Saturday, March 27, 2010
Friday, March 26, 2010
One or Two of Life's Little Mysteries ~ Missive 16
26 Mar 2010
Dear All
Hopefully you will find Missive 16, which is breaking new ground – it has a theme running through it!
Well, I’ve retired again and we’re back to France but the wish for warmer weather fell on deaf ears and we have returned to a storm lashed Vendée, with a bitterly cold east wind. Fortunately, the storms are not as bad as those of the previous week, the devastation only too apparent by the number of fallen trees and branches. The avenue down to our house suffered quite badly and felled our telephone / internet cable in several places, which it seems will be a fairly low priority job, as towards the coast the carnage was much worse with houses flooded and considerable loss of life, so to be incommunicado for a while pales into insignificance.
Visitors for this year have started already, they’re hardy folk in York and we are looking forward to welcoming lots of you to La Loge over the coming months.
But I’d best keep this short as the attached missive is a bumper one, lots of life’s experiences to report on this month!!
Love
Roger
rogerhiggs@hotmail.co.uk
Mes chers amis
One or Two of Life’s Little Mysteries! ~ Missive 16
Amazingly, there’s a theme running throughout this missive – Mystery! But before I start, just a quick correction to the last missive. Not spotted by my proof-reader and wife, Linda, but pointed out to me by my mistress, French mistress that is who is always quick to respond and very on the ball when it comes to correcting my French, she’s one ‘ell of a teacher as you will see if you read on!! The large wild boar we encountered late at night on the ring road around Nantes, was missing an ‘ell and should have been a sanglier not a sangier!! Many thanks, Carole, for continuing to respond to the missives, it’s good to know that someone is reading them, and for keeping an eye on my French!!
Sliding, slithering and other creepy crawlies! or Joining the Pet Shop Boys
As you can’t have failed to notice, last month I went back to work, a strange feeling having to get up in the morning and be out of the house before nine!! Linda and I went to help out with her sister’s family pet shop whilst most of the family, except their daughter Tracy, went on safari in South Africa, where temperature soared into the 30’s while Britain continued to freeze and experience further snow.
Tracy was to manage the shop, whilst Linda looked after her 9 month old son Jack and for the middle week her 8 year old daughter, who was on half term holiday and I was to help out in the pet shop as well as become the delivery boy for two and a half weeks! Now I know that this is Yorkshire and the mention of delivery boy might conjure up images of the boy in the Hovis advert, pushing his delivery bike up a steep hill exhausted at the end of the day, but the only similarity was the struggle up the stairs each night, exhausted after a day’s work and in need of my bed!! Mind you, it might have been more tiring looking after two active children – ask Linda!! And, instead of a heavy bike complete with front basket, I had a very distinctive white van with a large hairy spider on the front and an even bigger scorpion on the back doors and adverts for Acomb Pets Aquatics and Reptiles clearly painted on the side (I might as well give them a plug – telephone number available on request!!!). You may have already thought about the first potential problem, particularly if you know me well, yes – the first hurdle was to get passed the large photographs of the spider and scorpion and be able to open the back doors to load up and get out the deliveries, but they also provided the first mystery of the job – why was it that wherever I went, not only did people stand, stare and point, which was quite understandable but also lots of people waved in a very friendly fashion, well York people are friendly, but then abruptly stopped! It was then that I realised that the distinctive van is not only well known about those parts, but the normal delivery drivers are also known to lots of people and the waves were for them and stopped abruptly when the waver realised it was a stranger at the wheel!!
Another potential problem that many of you will again have realised, is that the pet shop not only specialises in a “Wide selection of Animal Foods for all Animals,” should you take up the offer to “Come and see for yourself” that is printed on their business cards, this food comes ”Dried, live and Frozen!” There’s a fridge full of live crickets and locusts for peoples lizards and snakes, a well as a corridor down which are housed the snakes (some quite large!!), lizards (some enormous bearded dragons!!), scorpions, spiders (large, hairy and menacing) that eat said food. There are also, fish (cold water and tropical) as well as a few cages in the main shop with animals such as rabbits (OK!), hamsters (just!!) and rats (no way!!) and lots and lots of easy stuff like packet food, empty cages, leads, brushes, dog beer, popcorn for rabbits (in three flavours and some apparently have a favourite!!), and seasonal goods such as Easter Eggs for dogs, cats and small animals!!! All these items are the gospel truth, I’ve sold them with my own fair hands. But the deal was very clear, someone else feeds and cleans out the animals in the shop; I’ll do the things that don’t move, although at first the frozen mice and rats were at first less than appealing!, help with the cleaning, shelf stacking and deliveries and even in time perhaps be able to answer the phone, remembering not to say “Bonjour!” What I did however agree to do, with the aid of a stout pair of gloves (much to the amusement of my nephews who live next door and regularly handle the animals!!), was to feed the animals at the house, but they were all furry and rats were the worst to contend with, or at least to overcome an irrational trepidation about!! But to sell any of the above items led to another mystery!
Electronic tills and card machines, and I needed careful coaching from Manager Tracy, who I must say was a very good and patient teacher, as things didn’t always go right, and I couldn’t always remember which items were VAT, Non VAT, Lizards or the like and was forever shouting “Tracy can you help me please!” But, no major problems here, except initially when I rung up the first customer’s goods, opened the till and was mysteriously confronted with strange money – it had been several months since I had used “pounds, shillings and pence!!!” Soon the fingers were flying, well moving quite quickly over the till buttons and there was ever some time for a bit of banter with the customers! This did nearly however, lead to what would have been the most momentous mistake of the week, when a lady paying by card spent £16-64 and in the excitement of saying that “seize soixante-quatre” (1664) is a popular French beer, I must have forgotten to press the total button, caught the 2 and the 3 on the machine and turned it around asking her to “Check the amount and put in her PIN!” Fortunately, she did check the amount and queried why it said £1664-23, it would have been an expensive week on dog food!! Rather red faced, I was able to cancel it and put the right amount through for this lady and all subsequent customers!! Here comes another mystery – why is some dog food two or three times the amount of other dog food, and why do vets tell little old ladies that their little pooch must be fed a scientifically manufactured food, when there seem to be plenty of other cheaper options that would do just as well. I guess it’s the difference between scrag end and topside, but as a pension doesn’t go very far it seems wrong that the cat is eating better, or at least costing more to feed, than the owner!!
