Chit Chat

Chit Chat

The weather remains clement and there is nothing out of the ordinary going on. My pots out front are now full of bulbs for the spring and I have a few left over which I will plant in the back. I'm waiting for the first severe frosts to hit before cutting down the solanum, plumbago and clematises in the front.

My boules playing is going particularly well at the moment as I seem to have managed to add consistency to my talents(...?). I haven't lost a match for a week, playing with a a range of partners. It has an interesting “double whammy” effect on the opposition in that they seem resigned to losing when I'm opposing them, if I start off OK, and so don't play as well as they could, which makes it easier for me. Interesting game psychology.

Daniel is having problems returning hospitality because he doesn't cook normally and the paella man who used to have a stand on Saturday mornings in the village no longer comes. So Daniel can't buy a round of paella for Saturday lunch-time to thank people who've fed him during the week. Apparently the paella man was refused space for his stand on the weekend of the Painters in the Street, reasonably enough as the centre of the village is crowded with painters, paintings and onlookers then. However, he took umbrage, vowing never to come to Mollans again. That seems to be another Clochemerle moment. Assuming it was profitable for him to come before, and it seemed to be, he is cutting off his nose to spite his face and all for an assumed slight.

Claudine and Jacques are back from Brittany for a month's stay and were insisting at the pizza evening today that I write some more fiction. This is a result of Claudine having finished translating the fourth short story I'd written about the fictional character Cecil Roads I'd invented when doing a creative writing course in England. The character appeals to the French, I think, because he is somewhat anarchistic. Both Claudine and Jacques find the character hilarious and want some more material to translate. The problem is that I find writing fiction extremely difficult. I created Cecil Roads with the idea that I could put him in various situations and perhaps stitch together a short novel; and that provided the necessary material for the creative writing sessions. However, I need to think of more situations with humorous potential and I'm running out of ideas. Maybe that will give me something to think harder about during the winter.