18/03/09 Pizza Sex

No, this is not something they didn't have room to fit into the Kama Sutra (or which the editors cut), it's just that there are billboards all over Chambéry advertising the "Aphrodisiac pizza". It apparently involves chocolate, banana, caramel and ginger, is delivered to your door by a man (or at least, male person, for a given value of "male" - this may involve students) on a throbbing mobylette, and each one comes with a free condom. You may not have needed to know that, but I certainly needed to get it off my chest.

In other news, I went off on Wednesday and had my armpit drilled, bored and emptied. First off you remove all shreds of dignity and get kitted up with the bright blue paper disposable knickers and standard hospital smock that does up down the back (my personal feeling is that it's just so that the nurses that then have to do the ties up can make rude comments about yer arse), then onto the slab so that they can have a bash at finding a vein to stick the catheter in. Only took three goes, I suppose I should be grateful - mind you the thing's about the diameter of a garden hose so every time they stick it in it hurts like hell.

Once they actually found a vein to plug it into everything went swimmingly - the next thing I can recall after they pushed the plunger down on the horse-doctor's syringe was lying on a gurney hooked up to a machine that went "Ping!" and, on the third line down on the display, said "Warning! Bad contact!" whenever I wiggled my left thumb. Which, out of boredom, I did quite a lot. It didn't seem to worry anybody, which is probably fair enough. (Could have been worse - Windows For Hospitals V3.01, showing a tasteful skeleton on the blue screen as it reboots.) As, after half an hour, I didn't show any of the classic symptoms of actual death, they wheeled me out, cleaned me up, told me to get dressed and shoved me out the door. Luckily they'd actually wheeled me back into the same room in which I'd left my clothes when stripping off for the amusement of the nurses (possibly by mistake), which meant there was no Benny Hill-style humorous interlude where I run about naked groping nurses. Probably just as well, really - I wasn't really in the mood for that. Nor, by their looks, were the nurses.

Whatever, I'm now waiting for the swelling to go down and to get a bit of feeling back in the skin; the surgeon did say he had to go rather close to the nerves. And in a week or so I might even be able to get my arm over my head! (Why, you may ask, would I want to do that? Good question, don't really know.) Still, living with an armpit which is basically a massive bruise is no fun, and I wish you to know that.

Spring are sprunging, or whatever it does: the garden is full of primeveres (them's primroses to you) and things are generally warming up. Like, to 20°+ today. This is good. On top of that, my ham is curing quite nicely down in the cellar, thank you: another two months or so and it should be good to eat. Miam. And on top of it, the bats are out and flitting around again. Godnose what they're eating

Next Friday we have our annual kulcha outing: down to Grenoble to see the annual English production from Upstage, the theatre club at Europole. We started going when Malyon got involved in her first year there, and we seem to have got into the habit. Don't regret it, always well done - at least as well done as anything we ever managed at MUDS: this year it's "The Ladykillers". Whatever, gives us an excuse to go down to Grenoble, get a decent kebab before the show and then sink a drink or two after it with Mr. Simpson (who has usually sunk his drinks well before we - or anyone else - actually show up, but that's another matter) and Didane, the theatre impresario, who really has to be seen/met to be believed. Will be fun, as always.

Jeremy has more or less decided what he wants to do and it involves cooking. Shock, horror. So rather than go on and do his bac(alaureat) he wishes to do a bac technique before getting a BTS in the "hospitality industry". Surprisingly for someone so big (180+ cm and still growing - sigh) he does not wish to leave home - I suppose he is only 14, after all - so it'll probably be off to Grenoble for him too. Which'll leave us knocking around the house like two peas in a large paper bag - weekends excepted, of course.

Malyon's fine: with her triple-A results she's been accepted for the Dean's course next year, which basically means (I think) that she gets to be a research slavey doing extra work whilst the Dean gets all the credit.Mind you, I might be a bit cynical there. Whatever, she's doing well and having fun - most of the time. Which is good.

Sorry, this is just a quickie by normal standards, but quite frankly there's not that much that's happened. You know that if there were, I'd have told you. So you can, as Frog-persons say, "reprendre votrre vie normale", and/or go back to sleep in front of the TV.

Trevor

31/01/09 The mice are committing suicide - we're NOT doomed!

Strange as is may seem, this is true. Third time in a couple of weeks that I've had to fish one of the little buggers out of the dog's water bowl, drowned or frozen as it tried to do a couple of lengths breaststroke. Not house mice either - fieldmice: I can only assume that water's getting a bit scarce, what with the ground being frozen solid (think Arctic permafrost) and of course it's bloody chilly out, and so they come up to get a drink (or a bit of exercise), fall in and drown. Either that or the cat catches them and sticks them in so that she'll have mousie popsicles for later; if that's the case she's doubtless a bit pissed off at me for religiously chucking the things. I'm not sure that the dog actually notices they're there, and I'd rather she didn't sneeze one out of her nose when she's curled up on her cushion.

Today, incidentally, is the 10th, which means I had to deliver Malyon to Geneva airport at midday to catch her flight back to Glasgow. Apart from the vast number of Germanic-style persons heading back home via Switzerland after a week or so on the slopes it all went swimmingly, and the new bit of autoroute from Annecy to Geneva really does cut 20 minutes off the trip time. Much appreciated. Unfortunately, the disruption to my usual schedule meant that by the time I got back to Chambéry and had the usual apéro with Sophie, I had to do the shopping at Carrefour around 15:00. During the ski season. I can now remember just why it is I haven't set foot in a supermarket on an Saturday afternoon for the last fifteen years or so. Luckily I was unarmed, so you're not going to be reading any headlines along the lines of "Deranged Kiwi in Shock-Horror Fruit&Vege Supermarket Massacre" - at least, not because of me.