Not only was there plenty of lighted hearted banter with the very friendly customers, many of them regulars wanting to know either why there were strangers in the shop or how the holiday makers were getting on!, but also there was at slack moments time to think up plans for the shop in the absence of the owners – schemes that we were, thanks to the wonders of modern technology, able to communicate when they phoned to see how things were!! Firstly, following one or two days where custom got a little slack in the middle of the day and a customer who came in having just returned from holiday in Spain and who was missing the siestas!, we decided that we should go to continental opening hours – two hour lunchbreaks and as these would be at the Carlton, a pub just around the corner, we would need a siesta to follow, and half days on Wednesday and Saturday (I was going to conveniently forget the opening at eight and shutting at six thirty!). Had we not been so busy the plan was to print out the new opening hours, display them on the door and send them a photograph together with the staff sitting having lunch in the Carlton. Then, to compensate the fact that the folding adverting board had been stolen from down on the side of the main road and only half of it returned, we decided, following the appalling and grating adverts that kept coming out of the local radio, that we would make out own, in a squeaky voice mimicking an awful advert for beds that some days seemed to be played after every record. The tag line, squeaked by the acting manager was to be “Acomb Pets the human face of pet shops” and by sheer coincidence the ad man from the local radio station happened to come in and try and sell us adverting - £12 for each time the advert was played on the airwaves, with most customers spending about £250 a week, but we felt that it really was rather too much to spend on a joke, but we did get the ad man to agree about the dire bed advert!! Again had we had time we were going to record our own ad and play the tape, pretending that it was on the radio, but again it didn’t come to fruition!! And finally, as far as new initiatives go, we were going to introduce “self service” arrangements for anyone wanting to by snakes, spiders, scorpions or rats!! This came about after a young lad came in when there was just Tracy and I in the shop, enquiring about rats, fortunately, he left without one and I mentioned how lucky we were as neither of us would have been able or indeed willing to serve him, in fact I had already decided that he looked under 16 and would therefore need to have an adult with him, if he wanted to buy an animal!! Breathing a sigh of relief, the next customer walked in just a couple of minutes later and asked “Have you any rats?” Fortunately, she wanted one for her son and wanted it saving for when he returned from college at the weekend as she wasn’t that keen on rats and thought the son could come and collect it himself!!
Whilst thinking about customers, working in a shop you do see life!! Customers came in asking for a collar for their new puppy and whether we thought that this one would fit the dog that they had left at home, or the wife who had been sent in for some crickets for hubbies lizard, but please put them in a brown paper bag as not only can they not bear the sight of them, they also don’t like the lizard!! Then, there were the children who dragged their mums in for a look at the lovely snakes only to find mum trying her upmost to put on a brave face, hiding around the corner whilst the little one peered into the tank nose pressed up against the glass, and did the two customers who came in for pizzles for their dogs realise that these treats that their precious pooches so enjoyed were in fact made out of stretched and dried bull’s penises – oouch!! But perhaps the funniest, or maybe saddest, was the mother who came in shouting at her son to “Come here you little sod and don’t touch anything!” only to start grabbing things haphazardly off the shelves announcing to anyone listening that “I’ll have one of these and one of these and one of these .....” in a manner that brought the saying a “whirling dervish” to mind. All through her frenzied shopping her running commentary was punctuated with instructions to her little sod, sorry son, who simply stood calmly and with interest looking at the animals, culminating in an almighty outburst along the lines of “Wayne (why are they always called that!), you little sod, STOP THAT! (What, I wasn’t sure, he hadn’t moved!) Anyone would think you’re a bloody delinquent!” The expression “Kettle, pot, black” came to mind!
These antics did make us think that there was perhaps some mileage in a new sitcom, giving the working title “The Pet Shop Boys and the Boss!” Sorry Leslie, but I’m sure there’s a role there somewhere for a Pet Shop Gal!! In the scene, Catherine Tate could play the mother and Harry Enfield in a young Kevin guise, the son – that would put the audience figures up!! But before I leave this section and start writing the sitcom, for which there must be at least enough material for a feature length launch programme and two long series!!!, I need to mention the deliveries or at least just a few of the incidents, as to include everything could be the basis for another sitcom: “Tales from the delivery bike” or “Hello, come in, you’re a nice boy!”
Deliveries were, except when it rained, or indeed snowed, great fun. The open road, A to Z ready and the radio on, blaring out plenty of the latest hits but punctuated by the repeating over and over again about free headboards with your new bed – all in a nauseatingly silly high pitched squeaky bed. I for one would have foregone the free headboard to avoid meeting the squeaky salesperson!! Then, there’s the variety – every delivery is different! The lady chasing you down the street because you’ve been given the wrong address and given up, but she’s spotted you giving up and leaving, the lady who at 11 o’clock in the morning answers the door in short leopard print dressing gown, but hastily covers up when she realised it wasn’t the regular delivery boy! There was the scene from a Hitchcock movie when you deliver to a flat, ring the bell and are buzzed up, you climb the dark stairwell, a door opens and a hand extends fortunately clutching money not a blood stained knife, but the arm is long, the person so tall you can’t see them as they disappear above the door lintel and you hand over the goods take the money and are relieved to get back into fresh air!! Then finally, for now!, two dear ladies, the first who’s shopping came to £14-99 and quite forcefully told me that she didn’t want the change for the £15-00 pounds that she handed me!! The second, worthy of a whole episode was very deaf. Indeed, on the first attempt to deliver her cat litter she was in but didn’t hear me, then on the second only “heard” me because she saw me through the glass panel next to the front door. On the second occasion, as the cat litter was heavy I had left it in the van until I was sure she was in and it took some time to get her to understand that I was from Acomb Pets and not delivering her a bed!! There, was a quite bizarre conversation with her telling me that she was very sorry, but her hearing didn’t seem too good today, perhaps she should but up a sign saying please ring the bell loudly, but as it didn’t seem to be working today that wouldn’t do much good. As she said this last bit, she had her finger firmly on the bell push, saying “There, I told you it wasn’t working, must need a new battery,” as the bell clearly resonated through the house!!! Collecting the money was worthy of a complete episode in itself, and I had to resort to sign language!!
What we didn’t tell them, was that there were a number of unexplained fatalities, both in the shop and at the house, but as the hamsters (male and female) got at each other, the geckos and bearded dragons lain a number of eggs and even the rabbits produced some offspring, overall for the two and a half weeks we were up on the number of animals they had left behind!! I waited for a suitable time in the car, having picked them up from the airport to tell them about the casualties in the garden, but felt it best to leave the acting manager to break the news about those in the shop, as well as the visit from the Trading Standards Officer and anything else from the shop floor!!
By far the biggest mystery here has to be why would anyone want to keep a snake or large hairy spiders, even though by the end of my pet shop experience I was able to walk down the corridor and look into the tanks holding the snakes and spiders, as long as I was sure they were well fastened up!! I certainly hadn’t changed my opinion or decided that there were any pets worth having other than a dog – sorry folks, but fortunately we don’t all feel the same!!
