History goes up in flames

As I write this the Town Hall in La Rochelle is on fire.  Scroll down to see pictures

Painted pylon painters

While travelling along the duel carriage way into town the other day, we noticed that some of the huge pylons parallel to the road had been painted, some red, some yellow. They weren’t finished and when we took the exit road, sure enough, there were the painters putting on their climbing gear and getting ready for a day’s painting. We knew they were the ones because their clothes and hats were beautifully splattered in red and yellow. Unfortunately, I didn’t think of taking my phone out to take a picture.

Yesterday we went south to meet some friends who live near to an estuary. Again the road was accompanied by huge pylons. These hadn’t been painted and are probably not to be disturbed for some time. Perched near the top of each pylon were one or two stork’s nests, complete with busy parents coming and going in order to feed their young. I did try to take photos, but we were moving too fast.

Google has lots of them, some in Spain too:

French Wikipedia tells us that storks make their nests at the top of pylons especially in the marshes surrounding Brouage - which is where we went!

I think that I shall never see A poem as lovely as a tree

Whenever we go back to England I'm always struck by the greenery and how large the trees are! C & J took us on a walk through the fields which I thoroughly enjoyed!

 Would you believe that this is a public footpath?

We also crossed a golf course (on a footpath) and the golfers very kindly waited for us to go by.

Trees 

I think that I shall never see 

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest 

Against the earth's sweet flowing breast; 

A tree that looks at God all day, 

And lifts her leafy arms to pray; 

A tree that may in summer wear 

A nest of robins in her hair; 

Upon whose bosom snow has lain; 

Who intimately lives with rain. 

Poems are made by fools like me, 

But only God can make a tree. 

Joyce Kilmer, 1913

Easy once you know how

I expect you can imagine how Olivier's eyes rolled heavenwards when I told him I couldn't remember how to get at my pictures.  I was trying to find out how via the computer when I needed to use the phone settings.

So here are the WW2 train pics:

At the top we have King George VI and Queen Elizabeth - and they later waved to us!  We had our IDs checked by a British Bobby with a lovely moustache and a German soldier - is his uniform more WW1? Well, we were time travelling back 70 years...

There were soldiers everywhere. Sorry I didn't get a picture of the GIs - there were too many young ladies in the way. 

Lots of cars, motorbikes, tanks and of course, the trains themselves to look at.

There and back - again

I was hoping to include some pictures in this post, but I still can’t get the pictures from my phone onto my computer. Dom shows me what to do every time she comes, I forget very quickly.

We’re just home after spending another week in the UK. We originally planned to return in September but Rob was looking for cheap flights and we ended up going 8 weeks after our first visit in April. The plan was the same as before; stay with C & J and then with MIL for a few days. We took her shopping which she didn’t really enjoy from the height of a wheelchair. On other afternoons we walked around the village and also visited a garden centre and had a cup of coffee. We also went to see my mum and sister as well a shopping in Worcester. Top of my list was Honey trap lip balm from Lush. I discovered a shop, Healthy Planet Books for Free, where I could choose 3 free books – which I did. How could anyone throw away a book? We made a donation in exchange.

The best part of the visit was the weekend we arrived. C & J took us on a trip on a steam train on The Great Central Railway. The stations on the route were holding a WW2 event. Each station represented a different country, Germany, France and a US base. There was plenty to see, even George VI and Queen Elizabeth, Winston Churchill and others, plenty of singers and music from the 40s. Many people were dressed in clothes from the time and uniforms, some were carrying gas masks. We even had ID cards which were checked while we were on the train – once by a very severe looking German soldier. It was a lovely day.

Health (and wealth) report

Yesterday afternoon found me at the Dentist as well as the Doctors. My gums seem to be fine now and the cleaning process was a lot quicker than in the past – must be keeping them much cleaner myself. The dentist X-rayed my three crowns at the front. They are 40 years old now and will need to be replaced. He gave me a quote for 2400€ (that’s $3140 or £2051). Unfortunately he’s not registered with my insurance company, so I would have to go somewhere else to get more money refunded. I can’t afford 2000€ at the moment - I don’t think that I can ever remember being able to afford 2000€! Fortunately there are two other Dentists locally that work with the insurance company.

