Where has this year gone?

I don't know about you but I can't believe it's almost October already. I mean, where on earth has 2024 gone?? Maybe I should make an effort to do more one-off things during the year as just maintaining the same routine day in, day out, seems to make time just fly by, don't you think!

Anyhoo, since I wasn't particularly busy the other day I decided to sit down and apply for my French passport. In reality it wasn't too difficult but it is a real faff having to set up an account for this (to get my appointment at the Mairie in La Roche to hand in my application) and make an account for that (to obtain an administrative number for .... goodness know what, I can't remember now). Then I had to buy what they call a timbre fiscal in the amount of €86, which I guess is just a way of paying the cost of the passport directly to the State. So I'm online filling out the form for a first time applicant and when I get to the end they ask me for my credit card number to pay the €120 fee! Say what, it costs €86 and I'd already paid it! But when I looked into it I realized the site, while looking like an official government site, was in fact just one of those promotional sites that "will do the work for you for a fee". But I'd already done all the work hadn't I! It's a bit like when you apply for a visa to visit a foreign country and up pops the "for profit" sites rather than the official government site. I'm pretty sure they're mostly legit, but I was damned if I was going to pay them €40 to just forward my paperwork for me! That being said, I'm so glad I got my citizenship before they see my photo - oh my word, it wouldn't look out of place on a wanted poster! Anyway, when I fetched the mail the other day I see that I have also received an invitation to a "citizenship ceremony" at the local Préfecture for 12 October. I don't have to go but feel I should anyway as it's the right thing to do!

September 24th was my birthday and I got a FB message from Karon, who I met in St. Lucia eight years ago. Honestly we chatted like it was just yesterday First thing she mentioned was the bloody hair nets that we had to wear when we went ziplining (she signed me up without my knowledge). Honestly we looked like a bunch of dinner ladies but we had to wear them in order to prevent us being scalped in the event of an accident(!!!)! 

Then we got on to the older lady who sampled every one of the 19 varieties of rum when we visited the rum factory. To be honest, the tasters were really tiny, but 19??? And then of course she mentioned the four of us sitting in the sea with our rum punches in our hand and going wheeeeee every time a wave came in and threatened to spill our drinks!!! The locals got a real kick out of us apparently. Happy days indeed, and it's so nice to think that after all these years we can still have a laugh together!

On Wednesday this week we set off for our latest, overnight trip to the Fortress of Guédelon. The fort has been built using the methods used in the 13th century and is very impressive. Stick me in an art gallery and I'll be nodding off at the coffee shop within 10 minutes, but anything like this I absolutely adore! The very big down side was the bloody awful weather but since we were expecting it everyone was well equipped. I'd bought a sturdy poncho to take with me to Thailand (I forgot it), but it certainly came in handy this week. At one point my friend was trying to take a photo of a bunch of geese wandering round the village when one of the males took umbrage and started running towards her. My first thought was to start flapping my poncho at him but thankfully it didn't come to that 'cos as soon as he'd scared her off he went back to his lady friends.

In the internal courtyard there was a little kid of about four years old having an absolute blast jumping in the puddles. Thankfully he was totally dressed for it and he was an absolute joy to watch. Then at lunch when one of the older men in our party heard us speaking English he started telling us that the only time he had ever visited England was many years ago when his school won a free trip to London and as he was one of the younger teachers he was asked to accompany them. Problem was, when they went to board the bus back to the airport they were six kids short!!! Turns out they'd started chatting up a young English girl and she ended up giving them a lift to the airport. Of course in those days there were no cell phones so I can't even begin to imagine the panic they must have been in trying to find them!

While we were wandering round my friend was telling me about a former colleague of ours (who went back to England many years ago). She might just be 60 at this point and as my friend was due to meet up with her and her husband the next day, the husband had sent her a message to say that P (the former colleague) was not doing well at all and would seem to be suffering from pretty fast developing Alzheimers/dementia (I don't know the difference). So they all met up for lunch and my friend was telling me that P was quite obviously not well, very unsure of herself and stressed out just at the idea of having to find the ladies' bathrooms. I know 60 might not be considered "early onset", but I am totally shocked and saddened to hear of her decline at what, after all, is still a pretty young age!