Well, that’s the new career over and I’ve retired again, but feel that there may well be enough material lurking for me to return to “Acomb Pets – The Sequel” at some time in the future!
French Mysteries!
• Céteaux meniere – this is really what started the whole mystery theme for this missive. Some weeks or maybe months ago, in my quest to better myself and certainly better my understanding of the French language, I saw these two words written down and not knowing what they meant jotted them down in my notebook. The note was then forgotten, only to be discovered some time later, when I decided it was time to find out what it meant, although by now I had completely forgotten where and in what context I had originally seen it. But I hit a blank, not being able to find the words in any of our French dictionaries, so it was a case of resorting to the computer for help!! Well the babelfish site translates céteaux meniere as céteaux meniere, which is not very helpful and google finds no explanation for céteaux, but translates meniere as a wedge sole, which similarly is not much help. So it’s over to you to see if any of you can help!!!! Maybe I need my mistress again!!
• French soft cheeses (such as camembert or bleu bresse) always come wrapped neatly in a waxed paper wrapper. But why is it that having unwrapped them, cut a sizable portion from them, it is impossible to refold the paper without leaving some of the cheese uncovered?
• Why is it that elderly, silver haired couples or young mothers with young children in tow, are regularly seen with their shopping cart, or chariot, crammed full with anything up to seventeen or more baguettes – it certainly isn’t advanced planning for the week, as the average French loaf is lucky to stay fresh until you get it home, let alone onto the dining table!! So do many old couples have hordes of offspring who just won’t flee the nest and are the young mothers older than they appear, despite the labour of giving birth to multiple children?
• Why are French villages and small towns apparently deserted, with no obvious sign of a resident population, except when, just before meal times the streets are thronged with people streaming towards the boulangerie, or heading home laden down with arms full of baguettes!?!
• Why do the French keep such enormous and immaculately lain woodpiles, enough in many cases to keep them going for several years – the local farm has one pile that is taller than a tractor, a couple of metres deep and probably getting on for 100m long, and there are other piles stacked all over the farm!? Is it simply forward planning for a rainy day or at least cold day, the budding landscape artist in every wood stacker or that there is so much to go around in such a sparsely peopled and well wooded country?
• Why, is it that after so many years of carefully following signs to many of France’s large supermarkets, in some cases, years later, we are still unable to locate them, despite carefully travelling several times around the same roundabout to be absolutely sure what the sign says? Some of it could be explained by having only recently discovered that “tout droit” doesn’t mean all the rights, but in fact means straight on!!!
• Travel to any French village and you will find modest two bedroomed houses surrounded by enormous, beautifully maintained gardens, which in the season are bursting at the seams with fresh and tasty produce. But how do the householders, maybe an elderly couple or even a young couple with two or three young children manage not to waste any of the fresh and wholesome produce, and it’s not even as though they can give it to their neighbours, as they have a similar huge beautifully maintained and well stocked “potager” of their own. However, rarely do you see any of the produce looking jaded and past its best, or even casually discarded onto the compost heap – another French mystery!!
The longer we stay in France the more such mysteries we encounter, but maybe someone out there amongst my readers can explain – perhaps via a comment on the blog, or indeed if you have a similar burning need to explain a particular mystery, why not pose the question in the same fashion and hope someone else can help you!!
The Noble Art of micturition (dedicated to York Anne!)
It happens everywhere, and is a totally necessary bodily function, only in France it DOES happen anywhere, mostly but not exclusively for the men. When the spirit takes them, or at least when they are bursting, out it comes and before you know it, casually a stream is cascading against or over whatever happens to be in the way! Passers by, or people with the person seeking relief, are unconcerned and go normally about their own everyday business, of less lavatorial nature!!
Recently, friends from York were visiting and Steve and I went for a walk in the Mervent Forest, a nearby National Forest, a bit like the Forest of Dean, whilst Linda and Anne arranged to meet us in a car park at the end of our walk. Arriving at the car park in plenty of time, Linda and Anne were sitting in the car chatting, when suddenly Anne exclaimed: “What’s that fisherman doing?” to which she promptly answered her own question with a “Oooh!! He’s weeing!!” Then during the rest of their visit it was very much a case of “and him, and him and him!!!!
Holidays in France, and indeed places like India, over the years have somewhat hardened us to this most natural, but largely private in England, phenomena, so it’s a bit of a case of “Oh, we’ve seen it all before,” so to speak!! But for the uninitiated, as with Anne it came as something of a surprise, if not a shock that required a trip to the nearby Irish Bar, which was where we found them after our walk, to calm the nerves of one with such a nervous disposition!! But, it did get me thinking about those I had seen before and there follows some memorable occasions, which I guess go some way towards why for us it’s all water under the bridge!!
But going with the flow (!), which reminds me of an afternoon some years ago when the children in my class all seemed to need to go and I became a little cross and announced that I wasn’t having a “constant stream of children going to the toilet!!” Fortunately, it was a year when I didn’t have that one or two children on the same wavelength as me, when it comes to humour and who you can often throw the odd funny aside into the lesson purely for their benefit, and I was the only one who saw the funny side of my comment.
But remaining on the theme of children and particularly French children, I’m reminded of a school outing I went on many years ago whilst on a French exchange with a teacher just outside Lille, in northern France. It was a walk around the area, taking in a section of unfenced ship canal, unfenced railway, several fast stretches of road and a visit into someone’s back garden to see an interesting old dovecot, largely I imagine to show me the area and maybe for Jean, the teacher and I to stay awake as we were over the five days managing to burn the candle at both ends!! There were about 27 children and Jean and I and as far as I could ascertain no prior planning had been done, no risk assessment and only possibly a casual message the day before that we were going on the walk. Even the owner of the dovecot didn’t know we were going and was rather surprised to find 27 children, their teacher and an Englishman in his back garden, but once he realised it was educational got quite into the swing of things, rather than send us packing!! I am digressing a little, but I must just mention that not once did Jean tell the children to be careful as he strode on and they tussled behind within falling in / on distance of the canal / railway line and indeed barely did he look back to see what was going on or to count that everyone was there – we’re back I guess to the French belief that if you have an accident then it’s your fault, but maybe a bit harsh at 9!! But back to the main gush of this section, namely; micturition, weeing, peeing, pee pee, call it what you will, and having left all the potential dangers behind we turned into an avenue of large trees leading up to enormous ornate iron gates set in a large wall that must, were you able to see it have opened onto a large chateau built in its own extensive and very private grounds. The large trees were horse chestnuts and it was autumn and the ground beneath was liberally littered with the most splendid conkers. One look and the boys charged behind the trees, not to collect the conkers but, yes you’ve guessed it, to unzip or pull down and stand there in all their glory watering the trees, whilst getting no reaction from Jean, the teacher, and barely a titter from the girls who either ignored or stood and watched!!
