mercredi 31 octobre 2018

No News Is Good News?


No News Is Good News ?
After Nat, Andy and Eilidh returned to Scotland life has returned to normal with raoifity, which leaves me with many happy memories but little to write about. I have, however, included here my current favourite photo of Eilidh with me.



 October has been a beautiful month weatherwise for which we have paid over the last four days with solid rain. Tonight (Wednesday) there is a storm which, I hope, will change the weather pattern. We needed rain but it has been too much of a good thing. I've bought cyclamen and bulbs for planting out the front but had no opportunity to get out and do anything with them. I suppose that I should be grateful that this area is not suffering the floods that are cauing chaos in other parts of France.For floods to reach my house would require a veritable tidal wave. There was a cold snap on Monday however that brought the first snowfall on Mt Ventoux, more than a month earlier than usual, and indeed coated the hillsides down to under 1000ft.

I've been playing boules, cooking for friends and generally doing what I usually do. Steve and Jo arranged a birthday lunch for me in mid-October, with many fruends present but now the last of the summer visitor friends, Claudine and Jacques, have departed, in their case back To St Malo.

Steve and I restarted our Englsih conversation classes at the beginning of October and have been pleased to find 9-10 people attending since then. I got some new ideas from Claudine, who goes to English classes in St Malo, pne of which was to read a book together. Claudine is reading Animal Farm and both Steve and I thought this was a good choice as the novel is fairly short, the vocabulary not too difficult and the theme universal. Also I get Connexion, the weekly English langage newspaper that covers the news in France particularly in its relevance to Btitish residents.

It was Halloween tonight but I wasn't trick or treated as I usually am, probably because of the wet weather. It's just as well as I was watching the Chelsea vs Derby game and probably wouldn't have answered the door anyway. Tomorrow is Toussaint so the shops have been full of large pots of chrysanthemums for the past week. I quite like the brown and deep red ones but never buy any because they have been forced and never last more than a week. One year I did buy a pot and tried to separate the individual plants and grow them on but that didn't work.

During October I had the pre-scheduled phone call to Immigration, which was auite straightforward and now have a date for my interview re naturalisation; it is the 27th of March next year, two days before Brexit day if Brexit happens. I have yet to establish whether I need a carte de séjour or whether my naturalisation submission will suffice. Brexit seems as chaotic as ever. I caught a video clip of a middle-aged man, quite well-spoken, saying in all earnestness that «we need to get back to the British Empire». I wonder how India, Pakistan et al feel about that;.where do these people come from? How stupid (or rich, they've all got EU passports or resident permits) do you have to be to realise that Brexit would be an awful mistake?

lundi 8 octobre 2018

Eilidh In France

Eilidh In France
The delay in making a new posting to my blog is entirely explained by the two-week visit of Natalie, Andy and Eilidh. And I think their holiday here lived up to everybody's hopes and expectations.



We all considered my house too dangerous for Eilidh as she has started toddling: too many stairs, banisters she could get her head through and hard surfaces. So I hired J-P Thomas's house on the edge of the village, which had the added benefit of a swimming pool, and we all settled in there for the fortnight. The weather played its part with temperatures mostly in the high 20s and low 30s and so the swimming pool was put to use. The aim was for everyone to relax, as far as that is possible with a 14-month old. Actually, that is not possible; I'd forgotten how tiring a child of that age can be, a perpetual motion machine when not asleep. The most strenuous activity planned was Andy' aim to cycle to the top of Mt Ventoux, which he duly did (with a little help from an electric-aided bike).

This was my big chance to get to know Eilidh and get her to know me. She seemed to have trouble assimilating or pronouncing “grandpa” so we settled on the French “papi” which she gleefully announced, when pointing at me. Eilidh, naturally, was the centre of attention when we were out and about, at the pizza evenings and at apéros, and she resonded by charming everyone with her happy smile and determined toddling.

The rest of this post is given up unapologetically to Eilidh's first visit to Mollans and France, as follows:.
Eilidh at the top of Mt Ventoux (above)
Eilidh vrossing the bridge in Mollans
Eilidh's first paddle in the Ouveze
Eilidh meets pain au chocolat
Eilidh gets fashionable
Me reading to Eilidh