Breakfast anybody ?

As there was nothing much on TV last night Rob and I watched a couple of episodes of Fawlty Towers (the one with the body and the Anniversary episode). I still find them hysterically funny. Anyway, I was reminded that John Cleese blogs too, so I went and looked at his blog to see what he’s up to. He’s recently been interviewed by a bunch of young men the Idiots of Ants. I’ve never heard of them, so if you have I'm sorry, but I’m out of touch with the English comedy scene unless it’s radio. This made me laugh so I thought I’d share it

Dom bought John Cleese’s book on psychology a year or so back, I must ask her to lend it to me.

That was the week

This last week has flown by and there were a lot of interesting things for me to blog about but I’ve forgotten them all. Olivier came home last weekend having been in Poitiers for the two previous weekends. He doesn’t look as if he’s dying from malnutrition or alcohol poisoning. I didn’t even have piles of washing to do. He and a friend had tried out using a laundrette, the university one had ‘broken down’ so they went into town, which was quite expensive so they did a communal wash to save money. He seems happy and answered my questions without losing his temper, usually a good sign.

I spoke to Dom recently on the phone and she might be heading for Edinburgh in the spring to a psychology conference. She’ll be meeting her colleagues from all over who are working on the same thing as her (don’t ask me I don’t really understand ). Later I got an email and she could have a job next summer in a Scottish laboratory. I wonder if she realises how different the climate is between here and Scotland. She and J-M are coming to stay next weekend so I’ll have more details then.

I’ve started to think about putting up the Christmas decorations. Rob put the outside ones up on Friday afternoon. We put them on when it got dark and I heard one of the little girls from next door exclaiming ‘ooooh!’. I expect her parents are now cursing us because she wants some too.

Spam Sandwich

Stoop choletserol toady and you wiill livee withuot vascluar dsiease tomrorow!

I just had to share this one with you. I get the impression that the writer is so excited about his/her discovery that they haven’t had time to correct the typos before sending out the spam

“Yoour diganosis is bronhcial ashtma? Buut thiis is noot the eend of lifee!”
I’m so glad to know that

“Hundrdes of aanti-fluu reemdies advertsied nowdaays aree moore myth thaan real savlation.”
I don’t think they are sold as remedies it you read the packet. They just ease the symptoms to make you feel more comfortable.

"Coome ngiht, coome drakness, for you can-not coome tooo sooon or staay tooo loong by suuch a plcae as thiis! Coome, strgagling ligths into the windwos of the uugly hosues; and you whoo do iinquity tehrein, do it at laest with thiis derad scnee shuut oout! Coome, flmae of gaas, burinng so slulenly aobve the iroon gatee, onIt is weell thaat you shuold caall to eevry pas-serby, "Loook heere!"”

I think they’ve copy and pasted part of a different spam letter here.
I especially like this part; "wihch the poiosned aair depostis iits wicth-ointmnet slmiy to the tuoch!” It would have been a useful line to threaten the children with when they were small.

Makes a change from all the lotteries I’ve won recently. Oh - I forgot to mention the threatening letters I’ve been getting from the FBI. If I stop blogging you’ll know why….

Have you seen this girl?

Our time traveller has cropped up again. Keith said in a comment:

“Remember the 'time-travelling girl' in on one of your old postcards? I was watching the news on Yahoo last week about the rioting in London and I saw a girl in the crowd wearing the same clothing. I noticed her particularly because everybody else was dressed for the cold weather except her. I searched your archives and sure enough she was the spitting image of the girl on the card. I know it was just a coincidence and I had a vivid imagination, but I thought it was very strange at the time; and no, I hadn't been at the meths bottle either!”

Which left me wondering if anyone else has noticed her around the world. Have a look at the picture from a postcard which is from August 1925 below. If you have seen her please leave me a comment saying where and when.




In the meantime have you seen this man?

Oh to be beautiful...

Today was the third session of my second year of injections into the veins of my legs. At the end of the session I told the doctor that I always mean to count them but usually forget. She told me that others had managed to count. ‘How many?’ I asked, ‘About 100’ she replied. I’ve still got a long way to go. So you can tell how bad my legs are. One day I’ll wear a mini skirt again….

Happy Birthday Dom!

Dom was seven and a half years old when this photo was taken. Today she’s 21. I just can’t believe how the time has passed. Happy Birthday Dom! Hopefully she’s been able to take some time off from studying to celebrate in style. I wonder what time I should phone her up?

