A blast from the past!

Or isn't fate wonderful sometimes! I mentioned in a previous post that in 2010 I happened to spot my best childhood buddy, Ian, on the now defunct "Friends Reunited", reconnected with him and flew out to spend time with him after he upped sticks and moved to Bulgaria. We remained in admittedly sporadic contact after that and then I learned of his tragic death in May of this year. I'm just so, so glad that he got to spend the last years of his life enjoying Bulgaria and that we had re-connected in the meantime! Fate huh!

Before I got married I had had two long-term boyfriends - Mark, in England and Karim in Switzerland. Mark had lost his dad when he was just a teenager and my dad took to him and took him under his wing somewhat. When I went to Switzerland for a "five-month contract" in 1980 (40 years later I'm still here) Mark and I split, obviously, because I knew I wasn't going back to England and he didn't see a future for himself in Switzerland. If that "minor" issue could have been resolved I'm sure we would have ended up married actually. Oddly enough, fate again played a hand because in 2005, out of the blue, I received an email from Mark. When my dad retired he gave Mark all his tools and Mark said he had been using dad's tools one day and thinking how good my dad had been to him, so he decided to track me down and to find out how he was. I had to explain to him that sadly dad had died a few months previously but it was really weird that Mark had chosen that particular time to get in touch again, 25 years later. He wrote a lovely email about how much he appreciated my dad so I sent it on to my mom - who was very, very touched! Now Mark being a plumber and not exactly the Poet Laureate the emails fizzled out not long after that and I don't have any further news from him, but I'm sure if we did get in touch again we'd still be friends and have plenty to say to each other. I'm sure also that that very decent young man turned into a lovely husband for one lucky woman!

A few months after I moved to Switzerland in 1980 I met Karim, an Algerian medical student, and we quickly became an item. We were together five years, with him graduating after about three years and going on to become a surgeon. Karim had actually been born in France and therefore had French citizenship, but since his dad had fought in the Algerian resistance against the French during the war of independence in 1963 he was, understandably, very anti-French, so gave up Karim's French citizenship in order for him to be solely Algerian! I understand that of course, but when you are living in Europe it is a helluva lot easier to have a European passport than a North African one I can tell you! Anyway, the years rolled by and I got the feeling that I wasn't as much of a priority for Karim as he was for me, and then his dad dropped the bombshell on him. He was going to send him back to Algeria to do two years' national service (something which Karim could very easily have gotten out of)! As Karim later explained, it was a total, total waste of time, but more importantly the years he had been accruing towards acquiring Swiss citizenship now got screwed over, and the job he had lined up also passed under his nose because of his prospective two-year absence.  I had been getting more and more frustrated in our relationship and actually resigned in 1983 in order to spend six months in Australia so I could decide what I wanted to do about him. I mean, how can you "complain" when someone is so nice but it just isn't working for you! Technically we "split" when I came back as he had met someone else, but when I explained that that was fair enough with me because I had too, he changed his mind instantly and wanted to get back together again - waiting outside my house every morning with flowers and giving me a lift to work before I got my car back on the road - something he hadn't done in the five years we had been together! Eventually he wore me down and we did indeed get back together but my heart still wasn't in it - I mean, after five years we still weren't even living together, so I told him that if we weren't living together by the time he had to go off to Algeria to do his waste-of-time national service then not to expect me to wait for him! And sure enough, we weren't living together when he had to leave but he did ask me to marry him the night before he left - I said no, but with tears rolling down my cheeks.  I was very, very fond of him but honestly didn't feel that I had a future with him. He was (and still is) a very, very decent man and our different religions made no difference to us at all, but I actually thought I would get bored if I married him! A year later when he heard I was going to marry my (now) ex, he called me on my wedding day and begged me to reconsider! Man, if only I had listened, I could have saved myself 26 years of misery with the ex but you live and learn I guess.

Anyway, when I was offered a job back in Switzerland in 1989 a girlfriend called me one day and asked me what Karim's last name was. You see, her son had developed peritonitis on Easter Sunday and they had called an emergency surgeon in to operate. When her husband read the surgeon's name he commented that "that was Anna's Karim" - and sure enough it was! So egged on by my friend I put in a call to his office and left my number with his receptionist. He called back and we have become friends again after so many years. I'm fatter and he's balder but other than that nothing much has changed!

Then on Wednesday when I got home there was a "missed call" light flashing on my phone. Normally I just delete these calls because I get two to three telemarketing calls a day, but for some reason I looked at this number and decided to call back - and ended up talking for an hour with my old friend  from back in 1989, Patricia! You see, when we moved back to Switzerland I found us an apartment in a lovely village called Mont-sur-Rolle. There were only two apartments on our landing and Patricia and Manuel had a little girl just one month younger than our son, André. So we used to leave our apartment doors open and André and Nena (two terrible two-year-olds) would run back and forth and play happily for hours and hours. Patricia is Colombian (now also Swiss) and her husband was Spanish so it was extremely good for my Spanish! After a year I realized that while I loved our apartment and our little set-up, the ridiculous rent we were paying would pay a mortgage in France so my husband and I bought a house and moved across the lake into Haute Savoie in France. It was sad leaving Patricia but as she didn't drive and as a Colombian needed a visa for France, inevitably we lost contact over the years. Her marriage, as it turned out, ended up being pretty much like mine and we both ended up getting divorced, although her ex has since remarried and divorced two more times!!! Yikes, she was well shot of him, I can tell you. Anyway, the upshot of that phone call is that I'm going over to her place next Sunday for lunch, where I can meet up again with "little" Nena (Ainhoa), who is now 30 and the mother of a three-year old, and Patricia and I can make up for 30 years of lost chin-wagging!