A google picture of the fortress (the
weather was too bad for me to get a
decent picture of the whole fort)!

The archers would shoot through
these gaps at the invading hordes!

On the way back we went "through" the most stunning rainbow I have ever seen. It was a complete arch (double arch actually) and the colours were spectacular. I couldn't do it justice but I have honestly never seen such a beautiful rainbow in my life!

Then the other day when I picked André up from the Ford garage he was telling me how stressed he was because one of their computer systems had screwed up and they had a massive job to complete for their upcoming conference. He told me that they use Teams to communicate and he has a colleague who is very nice, but who can never "just send a message". It goes something like this: "ping, hi André", so André says hi. Then "ping, all ok?" - André yep! "Ping, can I ask you a favour?" and so it goes on and on. He doesn't seem to get the idea that he can put his entire message into one "ping" and they would get a lot more done a lot faster! The ping is driving him mad! That made me laugh because I remember reading one time that a man (in the US I think) came home from work one evening and, as ever, called out "hi honey, I'm home" - and she shot him!!! My ex used to walk in every night (when he wasn't at the bar) and say "so, what's the game plan?", but luckily for him I don't own a gun!

And finally André has been telling me for some time now that when he goes to the local pub in Geneva he has become friendly with a man from my work called Juan. Well I went through all the Juans I could think of but we could never figure out who it was. Eventually he sent me a photo of Juan and another former colleague, Carlos (who I remember very well), so now it turns out we're all going out for a drink and to a concert together at some date to be arranged by André. Just hope nobody uses Teams (ping)!

This and that!

It's been a fairly quiet few days again, although with the weather being glorious it has allowed me to get outside on a few walks and/or work in the garden and then try to find something half way decent to watch on either Amazon or Netflix in the evenings. I had noticed on a few occasions that when I maybe spotted a film on Netflix I might like to watch at some point, the next time I logged on I'd find out that said film had now become "for payment only". Okay once or twice I might have made a mistake, but by the third time, I realized that if I earmarked a relatively well known film to watch later, it would very often change status from free to "for rent" when I went back. Sneaky buggers! And then this morning I got an email from Netflix to say that my bog standard contract with them for €5.99 per month had been cancelled and would be going up to €13.99 per month as from end October!!!! I don't think so! I've been starting series and not finishing them because they just don't hold my interest, so I've put a note in my diary to cancel it before the new contract kicks in! Maybe if they didn't pay out ridiculous sums of money for some of the less than stellar productions they wouldn't need to more than double their contract price without warning! Mind you, I probably need to start cutting back because apparently I've yet again been hacked and "caught looking at porn sites which could seriously damage my reputation but if I just pay $1,300 into the following bitcoin account they will delete all their evidence"! Jeez, and I thought I was being so discreet!

Then the other day I went to pick up André from the Ford garage and when he saw that I had my ear buds in listening to a book on Audible he told me that his friend just got done the other day for the same "crime"! Huh? How can that be a crime? I get that they don't want you having your phone in your hands, but surely listening to a book is no more dangerous than listening to the radio? Well apparently that's not so because it would seem that the ear buds can "diminish my awareness of what's going on around me while driving". Again, huh? I still don't see how it is any different from listening to the radio but it is, apparently, and his friend got fined €90!!!! So what with that and my porn habit, I guess I'd better be more careful!

Earlier this week my Nigerian friend's wife, M, stopped by for a chat as she's going to be around more now that she's been made redundant. It wasn't how she had planned to retire but she realizes she is lucky because she actually can retire, whereas many of the younger journalists are struggling to find new jobs. When I asked after her husband she told me that he had had to come back from Nigeria (his happy place) as he had been taken ill with blood clots on the lungs and diagnosed with stage three prostate cancer. When I asked if it was possible to get good medical care in Nigeria she said it was - but only if you had money as there is no medical insurance!! I guess I've always taken good medical coverage for granted but when you realize that many people don't have that it's pretty humbling!

