Wednesday 30 April 2014

French Home Ownership

Fourth Anniversary of the Signing of the Acte de Vente 
If you scroll down on the above link you can read the story.
Four years later...
I can't quite believe I shed so many tears...
I can't quite believe I had such a lot to learn...
I can't quite believe the journey that I've made...
I can't quite believe that I am still here...
I can't quite believe how strong I am...

The friend,
the one who says he has stood by me despite the traumas of his own making
and those that I made,
and those that we made together,
and whom I too have stood by despite knowing the price I pay...
he, who was the supportive little bird saying 'Bravo" is about to start on his own adventure.

When he signs his Acte de Vente, as a seller, and not as a buyer,
the little bird, the free bird, the one inside me
will say "Bravo" to him for very different reasons.
I shall hope and pray that his wings stay strong on his journey
and that he learns all that he has to learn,
as I have had to learn my lessons then so will he have to learn his
for what goes around, comes around!
I am grateful to him for his contribution to my story in my home.
I couldn't have done it without him!
But...
I would have found a different way!
I shall not be manipulated and controlled by an adult parent of an adult child any longer ... it will not work!
How ironic is life.
I must laugh in order to keep sane with what is happening at the moment!
Who would have thought life would be like this!
I am my own fool, yet, there is room for wisdom to emerge!

Tuesday 29 April 2014

Spongy Gingerbread Cake

My recipe was from my favourite Penguin paperback circa 1973, author Margaret Bates.  All the pages are loose from the binding!

Thursday 24 April 2014

Cake Galore

Tinkle tinkle as a spoon raps a cake stand to bring the newly-gathered around the table crowd to silence.
It is the inaugural meeting of the Loire Valley Clandestine Cake Club. 
The theme is "Favourite Cakes" so we are each invited to introduce our cake to say whatever we wish.
I had made a spongy gingerbread cake.  Often I don't follow the recipe faithfully, as my gingerbread cake is often a mixture of several recipes including Parkin, but this time I measured exactly! My recipe was from my favourite Penguin paperback circa 1973, author Margaret Bates.  All the pages are loose from the binding!
Unfortunately, I could only sample four because I felt full, but at the end of the two hours we took as many slices as we could fit into the containers that we had brought for such purpose. I chose those that I had not sampled and those that I enjoyed.  Next day for morning coffee they were just the ticket!
Before we went home there was pink bubbly to bless the afternoon and to salute Jean for such wonderful organisation.
it was interesting to see a variety of cakes. Many people had chosen walnuts as a main ingredient or as a decorated topping. 
There was a delicious light chocolate sponge and a  Carrot and Cointreau cake with a cheese and walnut topping... a strawberry sponge where the whipped cream had come from England. Yummy! 
There was a savoury cake too ... in France 'cake' is savoury, un gateau is sweet, unless they are referring to English cakes.
In conversation with a friend we discussed the singular and plural of the noun 'cake'.  If there is 'cake' en masse then it is plural without an 's'.... but of course 'cake' is also singular depending on the context and meaning of the sentence. This is to do with countable and non countable nouns.
So let us have more cake on another occasion and eat it!

Monday 21 April 2014

Numbed not numbered although days are!

My brain is feeling numbed but it is probably exhaustion after five weeks of constantly being on the move, with variable sleep patterns. The sudden Activity and Responsibility after Days of  Leisure...well they weren't without work ... is beginning to edge at Negativity but I am holding it at arm"s length.
I am reminded that when I had to move from England to France I spent six months looking at my stuff, weeping and wondering HOW to dispose of it usefully.....I was also in a state of shock and and bereavement on many counts, plus waiting for a major op, insecure, vulnerable and got at about things that were not of my making!  Eventually, friends came and took music worth probably £100 apx or more to a Dorset Public School who never wrote and thanked me for  it. My friend was furious at their lack of manners.  Friends came and took stuff to the skip including every pay slip I had ever earned including my first job at Woolworth!  Sadly I regret that!!!! Social History!!!!  My daughter took valuable antique clothing etc to sell on eBay with a friend and the friend duped her!

