Ouch!

My friend got back from a month in Spain recently so we decided that we should get out walking again before the snow comes. We both like the cold weather but walking on snow is not a favourite! Actually she slipped and fell on the ice last winter, banging her knee heavily, and is pretty much convinced that is how the pulmonary embolism she got in February came about! Either way, her stay in hospital frightened her so since leaving hospital she has been extremely disciplined about getting out walking and losing a fair amount of weight, so hats off to her! Anyway as the weather was good we set off on Tuesday to do an "uphill", although yet again we ended up doing more "uphill" than I think either of us wanted! Yeah, if one of us learned just a little about orienteering we might do very well!

Since I had to drop my car off to get my snow tyres put on we took her car and set off for Plaine Joux, which has got to be one of the most beautiful spots around here, even though pretty much everywhere is lovely. We decided to park down at the lac Vert (the green lake), which is very small but beautiful, particularly at this time of year obvs. 

Lac Vert

She told me she had been out this way a few days previously and had "found the new 'Himalayan footbridge'" but had been too scared to cross it. Now this is the bridge I had gone looking for about a year ago and couldn't find it (again, my map-reading skills leave a lot to be desired), but it turned out it was just a 30 minute walk from the lac Vert so off we went. On the way there we passed two forestry workers sitting on a bench having their lunch and I commented to them that they must have the world's most scenic lunch spot - and of course they agreed!

The view from the bench (that's the Mont Blanc in the distance)!

Well we found the footbridge and my friend told me that she turned back last time. So I said I would turn back with her if she wanted but I was happy to go over the bridge too - and she took the bait! Yep it was wobbly and she mentioned that not long after they'd built it they'd had problems with one of the cables and had to close it for a while (now that's reassuring isn't it), but over it we went and it was great! On a side note, as a follow-up to her stay in hospital my friend has had to have a whole barrage of tests (you know, half of which she should have been doing routinely but never got round to) and so she's got to go back shortly for a colonoscopy - which she is dreading! And she was saying how awful it is to have to provide poop samples on three consecutive days if you don't usually go every day (I know, don't we have wonderful conversations) so I told her that if one of the cables on the bridge looked a bit iffy this time I don't think she'd have any problem providing those stool samples (nor would I, I suspect)!

Anyway, we made it, feeling very proud of ourselves and decided to take a break for lunch - and look at the cute little picnic table we found!

After that we got a bit side-tracked because our intended route was closed off due to forestry work so we ended up chasing our tails and hoping there be no damn bears in these woods because we went way out of our way before finally making it back to the road where we were appalled to see it indicated 6 km uphill to get back to the lac Vert! Damn! We were starting to get to the point where we'd had enough but if you need to walk another 6 km to get back to the car what choice do you have?

But we made it back up to Plaine Joux which, as I say, is probably one of the most beautiful spots around!

Plaine Joux

We stopped here for a drink and a breather and were lucky enough to see a few people setting off paragliding because it was the most perfect day for it. Oh, and Anne (in Alabam), that wasn't me in the picture - sorry about that! I asked my friend if she would do it and said I thought I could probably throw myself off the side of the mountain (in a tandem jump, of course) but would have bigger concerns about the landing. Then my stupid sense of humour kicks in because at this spot we're about 15 minutes from the Italian border so I let my imagination run and was saying what if you couldn't "steer" the bloody thing and you ended up in Italy with the Italian border guards looking up at the sky yelling "passaporti per favore"!!!! Oh well, it made the lady behind me giggle!

After that we got to call it a day (thank God) because I had to get back to Ford to pick up my car. But I did over 17 km (10.5 miles) and more than 21,000 steps and I'm knackered! I've really felt the front of my thighs today and was hobbling down the stairs like a little old lady - and I seriously reckon I could crack walnuts with my butt cheeks at this point, but it was a great day out and I'm so glad we did it!

In other news I took a shufty at the book exchange in our local supermarket and was pleasantly surprised to find Simon Wiesenthal's book Justice Is Not Vengeance (or at least that's my translation of the French title - not sure what it's called in English), so that should be an interesting read!

