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!