Then recently, on our doorstep so to speak, we have witnessed firsthand a number of passing incidents that bear mention!: First there was the Sunday that Linda and I decided to walk down the road past the next door “hunting lodge,” thinking it prudent to keep to the road and not venture into the woods! As we came level with the end of the lodge, out strode our friend the farmer’s son, oblivious to our presence and obviously intend on other things, and it was not until in the middle of the yard he was directing his stream in the vague direction of the hedge that he turned around and saw us!! Rather than an ensuing embarrassed fumbling and pretending that he hadn’t seen us, we got a cheery bonjour, and wished us a “bon promenade!”
Some weeks later his father was seen just outside the chateau, a large stick in his hands, kneeling down peering at the ground. Puzzled by his behaviour, I went to get the binoculars that are on the side ready to grab when an interesting animal or bird happens to go by. Focussing on the farmer, I was a little surprised to find him now standing up, in that characteristic pose on the front drive of the chateau, directing his stream in the vague direction of the front door – I suppose a case of “cocking a hoot” as it were! Monsieur, from the chateau was not there at the time, although I wonder if it would have made any difference, and the previous unusual behaviour I discovered was the farmer using a dipstick to check whether there was enough oil in the buried oil tank, prior to Monsieur’s impending visit.
Then after Monsieur had been and gone, there was what appeared to be a retired farmer’s work party, collecting up various piles of garden/hedge cuttings that had previously been left in neat piles, as well as clearing up debris blown out of the trees in the front avenue during the recent severe storms. They had been working their way towards the front gate and were collecting hedge clippings from the hedge that borders either side of this gate, just around the corner from the front of our yard, when we decided to go for a stroll. I say they were collecting the cuttings, well two out of the three were, the other had been caught short and was casually directing his stream into the hedge bottom as Linda and I turned the corner. He simply finished what he was doing, whilst wishing us a cheery Bonjour, although the other two did seem to find it a little amusing and stifled a titter or two!!
Returning to Anne, who seemed to find people engaged in the act of micturition wherever she went, there was even a young man weeing between the cars in the supermarket car park on one of our visits, rather unusually for France, somewhat the worse for wear and carrying a tin of strong beer from which he was topping up, even whilst freeing up some space!!
This brings me to lament the passing of the old-fashioned ornate pissoirs that used to grace the streets of French towns, sadly they are being replaced by ugly stainless steel “tardises,” in which spending a penny rarely costs less than 30 cents and which being electronic can easily break down or need sophisticated maintenance, as we recently found in La Rochelle where they were all closed for electronic update – they would take you money if you didn’t realise that they were securely padlocked, and the money in the slot didn’t open the lock!! I guess it’s all to do with progress and improvements in hygiene, but interestingly over the last few years Stroud has acquired its own hi-tech pop-up pissoir, that pops up each evening to avoid too many men popping it out in inappropriate places!!! Whilst not advocating random weeing, it does seem a little mysterious that the British have such a different attitude to this natural bodily function than the French! Maybe, it’s to do with there being so many people and so little space in England, or simply a throwback to Victorian times!
“Clever Words”
• “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift, that’s why it’s called the present.” There’s mystery in the quote, but perhaps the biggest mystery is, who actually said this! Originally forwarded to me by Linda, as part of one of these round robin emails that regularly turn up, particularly from a couple of her friends, it wasn’t credited with an author. Extensive research, yes I’ve got time on my hands!!, has come up with a diverse selection of people who are reputed to be the original author. They range from Joan Rivers to Elenor Roosevelt¸ via a group called Indra who used the first two lines, to Bob Marley who sang the last two lines as; Today is the present, treat it as a gift, through to Babatunde Olatunji who was a Nigerian drummer, educator, social activist and recording artist. However, just maybe they might all have read that well known horticultural classic, published in 1902 and written by Alice Morse Earle called “Sun Dials and Roses of Yesterday”!
• Annie Dillard: “Our life is a faint trace on the surface of mystery.”
• Albert Einstein: “One may say the eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.” Great as the man is I do wonder if this quote works better, or to be diplomatic at least equally as well, if comprehensibility is replaced by incomprehensibility – perhaps times have changed since Albert’s time!
• Carl Jung: “Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain.”
My original “thought!”
It’s amazing what happens when you’re away and people forget to tell you. On our last visit back to the UK, I was forced to read that most Tory of newspapers – The Telegraph, by dint of that being what is daily delivered through my parents’ door, try as we might to get them to realise the error of their ways! But on this particular day, you understand – no election called but all parties and pet newspapers campaigning like made. There’s a big picture of Cameron on the front page, been out for a jog and looking particularly jaded to put it politely, particularly so early on in a campaign that hasn’t even officially started! And, the large headline next to the photograph, I’m fit to run Britain! Well, he certainly didn’t look it to me and I couldn’t help wondering has the Telegraph changed their allegiance and nobody told us, either that or the Picture Editor will have some explaining to do!!
Don’t worry not a party political broadcast coming up, and thankfully on the long point scoring run up to the election we can’t get them in France, but to me one of the great mysteries of politics is why, on important issues such as education and transport, that effect the future of people and ultimately the world, why can’t there be cross party agreement for the greater good of all? But unfortunately an idea like that isn’t a vote winner! But enough of this and enjoy the next few weeks, if you can last the course, but above all don’t forget to vote when it happens!
Kind regards, Best Wishes and Love, Roger, Linda and Max (turned 100 last month!) ......
(Had a bit of a shock the other day, they took me off to the vet so I thought it meant we were travelling again and I do find it rather tiring!! But no, it was the annual check and all seems OK, just need to be careful in the sun – when it finally comes out to stay – and mustn’t walk too far particularly on hot days!! Suits me fine – I’ll just sit in the shade under the caravan and watch the world go by, with just a little exercise every now and again chasing the odd tractor – you try and stop me!! The vet knows how to make you feel good – said I wasn’t fat!!, but have to admit that now I’m so deaf, when they let me in the garden I bark – just in case!!)
As I said before, these missives are only going to a select few!!, do please pass them on to anyone who might be interested, and similarly, if you would like to be deleted (I promise not to be offended!) or added to the mailing list let me know!!!
And maybe to come next time? Another theme: SpringTIME, with sections entitled: “Didn’t realise at the time”, “The Count returns”, “Printemp”, “Oh! What a day!”
