It's A Funny Old World

It's Funny.............

It's funny how things turn out sometimes. My small and surreptitious efforts at growing flowering plants across the road from my kitchen were, I thought, never going to amount to a great deal. Despite my fond hope that a new mayor, if it was the one who might be persuaded he owed me something, would let me turn the parking space into a flower bed was really just that: a fond hope. Unbeknown to me, neighbours Jean-Pierre and Monique and some others who had gathered at their house one evening, were discussing my gradual extension of the flowers there and hit upon an idea.

There is a bench further along the road, placed so that promenaders can sit and take in the view across the river. What if they moved that to the space in front of my house? There wouldn't be any room to park a car then and I would be free to carry on planting. So that is what they propose to do. Then I shall plant some lavender and focus more on scent; with no need of any mayoral edict; the neighbours have done it for me.

More On Elections

I played boules this afternoon with Daniel, Marie and Mana. Mana took me to task as to why I hadn't attended any of the other open meetings with mayoral election candidates. I explained that one meeting clashed with an evening when I had invited Jo and Steve to eat and the other clashed with an important foot ball match I wanted to watch. Mana wasn't impressed with my second excuse and I had to explain my priorities. I told my children when they were young that, as far as I was concerned, they could choose their politics and, if they wanted a religion, choose that too. But I wasn't having any Arsenal supporters in my house. There was only one football team that could be supported and that was Chelsea. I felt, and still feel, that it is important to get priorities right on the really important things in life.

Anyway, as it turned out, Mana was greatly unimpressed by the meetings I missed. One was apparently very poorly attended and the candidates neglected to use the microphone so Mana couldn't hear what they had to say. For Very Important Elections, only in Mollans could this happen. At the other, the candidates had decided to offer no agenda but simply said “elect us and we will discuss it”. I didn't like to ask Mana whether she had tried to establish their position on the Ukraine crisis (or the national economy, immigration or unemployment) but presume she didn't even bother.

St Patrick's Day

I went down to the Bar du Pont this evening for the usual pizza but Roberto was also doing baby chickens, so I had one of those. Interestingly, in England we know these as the French word “poussins”, which the French don't appear to use. They call them “coquelets”. Anyway, it was St Patrick's day and so the bar owner, Patrique, was celebrating. The French celebrate not only their birthdays but also the saint's day of their first name. The assumption is that you are named after a saint and, Heaven knows, there are enough of those names to go round. However, I remember a job interview I was conducting while at ICL when I wanted to verify the candidates name. I just said something like “your Christian name is Norma and your surname is xxxxxx”. The young woman tersely responded: “it's not a Christian name”. OK, I should have said first name rather than Christian name, and I've no idea what all the Normas since creation could have been doing not to get at least one saint among them, but that defensive/aggressive response set the tone for the interview and, no, she didn't get the job. A simple, “yes it's Norma but it's not actually a Christian name” might have set a different tone.

Whatever. Patrique, a Mollanais from birth who has no Irish affiliations that I am ware of, duly celebrated by buying us all a verveine, a green liqueur. Good health to Patrique!