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 vitriole 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 low 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 I 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 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 Jamaican. Two older men threw their hands up in the air as he road 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!