We're currently enjoying - if that's the word, and in fact it isn't - temperatures that get up to about -5° at the hottest time of day. And just at this moment, we have thick freezing fog as well. This is not good. Even Malyon in Glasgow gets up to 7°, and she's about 1000km north of us, for heaven's sake! What have we done wrong? Perhaps I should go burn some more virgin forest. At least we're better off than the Marseillais, who got 40cm of snow on Wednesday. And I'm not sure that there's a single snow-plough in the entire Bouches-du-Rhone département, so they're apparently having rather a hard time of it. Schools closed an' all, which just doesn't happen around here. Unless there's a major disaster, like the failure of the entire tartiflette crop.

I'm going to assume that your New Year passed without too much incident: ours certainly did. Couldn't be arsed doing anything major so we just had a few friends around, drank unreasonably and then I, for one, headed off to bed around 1am, having come down with a good head cold. Staggered down the next morning, ready to kill anyone who looked at me the wrong way, to find that everyone had slept over, which in hindsight was probably rather reasonable - given that the only ones that would have been classed sober enough to drive don't actually have legs long enough to reach the pedals. Probably a good thing Malyon was in Grenoble with friends: she'd have been disgusted with what her parents get up to. (Funnily enough, it's alright for Karen - she's only 40, and she's not a parent. I suppose that explains it. But I don't want to have to be good. Children are so unforgiving.)

A couple of days later Ricky & Alison Hart, with bratlings in tow, turned up for the weekend which gave us another excuse to eat and drink perhaps more than we should. Not that we really need one. Still, nice to be able to do it in company. Margo took some off skiing at Margeriaz, I took the remainder walking in the mountains. Lovely weather - for once - we really enjoyed it. Although I did feel a bit ashamed looking at the number of wine bottles ready for the recycling bin when they left - emptied them out at night so that no-one could see.

Sordid details ... woke up a week back with a large painful lump under the left armpit. Thinking to myself "Oh dear! This is not good" I rushed off to the quack, who sent me off to have about 5 litres of blood drained from my long-suffering left arm for every test under the sun, and who has now told me it's just cat scratch fever. (No, I am not joking, that's the literal translation. For what it's worth, the latin name is Bartonella Henselae.) So after 6 days of 2000mg of antibiotics per day (which achieved sod-all apart from killing off everything living in my intestinal tract, with results I'm sure you can imagine) I'll have to go through another week or so of other antibiotics, as the bacteria responsible apparently sneers at penicillin and waves its rude bottom parts at other varieties. And if that doesn't work they can always slice me up and cut the sucker out, the alternative being to live with it until it buggers off of its own accord in six months or so. Personally, I think I'd rather go with the alternative, but that may be unadvisable. Apparently.

Malyon has started getting the results from her mid-year exams: so far, so good. Biology and chemistry both As, still waiting on the psychology. She's also trying to get out of the halls of residence: it is quite expensive, one of her good friends there is also wanting to get out, and she's had enough of the yoof. So she's hoping to find a flat to share - perhaps not as convenient (at least, she'll have to pay for her own ADSL connection), but should be cheaper and at least she knows how flats work.

Jeremy just sat his "brevet blanc", the trial run for the real brevet exam at the end of the school year. French and History/Geography he found not too bad - easier, he reckons, than the tests they get in class - but maths was a killer. Whatever, we'll have to see. In any case, he still really wants to go off and get a technical qualification (preferably cooking) so that he can go into the restaurant/hospitality trade. Which might not be such a bad idea: he really is a people person, if I may be forgiven the revolting phrase, and restaurant manager would be better than gigolo, which would be another option. And he genuinely enjoys cooking (not, perhaps, too surprising, all things considered) and is not, in fact, too bad at it. He managed a reasonable forêt noir the other day. Whatever, there's a supposedly excellent cooking school at Thonon in Haute Savoie (and it's a state one, yay! no fees), so I'll look into what's required for applications for that. Might also send him up to Geneva for a few days: Jacques' middle son Vincent runs a wine bar/bistro there and should be OK to take Jeremy under his wing for a few days: see what life's like in a rather more up-market joint, go to the market every morning for the shopping ...

The weather is finally getting better: to say "warmer" would be a slight exaggeration, but sunnier - even up around 9° in the afternoon. And no wind - not since last week's horrendous storms down in the south-west. The primevere are starting to come out, only another couple of months and it'll be spring. Yay!

And finally, on a cheerful note, I have to see if I can't get an appointment with the surgeon sometime next week. Bugger.

Trevor

28/12/08 DNA testing exonerates Ms. Claus ...

... but police are still holding three reindeer and a garden gnome of undisclosed gender for further questioning in this rather sordid case.

I assume that got your attention. As you probably know, the festive season is rapidly approaching and it's with difficulty that I can be restrained from biting small children and scowling at old ladies. Not that they'd notice. Still, a rare smile did flit across my face at the market on Saturday when I saw one particularly unpleasant specimen of the genre get hopelessly entangled in her scythe-wheeled shopping caddy, from which I hope the emergency services took their good time cutting her out. I really, really hate those things.

Of course, for you lot Christmas means barbies on the beach and time to get a sun-tan: over on the wrong hemisphere it means -3° in the morning, soaring heating bills and, of course, snow. Which I also dislike intensely. Because it is wet, and cold, and a right bitch to drive on. Why we can't just banish it back to Siberia where it belongs I don't know, but apparently we can't and so we just have to live with it. Whatever.

It is not, I admit, actually snowing at the moment down here, but the weather forecast is not particularly promising. We're supposed to have another couple of days of fine, sunny (hence, cold) weather before it turns to - you guessed it - snow. Time to look at getting new tires on the front perhaps, the Alfa is tending to get a bit wandery on roundabouts under the rain at anything over 60kph, which as far as I'm concerned is walking speed.

I seem to have failed to mention that we had Thanksgiving up at Karen's. I'm pretty sure that we came away with more turkey than actually went in to the oven: some sort of loaves'n'fishes job, I suspect. But I still find it difficult to imagine what people see in yer traditional pumpkin pie - an inch-thick layer of spiced pumpkin purée on piecrust makes me quiver, I admit, but not for the reasons one might wish. And personally, you can take your chestnut stuffing and stuff it where - oh, right, that's what you did. Um. Just don't expect me to eat vast quantities, that's all.

