minded ironing even when we were a full house and if you walked into my place you wouldn't scream in horror at the state of it, but I must admit I'm very tempted to possibly lay out a couple of hundred euros to have a team come in and clean my place for five hours! At €38/hour that sounds like a deal to me - you know, something you might do a couple of times a year! Then again, maybe the heat is just making me lazy but the idea is brewing in my pea brain so we'll see if it takes off!

Nothing much going on!

It's hot and I'm miserable (so what's new). So far it's only hitting around the low 30°C but it's on it's way up and I can feel the slump coming on. In summer it usually tops at around 36°C (around 96°F) but I have, on very rare occasions, seen it hit 40°C! The big difference over here is that most people in France don't have AC. Oh some put a window AC in their bedrooms but throughout the house - nope! I usually make do with a very small AC fan on the table near where I sit and tonight I've put the bigger stand-alone AC unit on in the bedroom. Other than that, I usually get by with 2-3 cold showers a day, but I have to admit it can quickly sink me into a bad, depressed mood so today I knew I had to do something about it!

Just to make my day, this morning the guy I call "Pushy Roof Guy" hammered at the door looking to pressure me into getting work done. I think he's a traveller as he always seems to come around this time of year but unlike many "door-to-door salesmen" (con artists) he actually does a good job and quite a few people in our neighbourhood use his services as it seems there is nothing he can't do. Problem is, I always seem to end up owing him at least €1,000 for work he does, so I told him not this year as I'd been hammered by all the work I'd had to get done after the fire (didn't mention that some of it was for the bathrooms) but he really, really is very persistent (read "pain in the arse"). This time, however, I stood my ground even though he was offering me a "special deal" and we could "work out a payment plan"! I'd just ordered heating fuel and then the service engineers came to service my heating system and I'm heamorraghing money at the moment, so nope, no thanks this year Mr. Pushy! 

Talking of being a money sieve at the moment, I also just had a renewal notice from Bill Gates who is now going to increase my Microsoft plan from €69 last year to €99 as from July! While I still have time to cancel it (like I did with Norton), does anyone know if cancelling it takes Microsoft off my computer completely, or would I just be stuck with the non-latest update?

Back to talking about trades, my electrician sent me a message last week to ask what I thought of the plumber he had recommended. I told him I was very pleased indeed and sent him pictures so he asked if he could stop by for coffee if he's ever in the area!!! Sure, "come up and see my plumbing" certainly has a different ring to it than "come over and see my etchings"!

In more ongoing bad news, the local lady that went missing almost four weeks ago now has still not been found, despite repeated searches and pleas for assistance. One of the ladies at sewing club mentioned that in amongst her volunteer work she often invited "social cases" into her home so I believe that is one of the theories that police are following up on. How sad if her generosity of spirit ends up getting her killed!

In slightly better news, the organization where André works is laying off as many as 1,000 people worldwide so he has been on a bit of a nail-biting ride. I told him initially they would offer separation packages to those close to retirement, to be followed by anyone not at retirement age but who wanted to leave anyway. After that it's been the temps that have been cut, which is always very sad because even though they may be on temporary contracts, many of them have been there for years. I told André not to worry too much because if you compared him to someone like me, say, who were basically doing the same job but I was much older and had way more experience so obviously was a higher grade, well who do you think was costing the organzation the most - me or him? With me they not only had the higher salary payments, medical insurance subsidies for me and the two boys (my ex had his own insurance), pension scheme contributions, home leave back to the UK (in my case) every two years for the whole family and education grant allowance for both my kids, so who did he think they would want to get rid of first - me or him? I think it reassured him and in any case if he were to be let go he would leave with quite a large sum of money by the time they'd paid him out his pension fund contributions etc. Still, he'd then be one of many chasing after scarce few jobs wouldn't he. My neighbour worked at a big bio-chemical company in Geneva that closed down a few years ago and 1,300 people were then chasing after those even scarcer jobs! Scary times indeed, but as he's just been put in charge of two more units I'm crossing my fingers that things are going to be okay for him!