And finally, (gosh this post turned out much longer than I intended), the real reason for this post is another very, very lovely "blast from the past" moment that happened yesterday. My best friend at work is Tunisian (can you see a pattern here) and I was telling him one time about my first "true love" which happened when I was a young student at Montpellier University in southern France. I was on the beach one day, under a sun umbrella with a towel over my shoulders when a young man walked past and asked if I was "warm enough"! I explained to him that if I sat in the sun it wouldn't be too long before you would smell the bacon and he just laughed and said that as a Muslim that would be a real turn-off but would I mind if he sat down with me! Yes, it was that corny. Anyway, his name was Nacer, he was Tunisian, and we hit it off like nobody's business. He and his brother were at Montpellier Uni studying to be pharmacists but as this was the summer break they were pretty much free of courses. Like I say, we instantly clicked and while I enrolled in many French courses at the Uni I spent most of my time down at the beach with Nacer! I learned a helluva lot of French I can tell you, but probably not the kind of French I use now at work! At the end of the summer I had to go back to England but he kept in touch, writing to me and so on, and one time even coming to visit me when I got my job in Geneva.  Have you ever reminisced/wondered what that first wonderful romantic summer felt like - well I lived it! And it really was wonderful! Anyway, as time moved on Nacer went back to Tunisia as a pharmacist, I met and married my ex and we moved to the States. Eventually I had to ask my mom not to forward Nacer's letters any more as I was now married but he still wrote for quite some time!!!

Fast forward 40 years and I was having coffee with my Tunisian buddy, Imed, before he set off for a month's vacation in Tunisia. I was explaining to him about Nacer and he said, you know, if you know his last name and that he is a pharmacist and originally from Sfax, he will have moved back to Sfax because that's what we Tunisians do - we go home. So why don't you search for him on FB! Well I tried a couple of times but I always spelt his name as "Nasser" and he wasn't showing up anywhere.  For some reason, last night I thought I would take a shot at finding his brother, Hachemi, and almost instantly up he popped, with Nacer as one of his friends! I couldn't believe it. He has barely changed. Well I guess that's not strictly true. We are both 40 years older and 40 years fatter but we both seem to have our own hair and teeth ...... So being a nosy bugger I scrolled through his FB page and he seems to be just as nice as I remember him. He posted something on one post about the atrocities in Syria and someone wrote back saying "what about the b***tard Israelis and what they are doing in Palestine!" Nacer's response was that when innocent civilians - in particular children - are hurt in these atrocities it doesn't really matter whether they are muslim or jewish does it! They are still unforgivable atrocities. Now as an Arab and a Muslim I doubt Nacer has any particular love for Israel but I thought that was a lovely comment. On another post they had a picture of a young girl removing her veil, and his comment was "religion isn't about covering your face with a piece of cloth - that's not what Islam teaches!" When you have someone who thinks and talks so reasonably it is just so refreshing in this world of hate and lies, and that is exactly how I remember him!

So, taking my courage in both hands I sent him a friend request on FB. I asked if he had studied pharmacy at Montpellier around 1979 because if so I had a couple of pictures of him and his brother. But, if I had got the wrong person, I apologized for the intrusion. I knew it was him of course - he really hadn't changed, so you can imagine my amazement when I got a "friend acceptance" five minutes later with a "Hallo Anna, how are you doing? Of course I remember you, that was an amazing summer we spent together wasn't it"! Oh my goodness, I haven't felt my heart flutter like that for years! I know of course that time and life has moved on but just getting a response from him really made my day. We sent a couple of messages back and forth and then he had to get off FB but said he would contact me again. Wow, I feel like I've just stepped out of my time machine and flown back to 1979 (but I'd better not look in the mirror had I). Of course we are older now and our lives have moved on, but if he is like my other "blasts from the past", it would be lovely to keep in touch occasionally!

Not a very good photo but ...  my first love, Nacer!

In my next life I'm gonna come back as a ferret!

