Into the future

Just have a look round at some of these ideas. Not all of them are as far fetched as you would think. Especially the film about the kitchen....

Thunder, pineapple and roses

Early this morning , around 5 o’clock, I was woken by a huge clap of thunder. Seems like half of the district was woken too. Olivier got up to see what was going on and annoyed his darling mummy by asking if he could run round the garden with a metal pole. I don’t know where he gets his ideas from.

My dear son is still washing up and making salads at the restaurant. We went to the drive-in at MacDonald’s the other evening and while we were waiting he explained to me how to cut up a pineapple professionally. He can cut it up next time we have one. He’s looking forward to being paid, which I think is his main inspiration for getting out of bed in the mornings.

Dom went to Ikea with a friend and bought herself a small table. It’s a long way from here so I’ve never been to Ikea. Sounds like there are some good bargains for students. She also came home with a new computer (not Ikea), so Olivier now has her old one. She couldn’t sell it because sometimes the screen turns off. I haven’t heard Olivier shouting yet.

Rob and I have been very busy with the postcards. As professionals we sometimes get special reductions so we prepared a lot of cards in advance this week. We now have over 1000 postcards in our shop. This was the 1000th card. My mouse clicking finger aches a little so I even tried using the mouse left handed, I’m very slow.

My Olympic announcement

As everyone else seems to be writing something:

I’ve just had an email from my sister to confirm that our very own  cousin will be swimming in the paraplegic Olympics in September!! I haven’t met my cousin, but I do know that she is very young and very small - and very courageous.

Dreams and Robots

I dreamt that Rob had a very rich aunt who died and we all had to gather at her huge house for the funeral. For some reason she decided to frighten us all by making lots of banging noises, slamming doors and tuning lights on and off. A female relative (non existent as far as I know) and I were being chased through the house and garden by a robot – we were terrified. Fortunately I woke up. I could hear shhh, shhh, shhhh in my ears, I realised it was my pulse, it disappeared as I relaxed and calmed down again.

I remember the robot film from when I was small. A little boy was chased around by an unstoppable robot who rescues him in the end (!). It really frightened me and I still worry about robots coming onto general use – even though I used to know the three laws of robotics. Isaac Asimov died in 1992 so he isn’t around anymore to sort things out for us...

Yet another fridge post...

I’ve now got a new fridge and I won’t have to defrost it- ever. The delivery man phoned at twenty to twelve on Tuesday announcing that he would arrive in half an hour. I was in a real flap. Empty the old fridge, dust it down, clear a space for the new one, unpack it and put it into place, clear away all the polystyrene bits, make lunch and have the kitchen cleared for my pupil at two. Olivier says he loves to see me in a panic. He and Rob did help though.

Olivier got the job as washer up and salad maker. The lady who was coming for the job permanently turned up late on the first day of her tryout and then not at all, so they asked Olivier to do the job for a month. It is hard work but he is so pleased. He’s going to show me how to make croq monsieur properly and knows how to remove the pith from oranges. I’m expecting him to tell me I need to buy a proper set of knives next…

Dom and I went shopping on Friday. Looking for odds and ends for her new home in September. How many years is it since I really looked around household and furniture shops? I’d love to start again and have bright orange cake tins (when did I last make a cake?). We did enjoy ourselves.

Memories of a special time and place

While I was visiting blogs today a post on Dru’s blog reminded me of a roof that I had been lucky enough to visit.

At the end of the last century (!) I was teaching English in several primary schools locally. One of the schools in the north of the department was in a old convent which had been seized during the revolution. I imagined the beautiful old staircase being quietly used by the nuns – not by noisy children as it is today. I was teaching the children who would be leaving for the ‘big school’ the following September. I really thought that their teacher was called Boris Vian - that was the name on the classroom door. When I went into the headmaster’s classroom I realised that their headmaster couldn’t possibly be Victor Hugo. I was pleased I hadn’t addressed the teacher as Monsieur Vian. Anyway, the teacher, whoever he was, was someone really special. The class had adopted one of the contestants of the Vendee Globe boat race and he was using the race as a way of teaching all of the subjects throughout the year. The children were learning to plot a course, study weather, geography, natural history and so on in the context of the race - oh yes, and compose a letter in English! In the March of the year they would be staying for a week in Vendee and hopefully greeting their adopted contestant as he sailed home.

The teacher was also an artist so he’d arranged for the children to pass some time at a workshop based on the work of a late local artist – I forget his name. Towards the end of my time there the teacher took me up into the roof which was beautiful, completely wooden and divided into three areas; computers, library and art. One of the dividers to the areas was a huge sail painted by the children at the art workshop. With the sunlight coming through the windows it equalled stained glass!

Those children have probably left the school system by now. I hope they remember and appreciate their teacher

Hollyhocks!

Because of the wet spring this year there have been lots of flowers. My clematises (clementi?)seemed to flower and flower for ages. The roses have been abundant, despite my laziness in pruning. This year is a bumper year for hollyhocks in Charente Maritime, the department where I live. We’re famous for our postcards of little houses on Ré island with green or blue shutters and tall hollyhocks decorating the walls – this year the hollyhocks are as high as the roof in some cases, the local paper devoted a colour double-page spread to them.

I’ll leave you to browse the pictures I found on Google. It seems we have ‘hollyhock’ cookies too! ( They contain hollyhock petals and the cook also makes honeysuckle cookies.)

Last of the fridge poetry

Dom’s friend Iris (who sometimes wears a top hat with a toy rabbit in the band) has finished learning about Spanish insects and has come home for the summer. As usual when she visits, she leaves me poems, or at least lines of poetry on the fridge. I cleared all of the words away today as hopefully at the end of next week I should have my NEW FRIDGE at long last! I noted down and translated the few remaining lines before I broke them up

Don’t smile at gastronomes

Little daddy tender peach

Your mummy in a bin is delicious

Weekends, not before Sunday

Bring me all the children for washing up

We find the stars are very good

Always need presents

It’s not easy as the words work their way down the fridge and disappear underneath. When the men take the old fridge I’ll ask if I can scrape off any lingering words from the bottom. Poems seem to have a foodie theme as I had a few sets of words free with something or other we used to eat.

Now glowing in the dark

Yesterday morning we had a power cut just as I was in the shower. Fortunately it didn’t last for too long and it wasn’t dark.

I know that the leaks in the nuclear power stations in France have made the headlines in the UK – after all, a lot of electricity you use over there comes from over here. Perhaps now is a good time to lay in a stock of candles and matches.

I remember when the children were small EDF/GDF (one company then) used to advertise their nuclear power. A man knocked on the door of a house and asked his neighbour if he could borrow his electric drill; “ You mean nuclear drill!” the neighbour would proudly remind him…

Life continues

Dom went off to Poitiers at the weekend for a birthday party for the brother of a friend. She made a carrot cake as her contribution. It always sounds weird to people but it turned out really well and everyone loved it. She came home with some cartoons of herself that had been drawn by the birthday brother; they are amazing. I won’t ask why she was given green spiral eyes. He’ll be studying art next year.

Olivier still doesn’t know if he’s got the job at the restaurant. We all went and had breakfast on the port this morning before he and Rob went to the bank to open an account for him. Dom and I looked around the shops until it was time for her to go to work. Then I looked at the sales. Everything in my size has gone!