Jeremy had hoped to play fluffy bunnies - which I expect you know about but of which I was blissfully innocent: apparently you stuff marshmallows into your mouth until you can no longer say "fluffy bunnies", and shortly after that you either throw up or go into a diabetic coma. But when we proposed sticking plastic rubbish bags over their heads to minimise the mess, the kids backed out.

Malyon is well, if extremely poor, and - apparently - working harder than ever. Getting good notes, too. There was apparently a bit of tension in the flat over kitchen hygiene - some people apparently thought that washing-up was something mums did whilst Malyon, who's a year older and has already cohabited for four years, thinks that it's not, and that three-week-old bacon grease is gross, not cute. I can't argue with that.

Whatever, she speaks a lot about food. On her return in January we shall load her down with pancetta (note to self - do not wrap it in tin-foil, don't want anyone thinking it's Semtex) and maybe some confit de canard (well wrapped, so as to avoid grease explosions in the baggage hold).

Jeremy is alive and happy, and his latest school report gives us every reason to be so as well. Definitely an improvement to see his marks in English shoot up to top of the class (where they bloody well should be, all things considered), his French marks are very encouraging - in fact, everything is improving. We're very pleased. On top of that, I found a small hole-in-the-wall joint at Chambéry today that actually makes decent burgers (including one I must try - the Savoyard - which involves potatoes and cheese and cream) so he now knows where he can go on the days when he eats lunch in town. It's cheaper - and probably healthier - than Flunch or Quick.

It's now the 13th, and its only gone and bloody well neiged again. Wednesday and Thursday we had about 40cm down here - great gloppy flakes - and there's supposed to be more coming. Which is good for Jean and Howard, who turn up on the 19th - they might even have a white Christmas - but as far as I'm concerned (see above) I'd be happier if global warming turned out more as advertised. Burn the rainforests, I say! Oh, and nuke the whales. And joss-stick burning people who listen to whale-song CDs, while we're at it. Did you know, by the way, that the right whale has the longest penis in the animal world (at about 2.3 meters) and lugs around one tonne of testicles? (We're talking about the male of the species, here. I assume that the female right whale is suitably adapted. She probably has monumental headaches, too.)

28/12/08

As this was supposed to be a "happy christmas" mail and not a new year's one, I thought I'd better get on with it and send it off. So here goes with our Christmas celebrations: I hope yours were at least as pleasant.

Jean & Howie arrived on schedule at Chambéry on the 19th, although I must admit to a moment of panic when I turned up 10 minutes late (bloody last-minute phone calls) and couldn't find them. They'd got stuck in a lift, or something. Then on the Sunday I headed up to Geneva to pick up Malyon. Who also arrived on time, although she did take 45 minutes or so to whip through customs and pick up her baggage. And I'd like to give a big round of applause to the cretins responsible for the signposting around Geneva, who have arranged it to direct the innocent tourist by the most circuitous route possible onto the Swiss autoroute. If I'd wanted to go on the bloody Swiss autoroute I'd have stumped up for the damn sticker (because you need one in order to drive legally on the things) and gone straight onto it, rather than head into the centre of Geneva only to be misdirected onto it anyway. Next time I'll trust my nose.

Whatever, that's just what I did for the return trip and it worked out quite nicely - straight into the centre, across the pont du Mont Blanc and through to Annemasse, where we got back onto the French autoroute. And I finally got to see the famous fountain against a clear blue sky - every other time we've been to the dump it's either been blowing a gale or gray and dismal. Then we drove straight through to Jacques' place to meet up with the others and devour (literally, in Malyon's case - she hadn't eaten since 5am) some terrine de sanglier and his famous vol-au-vent (which is not something in a nancy pastry case, but a rich stew of veal, veal quenelles, bacon, croutons and as many mushrooms - especially morilles - as you can fit into the dish). Accompanied by vin d'Arbois, the lot followed by raspberry tart and wild blueberry tart ... mmm.

We made it up to Pesselière more or less as planned on the 23rd and, as usual, spent most of our time either preparing or devouring food in meals I can only describe as Rabelaisian. A small sample: Christmas Eve, oysters, foie gras, smoked salmon, chapon (that's castrated cock to you), followed by bûche de Noel and Christmas cake; Christmas Day rather more simple, just foie gras, cuisses de canard confites with salad and pommes dauphiné, cheese and more bûche; Boxing Day, scallops in white wine and cream sauce, jambon à l'os caramelised with honey and mustard, cheese and still more bûche.

To go with all that lot Philippe made a heroic, if misguided, attempt to start emptying the cellar (have to make room for new arrivals) so we were more or less forced to polish off an alrming amount of ten-year old Burgundy and Bordeaux, punctuated with Sauternes and vendanges tardives. Without mentioning the bog-standard rosé and Muscadet we used to wash lunch down with.

All of which left me personally feeling a bit pear-shaped, so I tried to work a bit off by strolling briskly around in the icy wind direct from the tundra which blew over the beetroot fields for the entire time. At least it was bright and sunny.

Ian has a little Piaggio mobylette (or cyclomoteur, I don't know which) stashed away in one of the various junk rooms there and Jeremy fell in love with it. Having persuaded Ian to let him ride it (by the simple expedient of greasing up to Marie) he was out and about on the noisy thing at every available opportunity, despite the aforementioned arctic gale. I suppose it's a good place to start - there's virtually no risk of coming across any other traffic - and he did discover that trying to do a hard turn on gravel may not be the best of ideas. Good thing, too, that the little beasts run on the smell of an oily rag - although they do have the pedals, so if worse comes to worst ...

We left yesterday, in a number of flocks (as it were): I had some stuff to do in Chambéry and Jeremy wanted to go get his bloody Xbox 360 so we left at the crack of dawn (not literally true, we left at 6am which is about 1:30 before dawn - which was, incidentally, quite spectacular), then Margo and Malyon around 11 and everyone else headed back to Paris that afternoon.