On Saturday we had our latest board game evening at Jordan and Jen's place so everyone got to meet Elynn, then the following day we had our latest "clean up the neighbourhood" get together, which allowed us to meet two new sets of neighbours who have recently moved in. Honestly if everyone pitches in for just an hour we can have the place looking pretty nice and after that - well, it's party time. Everyone cooks and brings a bottle and as the weather was nice we were able to stay out until it got dark and cold. One of the young kids is called Loris and while I don't know him very well, he is a very polite, well brought up young lad. He was excitedly telling me that in a year's time he is hoping to be going to New York for four years to study dance. When I asked him what kind of dance (with me thinking classical dance/ballet) he said hip hop! I was stunned because having been responsible for the education grant at work I have seen people whose kids studied in New York and it ain't cheap, but to spend four years studying hip hop??? I'm not sure how that's even possible but then maybe I'm just an old lady. I hope he gets to achieve his pipe dream, even if I somehow doubt it!

I stopped in at the local exhibition centre this afternoon to visit the annual creative arts fair and while everything was indeed lovely, all I bought was a pair of electric scissors for sewing club. I also spotted a poster announcing what I would call a freebie exchange mart where people can bring whatever they want to get rid of and take anything that takes their fancy, the only proviso being that everything is free. I think it's a great idea and am hoping it will really motivate me to get working on decluttering to take stuff over there!

And finally, I got a phone call from our local Mairie on Friday to say that they had received my paperwork back from Grenoble and guess what? After goodness knows how many years/attempts, it would seem that I'm now French! So Vive la France (finally)!

Gonna send off for my new passport when I 
get back from Guédelon next week!

Feel the burn!

The last few days following our visit to the Parc de Merlet have been somewhat telling as to just how long it's been since I did any exercise (a couple of months probably)! Oh I've done a couple of walks on the flat round the lake at Passy and also into Cluses but actually doing something even slightly strenous? Nope, I've been avoiding that like the plague, so the climb from the parking lot to the park entrance the other day was a struggle, even though, being perfectly honest, it shouldn't have been difficult at all. Anyway. all that to say that for the past couple of days I've been falling out of bed and hobbling around as my poor old muscles try to figure out what on earth just happened! As things calmed down a bit I decided that I didn't want to keep going through that every time I made any effort so the best thing to do - apparently - is to keep at it!

I mentioned before that I follow a few hiking groups on FB and when I see anything that looks relatively easy and somewhat local I've been making a note of it with a view to "getting round to it someday"! To be honest, if I don't do it in the autumn with the cooler weather I'm probably not going to do it when the snow comes am I, so my friend and I decided that since today was supposed to be nice we'd take a trip out to a place called the Gorges de Diosaz, which turned out to be only about 20 minutes from the Parc de Merlet, so not far at all. Then this morning my friend let me know that she had had a bad night and hadn't slept so I decided to head off on my own because I knew I'd soon be getting cabin fever again if I didn't get out and walk!

At the entrance to the park there was a signpost to a small cave which I'm presuming had indeed started off as a cave but which had later been hollowed out further and used to store dynamite for mining purposes!

According to the signs posted outside, it appears that some poor family had actually lived in this cave for three years (????) in the late1800s and a pitiful young (unmarried) woman had been forced to give birth there - a child which was promptly proclaimed an orphan and adopted into what I'm presuming was a noble family (given the name) and raised alongside their nine other children!

Cralin, the little boy born in the cave, I believe!

After visiting the cave I couldn't find any valid excuse to delay the hike up to the end of the gorge - all 600 steps of it! Now to be honest it wasn't actually that bad because there were "landing areas" every so many steps so it wasn't as though you had to keep going non-stop. As I set off I bumped into an older English couple and when we got chatting the man asked if I was "a scouser" (i.e. from Liverpool), which wasn't a bad shot I suppose as I'm actually from Birmingham and some people think the accents are alike. They were actually living in a smallish village in Herefordshire right near the village where I got married!! It's a small world isn't it! They were only over here for a few days for their niece's wedding, which was going to be taking place the next day at 2,000 metres, so I told them to pack something warm (I'm thinking cable car ride up) and wished them luck. What a lovely place to get married!

After that it was simply a question of trudging my way up which, as I say, really wasn't that bad if you managed to avoid the ice cold water dripping off some of the overhanging rocks. All in all it took me about an hour to get to the top and since tomorrow is also scheduled to be nice, I might see if I can get another walk in before the bad weather hits on Sunday!

