It’s called Friday 13th

The end of last week was a particularly bad one here. The Maritime Museum caught fire in town. The museum is/was in a ship which had just been renovated at an enormous cost ready for the season; an electrical fault.

 The weather on Friday itself was very wet, windy and cold. The music festival that the town was holding over five nights was delayed for that evening, and then cancelled. Olivier had a job for the five days and nights of the festival on a food stand. This involved us collecting him from town around four o’clock every morning. Fortunately Rob was on holiday for four of the days, but we still found it very tiring. We did have an early night on the evening that was cancelled – if you call 2 am early.

This year I have been growing some sunflowers and they were doing very well, especially the one that was taller than me. The wind blew it over. I put the top in water but after a couple of days it was obvious that it was dying.

Here is one in the fields

Nearly a month has gone by…

I’m sorry that there hasn’t been an update for so long. Rob went back to work this morning – 5 weeks after his accident. Our 27th wedding anniversary passed without divorce proceedings due to my driving. It’s not that I drive badly I just don’t drive like him and get nervous when I’m constantly ‘given advice’.

I met up with another blogger for the first time ever in my blogging career. Caroline and her partner were passing through La Rochelle on their way home by car. They usually wave as they fly over, so it was nice to see each other for real. We sat on the port and drank coffee and chatted. I wish I could have stayed longer. Here’s the proof:

 (Weather was a bit windy)

 Dom and J-M came for the weekend as it was Rob’s birthday on Saturday. Dom made one of her wonderful cakes; Chocolate on Chocolate (can’t get more wonderful than that). It’s always good to see them and we all spent Sunday morning browsing around local Brocantes/boot sales/garage sales. I found a lovely leather wallet and the partner to a candle holder we found last year under similar circumstances. Dom’s paper has now been accepted completely for publication. She’s just submitted her second and I think, has started on a third.

That about wraps up the update.

Found at last

I've been looking out for Twizzle for a long time, it was my favourite show.

Update

I haven’t had any time this week to myself. I have an invalid at home, until the beginning of July . Rob’s arm has a tiny fracture so he doesn’t need a cast. After being strapped up for ten days he needs to get it moving again. Almost every day I have to drive him to see the physiotherapist. He’s driving me nuts – he’s not a good passenger at all. The good part about the physiotherapy sessions is that I get to read for at least 45 minutes while waiting for him. Unfortunately due to a spell of hot weather Rob has also developed a heat rash to make things even more uncomfortable. We’re sleeping better than we thought that we would, but not as well as we usually do.

 Olivier is now home for the summer. He had to come home on the train and then drove us to Poitiers to pick up his things and then he drove us home. He’s a good driver. There was no way I was going to drive them on the motorway myself!

About that canned meat

Comments 

Not long ago I had to enable comment moderation because of that kind of comments. It didn’t really have any effect so I switched the word verification on. Something I didn’t want to do as I struggle to read what letters I’m supposed to put in myself.  I realized that I’d missed a blog when I had about 50 sapm comments on one post in a row (I presume it was to make up for the comments it couldn’t leave on the other blogs). Next thing that happened was the unwanted comments came back, because somehow the verification turned off!

For the last couple of days I’ve only had real comments, which has been a pleasure. Unfortunately I don’t get as many comments as I used to. I know I haven’t had much to say recently, but I imagine some readers just can’t stomach jumping through the hoop just to say a few words.

 Emails 

An email gets trashed if it addresses me as Dear one or Dear friend. I don’t read Russian and I don’t take orders from anyone. I’m not afraid of the FBI and I certainly don’t open documents. I don’t gamble, take drugs or want to enlarge something I haven’t got – so there!

Was it the 13th yesterday?

Yesterday started well enough. A normal day just like any other - until Rob phoned me mid-morning to say that he’d fallen off his bike and that he was coming home at lunch time. 12 years ago he did the same and broke his elbow which meant 3 months off work.

As Rob was cycling to work a motorist stopped suddenly to avoid a pedestrian and Rob swerved to avoid hitting the car. Unfortunately his heavy rucksack kept going and pulled him over, so that he lost his balance.

I could see which arm he had damaged when I went to pick him up from the bus stop. He hadn’t been to the emergency department at the hospital as he didn’t think it was serious enough. He went to the Doctor later who told him to go to hospital straight away.

It didn’t appear to be too busy in the emergency department as we were checked in and ushered to a waiting room. There were only two people in front of us… The waiting room filled up quite quickly and it was three hours later that we finally got to see a doctor. Rob was examined and X-rayed and it seems that nothing is broken, but as there was so much swelling a fracture could be hidden. He has to go back in 10 days. His arm is now strapped up and he has pretty strong painkillers to take.

We arrived home just after midnight.

He’s well enough to criticize my driving.

Mystery plant

What is this plant called? Do you know of it?

I thought I’d lost it when it shriveled up and died last year. It’s come back and flowering later this year due to the colder weather.

Important advice for women

The other day I was googling “what to serve with pizza” when I came upon a quote from Miss Piggy about using chop sticks. It set me searching and I came upon a brilliant site. All any woman needs to know in order to be belle, chic and je ne sais pas quoi*.

There are her beauty recipes, beauty tips, etiquette, cooking advice, finding eligible men and of course pearls of wisdom. Believe me, you will thank me for showing you the true secrets of femininity.

When you have finished reading it will be time for a teensy workout:

She even got to dance with Rudolph Nureyev.

*Je ne sais pas quoi = I don’t know what, Miss piggy wouldn’t understand because she only speaks two words in French, one of which is “Moi”.

History makes me laugh

I think this is worthy of 1066 and All That.   

I had a postcard of The King of Spain, Alfonso XIII, on a train and wanted to find out how old he would have been at the time (14 or 15).  Looking him up on Wikipedia I was scrolling down and noticed a list of ‘Enfants naturels’, in English ’Illigitimate issue'.  One of which was born after his relationship with the English Nanny sent over from England by none other than his mother-in-law, Princess Beatrice, daughter of Queen Victoria. (The English Wikipedia page doesn't tell you all of that!)

Note to mother- in- laws everywhere – careful how you help your married daughters.

Happy Blog anniversary to me!

My very, very  first post on this blog was on the 8^th May 2003. 

How the world has changed in the last 9 years…