In more strange news, I recently received a communication from the GoFundMe started by MP Rupert Lowe to fund a private investigation into the UK grooming gangs, to say that my contribution was being refunded to me. I guess this is in connection with the fact that the UK Government has now pretty much been forced into starting an investigation, despite having dodged that hot potato for many, many years! I'd be more than happy for them to keep my contribution but I guess it is at least honest that they are going to be handing the money back now that it is no longer needed!

The other day, the door shutter from my bedroom onto my balcony blew open (I always keep it shut) and to my horror I saw a 10" wasps' (or hornets'?) nest hanging from the beam!!!! It isn't the first time this has happened to me so I did what I did last time - ran round shutting all the doors and windows and armed with a set of matches, a fire extinguisher and wasp spray, set fire to that bugger. It went up like a Chinese lantern and was out within a few seconds, but I gave it a good blast of fire extinguisher just in case and fingers crossed I'll be good until next year!

After that I decided that despite the heat, I really should take myself off to the gym I was paying for so I toddled off down there and made it about an hour on the bike reading my book, and then a few piddly machines before heat stroke nearly took me out. It was quite embarassing though because there was an older lady there (I'm guessing about my own age) who was in great shape and doing some impressive weight exercises and here I was a puddle of dripping sweat staggering back down the stairs. That will either motivate you or make you give up completely. I'm just not sure which at the moment!

The other Saturday we were invited to attend Charlie's end of year concert where they were putting on a concert called "planets" and Charlie's group, being the youngest, did a whole routine about the "Planet of the Blue Bunnies". They all did really, really well and I am in awe of the teachers who have the patience to teach these routines to all those kids - it must be like herding cats! It was all very civilised though as as soon as we walked in were were all handed a glass of either fruit juice or sangria - guess which one I chose! There was a bike race coming through our village that day and as they would be blocking our entry and exit roads, in order not to get blocked in on such an important day, I set off early for a walk round the Lac du Môle where I had lunch and then listened to the end of the book The Mountbattens! I did wonder if they were going to "go there" in the book, in that for many, many years it had been an open secret that Mountbatten "swung both ways" (fine, his choice) but that he liked them "extremely young", and by "extremely" I mean extremely! There were even pretty convincing "testimonies" that he had young boys between the ages of eight and twelve delivered to his house (allegedly) and did the same with young girls. It was apparently common knowledge amongst the upper echelons and many of them partook at the same time (still going on today, from what I gather)! I knew of him when I was growing up but for some reason I never liked him - so maybe, just maybe, my instincts were spot on for once!

Lac du Môle. This was taken by drone
so I don't know who to attribute it to!

I've taken myself off a couple of times for a walk at Passy but today I didn't walk, I just sat in the shade with a glass of wine to enjoy the scenery and the kids playing in the water - it really is one of my favourite places around here!

Lac de Passy

And finally, I received a notification of another day trip with one of my old fogies groups to the Col de la Forclaz in July. It's above Lake Annecy and not very far at all, so I signed up for that as well. Obviously these bus companies know the best places to visit and to eat - and I don't have to worry about parking, so I'll let you know how it goes later in July!

A google image of Col de la Forclaz!

This and that!

Life has been a bit of a roller-coaster this past week with horrible news and wonderful news mixed in with all the everyday stuff. About a week ago I was sitting in my living room when I heard emergency services racing by and eventually saw a helicopter heading in the same direction. Turns out there had been a horrific accident in the village of Amancy where sewing club is held. It involved a head on collision between a Mercedes and a small Peugeot which ultimately ended with the 82 year old Peugeot driver being killed and the 29 year old Mercedes driver being injured but not seriously so, apparently. I know it's easy to think that the 82 year old probably should no longer have been driving but about 25 years ago my colleague's son was hit in that exact same spot by a woman driving at speed on the school run, so who knows who was at fault. In a shocking turn of events it turned out that the lady who was killed was the founder of our sewing club about 25 years ago and I knew her from my early days at club until she retired from it around eight years ago. She was still very spritely so it must be awful for her family to lose her in such a horrific way. Then I was on FB about a week ago when I saw a post from the Amancy police asking for information regarding the whereabouts of L, a 73 year old local lady. Since I knew some of the ladies from sewing club would probably know her I forwarded it to the group and indeed several of them knew her very well. She's been missing for about a week now and despite extensive searches she has still not been found. Her groceries were still in her car and her phone was on the table but her handbag was missing - a really strange set of circumstances. I mean, how far could she have gotten on foot and yet even a helicopter and tracker dogs have found no trace of her. She volunteered at a domestic violence centre and one theory that I've seen floated is that someone might have taken against her for her work and decided to "act" on it. It's just a theory at this point but today, over a week since she went missing, they appear to be no closer to finding her. What a distressing time this must be for this family also!