Not very glamorous I know but it seems to be my nature to be able to "ferret" things/solutions out! I don't know if you know her, but Nadiya Hussain won the Great British Bake-Off (in 2015 I think). Now I don't watch it because it doesn't interest me but I really like Nadiya. She's a Bangladeshi/Brit who seems very down to earth and I really like her style. Well the other day I was watching her cookery programme and she made prawn biryana - which looked wonderful. She happened to mention an Indian/Bangladeshi 5-spice mix that "is to die for" and guess who managed to find it out in the boonies in little old Geneva! The ferret here! Now if you live in the UK that's probably no big deal but despite being an international city I feel that Geneva is only relatively recently moving into the modern world as far as foreign ingredients are concerned. When I first came here in 1980 the only ingredients in the shops seemed to be those required to make fondue! Well I might be exaggerating slightly but not an awful lot. It has taken years to be able to get my hands on basic British stuff like tea-bags (I know, the horrors!) but they finally seem to be getting there. Truth be told, you can now get almost anything if you know where to look because, as I say, it is such an international community. When I first started looking for this spice mix everyone wanted to sell me Chinese 5-spice powder but that isn't it. However, thanks to the magic of the internet I found a little Bangladeshi supermarket and was able to navigate my way round Geneva's public transport system just like a big girl and get there and back in 30 minutes with my precious Bangladeshi spice mix. I ended up making her recipe this weekend and while the flavouring was lovely I don't think I did it any favours by using the frozen prawns in my freezer - better to get the real mccoy next time I think, but I have eaten it every day this week (I made waaaay too much as you can see).  Still, on the strength of that and Monday night's programme I have ordered her latest cook book - Nadiya's Family Favourites! We'll see how that pans out but it does look delicious!

Nadiya Hussain

The other Sunday I fancied a trip out to a local market about 30 minutes from me. I go to a very small local market on Saturdays but this one is quite a bit bigger. However, when I got there someone had "stolen it" - gone! Just like that! So I stopped and asked a man carrying his market goodies and he directed me to another location as the original location is being improved/black-topped with more parking spaces. Phew - I really like this market and love just wandering around even if I don't buy anything. Interestingly, when I stopped at the fish stall, right next to it were a few tables and bar stools where people were trying seasonal mussels but - this being France - they also had various wines for sale by the glass to try with the mussels! I didn't try any as I was driving but I must admit I do like their style!

Actually yesterday I was able to pick some of my own home-grown tomatoes and I must say you can't beat the home-grown stuff. Add that to feta cheese, cucumbers and olives and you have lunch made in heaven!

And of course the Tour de France is ongoing at the moment. We have had two Sunday's where our village road has been blocked off for bike races recently. This wasn't for the Tour de France but for a complementary race that they always have around the same time. However, on Tuesday the "real" Tour de France was in our area so once again our road was blocked off, but since I was in work I didn't mind so much. They always go over the Alpes de l'Huez and Grand Bornand before coming down to our local town, so I watched a little just to see if I could pick out various places. Far be it from me to stand out in the blazing heat though to watch that stuff - just not my cup of tea (even though I can now get the tea-bags)!

Coming down towards home from Grand Bornand

I think I have mentioned before that every week when I shop I pick up a few items for the local food bank, and when I have a crate full I take it down on the Tuesday night when they open. I have been quite remiss in taking my stuff down there lately so determined I was going to do it last night. When I got there one of the ladies insisted on introducing me to the Chairman of the local Red Cross group that runs this particular food bank and she was telling him how our little charity book store had also made a financial donation. Honestly it was no big deal but it really brought home to me just how grateful they are - particularly the closer they get to October/November when their supplies start to run out. As I was about to leave she stopped me and asked me about our little book shop at work, and then proceeded to drag out a huge bag of books in English to donate. She said she had been given them by an acquaintance who reads in English and boy did I drool!!! Whoever this acquaintance is has wonderful taste in books - I saw Aldus Huxley, among others - and a book that I shall probably buy myself by John O'Farrell, who I find hilariously funny! So I got to leave the food bank with more than I arrived with. My ferret nose working again I suppose!

And finally, I have my big meeting this afternoon. We have two big meetings a year for which we produce four extremely large reports. I have other meetings, of course, but these are the big ones. We just found out we will have TV cameras both inside and outside the meeting room so I guess I'd better not fall asleep for this one (they do drone on sometimes)! But talking of falling asleep, when I got on the bus at the terminus this morning there was a young man fast asleep at the back. When I got off the bus at the opposing terminus 45 minutes later he was still snoring away. Apparently, according to the bus driver, these young men go on the razzle in the evenings and sleep it off the next day by going round and round on the local buses until they wake up! My boss was saying just this morning how tired he is - he has young children who don't seem to sleep well and also final responsibility for this afternoon's meeting, so I told him if he wanted to get on the number 25 bus afterwards and get some sleep, I would wake him up when I got off at the border! Sounds like a deal to me! Well that and the bottle of wine he has got in the fridge for after our baptism of fire! I'll drink to that!

More this and that!

Or odds and sods really. Not a lot going on this end. Saturday, of course, was Bastille Day in France so people let off fireworks on the Friday night in anticipation of having the day off on Saturday, which was just as well really as Saturday evening was wet so the fireworks displays would have been spoiled. Then Sunday was the World Cup final which, in my opinion, France deservedly won. To say my local town erupted would be an understatement. I actually had the sound turned off on the TV but knew when France had scored because of the roars from my local town 3 km away! Good for them, anyway. I was sad to see England go out but like most people I thought this young team did us proud. They are young and have plenty of room to develop and improve so I'm looking forward to the next round of Euro matches. Well done the three lions!  Onwards and upwards!