So what's new?

For the past couple of months life has been pretty much "samey" in that the heat is hard to bear and very lethargy-inducing. I've been getting round it by trying to get stuff sorted in the house in the mornings (downstairs is quite cool and the basement is wonderful) and then working a little in the garden in the evenings but I must admit I'm starting to get cabin fever right around now - so it's a good thing the weather is cooling and my various classes start up again next week!

Charlie started school (or is it pre-school at age three?) on Monday and I suppose one of the great advantages of having been in day care from a young age is that he skipped off quite happily to his new class without looking back. The only person that got a kiss was Elynn so I guess that let's everyone know where they stand in the pecking order!

I woke up Monday morning to see that I'd missed a video call at 2.30 a.m. from Jordan - not a good feeling at all. Turns out everything was fine though as he reckoned he must have sat on his phone and bum-dialled me. Logically too, if anything serious happened in the middle of the night they would either wake up one of the neighbours or take both kids with them to the hospital because it would take me around 45 minutes to get there anyway. Still, all's well that ends well!

I stopped over at André's place on Friday to drop off his birthday present and he was telling me that he has to go to Istanbul soon to help with setting up one of his organization's upcoming conferences there. I told him to check to see if a good friend, M, might be there as I'm sure he would love to see him. M was a Turkish colleague of my ex who organized a fabulous long weekend for us in Istanbul, his home city. It was wonderful - all the moreso for being shown around by a native, of course - and I think hearing the call to prayer when the sun was going down over the Blue Mosque is a memory that will stay with me forever! Anyhoo, that was when I realized that 31st August would have been my 39th wedding anniversary. We limped along to 26 years but for my part at least, they were mostly pretty miserable years. How sad is that?

Moving swiftly on, my friend and I are off on an overnighter to the fortress village of Guédelon on 25th September, so I'm looking forward to that. We'll get to spend the day exploring the fortress and village at our leisure and then board a boat for an overnight cruise down the river (can't remember which one) before heading back home. I don't have anything else planned for this year, except for my sister and her husband coming out at some point, but I think I might look into another "last long haul" after Christmas. We'll see how I feel in the new year, I suppose!

While I've been puttering around sorting stuff, I've taken to listening to a wonderful young woman on Youtube who goes by the name Cheere Denise! I sometimes listen to my audiobooks but if not, she is my go-to if I want to get an insight into other books. She is one of a number of Youtubers who read extracts from popular books and give their thoughts on it (they can't read the entire book for copyright reasons). So I was pleasantly surprised to hear her read the book The Housekeeper's Diaries, which was written by a woman who worked as a housekeeper at Highgrove to the then Prince Charles and Princess Diana. When I was initially looking for this book (it was written in the '80s, I think) I found out that it had been banned from sale in the UK and the only copies available from outside the UK were going for ridiculous amounts of $$$$$ and no way was I going to pay that. I think the author was fair to both Charles and Diana, but showed that Diana was absolutely not the fairytale princess she was portrayed to be, and that Charles was not a total monster either. She was nowhere near as kind to Andrew and Fergie though (which seems to be pretty much on par with what I've read about them from other sources). What really struck me though is the shocking amount of ££££ that was wasted when, for instance, Diana sent the housekeeper back to London (a journey of about 90 minutes) to get her favourite hairbrush (???) and how when truckloads of gifts were sent to Highgrove, either for C and/or D or the kids, or just from companies trying to curry favour, after taking their pick of what was on offer, the rest was burned??? Again ?????? I think anyone from a normal background would be utterly shocked by this and then maybe they had their reasons, but if so, I can't think of one!

Right now she's going through a book on the Mountbattens and the recent book by Maureen Callahan called Ask Not - about the Kennedys and "how they destroyed the lives of the women that married into the family"! That's still ongoing for me, but again, it is pretty horrific and does much to destroy the Camelot myth!