We made quite good time: got into a park at Chambéry at 10:15 with only one incident en route - got a bras d'honneur from some Parisian twat who was evidently in a hurry to get to the ski fields and couldn't see why I wasn't overtaking at 160. Didn't like it when I touched the brakes as he was about a metre behind me with lights on full, but personally I felt much better for it: haven't pissed off a prat for a while now, and I was wondering if I wasn't out of practice. Margo and Malyon, on the other hand, didn't turn up here until after 19:00. Ski bunny traffic jams, as usual at this time of year.

Got back to find the house still standing, central heating still running, and the dog comfortably (and totally illicitly) installed on the sofa. She didn't even have the grace to look guilty: just rolled on her side and stuck one leg up in the air to have her tummy scratched.

Whatever. Hope you had a happy Christmas, hope you have a good New Year - we'll spend ours quietly (noisily) eating and boozing here with a few friends. Spare a thought for us as you're recovering from your hangovers.

Trevor

24/11/08 Concerning significant others ... or whatever else escapes your spam filters

It has come to my attention (there has been some moaning from the cheap seats) that I've not mentioned Margo enough recently. To some degree this is her own fault: she's been gallivanting off to Alsace and England, so that when I finally got up the courage to turn fifty she was in London and when Jerry got his thumb smashed she was in Glasgow (I think. Or it may have Milton Keynes.). So there. But I'm ready to admit I've been remiss, so here we go for a bit of Margo-related news.

Basically, she's been trying to get her website up and running, which involves learning how to use Joomla! and other such pretty content management tools. It also involves me trying to learn Joomla! so that I know what the hell is going on and can try to be of some use in the process. All this learning stuff takes some time, and both our brains are full.

She also has her blog - textile related, and which she doesn't keep as up to date as she should - and teaching (still!) and sewing, all of which fills time. On top of that she got a call from the Banking Fraud department of the bank the other day to say that they'd spotted suspicious transactions on her credit card, and the upshot of that is that her card has been cancelled and she's had to go back through all the transactions for the past few months to find those which aren't hers in order to contest them. A right bummer.

11/11/08

Into November now and today is a public holiday - Armistice 1918. We don't do dawn parades over here: it's more around 11am so that the municipal band can wake up sufficiently to tootle on time, and it's all followed by a hot meal and copious quantities of rouge for the local dignitaries. Good day to go up to the office: no phone calls, no interruptions, and I can finally get a bit of paperwork out of the way. It's also persisting down, has been since last evening, so somehow stacking the wood that Stéphane delivered on Sunday seems an unattractive idea.

As it happens, on Sunday I went off to see Jacques and we came back down from the mountains with about 2kg apiece of chanterelles. These do not go well with a salmon/sour cream pizza, so I decided to dry them and I now have two big glass jars full of smokily aromatic dried mushrooms, ready and waiting to go in the pan juices with a bit of roast beef or a chicken in cream sauce - or why not, a boeuf bourgignon? Whatever, I managed to miss the wood delivery and so Jeremy had to hump it all down the path and on to the decking, where it sits under a tarpaulin even as I write, just waiting to get stacked away.

Friday we had a little party oop't t'office. The very first edition of the now-traditional mid-autumn fête. A lot of wine, rillettes de lapin, cheese, good bread, more wine ... and a blind tasting courtesy of one of our neighbours in the building that was absolutely exceptional. Just three whites: one I'd have put as a rather good Pouilly, the second as perhaps a sweet southern job, the third a Trockenbeeren Auslese or some such. But no. They were all Marestel, from Yenne - about 30 km from here: a dry 1996, a vin de paille and a 199something vendange tardive. I didn't know anyone did vendange tardive around here! Amazing. Then three of Jean-Charles' paysan mates from Yenne turned up: one whipped out an enormous home-made saucisson from his overalls (you do not want to know which pocket), another one did a conjouring trick with a peppery cheese, and the third apparently was afraid that there'd be insufficient wine and plonked four more bottles of white down on the table. I piked out around 9:30, what with not having a mattress ready in the office and all, but apparently things went on for quite some time, although interrupted momentarily by having to move the tables into the entrance hall of the building to stop the alarm going off. At last count there were 16 empty bottles which, for twelve people, is hardly excessive.

14/11/08

Toddled off to Jerry's parent-teacher meeting, where everyone was extremely positive - which is nice. The difference between the public and private schools was fairly apparent: his history/geography teacher congratulated him fulsomely on his participation and oral work but said that the written side needed more work - so she gave him her email and suggested that he write up his work, mail it off to her and she'd correct it and send it back in the evening. Maths and German along the same lines, and his French teacher has decided she likes him (now that she knows he lives in an exclusively English-speaking household) and on top of it he's working hard. Even giving up TV-watching to do his homework.

The only one to rip into him was his English teacher (whom he does not appreciate) for being rather arrogant at the start of the year ("I am a native English-speaker, what can you teach me?") and for having no ambition to higher education. She made the excellent point that you're always learning something new about your language (unless you're clinically dead, or a member of the Academie Française, which is more or less the same thing) and that with his talents there was absolutely no reason for him to cut himself off from going further. I think he'd rather have eaten dead rat than admit it to her, but he has decided to carry on.

Shortly after that he had his "stage en entreprrise" at the resto routier (truckie's restaurant) 10 km up the road, at Coise - went very well. He came out of it knowing how to prepare iles flottantes in the microwave (I must admit I'd never have thought of that one), get salads ready, operate the big machines (yes Virginia, restaurants have some big, scary machines) and with 30€ in his pocket and maybe a summer job. The owner is a friend of Stéphane (the neighbour), good to know that we won't have to go around and apologise.

I also had a bit of computer repair and recovery work to do (non-paying, unfortunately - Rémi & Lucas, and Pierre). AVG unleashed a buggy antivirus signature file which marked our old friend USER32.DLL as a Trojan, and kindly offered to stick it into quarantine, which resulted in an endless cycle of boot, BSOD, reset, boot ... had to set up a bootable Linux distro on a USB key to fix that one. A right pain. And on top of it the weather's grot. Not proper winter yet, just cold and damp ... not nice.