Then of course we had the visit of the Donald to the UK (and other parts). Beerrrkkkk is the only way I can describe how I felt, and most others seemed to have felt the same way too. At first I had misgivings about "Baby Trump" as I didn't feel it was respectful to the office but then as one of the organizers put it "we didn't put a US flag on it - we have every respect for the office, but we are just showing him the same respect as he shows others, i.e. none!" Fair enough in the end I suppose.

Thank God Melania is classy though, I mean, if she behaved the same way he did it would be a real old bun fight wouldn't it.  Then to have the Queen invite him to inspect the guard of honour and him walk right in front of her!!! Good god man, have you no manners. She is this diddy little lady (whatever her rank) and he just plops his ruddy great bulk down in front of her while she is inspecting her own guard! She is used to handling this kind of thing of course after so many years, but I really wish she had just taken his legs out from behind with her handbag!

And I really feel for the people in Scotland - apparently the costs for security while he was there for two days ran to £5 million - and as they so rightly put it, why should we pay for his security when he is coming to play golf on his own private golf course? Thank God it was such a short visit, is all I can say. I hear the reception was no better after that but as for the meeting with Putin!!!! Wow, just wow! You only have to look at the caricatures in the world's press to see what people think. I tell you, I wouldn't want to be part of that world for all the tea in china!

In other matters, 10 days ago I was fast asleep when I woke up with a start at 4 a.m. thinking there was someone in the house. I got up, turned all the lights on and went downstairs. Nothing! So I went back to bed but when I got up in the morning to go to work I looked at my phone and there at 4.08 a.m. was a text message from my ex asking about a recipe for "pâté campagnard" - a pâté made from pork!   What the f.......!!!! It's not as if I ever made this pâté and there was an ancient family recipe, but to send a text asking about something he could easily google and at 4 a.m. knowing that I have to get up for work!!! I was furious, but decided the best response was no response. You just don't engage in those cases. I mean we've been divorced almost seven years so why contact me about such rubbish!! Then on the Monday evening he sent me another text asking if I had got his previous message, so I just said "oh the one you sent at 4 a.m. knowing full well I had to get up at 6 a.m? Oh that one? Yeah I got that one. Thanks for that"! Geez, will he ever leave me alone!

In other matters, my car started playing up last week. I had difficulty getting it to start and thought it was a flat battery but no. I managed to hobble to Ford and they thought it was the ignition button so I had to wait a couple of day until they had ordered a new one. I managed to crawl to work for three days but on the last day before I was to drop it off every bloody light on that thing was going nuts - flashing indicators and so on as I went down the motorway. Honestly, you would have thought it was a presidential motorcade (see above) - but no, it was just me! In the end they kept it for two days (they lent me something that looked like a can of beans on wheels in the meantime) and they were telling me that they pulled loads of stuff apart and put it back together again but couldn't really say what it was. There was, however, evidence of a "fouine" attack inside. Now a "fouine" literally translated is a "weasel" but I think "fouine" is a local animal, something like a weasel but probably only about three inches or so long. The little buggers get inside your engine and nibble away at anything they can find, although in my case not the wiring thankfully. In the end Ford got my car working again but they have no idea how!!! Still, all's well that ends well - while I was waiting they were having their end-of-day apéritif so I got invited into the back office with a couple of other clients and we all had an apéritif together - vive la France, as they say!

And finally, I got round to telling my immediate boss last Wednesday of my plans to retire - he was stunned and asked what they could do to make me stay! Then on the Friday I told my director who was also stunned. I apologized for springing it on them but explained that it had nothing to do with work but everything to do with my dreadful commute. The director asked me yesterday to change my mind but I told him I would think about it until October, when I have to give three months' notice. I have an appointment with a tax advisor at the beginning of September to make sure my calculations are correct. I'm pretty sure they are but there is one tax called "contribution sociale généralisee" that I'm not sure is already counted in my tax calculations. If not, that is another 8% tax to think about and may put the spanner in the whole works as I just can't afford an additional 8% tax on top of the 22% I have already calculated. As I say, I'm pretty sure it's already included in the 22% but will have to wait until September to find out. In the meantime, I am still waiting to hear back from the French bank about the final pay-off for my house. I understand that they really won't be wanting me to pay off my mortgage 10 years early but really .... as soon as I get those two figures I can go ahead and hand my notice in. But gosh it's hard sitting around waiting isn't it!

This and that!

Isn't it absolutely wonderful that they are finally bringing those young Thai boys out of that cave after such a horrific ordeal! As I am writing right now they have brought eight out - I keep flicking back to Sky News live for updates. And what absolute heroes the rescue teams are, in particular the divers, for going to hell and back themselves in order to save a group of what must be obviously terrified young boys. The sheer danger of it must surely be brought home by the fact that a brave Thai Navy Seal died of lack of oxygen before even the first boy was brought out. A brave and selfless man - as are they all!  Let's hope they get the remaining five out and quickly!