And finally, I just received a message from my friend to say that the French have given her an appointment for her citizenship interview end-November - just 3.5 years after she submitted her paperwork!!! Ha, by the time I started preparing mine it had all gone online and I have only been able to submit a certain number of required documents so goodness knows where that leaves me! But, in two years time I will be 65 and since I've lived in France over 25 years (both of which are pre-requisites) and am now the grandmother of a French child, I can request citizenship by ascendency at that point and, from what I understand, it's a given - no more tests, French exams, nothing, as long as I'm not a career criminal I guess. So all that work for nothing eh! Oh well, I'll take it!

This and that!

So what's new? Not a lot really as I seem to be just treading water at the moment - which is annoying because the weather is glorious and I really wanted to be out there enjoying it - but I just don't seem to have the oomph right now. Oh well, it'll come back I suppose! That being said I got my 1,000 miles in sometime in September, which is pretty pathetic really because it doesn't entail an awful lot of walking on a consistant daily basis but I suppose taking into account bad weather (and the constant rain this year), it's not too bad, even if it could be a lot better!

The figures on the left are km, and
the miles are on the right!

My friend suggested we go out walking the other week so I took him to the Lac Bleu (where the three lakes are) and I'm pretty sure he's now found his new favourite spot to walk, so much so that a couple of days later he came over again and we went to the small lake at La Tour. This lake is just five minutes from André's place so we stopped in there for a coffee too. It wasn't much in the way of km walked but I guess every little helps!

Lac de la Tour

On a different note, I got a shock the other day because I received a monthly bill for my mobile, one for my wifi and another one for my landline which hasn't worked in six weeks! Well that put a bee in my bonnet and I got straight on to SFR (my phone carrier) intending to read the riot act to someone - anyone - because while I didn't care about the phone not working, I was damned if I was going to pay €40 a month for the privilege! Now I hate making these calls because they must outsource them to Africa (just like the calls in the UK seem to go to India) and I have a hard time with their accents, especially when they usually have their microphone stuck in their left ear half the time! (That being said, I'll take the African accents over the French-Canadian accents any day)! Oh don't get me wrong, they are always very helpful but I hate having to tell the first person (North African) what the problem is, and then she puts me through to the next person (French-speaking African - that is if the line doesn't cut off) and I have to go through it all again. Anyway, while the second guy was, indeed, hard to understand, after I asked him to speak up we managed to figure out what the problem was. And it turned out it was me!!! Good job I never gave anyone a bollocking then isn't it!! When he asked me how I'd ended up with that particular wifi box I told him I'd been online and that was the one recommended after I'd put in my post code, but, turns out it wasn't compatible with my landline, unlike my last one, so it was never going to work! Anyway, long story short, he sorted me out with a new box against the return of the old one and guess what, the damn thing works now! What's more, since the telemarketers started up immediately, I've had the bloody thing unplugged ever since! Still, at least it's sorted and I did apologize to the young man for him getting the "little old lady call who doesn't understand anything" and he just laughed and said "no problem"! So I'm sorted, although André still isn't, but I think that might have more to do with his place being brand new and him being one of the first tenants!

Moving swiftly on, the other day I was on FB and I'm starting to realize that if it wasn't for being able to keep in touch with family and friends dotted all over the place I'd probably just get rid of it because I don't like being "advertised at" constantly. I actually have two FB accounts because when I was leaving work I realized that I'd used my work's email as my log-in email and when I tried to switch it to my private email it wouldn't go through. So today I finally went in and deleted that account and may get rid of the main one too - but I'll have to think about that for a while! Anyhoo, a couple of days ago I got a message from Sharon, a Scottish lady I'd met in St. Lucia about six years ago, just sending a short message to ask how I was doing. A few of us did exchange contact details and very occasionally would shoot off a quick message to each other so this didn't surprise me too much. BUT, after a couple of messages "Sharon" asked if I wanted her to tell me about the government windfall that she'd just received and I should be interested in it because she'd "seen my name on the list too" - which frankly would be a bloody miracle because the U.K. population is pushing up to near 70 million and I was using my married name when we met! And then I remembered when my Words With Friends buddy in New York sent me the same message. Now this was a pretty generous offer considering I haven't lived in the U.S. for over 30 years and it's been over 40 years since I left the U.K! So I told "Sharon" where to shove it and now "Sharon" is threatening to kill me! Oh dear, some people don't take rejection at all well do they! I did get in touch with the real Sharon to let her know her page had been hacked and we ended up having a chat but gosh, these scammers/creeps are everywhere aren't they!