The Doctor’s visit went better for me. It’s taken me a while (two years) to get used to my new Doctor after having the previous one for 22 years. My thyroid is playing up a bit. I’ve got to lower my dose of thyroxin (e) a little. He suggested doing it by alternating 150µg and 125µg every other day. I have noticed myself being moody recently – Rob has noticed too. Perhaps that is why. Other than that everything is tickity boo!

The sun is shining and it’s starting to feel warm at long last. Olivier went off to spend the afternoon at his friend’s pool.

Marriage for all

Some recommended reading: Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert. She’s done all the research on marriage that you could wish for. Nothing is new:  The story of Mr and Mrs Loving, in their day mixed marriage caused a lot of trouble!

 Tomorrow the first ever gay couple in France will officially marry. This is at the end of several months of sometimes violent protest by the anti marriage for all movement. The movement has been led by Frigide Barjot (a play on the name of Brigitte Bardot), who in my opinion often shoots herself in the foot. She said that marriage is for a man and a woman who want to make babies. Does she mean that couples who do not want children, couples who cannot have children and couples who are too old to have children, cannot marry?

Then we get on to the subject of adoption. “A child needs a Mummy and a Daddy in order to thrive properly”. In France one child in 5 is being brought up by a single parent. How do they think lone parents feel when they hear that statement? What about parents whose partener just went off. “The responsibility of a family is too much for me” (We know someone who left their wife and two children with those parting words)? Not to mention the children who end up murdered or ill treated by their step-fathers? What about the wives of Soldiers recently killed in Afghanistan and Mali; what do they make of that statement?

As I see it, any idiot can make a baby – and they often do. I’ve worked with teenagers who were well aware that they were unwanted by their parents from an early age. Only highly committed couples get the opportunity to adopt the baby or child that they really want. Children need love from consistent adults in their lives to thrive.

 I wish Vincent and Bruno all the best in their future life. If they choose to adopt, I hope that they are treated with the same fairness that any heterosexual couple could expect.

Happy Mother's Day!

At long last it's my turn. 

A bit of a quiet day for me as Rob is working and my children have all flown the nest. 

Have a lovely day - wherever you are.

Tooth-hurty

This week I went to the dentists for a checkup and one of my teeth has been aching again. The same one that hurt 7 months ago when I last went. As before; it’s not the tooth it’s the gum. I’m taking antibiotics at the moment and using mouth wash three times a day. The pharmacist advised me not to drink alcohol at all, as even a tiny amount of wine will feel like the whole bottle.

Why tooth-hurty? That was the time of my appointment. The next one in a couple of weeks will be at tooth-hurty too (oops, not 2.32 - two thirty)

Recipe for disaster

I don’t usually make pudding/desserts. There are normally plenty of pots of yoghurt and the like in the fridge. They really are the best way to control portion size in my book.

When Dom and J-M came to visit at the beginning of April, I thought that I’d give my favourite dessert, Lemon Meringue Pie, a go...

 First off; I was too lazy to look for the Royal Worcester Evesham design flan dish which would have been perfect for the job. I used a non stick cake tin instead. Unfortunately, I had to bake the pastry blind, so a high sided cake tin was not a good idea, the pastry ‘sides’ just slid down to the bottom. Before I put the pastry into the oven I’d placed a piece of greaseproof paper sprinkled with rice (no baking beans) on the base. When I came to take off the paper with the rice on it, some quite a lot of the rice got stuck to the half cooked pastry. I managed to pick most of the rice out and burnt my fingers.

The lemon part was tricky too, my grater for grating the zest from the lemons has seen better days, so there was a lot of hard work for little result. It smelt nice though. Next came the corn flour. I should have sieved it, but I thought the thing about corn flour was that it didn’t go lumpy. I ended up with a mix that looked as if it had polystyrene bits in it. It took ages to strain through a tea strainer.

 The egg whites whipped up beautifully (I know what you were thinking).

Everyone was very brave and ate some: It tasted fine, just looked a bit odd and we had a good laugh about it. For the first time ever there was a left over piece of pie – can’t think why.

Image taken from Wikipedia