Brave Saman Kunan

In other news, it's cycling season here (actually it's cycling season pretty much all year round in France!) and you can't move on our small back roads for gaggles of cyclists heading, usually, towards Grand Bornand (that's where John Kerry fell of his bike and broke his arm). Hat's off to them for wanting to do that - I don't think I could even make it down to the bakery in the next village in this heat even with the promise of a pain au chocolat at the end. What I do wish, though, is that they would bloody well cycle in single file on these small roads, rather than drivers having to queue up behind them to get past! I can see why there is often animosity between drivers and cyclists to be honest, particularly in cities, but I'm not sure it's a case of the cyclists always being wrong or the drivers always being wrong - I'm sure there is selfish behaviour on both sides. That being said, when we made an earlier than usual start the other Sunday to go exploring Chanaz it was because they were blocking the road through our village from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. for a cycle race. As I said above, our village is the scenic route that leads up to Grand Bornand so that's why they schedule races through here. Fair enough I suppose, but then yesterday (Sunday) our village road was closed from 8.30 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. for a bike race expected to number 17,000 cyclists!!!! Once that road is blocked off we can't get out. I gave up in the end and just decided to have a day at home pottering in the garden - and very nice it was too. I hope that's the last of the bloody things round here for this year though!

In other news, I've mentioned before that I'm not a particularly big football fan (much preferring rugby) but since England was playing on Saturday I thought I would take advantage of my enforced immobility to watch the match and it was great - well I say that because England won of course, but I really did enjoy it.  What gets me though, is that when Sweden did something amazing (which wasn't very often to be honest) they panned in to some beautiful Swedish fan cheering.

But when England did something wonderful (which was much more often) we got this lot:

Oh well, maybe that's a fair reflection of the state of play off the pitch but really!  Come on England!

While I was flicking back and forth watching TV last night waiting to hear if any more boys had been brought out of the cave, I started watching a programme called "Rich Kid to Skint" - poverty porn I suppose - where they took some rich little princess and had her stay overnight with a single mother of two on benefits in her one-bedroomed flat. My God!!!! What crap TV. Now I don't know why the young mother was single but she came over as pretty decent but Princess Twinkletoes!!!! If she was mine I would be ashamed! But then again, it's obviously mommy and daddy that made her like that, isn't it! OK, they have money and spend it on their kid. That's their privilege, but she was such a vacuous, monosyllabic amoeba it was embarrasing. Massive hair extensions, one inch long false eyelashes, one inch claws attached to the end of her fingers. Again, her choice, but she could barely string two words together, flailing her claws all over the place, playing with her hair, taking selfie after selfie, it didn't seem that even a single brain cell was firing in that tiny mind. What happened to having a personality? What happened to hard work? Why do they all end up looking like something from TOWIE or Keeping Up With The Kardashians? It beats me, and I really do fear for the future of these characterless individuals.  My goodness, now I know why I shouldn't have been channel hopping! It makes me so mad!

And finally, I have definitely made up my mind to retire at the end of the year. My boss was in Japan last week so I wanted to wait until I had a chance to speak to him before I spoke to my director. Trouble is, the boss is "a bit stressed at the moment" (it's a permanent state so I don't worry too much! My mind is  99% made up, even though I have an occasional wobble and run the figures (yet again) through the number-crunching machine and I know I can do it, buuut just this weekend I discovered a lovely blog called Miss Mazuma - a young woman aiming for early financial independence and how she is going about it. Is it ironic then that as I was having yet another wobble about retiring I came across this quote from her blog:

"But, seriously.  Coming up against “the norm” in life is difficult.  I mean, who doesn’t want to commute an hour to work [I WISH], put in 40+ hours a week at a boring job, drive home in traffic, eat a shitty meal in front of the TV, then head to bed before doing it all over again every weekday (minus 2 weeks vacation!) for the next 40 years.  Who? Sounds exhilarating!! Why would anyone want to stray from that path?"

Thanks for the kick up the butt Ms Mazuma!

MIA!

I've been missing in action for a while due to the frantic pace of things here. It's not unexpected at this time of the year and I don't mind at all - but hence the reason I haven't posted much lately. I know when my busy periods are and can work around them but it does mean that sometimes I am just too tired to blog!

So what's new? Oh yes, the Fête de la Musique is over and my goodness what an event that was. There are music events all over - here in Geneva and in France too of course. It's pretty much constant for a few days - one solid, jam packed session, if you will. What I think is a nice touch is that in Geneva they put out pianos on the pavements for people to play if and when they feel like it, and there was a lovely video in the local newspaper recently of a Swiss police officer playing (rather well, I thought) at Geneva train station.

I read in today's newspaper that there were 550 events in 28 different locations attended by approximately 200,000 people. Not bad eh!

Talking of the local newspaper, this morning when I got on the bus I just made it ahead of a gaggle of school kids - about 30 of them I would say, around 10 years old. Oh the noise - it sounded like a fishing trawler coming back to harbour! Not that I mind as I like kids really. Anyway, I was flicking through the local "20 Minutes" freebie newspaper on the bus to check out the weather when I realized two young lads were surreptitiously trying to read over my shoulder! In the end I just handed them the newspaper and said "here you go". Well the one started complaining that "why couldn't he read the newspaper" so I fished my book out of my bag and handed it to him. (The Last Tudor, by Philippa Gregory). It took him about five minutes to realize that it wasn't in French - though I'm not sure quite why it took so long to figure that out. Then the other young man asked if he could read it, so I handed it to him and he could seemingly read a little English. He ended up keeping my book for the entire length of my journey. The teachers were laughing because they were absolutely silent trying to figure my book out. The funny thing is that the ticket inspectors got on and I had since picked up the 20 Minutes again and was doing that little puzzle - you know the one where there are two seemingly identical cartoons and you have to spot the seven differences. So here's me struggling with the "spot the difference" cartoon and Little Billy next to me reading "The Last Tudor". Irony at its best!