This is the second weekend that Olivier hasn’t been home. I’m really pleased that he’s bonding with his fellow students, as it were, but it’s very strange, especially today as Rob is working and I’m all on my own. Oh well, I can dream about all of the washing that’s sure to come my way…

Last night was a first for us. We’d decided to fetch a pizza from the pizza place in the village. It’s only open on Friday and Saturday nights. We discovered it’s not open at all in the winter months. So we decided to phone and have one delivered. Olivier and his friends have done it lots of times so we chose one of the companies he uses. The service was excellent, they delivered before the time they told us and the young girl (was she really old enough to drive?) that came to the door was really polite and chatty. Our call went though the Yellow Pages so she was in a bit of a panic when she saw the Parisian number (five hours drive!), she told me. Oh yes, the pizza was very good too.

Blogging, bloggers, blogs, blogrolls...

I’ve just spent a happy hour sorting out my list of blogs. I wasn’t happy with Blogrolling anymore, I didn’t like the advertisements; Now everyone is on the blogger list and will come to the top every time they up date their blogs. If you think that you’ve been missed please let me know.

I’ve added Helen and Lucy, so welcome to two newcomers! There was some sad news though. I’ve taken Leslie off and Titania still hasn’t come back, I know that she was having health problems, I hope that everything is okay there. Miimama –Demi, last posted when her husband was taken into hospital over a year ago, unfortunately he died in the spring.

All I have to do now is sort out the Blogrolls on my other blogs! I shan’t be doing that this evening.

Back to the ice age

I’ve spent quite a large part of the day involved in a very important archaeological dig.

Anyone that knows me well knows that I just don’t get housework. I like the house to be clean and tidy etc. etc. but I don’t like how to get there. I’d rather read a book or go for a walk. Recently I’ve been having problems fitting the weekly shop of frozen food into the freezer in the garage. I don’t buy that much frozen food and it’s a big chest freezer, so something wasn’t right.

We were given the freezer by some neighbours years ago, they were too lazy to take it to the tip, or the top of the cliff so they asked me if I would like it. I was very pleased at the time, an old freezer is better than non at all. Unfortunately, the seal around the lid isn’t perfect anymore and so it ices up. I’ve developed a technique whereby I go out and hit the ice with a hammer from time to time. Over the years the freezer has filled with ice.

Today I gritted my teeth, managed to squash everything into the kitchen freezer and proceeded to defrost. I emptied out a lot of the loose ice with a serving spoon because I forgot I needed to buy a new trowel. (the only thing I learnt in three months on an advanced secretarial course was – improvise! – improvise!). As the day wore on and the ice wore down I started to find remains from past ages, a couple of slices of bread, one or two long lost chips/French fries, a mini quiche, a sprout, bits of packaging and so on. Unfortunately there were also one or two labels that had dropped off and some booklets of vouchers for reductions for microwave burgers (fortunately Olivier has gone off those). The best before dates were 2006 and the vouchers expired at the end of 2005.

I’ll try to defrost again before 2013 I promise

Remember

When I see postcards like this one I always ask myself ‘Where did the survivors go?’. Lens was occupied at the beginning of the war in 1914. Only half of the population survived the war and then there was the Spanish flu…

Was this little boy standing on top of the ruins of his school? Let’s not forget the millions of civilians whose lives were never the same again.

There were moments of hope

Some ideas are better than others

I’ve got my Igoogle set up so that when I click the icon for Mozilla it’s all there. All decorated (Elena Suprun) just like home. The latest widget I’ve acquired is the Writers Idea Bank; every time you refresh the page, 5 more crazy ideas pop up. Great for blogging too!

This morning it asked me to imagine kissing someone twice my age. That would mean someone of 108. Needless to say, I refreshed the page.

A very good start to the week

This has been a true week of Gifts of Prosperity if ever there was one. In the post on Monday came a nice cheque refunding me for over-payments to the social security last year. Next came a knock at the door. I’ve recently translated a CV and letter for a neighbour applying for a job with a foreign company. My neighbour presented me with a very posh platter of expensive sweets/candies; marzipan fruits, stuffed dates jellies...

I’ve written recently about buying some albums of postcards back in September, they came from a château. Yesterday the present owner of the Grandmother’s château contacted us. He’s very kindly sent me some of the history of the family from before our postcards were sent. Our postcards have brought to light a daughter he didn’t know about. I’ll try to compile as much as I know so far to help him , unfortunatel, I'm going to have to try to write in french:( . This is exactly the kind of thing I love about my postcards, real live history. For example; in the summer I gave Dom a catalogue from one of the auctions we went to because it contained a quote from a letter George Sand sent to a friend. Only the people who have seen the catalogue would have seen that quote. Our expert is a mine of little details, we learn a lot from him.

I’m looking forward to seeing what happens next!

The main news of the week is, of course, that Debbie has now had her surgery and is doing well.