While I was online my niece in England sent me a message to thank me for her son's birthday card and the money I sent for both her kids. She also mentioned that her 11 year old daughter had covid as she had tested positive on Sunday night. Now I'm not sure if weekly testing is mandatory for schoolkids in England or if it was just something they did for themselves, but her daughter tested positive a second time when they had a pcr test done through a testing centre! She said she'd complained of a headache a couple of days earlier and then lost her sense of smell, but other than that she was fit as a fiddle (thank God) and really annoyed that she couldn't see her friends for 10 days, while her younger brother was equally annoyed that he consistently tested negative and didn't get to take the week off school!

In other news, flamboyant French businessman, Bernard Tapie, died last week and there was seemingly a great outpouring of sympathy - although not from round here I reckon. At one time he had owned Adidas, the Marseille football team and La Vie Claire (a large organic store) - had I known he was the owner I wouldn't have shopped there! I remember my colleague telling me years ago that Tapie was after buying a large factory in a nearby town and did the showman thing of landing in their parking lot in a helicopter and swearing to the workforce that their jobs were safe - and of course as soon as the sale went through he laid them all off! So nah, I don't think too many older men round here will care too much about that one!

But talking of showmen, Boris (the Clown) Johnson makes me want to scream anytime I see him on TV - you know, he of the walking bloody comedy act! Oh the comedy act might - just might - have been funny before he became PM but every time I hear that buffoon crack another joke when asked a serious question I want to reach through the TV and strangle him. That's how little he cares about the country and working people. He and his cronies pushed through a hardline Brexit and even though the country's quickly going to hell in a handbasket he just doesn't care! They have already started culling thousands of pigs because they don't have the skilled workers to butcher them, nor the truck drivers to deliver them to market. So they are being culled - and Johnson's joke on TV was "well they were going to die anyway, I mean, you eat bacon sandwiches don't you"! Ha, ha very funny, but nope they are being "culled" which means the farmers will get little, if anything, for their hard work. Whichever way you go on meat-eating, surely if the animal is going to die it shouldn't be like that! Oh and then there is the truck driver shortage, which admittedly is a shortage throughout Europe and not just the U.K. But Johnson's hard Brexit meant they kicked most of those "bloody foreigners" out of the country and now they're short approximately 100,000 truck drivers! Then when the haulage companies finally got through to the eejit that this was serious he offered up 5,000 short-term work visas for drivers. Have a guess how many "bloody foreigners wanted to come over here and steal those jobs"! Can't guess? They had 27 applications for tanker drivers (of which 20 were suitable) and 100 applications for HGV drivers! If it wasn't so pathetic it would be funny! And I swear this is true, people who had obtained their driving licences pre-1999 (so that would be me then) started receiving letters from the government asking if they would like a job driving trucks because (apparently) those licences were automatically valid for someone to drive a 7.5 ton truck! Ha, I wonder if the Queen got one because not only did she get her licence pre-1999 (obviously) but she also drove a truck during WWII! Well it turns out that those letters were addressed to German citizens living in the U.K. because it was only their licences that gave them the truck-driving licence, not the U.K. licences. Still, the Queen has German blood in her doesn't she? And then there was the issue of just one cabotage stop allowed. Cabotage is, say, when you get a Polish driver comes over with a load to drop in Glasgow and previously he would have been able to pick up another load for Manchester, and then another for London, for instance, before heading back to Poland. Well they put a stop to that and were only allowing one cabotage stop so tell me where the interest would be for any haulier to be driving round Britain with an empty truck and a line 100 trucks long to process the new customs formalities and not a pot for them to piss in? I think he's had to back down on that too and allow extra cabotage stops, but can you just see the madness - and why I just want to reach through the TV screen and wring this clown's neck - and I don't even live in the U.K.? Or how about the "wonderful deal" they've agreed with the U.S. where they will be exporting Welsh lamb to the States? Great huh? But then why the hell would they be importing Australian lamb into the U.K. at the same time? Now I know I'm no economist but can anybody else see a simpler solution to this here? How about have Australia export their lamb direct to the U.S. instead and let folks in the U.K. eat the lamb that's being raised just a few miles down the road? I don't know, maybe that's why I'll never be rich, because that one has me completely befuddled!