In other matters, some time ago a colleague had given me the names of various beauty spots that were worth visiting in the local area. I always write down the names of these places but recently decided it was time to get back into exploration mode. I decided on a place called Chanaz, which is about 75 km from here. So on Sunday two friends and I set off down the motorway towards Annecy to try to find it. Now I didn't want to follow my GPS which was trying to take me through a place called Rumilly, so decided to take another route which seemed to be more direct! Ha, it was more direct all right - it took us over a mountain pass called Col de la Chambotte, and while I don't mind mountain driving I swear if there had been another coat of paint on my left side the cars coming up the pass would have taken the side off my car!  Talk about tight!  But, buuuuuut, oh my goodness, when we got to the top we had a view over Lac de Bourget which just took your breath away! I mean, I have been here over 35 years and this place is still capable of taking my breath away!

Col de la Chambotte

Eventually we made it down the other side and in about 20 minutes we found Chanaz, and again it was absolutely stunning. I can see why my colleague had been telling me to visit.  It is located on the Canal de Savières, which leads directly into the Lac de Bourget, which is (apparently) France's biggest natural lake!

Chanaz

We had actually planned to visit Chanaz last Sunday but for some reason didn't get around to it - which turned out to be a great piece of procrastination in the end because, unbeknownst to us this Sunday was the day they were holding their annual Venetian Carnaval parade - and we arrived right in the middle of it!  Of course we didn't have a snowflake's chance in hell of being able to eat on the waterfront since it was "by reservation only" so we scrambled up hill to what turned out to be a delightful little outdoor restaurant serving a very limited menu but of wonderful food.

By the time we had finished eating the Carnaval procession was just setting off so we were again in the right place at the right time! Aren't they fabulous!

They all looked wonderful but goodness knows they must have been so hot in those costumes as it was scorching. After that we decided to have a little "shufty" in one of the local gift shops which was beautifully presented on a stationary barge. I bought a couple of things as Christmas presents (I like to pick up Christmas presents all year round), and a lovely bag of hand-made chocolate for work.

The Sale Gosse gift shop!

After that we took a 90 minute boat trip along the canal up to the lake - again very pretty!
 

And finally, on the way back to the car, we got to see the lock being used to raise and lower boats in and out of the lake and onto the canal. No matter how many times I see it I am still in awe of the engineering!

Our boat coming back from the lake to the canal.

What a beautiful day that was - like I say, some days really are just diamonds!

In other news, I am still looking into the figures for possibly retiring early - that is to say at Christmas this year. It is coming as quite a shock to me even as I have always had it in my mind that I will go at end 2020 and now here I am (potentially) just six months away from retirement!  Our pension fund has confirmed my calculations and I keep running the figures through the French tax system to see if there will be any nasty surprises but so far nothing. The last thing I am waiting for is confirmation from the French bank of the total amount payable in Swiss francs in order to pay off my mortgage in January 2019. Depending on that figure (and I have pretty much calculated the worst case scenario), then it is up to me, but I am very much leaning towards leaving! It's a bit of a shock actually as I really hadn't given any thought to it until about two weeks ago. I will lose around €1,000 a month, which is enormous of course, but I will still have a reasonable pension. So many people have said "just do it" so I really am inclined to go for it. I can take the stress at work as it really doesn't bother me but having not been well the other week and then with my friend dying suddenly I really think it would be good to go in order to get away from this awful commute, which is currently at three hours a day and rising!  More to follow!

This and that!

Oh it's been a really busy couple of weeks here so I haven't had time to blog or even read my favourites blogs - still got a lot of catching up to do!

So where to start? Oh yes, last Saturday we had our latest board game evening at my neighbour's house. Although it threatened rain all day (all spring frankly!!!) we really lucked out and had a lovely afternoon and evening. We ended up simply splitting into two groups this time and playing card games all evening, which made a nice change. D has loads (and I mean loads) of plants, pots, decorations, ornaments and so on in her garden and it all takes an awful lot of work, but like I commented to her, just occasionally all that hard work comes together and you get a snapshot of just what a stunning garden she has created!

Jordan and M playing rummy!

Then the next day we had our annual "clean up the neighbourhood" get together, where our small group of (around) 24 houses all spend an hour cleaning up the area around our homes - to be followed by the annual  "let's all get together to eat and chinwag for the next eight hours" - so that's what we did! I must admit, for the little bit of effort that we all put in our little neighbourhood really does look lovely afterwards.  

