New grandpuppy

Christian and J have a new puppy. Isn’t he gorgeous? He’s a Jack Chi and very small. So now I have two grandchildren. We won’t be meeting him until the end of May.

Chicken soup

Today I decided to try making chicken soup. It’s supposed to be really good for you. I looked up several recipes online and as there were many differences in the vegetables to include I put what I had. I remembered I had parsley in the garden so I added that too. The smell takes me back to my Granny’s stew. I’ll have to get some pearl barley for next time.

I hope that it’s good  for my soul.

Sunsets, eclipses, tides...

Back in February I wrote about seeing an incredible sunset in the UK. It was on 7th February, I remember that because it was Christian’s birthday. Well a couple of weeks ago, exactly a month later on 7th March we were collecting a pizza one evening and again, there was an incredible sunset. The sky was on fire. I got my phone out and managed to get a couple of pics. The car one is wobbly because the road is so bumpy.

What a weekend we’re having. The start of spring, an eclipse and the highest tide of the century! Well, once every twenty years that is, but the media in this country are really boosting and boasting; Apparently the population of the world is gathered at the Mont Saint-Michel just to watch the sea come in this evening…

The weather is dull, grey, drizzly and cold

Giant Anemone

I don't understand what has happened here.  This flower is 45 centimetres tall while its siblings measure around 23 centimetres:

Some of the other anemones are tall, but not as tall and the petals are nowhere as big.

Into history

Recently one of our favourite cafés closed down. Le Duperré has been open under that name at least as long as we’ve been in La Rochelle – over 30 years. Its place was opposite the statue if Admiral Duperré and was the first café on the port as you turned left from the big clock tower.

Over the years it was our favourite place for breakfast with children or friends. If I had blood tests before eating in the morning, having breakfast at the Duperré was a treat (Photo of a breakfast there). We met up with J-M’s parents for the first time outside the Duperré – though we didn’t have a drink there on that day because it was full up. I met blogging friend Caroline and her partner there when they came to La Rochelle too.

Every morning before work, Rob would go for his cup of coffee. You might have seen him, with his black bushy beard, sat at a table outside looking at his phone of reading the newspaper.

It has reopened under a different name and the waiter is the same at least for the time being. Before long we’ll be saying;

“Do you remember when it used to be called Le Duperré, how long ago was that?”

Spring is in the air

It's so good to see the colours of the flowers at long last.

This little violet wedged itself in a crack on the well a couple of years ago.

Getting better and a bit of Spock

Is it really that long since I last blogged? My excuse is that I had flu, only mildly, as I was vaccinated in November. I think that my sinuses are troubling me now, but it seems to be getting better every day.

Rob and I were saddened by the news if Leonard Nimoy’s death. We all loved Spock, but did you know he could have chosen a role in Peyton Place instead? How the attitude towards Vulcans would have been different if that had been the case!

My cousin Paul wrote on Facebook that he burst into the Star Trek theme midway through his saw solo (yes he plays the saw too).  What a great tribute!  In 1975 I bought a copy of Leonard Nimoy's “Will I think of You?” a lovely book of photographs and a poem dedicated to his first wife. Here is a short extract as my tribute:

“…Only
When I die

And realize
That I am born again

For dying is

A beginning

And I
have died
thousands of times…”

Copyright © 1974 by Celestial Arts

Glory

This time last week we were still in the UK. MIL has had a stroke and we visited her in hospital several times. I stayed in the car on the last visit as my throat felt prickly and I was coughing (I now know why).

Winter Warmer, the soup was butter bean and garlic

We stayed with Christian and J a couple of nights and we went to the Cake Hole again for lunch. This time I had the Winter Warmer.

MIL planted this tree nearly 50 years ago.  It's a Red Maple and really beautiful

An Oak tree across the road

For the rest of the time we stayed at MIL’s house which was very strange as she was not there. It’s the first time we’ve been in the UK in winter in 30 years; I couldn’t get over how beautiful the trees are without leaves.

We saw an incredible sunset while driving back on evening, but by the time I’d got out of the car and run upstairs to take a picture it had almost gone.

When we were taking off on our way out to the UK I saw a Glory – a lovely name for a circular rainbow in the clouds. It was beautiful. I couldn’t get at my phone to take a pic.

New crowns

Before

My crowns dated from my late teens so that makes them 40 years old at least. Over the past three weeks my dentist has been working on them. They were very difficult to remove. It was pretty impressive having someone bashing at my teeth even though I knew that they weren’t real. We had the same performance with the temporary crowns, which were in for a week.

After

To my delight when she showed me the mould she asked me if I wanted them to be the same or straighter. I chose straighter and I’m really pleased with the results. They are well worth sitting with my mouth open for 2 ½ hours.

 Fortunately we have an excellent back up health insurance. Hopefully they won’t need replacing again for at least 40 years…

We have snow!

Very rare here.

These were taken as the sun was rising.  

MIL is very ill so we are off to the UK tomorrow.  Don't know how long for.  Now I have to pack.