On a much happier note, our small neighbourhood of just 20 houses has welcomed two new grandchildren in the last six weeks, thereby regenerating the community, what with two new sets of neighbours who have young children. It's nice to see the kids playing outside on the island but also reminds me how fast time has flown since it was my kids out there playing in the snow and building igloos!

While out on one of my walks I finally finished listening to the Martha Stewart book and oh boy, what a ride that was. The narrator said that if you thought you couldn't find anyone crazier than Ethel Kennedy you would be seriously misguided and man oh man was she right. I know Martha doesn't give off a friendly vibe anyway but to hear just how unhinged she allegedly is/was was something else. It was a very good "read" and I highly recommend it! I also got to watch season four of Clarkson's Farm and again, I loved it. While Jeremy doesn't depend on the farm for his income as he is independently wealthy, he does go some way to giving an insight into just how treacherous farming can be, particularly for those whose livelihoods really do depend on it!

I looked after Charlie again on Wednesday afternoon and since there was a horrible storm that day, looking after a bundle of energy like him was "challenging" to say the least. Jordan had been working on a large construction site and when he saw that they were throwing away hinged wooden "rectangles" he asked his boss if he could take one as he knew instantly that I could easily make it into a raised bed. The boss told him to take the whole lot (though thankfully he only took one) and I now have it sitting at the top of my garden full of onions, garlic, shallots and a few cabbages. I think I'll have to put some netting over it though as I'm pretty sure the local wildlife will be enjoying a few "salads" if I don't!

Sunday was our annual village fête and I initially thought I wouldn't go as I was feeling the heat quite badly, but in the end I strolled up there and ended up spending about five hours chatting with so many local people as it seems everyone and his uncle stops by at least for a few hours. I recognized an older gent from when I take stuff down to the Red Cross food bank and we always used to have a laugh together as he could never figure out how to get my collapsible grocery crate to fold back up! So I stopped by to say hallo to him and ended up getting caught up with him and his partner for about 15 minutes, telling me all that is wrong with the world (and French politics in particular - can't say I disagree with him on that) and by the time I wandered back to my own table I knew exactly how much his pension was and what they did to make ends meet. One of the young men at my table laughed and said "so I see you've met Régis then" as apparently he has a reputation for being a chatterbox!

Monday was a holiday here in France (Pentecost) but not in Switzerland so Jen asked if I would like to go with them to the Swiss Vapor Park, just across the border in Switzerland at the Montreux end of Lake Geneva so of course I said yes. It was quite a small park but there were loads of rides available on miniature steam trains that took you through different parts of a miniature Switzerland. They'd built a castle, a church, various beer halls and shops, all big enough that you could go into but still miniature. Charlie had an absolute blast as we all had to "howl like wolves" when we went through the tunnels. I had only expected to stay for a couple of hours but we stayed until they closed at 6 pm so I ended up getting a rather fetching sunburn from sitting on the trains in the bright sunshine. My own fault, of course, and there were even free stands available for people to put sunscreen on but as I hadn't "felt the burn" just yet, I didn't bother. Lesson learned though!

Instead of taking the motorway we went the
back way through a very pretty valley - but
of course it had its disadvantages!

The castle is only about 30 feet tall!

Inside the mini church!