 

Jumping on to totally different news, there seems to be some kind of "push" from the powers-that-be in the UK at the moment to promote weight loss in a bid to cut levels of diabetes II - or at least, that's what it seems like to me as there have been a few, very interesting documentaries on lately promoting pretty harsh calorie-restricted diets in a bid to achieve rapid weight loss and lower the risk of diabetes. The one programme, which I think was called The Fast Fix, took a group of volunteers who showed a higher risk of developing type II, and relocated them for four weeks in a test programme on a strict diet of 800 calories a day in a bid to lower their risk factors. Now a couple of them weren't even fat, which just goes to show that heredity can also be a big risk factor. It was a tough diet to follow but they all succeeded in significantly lowering their blood markers (I can't remember the "proper" names for half this stuff) in addition to dropping weight. One thing though, that kind of diet might be feasible in a control situation like they were in but I, personally, couldn't see me sticking to it if I had also to be looking after kids and a family and going to work. However, the guinea pigs were then asked to follow the same diet once they left the control centre. It was difficult, of course, but they all did it and the results, from a diabetes standpoint alone, were amazing. It was a diet along the lines of the eight-week blood sugar diet or indeed the "Fixing Dad" diet I mentioned in a previous post. All very interesting, to me at least. They mentioned that if you wanted to find out what your own markers/risk factor looked like you should measure your waist at its narrowest point (just above the belly button) then divide that measurement by your hip measurement. Guess who did it! For a woman your result should be below 0.85 (mine was 0.97) in order to be out of the "risk" category, particularly if you have a BMI of 30 or more (I just come under that but "yikes" all the same!)

I can understand why the government would want to push this as the UK is now, justifiably in my opinion, the fat man of Europe and type II diabetes treatment is apparently costing the National Health Service millions! Makes sense doesn't it!  So with that in mind, I have been browsing through pinterest looking at different fitness regimes (well that and the cake recipes and patchwork patterns!!!) and I stumbled across some amazing pictures of older women bodybuilders. Just wow.  Take a look at this lady!

The lady on the left is the amazing Ernestine Shepherd - now 82 years old!

Ernestine in her younger days!

Quite the inspiration, isn't she!

Since I have been really busy (I don't mind at all) I didn't exercise last week and you know what, I missed it. I only managed to walk the last 30 minutes to work three times this week but hope to get back to the gym also next week. Oh, and did I mention that in a bid to get rid of my bingo wings I have been lifting a few (rather puny) weights!  Nothing to write home about but you've got to start somewhere haven't you.  

Image by Shutterstock

Anyway, last weekend I went to the local sports shop to buy some weights. The nearest weights to the ones I wanted were 5 kg each so I bought a box of two - and almost fell over when I picked the bloody box up! I see there is work to do then!  Ernestine can rest on her laurels just a little longer!

Only slightly linked to the above, I wrote a recent blog post on the sudden death of my friend, Ian, and what a shock it was, so with the uncertainty of the future brought home so abruptly to me I started taking a look at the maths and have come up with the notion that I could, if I wanted to, actually retire at Christmas! That's quite an amazing thought after 40 years of work, I can tell you! It would mean I would have to take a lump sum from my pension in order to pay my house off and thus have a smaller pension but it certainly is feasible. In all honesty I am looking at going in two years time at the age of 62 because although my house will be paid off it does need work doing and I want to save up for that first (complete replacement of the heating system to start with). So knowing that I could leave the rat race at Christmas if I wanted to is a very nice feeling. As I said, I'm pretty sure I won't go then but .... Add to that that I want to help out with my son's wedding next year (we booked the château in the village last night - it is beautiful) and that his contract as an apprentice expires end July I will be staying on for a bit, although in reality an unemployed plumber has got to be an oxymoron hasn't it!

"Kick me" (to leave the rat race) - image by Jonathan Marsh

That being said, my sister-in-law's sudden death two years ago knocked my brother for a six and I think brought home to him that life is moving inexorably on. He now has a very dynamic lady friend, also a widow, who seems to be a little ball of energy dragging him (well he's going along willingly) here, there and everywhere! There is such a change in my brother it is amazing. And it's no disrespect to my sister-in-law - she was the dynamo/the doer in that relationship - but, like I say, I think losing her brought home to Phil that life was for living now because you never know!

Shutterstock

Phil and M at Rockley Park

A different kind of happy memory!

Thank you all for your lovely comments in reply to my last post. I have to admit learning of Ian's death knocked the stuffing out of me but it has also brought home to me the urgency of living life in the "now" rather than for one day in the future. Of course, all that has to be within reason, but if Ian hadn't taken the plunge and gone to Bulgaria in 2011 he might still have been waiting for "the day when" .... which of course, in his case, never came!