The 13th, you'll recall (those of you with PDAs and an organised lifestyle anyway) is Margo's birthday, so I managed a little filet de boeuf Rossini for dinner. Always goes down well. Shame about Jeremy slouching about at the table - sort of spoils the candlelit effect. Whatever.

On the more miserable side, some of you may remember our old client Data Environnement (the one I went to Cameroon for). They've spent the last 8 months or so setting up a degassing column in lake Kivu, on the border between Rwanda and Congo, and the other day, on a calm night, about a week before starting the thing up and (hopefully) getting methane out, the whole kit and kaboodle went to the bottom. 350m down, which is not exactly a Sunday stroll. Not as though you can stick a fishing line down and drag the lot back up.

Update on that one: it seems that the Rwandan government has decided to find another 1.5m euros to restart the project. It may - or may not - have been sabotage, it appears that there were internal politics involved, but Pres. Kagamé has apparently decided to fire a minister or two and carry on. Which is good news for all concerned, not least for the Rwandans employed on the project who risked losing the first jobs they'd had in their lives.

19/11/08

Bloody typical, cows in't frikkin' paddock again! Margo finally managed to find the farmer's phone number to let him know, and he complained how late it was - he finally sneaked in at some ungodly hour this morning and extracted the cows, but naturally enough didn't actually bother to get rid of the cow-shit, fill in any of the holes in the lawn, or stick the garden chairs back upright. Next time I think we call the butcher straight away, cut out the middleman. Must remember to make some room in the freezer.

When I have time I go through the approximately 10 Gb of photos on the machine (not too much, considering I went digital in 2003) and stick them up on Picasa. Anyone who's interested just needs to point their browser at http://picasaweb.google.com/tbimler to see what's up. (Not much at the moment, but I'll get more, I promise. Once I sort them out.)

This is getting ever more fragmentary - now the 24th. Had a big party up at Karen's at Frangy on Saturday night, fell into bed (luckily we were sleeping over) and fled into the morning mist at 10am before anyone else woke up and asked us to help with the cleaning-up. Of which, let it be said, there was in all evidence quite a lot to be done. I don't feel guilty at all, which is probably a symptom of a diseased mind, but there you are. It was a good party - I even danced! Dragged out the old Billy Idol and Gary Numan and Sisters of Mercy CDs from the car, and cranked up the volume. Luckily they have no close neighbours.

And then last night, faithful to the rendezvous, it snowed. Small fine flakes and then big fat lazy ones: woke up to about 5cm of the stuff this morning. Bugger. And once more, with feeling.

Trevor

02/11/08 The mice are winning - we're all DOOMED!

Back again with more of the usual trivia, I'm afraid.

First up, those of you who follow this thing may be aware that Jeremy had a quick (loooong) trip to A&E for an exploded thumb. They put a couple of stitches in, which he decided to remove the other night rather thean head off to get the quack to do it. A quick snip with the scissors, a tug ... and then a yell for the butterfly bandages to hold the edges together. DIY, that's what it's all about here.

Then, of course - unrelated to the stitch-pulling thing - I get a call from him saying he'd fallen asleep on the train back from Chambery and was now at Frontenex. Silly thing that I am, I confused Frontenex (about 25 km from St Pierre) with Freterive (about 3 km, and has no railway station) so I said I'd pick him up. So off I went to Freterive (on the teeny route départmentale, yet) where I fairly rapidly realised my mistake and compounded it by carrying on. On the teeny, admittedly touristic route départmentale, which goes through places I'd always managed to avoid on slick roads covered with wet leaves (for it had been raining). Something I think I'll avoid in the future. Next time he sleeps through to Frontenex, he can catch the train back here.

After which I turned up - as is my wont - at Sophie's on Saturday for our usual after-market apéro to discover her obsessed by mice. Well, that's perhaps too harsh a word - let's just say that she'd discovered mousie-dung (do not confuse with Mao-Tse-Dung, a respected elder statesman aka the Great Helmsman) in the clothes dryer, a hoard of cornflakes in an old boot and a stash of walnuts in a hole in the wall. She was, understandably, concerned. (Especially as the cat had, as a special treat, left the eviscerated bottom half of a mouse on the bonnet of her car.) So we spent an agreeable half hour sticking rat poison into every available crevice in the house. Have to see if the little suckers go for it. It's supposed to be quite painless for them ... and even if it weren't, I feel no guilt. (I'm still puzzled by the walnuts. If I didn't know better, I'd say she had an invasion of squirrels. Which are, I suppose, just mice with hairy tails. So that's alright then.)

27/10

A bit chillier than I could wish, but still fine around here. But not, unfortunately, at Grenoble, where I rushed last Thursday on a mission of mercy - more precisely, delivering Malyon's resuscitated laptop to her friend Sarah, who was going to join her in Glasgow for a week. Mission accomplished, the swap was made, and as I stumped off back to the car wearing my scowly face so as to frighten wee children and elderly ladies, and generally make people give me a wide berth, I was accosted by a young lady (unusual enough in itself) and made to smile. You must admit, having someone offer to be a ray of sunshine in your apparently gloomy life does have that effect. (And before your filthy minds go off into overdrive, let me point out that it was not what you're thinking. She was a charming young person out trying to sign people up for Medecins Sans Frontières, and had evidently learnt that the thing to do with a scowly-faced person was to break the ice with a tactful but humorous offer of cheer. Well, it worked, didn't it?)

We got Jerry's first school report the other day, and his notes are going up. And the "appreciation" from his head teacher was definitely more upbeat - "Jeremy seems to have undrstood the stakes at play in this last year of college. With disciplined working methods he should certainly succeed". Which is all rather good, and was the main objective of sticking him there, rather than carrying on at St Pierre. It almost makes getting up at 6:55 to get him to the train on time seem an acceptable price to pay.

Then we got a call from Malyon to say that Sarah had arrived but had forgotten the laptop at Roissy. Where it had been neither blown up (as tends to happen to unattended bags) nor stolen (which can happen to any sort of bag), but had been taken into the care of the lost and found department. So when Sarah comes back next week, she will (if she remembers) pick it up, bring it back here and I will send it over to Malyon through the good offices of UPS or FedEx.