I'm also reading the book Gomorrah by Roberto Saviano, an investigative journalist who infliltrated the Neapolitan mafia. It's hard going, what with all the Italian names - and then of course everyone also had a nickname - but it goes into great detail about the inner workings of the various clans. The main "commodity" was, of course, cocaine, but surprisingly the next biggest venture, according to him, was arms traficking, followed oddly enough by "cement". I suppose when you think about it, if you control all the component parts of the construction industry you are powerful indeed! Another interesting facet was the "knock off" fashion sweatshops, although in many instances, again according to him, much of the fashion produced in these sweatshops also made it into the big fashion houses in Italy and around the world!

He became quite friendly with a talented tailor called Pasquale, who had such talent and such exquisite taste that he was often sent to pick out the quality fabrics to be imported "duty free" from Asia. He went on to recount how Pasquale was given the measurements of a very famous person and told to create a trouser suit for her out of the recently purchased top notch white fabric. Apparently he loved his work but was horrified to be watching television one night and saw Angelina Jolie wearing "his" trouser suit (to the Oscars? to the Vogue gala? - I can't remember which)! There was no insinuation that Angelina Jolie knew her suit's background, but when he realized that he was being paid just €600 a month to create the exquisite clothes that then went on to sell for thousands of dollars, he refused to work as a tailor anymore and took a job as a mob truck driver instead!

And finally, as I said previously, I was beginning to get cabin fever from spending so much time at home, so my friend and I decided to set off today to visit the Parc de Merlet. The weather was perfect and I can't believe I have never been to this park before when it is only one hour up the road towards Italy!!! Being completely out of shape we struggled even just walking up from the parking lot, but we made it, and apart from a pretty disappointing meal at the one and only restaurant there, we had such a good time we've decided to head out to a local gorge to go walking again on Friday, weather permitting!

Parc de Merlet!

We gave these guys a wide berth!
They can obviously run and jump
better than we can!

The Mont Blanc!

A llama enjoying the view of
the Glacier des Bossons!

And finally, I came across this old "short" the other day and it tickled me so much I just had to share it!

This and that!

Well it looks like autumn might already be upon us as the mornings can be a bit nippy but after a couple of hours it's lovely. We don't get a particularly long summer and for that I'm grateful as I prefer the spring and autumn temperatures!

I was talking to my sister the other day and she was saying that her granddaughter will be leaving school next summer at the age of 16 and hopefully starting an apprenticeship in the travel industry. She's a clever and hardworking girl and at first I was a bit surprised that she wouldn't be staying on to do her A levels but nope, she wants to get out working as soon as she can (and travelling methinks). She's already working at a hairdresser's and a pub when she's not at school, so why not. It'll give her a bit of money and I actually think it's a good thing if more and more people go into "the trades", rather than setting themselves up for tons of higher education debt and no guarantee of a job afterwards. I used to see that when I worked in HR. Hundreds of supremely well-qualified applicants chasing after just one or two jobs! So then my sister said that she would have loved to go into midwifery but when she went to see the joke of a careers advisor she was told "that wouldn't be possible" and to go work in a shop or as a secretary! With that attitude what chance did the working class ever have of getting ahead, even just a little??? How times have changed then, because one of my friends at school was able to get in, but then I'm eight years younger than my sister. I do remember being told myself to go the shop or the secretary route but since I was so pissed off at that I also left school at 16 and went straight to college to study languages. To be completely honest I did end up getting a job as a secretary - but in Switzerland - so I'm pretty sure I earned a far better wage than that sexist (or elitist?) careers officer (or at least I hope I did)!

In other news I was talking to my neighbour and she told me that Stan's wife, Martine, (Stan is my Nigerian friend) looked to be losing her job as the small regional newspaper she has worked for for many years as a journalist is going out of print. Buuuuutttt she said that in that case she intends to run for Maire of our village when the occasion arises. I certainly hope I am French by that time because I believe she would do a great job. Hell, she apparently already knows about "dubious" dealings with land being sold off to developers at less than the value agreed by the authorities!!! Moreover, our current Maire is a miserable sod who can't keep office staff and my lovely neighbour, P, who agreed to be on the village council, resigned after just two months since, apparently, he was only there to agree with the Maire - dixit the Maire! This was more than apparent when we went to the old fogies lunch in conjunction with the next village over and their Maire was very pleasant, friendly and has a good reputation - a complete contrast to ours so I hope Martine gets in!