Dear All
Hopefully you will find Missive 16, which is breaking new ground – it has a theme running through it!
Well, I’ve retired again and we’re back to France but the wish for warmer weather fell on deaf ears and we have returned to a storm lashed Vendée, with a bitterly cold east wind. Fortunately, the storms are not as bad as those of the previous week, the devastation only too apparent by the number of fallen trees and branches. The avenue down to our house suffered quite badly and felled our telephone / internet cable in several places, which it seems will be a fairly low priority job, as towards the coast the carnage was much worse with houses flooded and considerable loss of life, so to be incommunicado for a while pales into insignificance.
Visitors for this year have started already, they’re hardy folk in York and we are looking forward to welcoming lots of you to La Loge over the coming months.
But I’d best keep this short as the attached missive is a bumper one, lots of life’s experiences to report on this month!!
Love
Roger
rogerhiggs@hotmail.co.uk
Mes chers amis
One or Two of Life’s Little Mysteries! ~ Missive 16
Amazingly, there’s a theme running throughout this missive – Mystery! But before I start, just a quick correction to the last missive. Not spotted by my proof-reader and wife, Linda, but pointed out to me by my mistress, French mistress that is who is always quick to respond and very on the ball when it comes to correcting my French, she’s one ‘ell of a teacher as you will see if you read on!! The large wild boar we encountered late at night on the ring road around Nantes, was missing an ‘ell and should have been a sanglier not a sangier!! Many thanks, Carole, for continuing to respond to the missives, it’s good to know that someone is reading them, and for keeping an eye on my French!!
Sliding, slithering and other creepy crawlies! or Joining the Pet Shop Boys
As you can’t have failed to notice, last month I went back to work, a strange feeling having to get up in the morning and be out of the house before nine!! Linda and I went to help out with her sister’s family pet shop whilst most of the family, except their daughter Tracy, went on safari in South Africa, where temperature soared into the 30’s while Britain continued to freeze and experience further snow.
Tracy was to manage the shop, whilst Linda looked after her 9 month old son Jack and for the middle week her 8 year old daughter, who was on half term holiday and I was to help out in the pet shop as well as become the delivery boy for two and a half weeks! Now I know that this is Yorkshire and the mention of delivery boy might conjure up images of the boy in the Hovis advert, pushing his delivery bike up a steep hill exhausted at the end of the day, but the only similarity was the struggle up the stairs each night, exhausted after a day’s work and in need of my bed!! Mind you, it might have been more tiring looking after two active children – ask Linda!! And, instead of a heavy bike complete with front basket, I had a very distinctive white van with a large hairy spider on the front and an even bigger scorpion on the back doors and adverts for Acomb Pets Aquatics and Reptiles clearly painted on the side (I might as well give them a plug – telephone number available on request!!!). You may have already thought about the first potential problem, particularly if you know me well, yes – the first hurdle was to get passed the large photographs of the spider and scorpion and be able to open the back doors to load up and get out the deliveries, but they also provided the first mystery of the job – why was it that wherever I went, not only did people stand, stare and point, which was quite understandable but also lots of people waved in a very friendly fashion, well York people are friendly, but then abruptly stopped! It was then that I realised that the distinctive van is not only well known about those parts, but the normal delivery drivers are also known to lots of people and the waves were for them and stopped abruptly when the waver realised it was a stranger at the wheel!!
Another potential problem that many of you will again have realised, is that the pet shop not only specialises in a “Wide selection of Animal Foods for all Animals,” should you take up the offer to “Come and see for yourself” that is printed on their business cards, this food comes ”Dried, live and Frozen!” There’s a fridge full of live crickets and locusts for peoples lizards and snakes, a well as a corridor down which are housed the snakes (some quite large!!), lizards (some enormous bearded dragons!!), scorpions, spiders (large, hairy and menacing) that eat said food. There are also, fish (cold water and tropical) as well as a few cages in the main shop with animals such as rabbits (OK!), hamsters (just!!) and rats (no way!!) and lots and lots of easy stuff like packet food, empty cages, leads, brushes, dog beer, popcorn for rabbits (in three flavours and some apparently have a favourite!!), and seasonal goods such as Easter Eggs for dogs, cats and small animals!!! All these items are the gospel truth, I’ve sold them with my own fair hands. But the deal was very clear, someone else feeds and cleans out the animals in the shop; I’ll do the things that don’t move, although at first the frozen mice and rats were at first less than appealing!, help with the cleaning, shelf stacking and deliveries and even in time perhaps be able to answer the phone, remembering not to say “Bonjour!” What I did however agree to do, with the aid of a stout pair of gloves (much to the amusement of my nephews who live next door and regularly handle the animals!!), was to feed the animals at the house, but they were all furry and rats were the worst to contend with, or at least to overcome an irrational trepidation about!! But to sell any of the above items led to another mystery!
Electronic tills and card machines, and I needed careful coaching from Manager Tracy, who I must say was a very good and patient teacher, as things didn’t always go right, and I couldn’t always remember which items were VAT, Non VAT, Lizards or the like and was forever shouting “Tracy can you help me please!” But, no major problems here, except initially when I rung up the first customer’s goods, opened the till and was mysteriously confronted with strange money – it had been several months since I had used “pounds, shillings and pence!!!” Soon the fingers were flying, well moving quite quickly over the till buttons and there was ever some time for a bit of banter with the customers! This did nearly however, lead to what would have been the most momentous mistake of the week, when a lady paying by card spent £16-64 and in the excitement of saying that “seize soixante-quatre” (1664) is a popular French beer, I must have forgotten to press the total button, caught the 2 and the 3 on the machine and turned it around asking her to “Check the amount and put in her PIN!” Fortunately, she did check the amount and queried why it said £1664-23, it would have been an expensive week on dog food!! Rather red faced, I was able to cancel it and put the right amount through for this lady and all subsequent customers!! Here comes another mystery – why is some dog food two or three times the amount of other dog food, and why do vets tell little old ladies that their little pooch must be fed a scientifically manufactured food, when there seem to be plenty of other cheaper options that would do just as well. I guess it’s the difference between scrag end and topside, but as a pension doesn’t go very far it seems wrong that the cat is eating better, or at least costing more to feed, than the owner!!