And it was indeed a lovely day. Bright blue sky, marred only by the discovery, when I went down to the car to head off to the office and get a bit of work done in peace and quiet, that some helpful sod had tried to steal my wing mirrors, and had succeeded only in breaking both of them. It could, I suppose, have been worse. He could, exasperated by his evident incompetence, have decided to break the windscreen and ruin the paintwork for good measure. Which he didn't, so I really ought to be thankful for small mercies.

02/11

One of those small mercies was, I suppose, the fact that I had to go off to the Alfa garage to order new mirrors, then back again to get them fitted. Something for which they did not, in fact, charge me any money. Which made me very happy. As did the fact that I took advantage of my presence to hop into Alfa's latest, the little MiTo (which is, despite the rather ridiculous name, a nice little car - if you happen to be childless or, failing that, have a family of amputees), and then the Brera. Which looks - and feels - beautiful. I know that, according to Clarkson, its acceleration is measured in geological eras - it apparently gets from 0 to 100km in 7.2 seconds, which is slower than about anything other than a John Deere tractor - but I don't care. Just sitting in it and fondling the gearshift almost had me drooling. Or something.

On the other hand, I woke up on Wednesday to find that it had snowed down to 600m, which is rather too close for comfort as far as I'm concerned. Then it turned to what is technically called "pissing down", and I was extremely glad to have my rearview mirrors back as I drove off to Annecy to see a client. It's not the overtaking I mind, it's pulling back in afterwards that has me nervy. Godnose how I managed in the old Alfetta, which came standard with 1 (one) inside mirror. Maybe I'm spoilt now - or maybe I just drove faster then, and didn't need to worry about people being alongside when I pulled in. Your choice.

In other news, we had a little party last night - not really for Halloween, just because. We locked the boys in one of the cellars to sleep around 3am, and going by the number of bottles it must have been a success. I had decided to do the Frank'n'Furter thing - dress shirt, waistcoat, stockings and high heels, and may I just say that even if I can still remember how to put makeup on I've gotten a bit out of practice concerning walking around on heels. But I only got them caught in the decking once, which isn't too bad. And it certainly surprised the neighbours. Even at fifty, my calves aren't too bad. (Pass on the rest, no comments please.)

All of which may explain why I'm feeling a bit dissipated today - happily Jerry's gone off to Frangy for a few days with Karen and Phillippe, so tonight I can perhaps settle into bed early with a mug of cocoa. Or not.

Oh, and Sophie's mice/squirrels have apparently been TWEPped, so you can all sleep more safely tonight.

Whatever.
Trevor

12/10/08 Cow-pat cake and other delights

We got back at some ungodly hour this morning from Sophie's birthday - I'm a gentleman, and consequently don't know which one it was, nor would I dream of asking. I actually turned up around midday with three huge pizzas, wound up being roped into assembling her surprise present (it was the only way to be allowed to open a bottle of wine) and finally left for home to mow the paddock (maybe for the last time this year, he said hopefully?) and make a couple of foret noir for dessert.

To follow the plot you should know that Sophie has two close friends - Séverine, another teacher in a rather messy relationship, and Kris, a small angry androgynous lesbian with the energy of a tiger and a very extended family in Marseilles. She's also an amateur alcoholic, as opposed to Sophie and I who are professionals. Whatever. They organised the affair, we just turned up and did what was required of us. Which was, for the most part, eating and drinking.

When the French decide to do a party they at least do it properly. At midday we emptied the lounge and set up the sound system and the video projector so that dancing could be done in the proper surroundings, which generally means really loud music. I don't get invited to many parties (don't know why, I think I wash often enough, even scrub my pen protectors when necessary) so I did wonder whether the two 300W speakers were really required but it turns out that they were only just up to the job in a 30m² lounge.

Which brings me to the business of dancing. Either the French learn ballroom dancing when they're 5 and it never leaves them or, like negroes, they got natural rhythm. From a waltz to headbanging through Kris' blonde and rather rapacious aunt's pornographic exercise with her black-clad toy-boy, it all seems to come easily. Must be genetic. Whatever, boobs are flying and - let's be fair, we're all in our fifties or approaching it - bellies as well, but it's so well done. Part of it, no doubt, is due to the fact that the French consider it a truism that anything they do must be well done - it's part of being French - so it's simply not possible that it could be bad. Personally, I feel ridiculous, but then I'm not French.

There was also karaoke. I'm not necessarily against this, provided it's done in private between consenting adults, but I still find it personally distasteful. Especially when it involves Johnny Hallyday singing "The House of the Rising Sun" in French. I mean, can you imagine "Il y'a une maison en Nouvelle Orléans - qui s'appelle le Soleil Levant - " I've not the courage to go on. Frightful.

We turned up with our dessert and a bottle of wine: a 1998 Maltoff burgundy, as it happens. Sophie and I took a first sip and it was absolutely ghastly - sour and alcoholic - so we poured it into a spare vase (that being all that was available) and half an hour later it was magnificent. Note to self - decant wine into a flower-pot before drinking. Let it be a lesson to you all. As for the foret noir, the classic cherry one turned out fine but the second one, with rasperries and blackberries, turned out rather like a dark brown cowpat - my own fault really for trying to slice a fallen chocolate soufflé into three layers before reassembling them with whipped cream and fruit. Oddly enough, it was the cowpat that won the popular vote.

09/10/08

I am now officially fifty, gifts of cash will be gratefully accepted. Margo being in England it was a quiet affair: I took Jeremy, some home-made confit de canard à l'orange et au badiane and a kuchen mitt streussel (and wine, of course) round to Sophie's and we caroused until 10 pm ('cos all the lads have school in the morning). The confit de canard caused a bit of a ruckus because I took it out to defrost the night before and unbeknownst to me the cat had managed to sneak in that evening - Wednesday morning, on discovering a few drumsticks missing, the cat and I had a full, frank and open exchange of views which left me retreating to the bathroom looking for the antiseptic spray. Quel bummer.