The U.K.'s Clown-in-Chief!

Still, there is a bit of good news in this hard Brexit because I hear Tim Martin, the rampant xenophobic boss of the Wetherspoon's pub chain, has posted a loss of around £195 million for the 12 months leading up to July 2021. I'd read a different figure but either way it was a lot, because Mr. Hardline Brexit now can't get the slaves low-paid workers to staff his establishments! Couldn't happen to a nicer fella, I reckon - the cheek of those "damn foreigners"!

I'm back!

It was Arnie that said that right? I'm not sure - but anyways, I'm back! I realized during my self-imposed exile how much I kinda needed to put my thoughts down on paper in order to keep my brain free of mental "static". I never considered myself particularly political but when I think about all the things that get my blood boiling maybe I am. Anyhoo, I went offline because someone I trusted to respect my blogging privacy did just the opposite and flapped their jaws. More fool me for trusting that person! I wanted my blog to remain anonymous "over here" and that trust was betrayed but in the end, who cares if their need to gossip was greater than their respect for my privacy! But man was I furious! I knew I had to give it some time for me to cool down and I have because damn, if I'd written what I really thought at the beginning it would have been blue! But you know what, it doesn't matter! I considered making my blog permanently private, but ultimately I didn't want to do that. I also considering moving my blog (I have another blog) but sod it, I wanted my blog all in one place because damn it, I like occasionally reading back through it. After all, that was the reason I started my blog - well that and hopefully having someone further down the line happy to read what grandma/great grandma wrote. Maybe that will never happen - who knows - but I know I would have loved having access to my grandma or, even better, my great grandma's thoughts. So here I am, back again. I've pulled a couple of posts (thank you Marksgran for telling me how to do that) and I'm up and raring to go because, dammit, I have so much I want to get out of my head and down on paper!

So what's happening here? Not an awful lot in reality, but the weather is glorious - just my kind of weather actually. It was funny because my neighbour came out of her house in a huge jacket and scarf wrapped three times round her neck and I'm out in shorts and T-shirt! Give me the cool weather any time! I had been talking to my sweet Honduran colleague about us getting together to go out walking and we finally managed it this weekend. Oh we didn't manage much walking because she has a little two-year old and we fit in our activities around what the babe wanted to do - but you know what, it was lovely. We drove down to the lake at Passy and the babe had a wonderful time playing on the swings and making sandcastles. She and I hit it off immediately because I did all the stupid "oh what smelly feet you have" - and I loved it - and we have plans to expand our outings to a much bigger mom and baby group (even though my "baby" is 29 and a daddy himself)! I don't know, I just feel I live in such a beautiful area that I need to let others in on the secret!

A couple of weeks ago I went to the funeral of my dear colleague C and it was so sad. I knew where this crematorium was because I'd had the misfortune to go there before when my friend V lost her son at the young age of 21. But, what I hadn't realized was that due to all the roadworks around there my GPS sent me all over the place and I ended up making it just as the ceremony was starting! Damn! And it really was one of the saddest funerals I have ever attended. I would say the room was only about 2/3 full and the weather, being grey and miserable, certainly added to the sadness. But C's children gave her a loving send off, all the while most of us were thinking why? I guess we will never know, but somehow I feel she just might have been another victim of this pandemic. Maybe, just maybe, if people had been in work, working in their offices someone might have seen that things weren't going too well for her! Who knows!

And finally (for now), Jordan and Jen invited us all over for dinner the other week. Jen, Jen's mom and I have birthdays all within a short period of time so we all got together and did a pot luck (repas canadien?) and it was really lovely. Charlie hadn't got enough sleep so while I can't say he was cranky, he definitely wasn't going to go down without a fight so I (happily) walked around with him in my arms singing to him to try to get him to settle. Well my lullabys might not have worked on the Munchkin but damn, when I turned round Jen's mom's boyfriend had fallen asleep and this is how we found Leni, the horrible cat! Ah bless!

Gonna make my blog private for a while!