Talking of politics, but this time national not local politics, apparently a request for impeachment of our President has been (or will shortly be) lodged by the political party known as La France Insoumise! Now this is a left wing party (far left???) and I initially liked a few of their candidates and their leader is quite a convincing speaker. But he's been in politics for years and is a sly old dog (that's about as pleasant as I can be in that regard) and they are the ones that kept Macron's centrist party in power but now, he has them up in arms. You see it must be about six weeks ago that Macron dissolved Parliament due to the appalling results in the legislatives but the left helped keep him in power with the seeming understanding that they would be getting a few key posts - like Prime Minister. Buuut yesterday Macron issued a statement to the effect that he would be doing what he and he only wanted and might even bring in a few outside players (like the head of Renault) to take these posts, basically setting himself up as a dictator!!! I don't think there is much hope that this will go through but as my favourite politician said, at least it will now force the political groups to show their true colours! Fingers crossed but I suspect more outrage is in the offing!

And finally, little Elynn arrived safe and sound on 21st August. I only got to meet her today as I started coughing when they came out of hospital and didn't want to take the risk of anyone getting sick. The early days are hard enough without that aren't they!

Big brother!

Elynn!

... and I am one happy, happy grandma!

On becoming a hermit!

Yet again it's been a while since I last posted, but honestly if all you do is flake out on the sofa, what's to write about? Summer has finally hit us "proper", with temperatures in the mid-90s. This usually lasts for the months of July and August and since most people don't have A/C it can be tough. A few people I know have put individual A/C units into specific rooms but I just get by with a small mobile unit and cold showers. I'm getting used to it now though and since I know it won't last forever I'm fine with getting by like that. I've come to accept that "summer" means generally doing bugger all (a bit like during lockdowns), but I have managed to spend my mornings sorting tons of old photos and going through (and getting rid of) loads of administrative paperwork. It's a slow process (I'm definitely a tortoise, rather than a hare) but I'm making progress, all the same. So I've been shredding papers that had identifying details on them and then emptying my shredder into large bin bags which I'll get round to taking to the tip shortly. Only problem with that was, last night a massive storm kicked up, slammed the office window wide open, picked up the plastic bag and deposited shredded paper all over the upper floor of my house. It looked like I'd hosted 100 weddings in 24 hours so today was spent hoovering all that up - followed by yet another cold shower!

Talking of weddings, I was invited to Jen's best friend's wedding on Saturday (not sure why, to be honest) and boy was it hot. They have lived together for quite a few years and have a five year old daughter together but decided to finally take the next step and get married. And oh were they a handsome couple. Jen was on tenterhooks because she was to be the bride's witness/maid of honour - and was 38 weeks pregnant last week!!! But she made it and we're now all just waiting for the arrival of the next little bundle of joy! Two of their mutual friends are identical twins, both are gay and are two of the loveliest young men I know! I've known Julien for ages as he lives locally and comes to our board game evenings, but his brother, Nico, is a (very talented) hairdresser who works in Paris, so I don't know him very well. Anyway, Nico and I chatted for ages and he kept looking at my hair, which was a frizzy mess, and said next time he comes down he's going to cut my hair for me to get rid of that frizz! I'd only had it cut last week but even I have to admit I can't do anything with it! He had styled seven people that day - including the bride - (and cut Charlie's hair - talk about a busman's holiday) but he said he loved it and like it or not, would be attacking mine and André's hair next time round (apparently André is going to become a bleached blond)! These two, as I said, are two of the nicest young men I know and were absolutely wonderful with Charlie, so hats off to mom and dad for doing such a good job!

I had to go into Geneva the other week for an appointment so met up with my Uruguayan friend for lunch beforehand. He goes back and forth to Uruguay frequently and invited me to come with him next time!!! I must admit I'd never given it much thought but to visit a country with "a native" has got to be the way to go, right? Add to that, that despite the fact I swore I'd had enough of long distance travel, I'm now giving serious thought to maybe doing India's Golden Triangle next spring. André was all over me to go for it at the wedding, so who knows - Airmiles Annie, here I come!