Whatever, it was a really nice evening and I definitely enjoyed it, compliments all round for the duck (no leftovers, for once) and the dessert disappeared with alarming speed. (What more can you expect from three boys, 13, 14 and 16?) Kind of made up for hitting 50. At least this time we decanted the wine an hour or so before actually attacking the meal (had to drink rosé while we waited) so it was excellent.

11/10/08

Well, today we've had what the French would describe as a "journée de merde" - a shitty day. Started out well, mind you: lovely weather, off to the market and then as Jeremy had ballroom dancing rehearsal at 16:00 and I'd promised Sophie to transfer all her old e-mail and suchlike onto her new laptop I dropped him off at Chambéry-le-Haut then went back to start copying files. Unfortunately her wifi network is hideously slow (must look into that at some point) and it had almost finished when Jeremy rang to get picked up. So I arrive and there he is, white-faced and bleeding profusely - managed to split his thumb open whilst dancing! (Actually, that's not true. After dancing, he was leaning elegantly against a wall with his thumb in the jamb of a door when someone tried to close the door. That's what really split his thumb open.)

So we headed directly off to A&E. Do you know of anything more boring than A&E? I certainly haven't found anything. I mean, picking your nose gets boring after a while 'cos it's always the same sort of crud that comes out, and airport lounges are mind-numbingly soul-destroying but A&E is definitely more boring than that. And three and a half hours of it on a Saturday evening just has to be a winner. And all he needed was a couple of stitches. On the bright side, I was definitely the best-dressed male around - I'd put on a decent shirt and tie (to frighten small children and little old ladies at the market), and at least I wasn't covered in blood.

On the down-side, we got back here after 10pm - still without having finished what I'd promised to do for Sophie, and not having checked Rémi's English homework as I'd also swore I'd do - went down to feed the slightly frantic dog and stepped deep into a nice fresh turd. Poohs! (Once more, with feeling!)

Whatever, Jeremy's installed at his new collège - Notre Dame du Rocher (yes, it is nominally Catholic) and is enjoying it. It is a private school and they do expect the students to work, and oddly enought they do. Whereas at St Pierre they don't have time to look after all the pupils and so the only ones that get ahead are the self-motivated ones, and Jeremy doesn't really fall into that category. It seems to be working - we're pleased. He even managed 12.5 in French "expression écrit", which is a good three points up from what he was getting and is starting to approach his capacities. On the other hand, he managed to lose his phone. Again. Luckily for him, it was someone from the neighbourhood who found it lying in the grass, and they rang the last number he'd dialled which just happened to be mine. So he got it back. We shall either have to staple it to his forehead or stick Velcro on all his pockets.

And it's getting colder. Autumn is upon us, the leaves are getting gold (or red, or slimy, depends on the tree really) and soon it'll be time to turn the central heating on. But today it was so nice I'd planned on a BBQ - too bad I had a wounded son to look after.

Love to you all
Trevor

14/09/08 Faggots and fried eggs ...

Which are, apparently, vital constituents of that culinary masterpiece which is the full cooked Scottish breakfast, the others being, in no particular order, toast, baked beans, greasy bacon and a potato scone. But I digress ...

2008-09-10

This is, in fact, another in my series of trips from Hell which actually started off innocuously enough on the TER. Went a bit titsup though once Malyon and I installed ourselves on the TGV and a couple of beautiful people settled in across the aisle. He was French, in his 40's, bilingual, and she was English, in her 30's, and they were so much in love it was sickening. Between laughing inanely at their private jokes and sucking one another's faces off and swapping bodily fluids, it was a relief to all when they finally fell asleep, with her head in his lap. Depressing.

It didn't get much better when we got to Paris 'cos when we arrived at Gare du Nord we discovered that there'd been some sort of accident and we couldn't actually get to Eaubonne from there, so we had to schlep our 60 kg of obstreperous suitcases to Gare St Lazare, go up hill and down dale before catching another train that did - finally, about 90 minutes later than planned - get us here. To top it off it was stinking hot so by the time we arrived I'd lost about 5 kg and could have supplied half Paris with hot running water.

(Later learnt that there hadn't been just one accident but three - sort of a perfect storm. A suicide - inconsiderate sod, an "object" on the lines - not the body, and finally the overhead lines came down on another section of track. Bloody marvellous.)

I just hope like hell we don't have too many problems getting to the airport tomorrow.

2008-09-11

So as usual, we were prepared for the worst and left Eaubonne at 9:15. As a result everything went smoothly and we turned up at Roissy one hour later, with more than an hour to kill before check-in opened.

And on top of that, by strategic loitering we managed to be first in line for check-in and had a charming and cheerful person at the counter who asked to speak English, said not a word about our "hand" baggage, and cheerily ignored our excess kilos. (I'm talking baggage here, not fat. Thank you.)

On the other hand, we're still sitting on the tarmac as I write, 25 minutes overdue for take-off and we've not even taxied out to a runway yet.

Well, despite that we still managed to get in only 10 minutes late, which isn't too bad. We also cleared customs quite quickly, being amongst the few with non-EU passports. Although for a while I wondered if we were going to be allowed in at all, as they wanted proof that Mal had been confirmed at University, and of course all that was in her checked baggage ...

Then when the guy found out that she had French nationality as well he asked why the hell she hadn't just breezed through on her Frog ID card, in which case he'd have asked no questions. And he nicely put her through like that, asked no more questions, told her not to forget the trick, and wished us a nice day. (At least we didn't get the official I'd feared we were headed for - she looked very much as though she'd been fired by US Immigration for being too surly, and liked to start her day by biting the heads off chickens. Although I may be mistaken, appearances can be deceptive.)

After all that we finally managed to find our fleapit and settle in, despite dragging the anthropophagic killer suitcase from hell what felt like miles east along Renfrew Street, and then more miles back the other way. You'd think they'd put street numbers up, wouldn't you - and before you get all sarcastic, I did ask where the place was. But no-one seemed to know - or perhaps they didn't understand me.

For it is undeniable that the accent around here is pretty impenetrable. I don't think I've heard so many "fock"s in my life.