While I enjoy writing my blog as a kind of personal diary, I want it to remain as anonymous as possible in my real life, so I'm going to make my blog "private reader access" only for a while. I'll still be reading your blogs and will most likely keep posting but ... see you soon! Take care and stay safe!

The good, the bad, and the very, very sad!

I saw Sam's post today (at A New Frame of Reference blog) where she posted pictures of her autumn decorations on the mantelpiece, and seeing the word "mantel" took me back to a funny incident when Jordan was pretty young. I commented on Sam's blog that while it's great for kids to be bilingual, when they're young they don't often have the more extensive vocabulary of non-bilingual children because they're obviously dealing with more than one language. Anyway, one time Jordan asked me where my car keys were, and I told him "on the mantel". So he went inside, only to come out a few minutes later and say "mommy, what's a mantel"? And it kinda brought home to me how much we take for granted in our daily language! I mean, with my friends, if I can't think of an English word I just throw in the French word and (most) everyone gets it. For instance, "the basement" is never "the basement", it's pretty much always "la cave". I suppose you get lazy but I remember hearing my sister and her family doing the same thing once when they came over from Denmark - it was very much bastardized English! Anyway, I was talking to my Welsh friend about this one time and she recalled an occasion when her girls were quite young and one of them wanted to go to the toilet in the restaurant. R called out to her to "remember to pull the chain" - and her daughter had no idea what she was talking about! I mean, seriously, how long have flush toilets been around? I think she might have been showing her age there, don't you! Anyway, all that nonsense is just to say it's odd what pops into your brain sometimes, isn't it!

On the "good" side, Switzerland held a referendum on same-sex marriage on Sunday and voted overwhelmingly in favour! Way to go Switzerland - a tad late perhaps, but better late than never eh!

Then yesterday as I was taking my rubbish down to the local bins I bumped into Stan's wife, Martine. She had her four-year old grandson with her and it was the first time I'd ever met him. By golly he's a handsome lad, just like his dad, Samuel (who hopefully will be representing Nigeria in the cross-country skiing in the next winter Olympics)! When I asked how Stan was she told me that he was here in France but not doing too well as "his leukemia isn't going well"!!!! Say what, Stan has leukemia????? Damn! Apparently he'd been hospitalized in Nigeria but was now back home in France with his family but not doing too well. He's an absolute ox of a man and the thought of him struggling to deal with leukemia is, frankly, unthinkable! But then I remembered about 15 years ago where he had regularly-programmed 24-hour stints in hospital for them to give him blood transfusions "to help his white blood cell count". When I asked him what it was for he was very vague, but damn, I never saw him being this ill! So I told her while I'll obviously not go anywhere near him, if and when he's feeling a little better and wants to have a natter, maybe I could come up to their garden gate and have a chat if he's up for it - or maybe I could Facetime him, even though he only lives about 100 metres from me. We'll see how it goes, but fingers crossed for my mate Stan!

And then today I received the bloody awful news about sweet C! I had known C since the day she was recruited maybe 25 years ago because of working in HR, of course, and while she wasn't a friend we would often chat if we happened to be walking down from the parking lot together. I also knew - as did most people - that she was mentally fragile! Anyway, when I left HR and moved to the same division as her, C was very kind and helpful to me because I hadn't got a clue what I was doing. Oh she could be a bit "dippy" sometimes, in a fun way, but I swear she never had a mean bone in her body!

Anyway, a friend sent me a message the other day to say that her children and the gendarmerie had sent out a communication asking if people had seen her because she had disappeared from home on 18 September having left both her handbag and phone behind (according to her children)! Then today there was an article in the newspaper to say that her car had gone over a ravine "as the result of an accident which occurred on 25 September" and C was dead!!! Thankfully no-one else was involved, but I can't get my mind round the fact that if she disappeared on 18 September and the accident happened on 25 September where on earth was she during the intervening week? My hope was that she had been taken ill and ended up in hospital, and with no ID on her they hadn't been able to trace her family. Or I guess the accident could have happened on the day she disappeared and had only been discovered on 25th! Will her family ever get to know? She was 57 years old but I picture her in my mind at around 45 because that's about the age she looked to me. She was sweet and kind and I wish so much she hadn't gone like that. Her poor family - and poor sweet C! RIP hon!