Not only was there plenty of lighted hearted banter with the very friendly customers, many of them regulars wanting to know either why there were strangers in the shop or how the holiday makers were getting on!, but also there was at slack moments time to think up plans for the shop in the absence of the owners – schemes that we were, thanks to the wonders of modern technology, able to communicate when they phoned to see how things were!! Firstly, following one or two days where custom got a little slack in the middle of the day and a customer who came in having just returned from holiday in Spain and who was missing the siestas!, we decided that we should go to continental opening hours – two hour lunchbreaks and as these would be at the Carlton, a pub just around the corner, we would need a siesta to follow, and half days on Wednesday and Saturday (I was going to conveniently forget the opening at eight and shutting at six thirty!). Had we not been so busy the plan was to print out the new opening hours, display them on the door and send them a photograph together with the staff sitting having lunch in the Carlton. Then, to compensate the fact that the folding adverting board had been stolen from down on the side of the main road and only half of it returned, we decided, following the appalling and grating adverts that kept coming out of the local radio, that we would make out own, in a squeaky voice mimicking an awful advert for beds that some days seemed to be played after every record. The tag line, squeaked by the acting manager was to be “Acomb Pets the human face of pet shops” and by sheer coincidence the ad man from the local radio station happened to come in and try and sell us adverting - £12 for each time the advert was played on the airwaves, with most customers spending about £250 a week, but we felt that it really was rather too much to spend on a joke, but we did get the ad man to agree about the dire bed advert!! Again had we had time we were going to record our own ad and play the tape, pretending that it was on the radio, but again it didn’t come to fruition!! And finally, as far as new initiatives go, we were going to introduce “self service” arrangements for anyone wanting to by snakes, spiders, scorpions or rats!! This came about after a young lad came in when there was just Tracy and I in the shop, enquiring about rats, fortunately, he left without one and I mentioned how lucky we were as neither of us would have been able or indeed willing to serve him, in fact I had already decided that he looked under 16 and would therefore need to have an adult with him, if he wanted to buy an animal!! Breathing a sigh of relief, the next customer walked in just a couple of minutes later and asked “Have you any rats?” Fortunately, she wanted one for her son and wanted it saving for when he returned from college at the weekend as she wasn’t that keen on rats and thought the son could come and collect it himself!!
Whilst thinking about customers, working in a shop you do see life!! Customers came in asking for a collar for their new puppy and whether we thought that this one would fit the dog that they had left at home, or the wife who had been sent in for some crickets for hubbies lizard, but please put them in a brown paper bag as not only can they not bear the sight of them, they also don’t like the lizard!! Then, there were the children who dragged their mums in for a look at the lovely snakes only to find mum trying her upmost to put on a brave face, hiding around the corner whilst the little one peered into the tank nose pressed up against the glass, and did the two customers who came in for pizzles for their dogs realise that these treats that their precious pooches so enjoyed were in fact made out of stretched and dried bull’s penises – oouch!! But perhaps the funniest, or maybe saddest, was the mother who came in shouting at her son to “Come here you little sod and don’t touch anything!” only to start grabbing things haphazardly off the shelves announcing to anyone listening that “I’ll have one of these and one of these and one of these .....” in a manner that brought the saying a “whirling dervish” to mind. All through her frenzied shopping her running commentary was punctuated with instructions to her little sod, sorry son, who simply stood calmly and with interest looking at the animals, culminating in an almighty outburst along the lines of “Wayne (why are they always called that!), you little sod, STOP THAT! (What, I wasn’t sure, he hadn’t moved!) Anyone would think you’re a bloody delinquent!” The expression “Kettle, pot, black” came to mind!
These antics did make us think that there was perhaps some mileage in a new sitcom, giving the working title “The Pet Shop Boys and the Boss!” Sorry Leslie, but I’m sure there’s a role there somewhere for a Pet Shop Gal!! In the scene, Catherine Tate could play the mother and Harry Enfield in a young Kevin guise, the son – that would put the audience figures up!! But before I leave this section and start writing the sitcom, for which there must be at least enough material for a feature length launch programme and two long series!!!, I need to mention the deliveries or at least just a few of the incidents, as to include everything could be the basis for another sitcom: “Tales from the delivery bike” or “Hello, come in, you’re a nice boy!”
Deliveries were, except when it rained, or indeed snowed, great fun. The open road, A to Z ready and the radio on, blaring out plenty of the latest hits but punctuated by the repeating over and over again about free headboards with your new bed – all in a nauseatingly silly high pitched squeaky bed. I for one would have foregone the free headboard to avoid meeting the squeaky salesperson!! Then, there’s the variety – every delivery is different! The lady chasing you down the street because you’ve been given the wrong address and given up, but she’s spotted you giving up and leaving, the lady who at 11 o’clock in the morning answers the door in short leopard print dressing gown, but hastily covers up when she realised it wasn’t the regular delivery boy! There was the scene from a Hitchcock movie when you deliver to a flat, ring the bell and are buzzed up, you climb the dark stairwell, a door opens and a hand extends fortunately clutching money not a blood stained knife, but the arm is long, the person so tall you can’t see them as they disappear above the door lintel and you hand over the goods take the money and are relieved to get back into fresh air!! Then finally, for now!, two dear ladies, the first who’s shopping came to £14-99 and quite forcefully told me that she didn’t want the change for the £15-00 pounds that she handed me!! The second, worthy of a whole episode was very deaf. Indeed, on the first attempt to deliver her cat litter she was in but didn’t hear me, then on the second only “heard” me because she saw me through the glass panel next to the front door. On the second occasion, as the cat litter was heavy I had left it in the van until I was sure she was in and it took some time to get her to understand that I was from Acomb Pets and not delivering her a bed!! There, was a quite bizarre conversation with her telling me that she was very sorry, but her hearing didn’t seem too good today, perhaps she should but up a sign saying please ring the bell loudly, but as it didn’t seem to be working today that wouldn’t do much good. As she said this last bit, she had her finger firmly on the bell push, saying “There, I told you it wasn’t working, must need a new battery,” as the bell clearly resonated through the house!!! Collecting the money was worthy of a complete episode in itself, and I had to resort to sign language!!
What we didn’t tell them, was that there were a number of unexplained fatalities, both in the shop and at the house, but as the hamsters (male and female) got at each other, the geckos and bearded dragons lain a number of eggs and even the rabbits produced some offspring, overall for the two and a half weeks we were up on the number of animals they had left behind!! I waited for a suitable time in the car, having picked them up from the airport to tell them about the casualties in the garden, but felt it best to leave the acting manager to break the news about those in the shop, as well as the visit from the Trading Standards Officer and anything else from the shop floor!!
By far the biggest mystery here has to be why would anyone want to keep a snake or large hairy spiders, even though by the end of my pet shop experience I was able to walk down the corridor and look into the tanks holding the snakes and spiders, as long as I was sure they were well fastened up!! I certainly hadn’t changed my opinion or decided that there were any pets worth having other than a dog – sorry folks, but fortunately we don’t all feel the same!!