Due to all the enforced inactivity caused by the heat I've continued to plough through some of the many books I've been given over the years and am still (mainly) happily surprised. I've just finished a book by French author Michel Bussi called Time is a Killer and was delighted to see that it was set in northern Corsica - where we started out on our recent trip. Now I'm moving onto Gomorrah, by Roberto Saviano. I've had the book for quite some time and understand it caused a huge stir when it came out, with Saviano having to go into hiding immediately after it was published. It's apparently about Neapolitan organized crime so I sure hope he covered his tracks well!

For whatever reason, the powers that be have decided to reroute some of the roads in town and I'm still trying to get used to it. The roads here are quite narrow as part of the town is mediaeval but as far as I know there have been no accidents (so far). At least it has got to be easier than when Sweden switched, in 1967, from driving on the left to driving on the right. I remember it fairly well and can't begin to imagine what would happen if they tried that in the UK (not gonna happen, methinks)!

Sweden, the first day of the switchover!

I haven't watched the Olympics at all, which is weird because when I was a kid I couldn't get enough of it. I guess I'm getting too old to sit still for long anymore. I have watched a few reports on the Australian breakdancer though who received zero points for her performances. Having seen some of her non-Olympic performances I'm not surprised and honestly thought it was a joke, to begin with. One commentator described her performance as "like a kangaroo having an epileptic fit", and while that's funny, at the end of the day who missed out on a place on the team because of it? But then, I'm an old lady so what would I know!

Raygun!

In a fit of madness I signed myself back up for pilates lessons (in addition to my usual yoga class) come September. I don't know why really as I never enjoyed it much pre-covid but I do know that it did me a world of good and if I can't "feel the burn" for just one hour a week I'd say I'm pretty pathetic! But if you want to feel really bad about yourself, try watching Mountain Queen (on Netflix). I watched it the other night and loved it - but it makes my whingeing about a piddly pilates class somewhat embarrassing don't you think?

Mountain Queen!
(see the trailer here)!

And finally, I was sitting here minding my own business reading the other day when my (male) neighbour came round and rang the bloody doorbell eight times! No kiddin'! Is it a man thing or what because my other neighbour (the one who died in March) also used to just keep his finger on the doorbell (in addition to parking in front of my garage)! Now when their wives come round they call out or tap on the window but the men??? Oh how about we superglue our fingers to that there doorbell and make her jump out of her skin! On a side note, I think having such a violent startle reflex might mean that I'm not a sociopath (I know, thank goodness)! I have read a couple of times that one of the potential signs of a sociopathic personality is that they don't have much - if any - startle reflex (well that and the fact that they have little fear - see rage driving as an example)! So that's good to know! And then I spotted "the guy" (who I think is one of the travelling community given that he only seems to come around in summer) who goes door to door saying "did you know there's a problem with your roof/chimney/do you need your home pressure sprayed? Don't get me wrong, he does good work but I'm getting the impression that I'm going to find out I need around €1,000 of work done every time he stops by. Well this year I'm just not up for it so I got stuck in to the fuse box, disconnected the fuse for the front doorbell - and it's been absolute bliss ever since (and I can now slither happily back into my shell like the proverbial hermit crab)!

Me - in a couple of months!

It's been a while!

Crikey, I see it's been almost a month since I last posted - but then to be honest how much can anyone muster up to say about our near-eternal wet weather!

While I generally don't mind the rain it's been a bit "over the top" to say the least. Add to that our temperatures are only hitting around 75°F here when they are usually in the mid-90s, so it's a very strange old time - not that I'm complaining about the lower temperatures of course! I have managed to get a few walks in (that toe splint that the podiatrist recommended for me is a miracle - no more pain) and I even managed to get in a two-hour walk on what has probably been the hottest day to-date, but otherwise, it's all a bit blah at the moment. Even Bastille Day (14 July) was pretty low key from what I saw, but since you had to pre-register to be able to get into Paris to watch the parade I understand why Macron was basically driving up and down the street on his own! That's because the Olympics are about to start shortly and there has basically been a ring-fence posted around Paris with QR codes being an absolute pre-requisite in order to get anywhere near the city. Of course the QR codes will "only be for the duration of the games" but we'll see. These things have a way of becoming permanent, a bit like emergency measures! I believe there have been threats made against the games and I wouldn't want to be anywhere near them for both the above reasons! How sad is that!