Well that worked out well!

I got a slip in my mail box the other day for me to go to the Post Office to pick up a parcel and yay, the two sets of The Complete Far Side that I'd ordered over a month ago finally showed up! Jordan had mentioned to me how much he likes my Gary Larsen set so that pinged an idea into my head to buy both the boys a set for Christmas! Turns out they're pretty hard to get hold of (and pretty darn expensive - over €200 each!!!) but at least they got here eventually. I was a bit ticked off when the lady told me that there was a tax to pay on them though because I'd ordered them through Amazon, France, and didn't see where it indicated that the sender was located in the U.S., so I thought damn, this is gonna be expensive! One time I ordered $110 worth of patchwork stuff from the States and ended up paying €60 in import duty, so never again. Likewise I no longer order anything from the U.K. because I'd now be liable to pay taxes on that too as we're no longer part of the E.U. Still, I thought I'd just have to suck it up, buttercup, and pay whatever it took. Turns out it was ok in the end as it only cost me €15 but phew, I was expecting a helluva lot more than that!

Then last week Amazon finally reimbursed me the €700 I paid for the phone that went AWOL so I decided to take a look at what kinds of deals SFR - my phone carrier - had on their site. My two-year contract with them ended in May and I always allow it to run out because they are usually willing to make some kind of concession to get you to sign back up with them. Well lo and behold they were offering an iPhone 11 for €1 if I signed back up for a two year contract!!! That's a big saving over €700 isn't it! So I went online to fill in all the required info, stating that I wanted to keep the same number. Trouble was, when I tried to input another required code it wouldn't go through, so I ended up calling them. And wouldn't you know it, that offer was only available to new customers! Damn! The young woman told me she could indeed get me an iPhone 11 but not at that price, so I thought "oh here we go, how much do they want now"? Well it turns out they wanted the grand sum of €9, plus having me sign up for a two year contract at €40/month. Well that's pretty much what I pay anyway so I told her I was happy to go for it - and then she said "oh it's your birthday soon, how about I knock €5/month off that amount and throw in a free phone case at the same time"? Ha, so now I'm the proud owner of a much better phone than my old one, which is on its last legs anyway. Not that I really need a fancy phone because basically all I do is call, text and take photos, but at that price I'm not going to argue with them. So yay me!

In other news Jen's mom called me recently asking about my Monday morning yoga class, which is just round the corner from the new apartment she will be moving to in December. I told her how much I liked the teacher, what the cost was and that I was pretty sure she could have a couple of free lessons to see if she liked it - but she should be sure to tell the teacher that she has back problems, just in case. Anyway, she came with me a couple of times and is going to sign up as she felt it did her back the world of good. I mentioned to her the first week that I wanted to stop over at Jordan and Jen's to see Charlie as he doesn't go to day care on Mondays so we called Jen and the two grandmas got to play with the babe for a couple of hours. Jen suggested we get take-out from the little restaurant in town so now we've made a date to stop over every Monday/most Mondays to see the babe and eat together. Sounds good to me!

Then on Thursday I drove down to Annecy to meet up with my friend, M, who I haven't seen in about three years. She's American (and also French, through her late husband) and after her husband died about five years ago she moved to Ireland with her son when he got a job there. She's a fairly reserved person so ended up not liking Ireland at all, although goodness knows the Irish are a friendly bunch and easy to get to know! They lived in Cork and she never bought a car so I think her world kinda shrunk once they moved there. Anyway, since her son, his new wife and step-daughter wanted to move back to France (as did M), they set the wheels in motion to transfer back here and she's been in Annecy since July of this year. It's sad really because she and her husband bought an apartment in the most perfect spot in Annecy so that they could retire to it - and then her husband died at 59 and they never got to live out their dream retirement together! Just her, although since her husband was the love of her life I'm not so sure she now sees herself as living the dream!