Well, that’s the new career over and I’ve retired again, but feel that there may well be enough material lurking for me to return to “Acomb Pets – The Sequel” at some time in the future!
French Mysteries!
• Céteaux meniere – this is really what started the whole mystery theme for this missive. Some weeks or maybe months ago, in my quest to better myself and certainly better my understanding of the French language, I saw these two words written down and not knowing what they meant jotted them down in my notebook. The note was then forgotten, only to be discovered some time later, when I decided it was time to find out what it meant, although by now I had completely forgotten where and in what context I had originally seen it. But I hit a blank, not being able to find the words in any of our French dictionaries, so it was a case of resorting to the computer for help!! Well the babelfish site translates céteaux meniere as céteaux meniere, which is not very helpful and google finds no explanation for céteaux, but translates meniere as a wedge sole, which similarly is not much help. So it’s over to you to see if any of you can help!!!! Maybe I need my mistress again!!
• French soft cheeses (such as camembert or bleu bresse) always come wrapped neatly in a waxed paper wrapper. But why is it that having unwrapped them, cut a sizable portion from them, it is impossible to refold the paper without leaving some of the cheese uncovered?
• Why is it that elderly, silver haired couples or young mothers with young children in tow, are regularly seen with their shopping cart, or chariot, crammed full with anything up to seventeen or more baguettes – it certainly isn’t advanced planning for the week, as the average French loaf is lucky to stay fresh until you get it home, let alone onto the dining table!! So do many old couples have hordes of offspring who just won’t flee the nest and are the young mothers older than they appear, despite the labour of giving birth to multiple children?
• Why are French villages and small towns apparently deserted, with no obvious sign of a resident population, except when, just before meal times the streets are thronged with people streaming towards the boulangerie, or heading home laden down with arms full of baguettes!?!
• Why do the French keep such enormous and immaculately lain woodpiles, enough in many cases to keep them going for several years – the local farm has one pile that is taller than a tractor, a couple of metres deep and probably getting on for 100m long, and there are other piles stacked all over the farm!? Is it simply forward planning for a rainy day or at least cold day, the budding landscape artist in every wood stacker or that there is so much to go around in such a sparsely peopled and well wooded country?
• Why, is it that after so many years of carefully following signs to many of France’s large supermarkets, in some cases, years later, we are still unable to locate them, despite carefully travelling several times around the same roundabout to be absolutely sure what the sign says? Some of it could be explained by having only recently discovered that “tout droit” doesn’t mean all the rights, but in fact means straight on!!!
• Travel to any French village and you will find modest two bedroomed houses surrounded by enormous, beautifully maintained gardens, which in the season are bursting at the seams with fresh and tasty produce. But how do the householders, maybe an elderly couple or even a young couple with two or three young children manage not to waste any of the fresh and wholesome produce, and it’s not even as though they can give it to their neighbours, as they have a similar huge beautifully maintained and well stocked “potager” of their own. However, rarely do you see any of the produce looking jaded and past its best, or even casually discarded onto the compost heap – another French mystery!!
The longer we stay in France the more such mysteries we encounter, but maybe someone out there amongst my readers can explain – perhaps via a comment on the blog, or indeed if you have a similar burning need to explain a particular mystery, why not pose the question in the same fashion and hope someone else can help you!!
The Noble Art of micturition (dedicated to York Anne!)
It happens everywhere, and is a totally necessary bodily function, only in France it DOES happen anywhere, mostly but not exclusively for the men. When the spirit takes them, or at least when they are bursting, out it comes and before you know it, casually a stream is cascading against or over whatever happens to be in the way! Passers by, or people with the person seeking relief, are unconcerned and go normally about their own everyday business, of less lavatorial nature!!
Recently, friends from York were visiting and Steve and I went for a walk in the Mervent Forest, a nearby National Forest, a bit like the Forest of Dean, whilst Linda and Anne arranged to meet us in a car park at the end of our walk. Arriving at the car park in plenty of time, Linda and Anne were sitting in the car chatting, when suddenly Anne exclaimed: “What’s that fisherman doing?” to which she promptly answered her own question with a “Oooh!! He’s weeing!!” Then during the rest of their visit it was very much a case of “and him, and him and him!!!!
Holidays in France, and indeed places like India, over the years have somewhat hardened us to this most natural, but largely private in England, phenomena, so it’s a bit of a case of “Oh, we’ve seen it all before,” so to speak!! But for the uninitiated, as with Anne it came as something of a surprise, if not a shock that required a trip to the nearby Irish Bar, which was where we found them after our walk, to calm the nerves of one with such a nervous disposition!! But, it did get me thinking about those I had seen before and there follows some memorable occasions, which I guess go some way towards why for us it’s all water under the bridge!!
But going with the flow (!), which reminds me of an afternoon some years ago when the children in my class all seemed to need to go and I became a little cross and announced that I wasn’t having a “constant stream of children going to the toilet!!” Fortunately, it was a year when I didn’t have that one or two children on the same wavelength as me, when it comes to humour and who you can often throw the odd funny aside into the lesson purely for their benefit, and I was the only one who saw the funny side of my comment.
But remaining on the theme of children and particularly French children, I’m reminded of a school outing I went on many years ago whilst on a French exchange with a teacher just outside Lille, in northern France. It was a walk around the area, taking in a section of unfenced ship canal, unfenced railway, several fast stretches of road and a visit into someone’s back garden to see an interesting old dovecot, largely I imagine to show me the area and maybe for Jean, the teacher and I to stay awake as we were over the five days managing to burn the candle at both ends!! There were about 27 children and Jean and I and as far as I could ascertain no prior planning had been done, no risk assessment and only possibly a casual message the day before that we were going on the walk. Even the owner of the dovecot didn’t know we were going and was rather surprised to find 27 children, their teacher and an Englishman in his back garden, but once he realised it was educational got quite into the swing of things, rather than send us packing!! I am digressing a little, but I must just mention that not once did Jean tell the children to be careful as he strode on and they tussled behind within falling in / on distance of the canal / railway line and indeed barely did he look back to see what was going on or to count that everyone was there – we’re back I guess to the French belief that if you have an accident then it’s your fault, but maybe a bit harsh at 9!! But back to the main gush of this section, namely; micturition, weeing, peeing, pee pee, call it what you will, and having left all the potential dangers behind we turned into an avenue of large trees leading up to enormous ornate iron gates set in a large wall that must, were you able to see it have opened onto a large chateau built in its own extensive and very private grounds. The large trees were horse chestnuts and it was autumn and the ground beneath was liberally littered with the most splendid conkers. One look and the boys charged behind the trees, not to collect the conkers but, yes you’ve guessed it, to unzip or pull down and stand there in all their glory watering the trees, whilst getting no reaction from Jean, the teacher, and barely a titter from the girls who either ignored or stood and watched!!