The Olympic flame is making its way to Paris and passed through this region (the Plâteau de Glières) towards the end of June, I believe. One of the bearers is apparently going to be a drag queen in full drag so I'm supposing he will not have been carrying it round here!

Plâteau de Glières!

Anyhoo, I took a break for a while because I am quite politically minded and what with the General Election in the UK, the Legislatives in France and the upcoming elections in the US I felt like my brain was being frazzled!

Unsurprisingly the Labour Party won in the UK, but I feel this was maybe not so much a vote for Labour but against the Conservatives. Either way I think both parties stink right now so, as the French say, let's see which "sauce they're gonna eat us with this time" (not good I think - I can't stand Starmer anymore than Wishywashy Rishi)! What beats me though, is that Reform UK got 14% of the votes and only five seats, while the Lib Dems got 12% of the votes and 72 seats. Make that make sense in a democratic election please someone! Mind you it was again interesting to see how main stream media and it's client journalism works yet again!

Then in France, Marine Le Pen's party won a resounding win in the first round of the elections - and the far left (sorry, I forgot - the word "far" only applies to the right) and the left rioted in Paris. The following week, after Macron's party strategically pulled over 200 of their candidates in unwinable seats, the left wing coalition took the majority - and again the far left rioted (celebrated?) in Paris! Make that make sense! As of tonight Macron has accepted the resignation of his government and France is now basically ungovernable because while the left were in agreement to form a coalition in order to keep Le Pen out, they all hate each other and won't work with Macron anyway - and all this just a couple of days away from the opening of the Olympics (insert gallic shrug here)!

And then of course this weekend there was the appalling attempt on Donald Trump's life! I don't care what your politics are that was either gross incompetence on behalf of the Secret Service (it was) or an exceptional 20 year old man who (almost) managed to kill a huge political figure. Still, at least now they have upped his security - and I would hope be offering the same to JFK Jr (who has been denied so far - edited to add - that should be RFK, Jr., thanks Ms Moon). If your only solution is to kill a political opponent there's something very wrong with this world (there is)! Hell a few months ago the Slovak PM was shot but fortunately also survived. He is anti-globalist and anti-war so I sure hope Hungary's strong man, Victor Orbán, is watching carefully!

In other non-news, I still have no word on my French citizenship request but I wasn't really expecting any this quickly. I suppose I'll just get a surprise one day et voilà I'm in! In better news I received a letter from the UK pensions department as I'll be eligible to receive my (very small) state pension as from my 66th birthday in September. I was to either fill out a form as long as a toilet roll or I could give them a call so that's what I did. I ended up getting through to an extremely helpful man in Northern Ireland and within about 15 minutes it was all done. Mind you, every contact I've ever had with the pension people they've been extremely helpful so well done to them!

So I've been spending much of this wet summer sorting and getting rid of stuff and sitting down to read actual books since I have so many to get through - and what a great pleasure and a change that's been! I've ploughed through so many books and have been delighted to find that most of them so far have been really good. In other news I'm still keeping up with my Italian lessons, although I was getting a bit sloppy recently and mixing up pretty simple words - pomeriggio (afternoon) with pommodoro (tomato). Could be intersting huh! My ex-husband's French was poor and he was forever mixing up words like "cheveux" (hair) with "chevaux" (horses) so he often went out to get his horses cut!  Tee hee!

Mind you, there was a moment the other day that I wished I'd either kept my mouth shut or actually thought before I spoke. Brigitte Macron is pretty much as unpopular as her husband but they are pushing her "fashion sense", her "figure" etc. and the other day they were talking about how much she spent per month to "get her look". Someone in the comments section asked if she polished her own "chibre" or paid to have it done and since I'd never heard that word before I asked my neighbour - who promptly burst out laughing because the commenter was asking if she "polished her own d*ck/knob"! Another word - and another lesson learned I would say!

And finally, if anyone follows Sam over at Sam Squared, I was in touch with her recently after her "Very Tired" post. She's okay, but as the post would suggest she's just so very tired with everything that is going on in her life lately. I'm sure she'll be back with us all when she feels up to it, but until then, take all the time you need Sam!