The next day, since I obviously wasn't tired/burned enough, I'd booked a place on another old fogies trip to visit the city of Grenoble, which is about two hours away. I travelled with Véronique from my yoga class but it's amazing when you start talking to people on the bus and find out how many people you might already know anyway. The advantage of village life, I guess. When we arrived we had a short walk up to what they call "the eggs" (cable cars) to take us to the top of a smallish mountain where there was a museum visit planned, to be followed by lunch in the panoramic restaurant.

A google image - I couldn't get a very
good shot from inside the cablecar!

Our first visit was to the museum of the Chasseurs Alpins (the alpine hunters) which were set up in 1888 apparently as a fighting force of young men who knew the mountains inside out and who, presumably, were good skiers. I think if you were from this region, when you went into the military you were automatically put in the chasseurs alpins on the assumption that you could ski. Well apparently not so in all cases because I do remember skiing one day and seeing a large group of young men on 50 foot long skis weaving slowly down the mountain in the snowplough position (a basic technique to learn how to stop) and felt so sorry for the poor sods who had probably never been on skis in their lives up to this point!

A chasseur alpin!

The museum!

A very good lunch in the panoramic restaurant!

I had to zoom in to get this shot. This is the Prefecture
of Grenoble where I had to go for my naturalisation interview!

After lunch it was back down on the cable car and into the older part of town where we visited another museum dedicated to clergy and noblemen who had had links with Grenoble over the centuries. I couldn't take any pictures inside the museum but some of the artefacts were just fascinating (well, to me at least). Oh there were quite a lot of paintings (which doesn't interest me so much) but also weapons and armour dating back hundreds of years, ladies' jewellery, fine items from the homes of rich men and, what I loved the most, a few beautifully written books dating back to the 1300s! Far from being boring, it was well worth the visit. After that Véronique and I went off to explore parts of the old town for the remainder of the afternoon and ended up having a drink on the river bank. We got back around 7 pm so all in all it wasn't too bad, although I was glad not to have to get up at 5 am this morning, I must say!

And finally, when I lived in Pittsburgh I became friends with J, who was from Pittsburgh, She married, divorced and remarried and she and her new husband moved to Florida - where we ended up buying a house about 20 minutes down the road from her. What a small world. We eventually sold that house but we've remained in touch to this day and she's even threatening to come out for a visit once she and her husband get over their various health issues (thank goodness I finally got my bathrooms finished)! Anyway, she found this picture of us both in her swimming pool so sent it on to me. It must be about 25 years old at this point and my how I've changed - but I don't think she has that much! Oh to be young and frivolous again!

J on the left and me on the right!

Coming back up for air - finally!

It finally feels like I'm getting my life back somewhat. The plumber has finished and he did an excellent job, but of course however much they clean up after themselves the whole place really needs a good scrub because everywhere is so dusty. So the other day I decided to put all that on the back burner and head off to the gym I've just signed up to - and believe it or not I had the place all to myself! I guess people complained about their limited opening hours so now it opens up between 6 am and I believe 11 pm, with access being granted via a QR code. To be honest it felt a bit spooky walking up the stairs to the weight room alone but eventually a couple of men came in and were nice and smiley. I obviously didn't work out that hard though because I really never felt much afterwards, but I think I have found a machine I really like for the ol' bingo wings!

Saturday 25th May was Mother's Day in France so I offered to cook the main course and take it all over to Jordan and Jen's place (it's much easier on the kids) and we had a really nice time. Jen bought the bread and cheese for after the main course and Jen's mom the dessert so all in all it wasn't too much work for anyone!

Wanting to keep up the momentum, after yoga on Monday I took myself off to a lake called the lac de Montriond which you pass on the way up to the goat village of les Lindarets. I've often thought I should stop off there for a walk and while it's very pretty indeed, it's quite small and only took about an hour to get round. What I hadn't reckoned on though was there is a waterfall just up the mountain called the Cascade d'Ardent and if I had been better prepared I would have gone up there to take a shufty, but as it was already getting quite late by that time, I guess that'll have to wait for the next time!