And to be honest I found her sad, still grieving for her husband and since she's so terrified of this virus she's isolating herself even more. She asked me if I would agree to take a lateral flow test when I got to her place so I said "sure, no problem, let's both do them". Apparently they are available for free in the U.K. (or at least in England) and her daughter bought a whole bunch with her when she came over from London not so long ago. Well, you've never seen anything like it! I had to laugh in the end because M had on a big, industrial-strength mask and rubber gloves - I told her she looked like she was preparing for a moon landing - and she burst out laughing, which was good to see. When I handed her my swab she made such a pig's ear out of it, mistakenly trying to get two drops of solution onto the kit from the swab rather than from the solution bottle. I reckon she contaminated my test with all that fiddling around because absolutely nothing happened. Not positive, not negative, nada! I swear we both had a better chance of showing up pregnant than getting a covid result from that! With her own test the colours lit up immediately and then just left one line - thus proving she was negative. So I told her to give me another test and I'd do it myself this time and of course it came back negative because I don't really mix any more either. So after that she took off the astronaut's mask and we ordered in Moroccan food, and sat on her balcony with a couple of glasses of wine yacking away - as you do when you haven't seen someone in years! And it was great, although like I say, I found her to be "fragile" - for want of a better word. I guess losing her husband and then withdrawing into herself during the pandemic really did a number on her! She's also got hip problems so I told her we'd go out cruising and I knew loads of walks we could do on the flat because, as she said, when they lived around here they never went out exploring like we did. It's odd but my other neighbour said the same thing and yet my ex and I were constantly out looking for new places to explore - that is until the marriage blew up, but that's a whole other story. So I told her that I can either pick her up or she can catch the train up to me and we'll go out exploring together before the bad weather kicks in. I'll even get myself some lateral flow tests each time if she would be more comfortable doing that, so it looks like we have a date! She also lent me her copy of Thoreau's Walden, which I've wanted to read for ages. She said it's pretty heavy going and looking at the miniscule print I'll have to see how I get on, but it's one more book to add to the growing pile waiting for my attention!

Oh and I just finished watching Clickbait on Netflix and thoroughly enjoyed it, after giving up on The Queen's Gambit. Of course it was pretty far-fetched but very watchable and more-ish and I was convinced I'd figured out who the bad guy was by the last episode. But guess what, I was wrong, just like all those years ago when I would read Agatha Christie as a kid and feel sure I knew who the villain was - and then get it wrong every time. In my defence, Agatha Christie was a clever writer and I was a kid - but yeah, that's the best I could come up with!

And finally, just a quick shout out to Tania in Essex. I see that your blog is currently unavailable so I hope everything is ok with you and yours! Take care hon!

Reconnecting!

Life continues as normal as it can here in my little corner of France. Nothing exciting, but nothing dramatic either! I think I've totally thrown Facebook algorithms off by blocking them from my phone because I'm now getting bombarded by adverts to "reverse my bunions"! I guess it makes a change from trying to improve my status as a male bodybuilder, but since I don't have bunions I am at a bit of a loss!

I managed to get out in the garden to put my garden "to bed" these past few days and it has been lovely. The weather is glorious (25°C - just my kind of temperature), and cutting back the tomato plants and all the other foliage has really opened up space around here (does anyone else love the smell of tomato plants on their fingers or am I just weird?)! Last autumn I threw a bunch of stringy potatoes into one of my raised beds and believe it or not they have actually grown and seem to be harvesting themselves because every time I go out there, the soil is just glorious and I have a few - admittedly very small - potatoes sitting on top of the bed! Ah, simple joys. I wonder though if it was because I dumped all the mouldy grass clippings onto the raised beds that it made such a big difference to the quality of the soil! One of life's simple pleasures I guess!

Talking of gardening, my gardener showed up the other day to cut my lawn and I ended up chatting with him about cutting the hedges as and when it suited him. I also mentioned that I needed my damson bush cut back and the mirabel plum tree was looking very sad, so he is going to take the plum tree out (a shame as it was glorious) as it is really sick and he will do the necessary for the rest. So I'm thinking I'll have to get looking for some more trees to plant to replace the plum and the cherry trees he's taken out - as I hate an "empty" back garden! My neighbour asked me yesterday if I was responsible for cutting the island in front of our houses so I told him I had asked my gardener to cut it one day when he came with his ride-on mower and I would pay him! There's nothing like paying "the hired help" to get something done is there, but hey, I have no intention of doing it myself, so I feel like I'm doing my bit to keep the place tidy and my gardener sure as heck is glad of the money. Actually I sat with him after I offered him a coffee (my gardener, not my neighbour) and we ended up getting into French politics and boy was that an interesting discussion! 

