Back In The Jug Agane ...

Three days into our second lockdown, and I'm already bored witless ... I also find myself with two hares and a bloody partridge in a pear tree in the freezer, and can't really invite anyone around to help eat them, which is a bugger.

Not as much of an embuggerment as trying to get used to Blogger's new interface, which is outrageously annoying and sufficiently different from the old one that I had come to know and - if not exactly love - then at least accept.

And the text formatting is broken, so it won't justify text if it doesn't think the column is wide enough, if you select some photos to upload it will indeed do this thing but when you've selected one to insert and wish to insert another it does not pop up the list of the photos you've just uploaded, oh no, you have to go into the bloody Blogger catalogue of every single photo you've ever uploaded and pick them from there ...

 

And sometimes, for some completely random reason, you can justify a photo left or right and a) it will not be justified hard up to the margin, unlike all the others, or b) text will not wrap around it. And I can't be arsed editing the bloody HTML - which is now, incidentally, displayed as a solid block of text rather than the halfway formatted stuff I vaguely remember from the Before times - I could go on and on, but life's too short.

We have also been more or less forced to live through the cluster-fuck of the US presidential erection, rather an unpleasant experience (like the time, some forty years ago, when I was first introduced to the business end of a colonoscope and subsequently walked uncomfortably for a day or so afterwards) but sadly, necessary, for one cannot spend all one's time watching Magnum PI on Amazon Prime. Although one can spend quite a lot of time watching Good Omens, just saying ...

 

On the brighter side, being in confinement does have its advantages. The autoroute is a bloody sight quieter, for one thing, without the usual constant subliminal hum of traffic, and the air is cleaner ... it makes no difference to my working day, having worked more or less exclusively from home for the past seven years or so, and as we've never taken to shopping as an Olympic sport that too doesn't really cause any problems. And let it be said that, when I do head off on the weekly outing (for one must still eat, you know), the lack of crowding is really rather appreciable.

On the down side, some little trips to quaint villages that I'd rather been planning have been postponed, and even on a glorious day such as last Wednesday I cannot pack young Moses in the car and head off for a walk somewhere else, with the enticing prospect of a bar, complete with shaded terrace, at either end ...

 

Oh, we have now learnt what may or may not be at the root of the arson cases and tyre slashings that have so disturbed life given us something to talk about in out peaceful little village, and as usual it seems to be Béberts fault ...

 

Bébert is the local mason: short, rotund and jolly, with an unfortunate penchant for nicking the mike at karaoke events and refusing to give it back until he's bellowed his way through 5 LPs-worth of la chanson française and sent half the clientèle out into the streets with wodges of Camembert stuck in their ears.

And since he divorced, godnose how long ago, he has had a tendency to pick up partners (serial, not parallel) who share his general tone-deafness: now as it happens, Bez - the owner of the Stelvio that got torched (which is definitely a crime) - knew of the latest girlfriend and thought it wise to warn Bébert that she had a certain - uh, reputation - in Narbonne ...

News which Bébert digested in his own fashion, and a few weeks later he decided to say that she was not really his type, thanks very much, and unfortunately mentioned the friendly little warning. And shortly afterwards, the Alfa went up in flames; some point the finger at Lionel, who also knew the woman in question.

Then the tyre-stabbing started, and a short while later the house Lionel was renting went up in flames, and the tyre-stabbing continued. But not for too much longer, because ...

 

... shortly after all that excitement, Bébart himself had his tyres slashed, sadly this was outside the bar (yah, back in the days when bars were actually open) and there was a witness and the gendarmerie nicked Lionel's daughter for the deed. That's about the only incontrovertible fact in the whole histoire.

For there are some, to whom I give equal credence, who say that the whole story is a pile of dog's bollocks.

Whatever, damned if I know, but it's probably the most interesting series of events to have occurred in Moux since they installed gravity.

 

Even when confined, some hunting is allowed: for the pests, such as wild boar and deer. Which is rather pleasant, for joining the partridge and the hares in the freezer there are now a few cotelettes de marcassin - just enough for two, which is good - and a haunch of venison got dropped off on the understanding that I should cook it and then take it and some Cumberland sauce around to José's to be eaten. (A totally illegal operation, of course, under the circumstances, but what the hell ...)

Luckily - as far as I'm concerned - the thing had thoughtfully been peeled before I got it: still had the hoof attached though. I suppose I could have kept it and got someone to make me a posh knife with a roe-deer hoof for the hilt, but as I don't go hunting I reluctantly abandoned the idea ...

 

Sadly, as middle age creeps up on me I seem to be falling to bits. Back in 2018 it was the muscle behind the knee that went: the other day I woke up to find that I couldn't raise my right arm. So I hied me to Lignère's surgery, and after only a two-hour wait was told that one of the tendons had torn ...

So I've an appointment on Tuesday for an X-ray and echography, and while I'm waiting I'm on horse-doctor's doses of cortisone, and a codeine all-you-can-eat buffet, which helps.

Just as an aside, I had to let Cla-Val know about this, for we'd a conference call arranged for the Friday afternoon and as I was spending most of that in the quack's waiting room we pushed it back to Tuesday and then I got the appointment for the radio and so it had to be pushed back yet again - so I felt I rather owed them the reason.

And all Karim could think of to say, in between sniggers, was to suggest that I either stop masturbating so much, or else to use my left hand: as he said, "Like that, it feels as though someone else is doing it for you ...". I found that rather hurtful.

Whatever. As I write the lockdown restrictions are being eased somewhat: we may now go out for "personal exercise" for up to three hours so long as we don't go more than 20km from home, and non-essential commerces are open again, although sadly bars and restaurants are going to stay closed for some time yet.

The point of all that is of course to give small shop-owners some respite by allowing them to profit from the Christmas season, but looking at the complete lack of crowds around the commercial centres, not to mention in the inner-city shopping streets, it all looks rather gloomy. I rather suspect that there's an awful lot that will just put the keys under the door ...

 

Same goes for places like our bar in Moux (who were already half-planning on taking on an affair some place else, thanks to the attitude of the driveling mouth-breathers who run the mairie), and the bar at Fontcouverte which always made for a pleasant stop for a glass of vitamins out on the terrace, in the sun, after getting some decent bread at Ferrals. I shall regret their passing.

It's a funny thing, but at the end of 2019 my friend B. decided that 2020 was going to be a year of health and happiness. We turned out to be rather mistaken, didn't we? Better luck next time, I suppose - mind how you go now, and take care.