Then recently, on our doorstep so to speak, we have witnessed firsthand a number of passing incidents that bear mention!: First there was the Sunday that Linda and I decided to walk down the road past the next door “hunting lodge,” thinking it prudent to keep to the road and not venture into the woods! As we came level with the end of the lodge, out strode our friend the farmer’s son, oblivious to our presence and obviously intend on other things, and it was not until in the middle of the yard he was directing his stream in the vague direction of the hedge that he turned around and saw us!! Rather than an ensuing embarrassed fumbling and pretending that he hadn’t seen us, we got a cheery bonjour, and wished us a “bon promenade!”
Some weeks later his father was seen just outside the chateau, a large stick in his hands, kneeling down peering at the ground. Puzzled by his behaviour, I went to get the binoculars that are on the side ready to grab when an interesting animal or bird happens to go by. Focussing on the farmer, I was a little surprised to find him now standing up, in that characteristic pose on the front drive of the chateau, directing his stream in the vague direction of the front door – I suppose a case of “cocking a hoot” as it were! Monsieur, from the chateau was not there at the time, although I wonder if it would have made any difference, and the previous unusual behaviour I discovered was the farmer using a dipstick to check whether there was enough oil in the buried oil tank, prior to Monsieur’s impending visit.
Then after Monsieur had been and gone, there was what appeared to be a retired farmer’s work party, collecting up various piles of garden/hedge cuttings that had previously been left in neat piles, as well as clearing up debris blown out of the trees in the front avenue during the recent severe storms. They had been working their way towards the front gate and were collecting hedge clippings from the hedge that borders either side of this gate, just around the corner from the front of our yard, when we decided to go for a stroll. I say they were collecting the cuttings, well two out of the three were, the other had been caught short and was casually directing his stream into the hedge bottom as Linda and I turned the corner. He simply finished what he was doing, whilst wishing us a cheery Bonjour, although the other two did seem to find it a little amusing and stifled a titter or two!!
Returning to Anne, who seemed to find people engaged in the act of micturition wherever she went, there was even a young man weeing between the cars in the supermarket car park on one of our visits, rather unusually for France, somewhat the worse for wear and carrying a tin of strong beer from which he was topping up, even whilst freeing up some space!!
This brings me to lament the passing of the old-fashioned ornate pissoirs that used to grace the streets of French towns, sadly they are being replaced by ugly stainless steel “tardises,” in which spending a penny rarely costs less than 30 cents and which being electronic can easily break down or need sophisticated maintenance, as we recently found in La Rochelle where they were all closed for electronic update – they would take you money if you didn’t realise that they were securely padlocked, and the money in the slot didn’t open the lock!! I guess it’s all to do with progress and improvements in hygiene, but interestingly over the last few years Stroud has acquired its own hi-tech pop-up pissoir, that pops up each evening to avoid too many men popping it out in inappropriate places!!! Whilst not advocating random weeing, it does seem a little mysterious that the British have such a different attitude to this natural bodily function than the French! Maybe, it’s to do with there being so many people and so little space in England, or simply a throwback to Victorian times!
“Clever Words”
• “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift, that’s why it’s called the present.” There’s mystery in the quote, but perhaps the biggest mystery is, who actually said this! Originally forwarded to me by Linda, as part of one of these round robin emails that regularly turn up, particularly from a couple of her friends, it wasn’t credited with an author. Extensive research, yes I’ve got time on my hands!!, has come up with a diverse selection of people who are reputed to be the original author. They range from Joan Rivers to Elenor Roosevelt¸ via a group called Indra who used the first two lines, to Bob Marley who sang the last two lines as; Today is the present, treat it as a gift, through to Babatunde Olatunji who was a Nigerian drummer, educator, social activist and recording artist. However, just maybe they might all have read that well known horticultural classic, published in 1902 and written by Alice Morse Earle called “Sun Dials and Roses of Yesterday”!
• Annie Dillard: “Our life is a faint trace on the surface of mystery.”
• Albert Einstein: “One may say the eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.” Great as the man is I do wonder if this quote works better, or to be diplomatic at least equally as well, if comprehensibility is replaced by incomprehensibility – perhaps times have changed since Albert’s time!
• Carl Jung: “Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain.”
My original “thought!”
It’s amazing what happens when you’re away and people forget to tell you. On our last visit back to the UK, I was forced to read that most Tory of newspapers – The Telegraph, by dint of that being what is daily delivered through my parents’ door, try as we might to get them to realise the error of their ways! But on this particular day, you understand – no election called but all parties and pet newspapers campaigning like made. There’s a big picture of Cameron on the front page, been out for a jog and looking particularly jaded to put it politely, particularly so early on in a campaign that hasn’t even officially started! And, the large headline next to the photograph, I’m fit to run Britain! Well, he certainly didn’t look it to me and I couldn’t help wondering has the Telegraph changed their allegiance and nobody told us, either that or the Picture Editor will have some explaining to do!!
Don’t worry not a party political broadcast coming up, and thankfully on the long point scoring run up to the election we can’t get them in France, but to me one of the great mysteries of politics is why, on important issues such as education and transport, that effect the future of people and ultimately the world, why can’t there be cross party agreement for the greater good of all? But unfortunately an idea like that isn’t a vote winner! But enough of this and enjoy the next few weeks, if you can last the course, but above all don’t forget to vote when it happens!
Kind regards, Best Wishes and Love, Roger, Linda and Max (turned 100 last month!) ......
(Had a bit of a shock the other day, they took me off to the vet so I thought it meant we were travelling again and I do find it rather tiring!! But no, it was the annual check and all seems OK, just need to be careful in the sun – when it finally comes out to stay – and mustn’t walk too far particularly on hot days!! Suits me fine – I’ll just sit in the shade under the caravan and watch the world go by, with just a little exercise every now and again chasing the odd tractor – you try and stop me!! The vet knows how to make you feel good – said I wasn’t fat!!, but have to admit that now I’m so deaf, when they let me in the garden I bark – just in case!!)
As I said before, these missives are only going to a select few!!, do please pass them on to anyone who might be interested, and similarly, if you would like to be deleted (I promise not to be offended!) or added to the mailing list let me know!!!
And maybe to come next time? Another theme: SpringTIME, with sections entitled: “Didn’t realise at the time”, “The Count returns”, “Printemp”, “Oh! What a day!”
Thursday, March 18, 2010
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