Later, when I moved from there in France to here in France, it was easy peasy to decide what was mine to take, what was mine to leave and what was his to leave. My stuff and now some of his is ready for a team of helpers to declutter! It is true I don't have the energy levels to do it alone!

HE, 'my friend" is having the kind of wobble that I had from January to July 2005. Panic!  which would perhaps explain why he wasn't  so ahead of the sorting as I thought he would be.  Panic of a different kind when one rids oneself of  lock, stock and barrel wanting to disinherit most possessions! People do, do it! Well, we rid ourselves of each other and I know I'm still coming to terms with that but so grateful in many ways for being on my own.

I feel numbed by the viewing of a Car Boot Sale when twice I wandered around and could not see anything I wished to buy... but there were plenty of things that would have held my interest eighteen years ago, when I first became a Francophile! I don't want to collect anything else ... I want to dispose!
My own tat and that inherited on the basis that HE won't me get rid of it sensibly is beginning to impact...

Saturday 19 April 2014

Hot Cross Buns

We walked for ten kilometres which took our group about two hours; there were those who took the lesser distance and others who for legitimate reasons did not walk. We all arrived for the bun feast.  I haven't walked that far for some time so it was a very good Springtime reminder of the benefits of walking, but the possible resistance to wine and refreshments is full of temptation. The problem with social walking is the shared drinks and eats when one is concerned about starting the diet. Probably in UK everyone meets at the pub at the end of the route. Maybe THAT is why I enjoy walking solo, apart from the fact that I can go at my own pace and think thoughts.  HOWEVER, I enjoy the camaraderie in a group because one meets such interesting people.  I try to avoid talking about me but it is inevitable that someone will ask and then the story is begun, but I am getting smarter at shortening the tale!  Unfortunately, mine hosts were busy, busy, but that's always the way for hosts.
It was a brilliant and successful first organised group walk for friends of friends and I do so hope there will be another.  Perhaps, it needs the leadership qualities of G'nT.   I get the impression that several people have offered to organise the next walk.  I also would be happy to do so, having experience off many walks around my village which are a bit more off the beaten track and not the same as the way-marked routes on tourist maps.  Most of the group were from the Touraine region whereas this is Vienne.  Many had travelled a distance. What beautiful weather blessed us all.  Thank you to the hosts and to all who made it very jolly!

Wednesday 16 April 2014

Monday 14 April 2014

7,777

viewings .....is coming up today ... as this morning at 09.40 French time, it is at 7,770 as I write.   Fun!

Saturday 12 April 2014

A new day

A new time.
A new journey.
A door closes.
A window opens.
My blog heading.
It is what I learned when I lost my career path.
It is what I learned when I lost so many things.
It is what I learned when I bought my house.
it is what I learned when I lost the love from my partner.
It is what I have learned as I gain positive elements and insights and what makes people who we are.
I think people are intrinsically good...everyone has blocked patterns of  behaviour.
I am learning to be as free as a bird.
I can fly.
I may be melodramatic at times.
I may have emotional outpourings.
I am exploring.
I am learning.
I can't stand still.
I am Restless in France, restless generally to discover and make the most of life, whatever it is, wherever it takes me.
I am happy to meet whoever I can and engage in them and their lives.
I like traveling and having conversations with people I meet...this morning a little girl with flowers in her crocs.
I am sitting in a very nice organic coffee bar listening to conversations, watching people.  It's a wonderful gentle buzz ... my kind of place.
Again, I say that I thanks to all who say such very nice kind words, because when I was trapped in the four walls of a classroom and school, bizaare as it may seem I never knew about people, about LIFE and LIVING.
I am beginning to enjoy life now but I don't want to be stuck in the four walls of my French home for any length of time... itchy feet syndrome!
A rendezvous with a friend has been cancelled due to other complications which is why I indulge in y own company for coffee.
My journey chooses a new path through the forest.   I feel grounded.