I remember years ago at college our shorthand teacher gave us all a round disk with the word "TUIT" on it. When someone asked what it was she said it was to be used on those occasions when you were putting things off until you got a "round tuit"! Clever huh! So with that in mind, I went ahead and booked my 60th birthday trip for September. I do not want to be at work for my 60th if only because I can't stand the fuss so had planned to book a holiday in Spain that week. Unfortunately, as I hadn't got a "round TUIT", when I came to booking it that particular trip was fully booked so I had to "settle" for Sicily, although going to Sicily doesn't actually involve "settling" at all does it. It is another one of my solos trips and does therefore mean having to fly back to the UK and then back out to Sicily but I don't mind spending the night before in London. Then for my next winter break I finally cracked and have booked a trip to Sri Lanka at the beginning of March. This trip is with the company I went to Costa Rica with and since I can book my own flights and do not have to go via London I managed to get a pretty good deal with Edelweiss Air from Zurich. Oh how I love my trips! That being said, I can't wait to have more time (i.e. retirement, God willing) so that I can spend more time rediscovering the UK and maybe more locally in France, but all in good time I guess.

And on the basis of "don't wait until you get a round tuit" I booked myself on another vegan cookery course for next Tuesday. Hopefully it will be better than the last one, but I reckon it should be as it is with an up-and-coming vegan restaurant here in Geneva. I am neither vegetarian nor vegan but am interested in both, so last night I thought I would try out a vegan recipe from Deliciously Ella. It wasn't bad but I certainly hope the whole vegan experience is worth all that washing up! Crikey, I don't think I have made such a mess in the kitchen in a long while! Anyway, while I was crashing around in the kitchen I missed a call from U, an old friend who retired back to England five years ago. When I had finished cleaning up Armaggedon (a.k.a. the kitchen) I called her back for a natter, as we hadn't had a good chinwag in ages!

I worked for HR for 20 years and many of those years overlapped with U being the Chief of Personnel's secretary and man did we have a laugh. I obviously can't go into too much detail here but some of things we saw had us in stitches.  Such as:

-  we had a Norwegian chappie who applied repeatedly but unsuccessfully for various vacancies. He was obviously a keen fisherman because every time he applied to us he attached a photo of himself, and in it he was holding a fish he had just caught! Only thing was, with every fresh application the fish got bigger and bigger! Sadly we never recruited him but we both liked his style!

-  then there was the guy who attached a photo (which was pretty usual in those days) but obviously didn't have time to get a professional head shot done. When we looked at his photo he had obviously just taken an old photo of himself at a party or somewhere or other and had cropped the other people out of it - all, that is, except for the hand of whoever was standing next to him with his arm draped mysteriously over his shoulder like something out of the Addams family!

- in "the good old days" every single application got a reply - a "no, sorry", a "let's give this one some further thought" or a "let's take this one a step further". It was a tremendous amount of work and eventually we had to put a disclaimer on vacancy announcements just saying "if you don't hear from us .... sorry"! Anyway, one time U's boss was sifting through the mountains of applications and had put one guy on the "no, sorry" file. Now looking at his photo U decided that he was pretty cute, so she put his application back on the "maybe" file. After which the boss put it back on the "no" file. Rinse and repeat a few times and eventually the boss just had to tell her "nice try, but it's still a no"! Oh well, you can't say she didn't try! Sorry mate!

Now in our company we work in English (mainly), French and Spanish so applicants can apply in any of those three languages. Sometimes, though, you would get letters in purporting to be in English but which had obviously been run through some kind of  "google translate" (had it existed at the time - it didn't) and which was completely undecipherable in any language, so U would put on her best "foreign" accent and read it out to us. Politically correct? Probably not but you have to laugh sometimes don't you!  And then there was the guy who "desperately wanted to work for your organization because he had always wanted to work with mentally disabled people"!!!! Say what! I mean, if this were Doctors Without Borders or something just maybe but really!!! In the end, looking at some colleagues who were around at the time maybe that wasn't so far fetched. Another time we had a lady apply who had no relevant qualifications whatsoever - in fact she had a long-term career as a midwife. Very laudable career of course but not something that would have been particularly relevant to a United Nations-type organization (we're not the UN, but you get the idea).

I remember one time I took a call from a lady in France who worked for XXXX Mairie in France. She spoke so quickly that I didn't really get the gist of what she was saying, but assuming it was a staff member who needed some administrative paper for France I let her continue. Turns out she had a son who "wanted to go on mission". So I asked what kind of qualifications he had - "he just wants to go on mission"! "So is he an economist?" "No, he just wants to go on mission!" "Is he a lawyer specialized in X?" "No he just wants to go on mission!" "Well could he work as a translator?" "No he just wants to go on mission!" In the end, I had to tell her I didn't hold out much hope for her son but he should fill out an online application and we would see. Oh, and by the way lady, assuming your son is over 13 years old, it doesn't really look that good to have mommy phoning trying to get him a job (I didn't say that last bit but I was very tempted! Ever polite me!)!

And finally, at one point I shared an office with an Australian colleague who handled the main input for applications for various vacancies. We would always have a laugh and a joke but she would never tell me anything about who had applied for what - and for that I respect her. It was confidential after all! Buuuut one time she burst out laughing and said "oh the poor sod". When I asked her what she was on about she said that this same person had applied for two vacancies in our company - one as Chief Economist and the other as a delivery driver!!! You know, a bit like "can I apply for the position of Governor of the Bank of England, but failing that are there any openings in the mailing room?"

Happy days indeed. I didn't know until last night but U told me that she reads my blog so in case you're there "hallo matey, good to chat again"!