Lac de Montriond

My plumber mentioned to me that the apparent "leak" I have in my garage is most likely caused by the 1,000 miles of hosepipe I have near the garage door, so since I actually use a much shorter hosepipe on a mobile "trolley" I decided the best way to get rid of it was to use my mini chainsaw and cut that bugger into never-ending lengths of about 12 feet! That way I could get it into my car and off to the tip, so that's another job sorted!

There has been dreadful news coming out of the Valais (another canton/state in Switzerland) where the village of Blatten (to the east of Geneva) recently realized that they were in for a landslide. Fortunately they evacuated all of the residents and got their animals down from the mountains, but sadly not only was there a landslide but it also brought down a glacier, completely destroying the village and causing the river to back up and flood further down the valley. It's heartbreaking to watch but it seems that the Swiss (as ever) are doing a wonderful job in a horrible situation!

A photo take from google but I can't remember where
to attribute it!

President Macron and his wife have been on a whirlwind tour of Southeast Asia and were caught out by the press when the pilot opened the door of his plane and caught Brigitte shoving him with both hands in the face! I know some people are having a great time making fun of them both for this but I don't think it's funny. While most domestic violence is endured by women, men are also on the receiving end, so to my mind it's not a laughing matter. In my experience it starts with the pushing and shoving - and then graduates to much much worse. I don't know what goes on in their marriage of course but it strikes me that even though they were caught off guard by the plane door being opened right at that moment, if she was willing to do that in front of the flight crew isn't that just as bad?

Anyway, I'm going to try to get this place cleaned up little by little because thinking about tackling it in one go is just overwhelming at the moment. My new toilet/bathroom is lovely - needs a bit of colour to spice it up, but that's easily done and I'm thrilled to finally have it completed!

The old bathroom was embarassingly bad!

This was where the shower used to be!

And finally, when I flew home to Wales in January 2019 to be with my brother while he was dying, his partner and I actually got him signed up for an insurance plan which basically took over all the arrangements for his funeral, thus sparing his children having to deal with that on top of his sudden death. While I was there I got a phone call from my bank in France offering me the same kind of plan - you know, just call one number and we take it from here. Anyway, last week I got an email from my bank asking what I thought of the plan! Huh???? How do you answer that - I'm not dead yet - or am I missing something?

Time off for good behaviour?

I had arranged with my plumber for him not to come on Wednesday as I would be looking after Charlie. He is quite happy to accommodate my requests because, as he says, he has loads of smaller jobs that he can be getting on with in the meantime. On Monday and Tuesday he brought his dad along with him (a retired plumber and tiler) and between the two of them they've really ploughed ahead on getting the tiling done in order to get this bathroom finished. Unfortunately he told me he wouldn't be able to make it for the rest of the week as there had been a family death in Brittany so he had to fly up there for the funeral. I didn't mind at all because it's nice to get a few days' respite from constantly having someone in your home anyway, so we're looking at him starting back up next week and then hopefully getting it done before the end of the week - fingers crossed!

Last Friday was my day trip to the petit train de la Mûre and to be honest it was a bit of a disappointment. I'd expected a very steep train ride but I don't know if that was at another part of the mines because our train ride was almost flat! We did travel over three Roman viaducts and the scenery was very pretty and somewhat different from round here, so that was a positive. First stop was lunch at a local restaurant on the way up to the coal mine which was very efficiently done (for a coachload of almost 60 people) and the view was spectacular. There were a few much older people using walking sticks and for one lady in particular I think it was a big mistake for her to come on the trip. As we were leaving the restaurant she gestured to me that she wanted "a chair" so I ran over and got one for her, but then she yelled that she wanted a wheelchair - and of course there wasn't one! The walk back to the train was probably only about 100 metres and pretty much flat, but to be honest, even with help, I don't know how she managed it. I'm not sure if she was "all there" as some of the others were saying that she wasn't making a lot of sense when she was talking but I never spoke to her directly after that. At one point she was sitting at the other end of the carriage from me when I took out my water bottle and had a drink. That was when she started gesticulating wildly and looking at me but I had no idea what she was saying as I couldn't hear her anyway - she was too far away. Found out later she wanted a drink but how was I to know! When we got to the mine someone ran to the shop and bought her a bottle of water but honestly, as I say, I think it was a big mistake on her part to even attempt such a trip as she was obviously in way over her head!