Whatever, we wandered off and found the University, which is a truly monumental pile, and then along Sauchiehall Street (I think it's pronounced like a sneeze, but I'm not sure) being touristy and looking for somewhere to eat. Although I gather that the weather (or climate, call it what you will) around these parts is quite mild - and in fact we found that to be true - this is achieved despite an apparently perpetual light rain or heavy mist, take your pick.

Tomorrow is a big day: have to open a bank account, try to organise a student loan, get her a pre-paid SIM card to start off with, get her the basics for her apartment and move her into it - and of course she's got a meeting with her course adviser to fit in somewhere. And I have photos to take, 'cos Glasgow is a lovely city, at least in the Victorian centre and around the University. Lovely old terraced apartment buildings and huge redbrick civic buildings.

Good thing I thought to take the spare memory card for the camera. Although I'm not sure how much time I'll have for that, as I have to fly out on Saturday and leave poor Mal to fend for herself. It's a bit worrying, I must admit, but I know she'll be alright. Still, it feels funny.

2008-09-12

Well, that was a busy day indeed. Went off to a couple of banks and discovered that the only one that would even consider letting her open an account was Natwest, and even there a student loan was out of the question. So that's something I'll have to look into in France when I get back. Bummer.

Then we went off to get her SIM card, and she was pretty taken with the idea of a 15£/month deal, but we found that you have to have been a resident for at least 3 years before anyone will accept you for one of those so she's got a prepaid card instead. At least that's allowed.

After that we stocked up on kitchen gear for her (the flats in the residence are self-catering, with a common kitchen for 8 or 10 flats), and by the time we'd collected pots and a decent frying pan and a good knife and Teflon implements and stuff, then eaten it was time for her to head off to her meetings.

So I headed off to take some more photos, and of course I forgot to actually take the spare memory card with me so I had to stop off and buy another one. In self-defence I'd like to point out that the City Corporation Building (in what they call the Merchant City, Glasgow being apparently founded on trade) is bloody impressive and fully merited every photo I took. As, indeed, did Central Station, and lots of other places. It also turned out beautifully fine, so I should really retract my previous comments on that subject.

Mal is planning on doing quite a bit of crowing to all those of her friends who are stuck at university in Grenoble: it's true there's no real comparison. The university looks like what an institution of higher learning should do, only damper than Oxbridge, and the city is definitely bustling. And big - biggest metropolis in Scotland, I gather. With about 20 000 students, apparently.

Whatever, when she'd finished with meetings and finalised her courses we lugged the suitcases one last time off to the residence and got her settled in, made sure she had internet access and all that. All done, all sweet. And she's really pleased with it all - the city, the uni, her courses, the flat and life in general. Which is good.

Then we went off to have a pub meal and a pint apiece, mainly so I could say I'd done it. It's an odd thing - maybe because it was a Friday night - but everyone around us seemed intent on getting as drunk as possible before 9pm, and then the pubs emptied. No idea where they all went - off to throw up in a doorway somewhere perhaps (reminds me of the Billy Connolly sketch and the diced carrots) or maybe the beer had run out - but it seemed odd.

Tomorrow it's back to the bank with her definitive address to finish opening her account, do a last bit of shopping and then I'm back off to Paris on my way home. At least I shan't see those suitcases again.

But right now I'm going to bed: I've been walking for about 5 hours solid today and my poor old legs aren't used to it. Glasgow has more hills than Wellington, if you can believe it. Malyon's at her flat: don't know exactly how much sleep she'll get as of course today counts as the unofficial start of fresher's week as all the new students move in.

2008-09-13

Last day today, and just a few loose ends to tidy up. Back to the bank (where they asked for yet another paper!) and a bit more shopping. We finally ran out of time (given that I was rather planning on catching my plane) so I finished by pressing £30 into her hands, uttering a few fatherly admonishments which she'll of course ignore, and got her on to the bus back to the student halls to finish her shopping at Lidyl.

Now that the deed is done it does indeed feel a bit sad. I know perfectly well that she's closer to us now than she was in NZ, but it still feels further away. I also know that she's a competent, capable young woman, but abandoning her to spend her birthday alone amongst the heathen Scots doesn't feel right either.

(Not that I need have worried on that last point. I rang when I got back to Paris, and she told me that she'd met all the others on her floor and they'd decided to go out together to celebrate. One of them, oddly enough, had just come back from a gap year in New Zealand. How's that for a coincidence?)

As an aside, you have to worry about the mental state of furnishings in the UK. Everywhere I went I saw signs saying "Warning! Alarmed door!". Which makes you wonder. Well, it makes me wonder anyway.

Whatever, getting back to Paris proved uneventful, if slightly more boring than usual. An hour's boredom on the bus out to the airport, just to get into the spirit of the thing, then another 90 minutes of mind-numbing tedium in the departure lounge before being allowed to board in a frantic 5-minute scrum (the plane was late arriving, but they were damned if they were going to let a mere detail make them miss the take-off slot). Unfortunately, having only hand baggage, I missed the opportunity of having my neurons stunned in the check-in queue.

Anyway, I got safely back to Paris, spent the night with Ian & Marie, woke up this morning with a monumental hangover and arrived back at Chambery under a rather sullen, rainy sky. And that's it for my trip to Glasgow. Beautiful city, and I'm sure Malyon will get used to the accent soon enough. But should you be planning on heading over there, just a couple of tips - the buses accept correct fare only and give no change, there are no bus route maps at the bus stations, and McLay's Guest House in Renfrew Street has cheerful, helpful staff and fleas.

In other news, Jeremy's started at his new college - Notre Dame du Rocher at Chambéry. Yes, it's a private Catholic school, but it's not that expensive and has an excellent reputation. We're rather hoping that the scholastic support that they give, and the universal high expectations they have of the students, will help him shake off his self-adopted persona of "incapable slacker" and do the work he's capable of. So far he seems to enjoy it, likes the teachers and appreciates the fact that the European English classes are taught exclusively in English (how could it be otherwise, you ask? You've obviously never visited the French educational system) which is good - we'll let you know how it gets on.

Trevor