Next May we have the French presidential elections and I talked to both my neighbour and my gardener about what was going on there. While I know the pandemic will have been hard on any government to handle, Macron's authoritarianism has rubbed so many noses the wrong way - and yet I had so much hope for him when he was elected! So I was talking to my neighbour the other day about which way she thought the election might go and she was saying that while nobody wants to see Macron re-elected, the problem was that there seemed to be no viable opposition - and my gardener said the same thing! Macron basically ran against right wing Marine Le Pen last time and won but this time who knows. Not me, certainly. Oh I've seen the various politicians and understand their views as regards the pandemic, the vax passport and so on, but as to their general politics, I have no idea. We have François Asselineau, who I have appreciated very much during the pandemic. He has promised a vote on withdrawal from the EU (but for god's sake take a look at what a pig's ear that made of Britain) and NATO - but I liked him (not that I get a vote anywhere right now). Jean-Luc Melenchon - I have no idea but my neighbour says he is a nasty piece of work but talks a good talk (don't they all). But the most frightening to me is Eric Zemmour, who is more far right than Marine Le Pen! I had heard of him but only got to listen to him for the first time the other day - the racism just drips out of him like autumn rain on an oak tree. The problem is - he is very, very eloquent so damn! God knows we don't want any more Macron and his (former) relationship as Pfizer's banker, but who the hell do we have to replace him? (Try googling "qui est le banquier de Pfizer en France" - who is Pfizer's banker in France? - and see what pops up)!

Anyway, that's enough drama for today 'cos it's my birthday. Yeah, 63 and still raring to go! I went over to Jordan and Jen's today as Jordan works a half day on Fridays so I got to see my son as well as my sweetheart grandson on my birthday. I swear if that baby smiles any wider he will tear his lips! I can see that the Munchkin is about ready to try crawling - that bum goes up in the air but then he falls flat on his nose! So I got down on the floor opposite him and the two of us grunted our way towards crawling but he isn't there yet. As Jen said, at least she got her floor cleaned because grandma and babe covered most of the kitchen area on their bellies! While I was there Jordan showed me a bathroom sink that he was given from work to replace the one in their bathroom and a tap unit that would cost €400 if sold to the public that his boss told him to take if he wanted it for their bathroom renovation!!! I had mentioned to him about working on my bathrooms little by little because god knows they need it and he said that he had a couple of new sinks that I could use in my bathroom if I just went out and bought the tap units. So job done. I can wait for the rest, he can instal the sinks and taps as and when, I can pay him good money to do that, then repaint the units under them and have half a decent bathroom started! Yay me and yay him, because I feel I really need to push him to gain confidence and get started on doing plumbing on the side!

So that's about it for today at least. I met up yesterday with my dear American friend who I haven't seen for maybe four years because she was living in Ireland (more on that tomorrow). It was hard going because I find her so "broken", probably more mentally than physically, but I feel that somehow she's living her reality that is the US right now, despite the fact that she doesn't live there any more! I love her to bits and hate to see how fragile she has become. But, as I say, more on that tomorrow!

And again I see the terrible covid stats in north America and have a hard time comprehending it from over here. But just for comparison, I took this screen shot of official stats the other day to show just how different things are here!

These are the official stats from the State of Haute Savoie as at 20 September. 

Taux d'incidence - incidence - 71.6/100,000 - (I'm guessing that's positive tests).

Taux de positivité - positivity - 1.4% (down 0.1 points)

23 September

Hospitalisations - 50 (+5)

Patients in ICU - 16 (stable - that includes all ICU patients, not just covid)

Total deaths - 1,066 (stable) - since the beginning of the pandemic. The last four months have shown maybe 10 deaths.

Discharged from hospital (since the beginning of the pandemic) - 5,335 (+3)

Regional statistics:

R number (at 12 August) - 1.08  

Taux d'occupation en réa (ICU bed occupancy) - 24.5% (today I just saw 12% but that hasn't been posted yet).

So of course I don't understand what's going on in north America and I can't relate. I hope you will see now why my reality is so very different from so many of yours. Either way, stay safe!