The view from the restaurant!

The visit to the now-defunct coal mine was interesting enough - but that was about it. The mines ran for 60 km under the local area and I couldn't even begin to imagine spending my whole life underground like so many of those men did. That being said, we watched a short film where they interviewed miners who had spent their entire lives working there and all but one of them said they were very happy and would "probably do it all again if they had their time over"! I suppose, in the end, it was a source of employment for the local area and helped to create a very, very close-knit community - well that is, until the last mine was shut down in the 1990s!

As we were making our way back home through the local villages, many of them had their signposts turned upside down - a sign of support for local farmers fighting to retain their livelihoods in the face of such trade deals as the one recently signed with Mercosur! I don't hold out much hope to be honest because until we accept to pay fair prices for local goods I suspect many of them will go out of business - but in the current economic times can anyone really afford or be willing to do that?

Véronique from my yoga class told me about this group and when we got chatting on the bus trip back, she asked me if I was interested in a day trip to Grenoble in June as they were looking to make up numbers for the bus. I thought why not, so now that's a third group that I've signed up with and am actually looking forward to maybe discovering more of the local-ish areas through them!

Then on Saturday we had our old fogies lunch, which is arranged between my village and the next one over. The Maire of our village is a miserable sod, but the Maire of the other one is the total opposite and (apparently) very good at his job - plus he's a good sport. The food, yet again, was wonderful (they obviously used the same caterer as last year) and I got to meet up with my Nigerian friend, Stan, and his wife for the first time in ages. Stan has been very ill for quite some time and told me he went through a depression, hence you'd never see him out and about. I think/hope the reception he got from everyone at the lunch might be enough to help get him back to his old self. He used to deliver the local newspaper so knows pretty much everyone, and people weren't shy welcoming him back and coming over to give him a hug! His kids were friends with my kids and his wife started showing me pictures of their four grandkids. Of course being mixed race the children all had this beautiful coffee coloured skin - all, that is, except the one little girl who has blue eyes and blond hair! Seeing her sitting next to her little sister made such a lovely picture as both little girls are just stunning!

The appéritif!

The Maire of the next village
being "stitched up" by a local magician!

Somebody at the lunch mentioned that Gérard C had died suddenly the other week. I knew him, even if only superficially, but after his death it came out that he'd spent years working quietly on behalf of Human Rights Watch and had done a lot for people in precarious situations! So for some reason that sent me down a rabbit hole, thinking about how all the wonderful deeds George Michael had done came out after his death. He had his demons and his foibles but behind the scenes he was very generous indeed. One couple had had several attempts at IVF but couldn't afford any more treatments until George stepped in and funded it anonymously. It was only when they actually got pregnant that they found out who their benefactor was and this only came out publicly after his death!

While the plumber has been here I've been trying to keep out of his way by sorting stuff and taking it to the tip. I've been lugging boxes of old tiles up from the basement and taking boxes of my new, spare tiles back down there to store, since there will probably be enough left over for someone to do a complete bathroom if they want them. I also pulled out a load of cleaning products from under the stairs and have so far found four vacuum cleaner extension pipes that I must have kept from previous vacuums. You know, the extension pipes you attach to the vacuum if you can't quite reach somewhere - well I reckon I could probably vacuum one of my neighbour's houses with all those bloody extensions, so off to the tip they will be going too!

As I said above, I can't wait for all this to be over because I'm tired of being "on" all the time. Just how tired I really am was brought home to me the other night as I was getting ready for sewing club. I jumped out of the shower and went to brush my teeth - and then realized I'd squirted foundation onto my toothbrush!!! I suppose on a positive note, I hadn't smeared toothpaste all over my face though, right? Anyhoo, I'd better get off here now because - get this - I'm actually going to hit the gym I just signed up to. It'll be the first time since covid so if you don't hear from me for a while, I'll probably be trying to get my seized up legs back down the stairs and out of the gym! Not a pretty sight, I imagine, but we'll see how it goes!