Wednesday 9 April 2014

No postcards

Roman votives were so small and interesting that I kept returning to that particular cabinet. BUT in my opinion the exhibition room lighting was inadequate ... whoops ... oh dear, i was informed that THE British Museum dictate the exhibition at each museum with disregard to the lighting! They also had not realised that my shadow falls on tiny objects in the glass case,  masking detail in the metalwork. Also, I needed a magnifying glass to see the intricate markings amidst the artefacts of animals, rings and brooches. It was an exhibition of the Roman Empire displaying more than 160 pieces from the British Museum. There were no postcards of these magnificent miniatures that interested me! A sales opportunity missed!

We visited 'the Egyptians' where Little Miss Muffet wished to show me the mummified woman ... below were scarab artefacts which reminded of scarab jewellery I own... I have always loved the eye of Horus in its variant designs.. I love turquoise and those who have auras of that hue.
Proceeding on: the famous  teapot collection seems to be reduced.
The taxidermy, not a favourite, is a bit stuffy, but I AM always fascinated by beetles (although I prefer them to be moving) ... and fossils always stand the test of time!  Lowry was on display... and textiles ... Roman knitwear was fascinating.  Wow ... it is not exactly concessionary to go to museums in UK!  Educational ... yes! Enjoyable... certainly! It was a privilege to do what I very often do not do!

Tuesday 8 April 2014

Disorder of Sundays

People thought to be close can become so distant!
The demise of social order and a day of rest!
Bring back Social Sundays and the closure of commercial and capitalist premises!
A sense of loss today and the need to be where I belong!
FRANCE!

Monday 7 April 2014

Film Review: Under The Skin

Weird is a word that described moments in my mind, disorientated but with eyes wide open.
I've seen enough art house cinema not to feel that movies can be radicalised but this WAS a bit extreme.  All the way I kept wondering what would come next yet couldn't imagine, although I had clocked the word ALIEN in my head.  I inwardly praised myself once I had become rather spooked to see the evidence of what WAS Under The Skin... the film seemed to suggest that none of us are what we appear to be...
The light at the end of the tunnel...when the circle of light transforms into an eye that enables light in our lives, helps us to see whilst we hear the sound of the train.
She had beautiful eyes and these were referred to in the film.
The van is being driven but we hear the train on the tracks.
The seductress and temptress.
She could seduce but not be seduced for if her skin was 'pricked' by a rose thorn or any other sharp or pointed thing her skin would split.  She would implode.
The stalker and the killer.
The biker and the walker.
The rapist.
Every woman's nightmare.
A male protector turns to seduce.
A female enjoys the attention.
Why is it always thus?
Transmogrification 
is a word in my mind as final scenes are enacted.
Black skin, white skin.
Red top, red lips,
Blood and Roses.
Fire.
Flames to Ashes... red to black.
Burnt.
Destruction.
Grey.
Up in smoke.
The skin of the dead will pop if allowed to fester.
Beneath the oil slick this is what happens.
I thought those images where she leads the victim to death, demise, a day of reckoning, were brilliantly clever and inventive: how men sank into oblivion was mesemerising....  
Wonderful photography.
Scenic landscapes.
Silence.
Evil.
As in the eye of a camera there is a juxtaposition of views that are given to US whilst we look at the movie against what is seen from the eyes of the actors and actress and of course the camera man and the director, not to mention the author of the book. 
Evidently, don't expect to match the novel and the film!
Intriguing, full of suspense...weird but wonderful.
I exited.
I looked at the 2014 world.
I became disorientated, uncertain of my next direction and my direction in life and kept thinking as I walked... Weird... Isn't life weird!

Sunday 6 April 2014

THE WHITE COMPANY cotton bedlinen after ironing!

Brand new unused-on-any-bed, 200 thread count Egyptian cotton bed-linen, after 8 washes with a Bosch machine that is hardly used plus Persil powder, water softener and fabric softener and Bosch steam ironed whilst wet... on at least four occasions!
I would not even put this on my own bed let alone that of guests!
I took them to a professional laundry service following others' advice, before I consider THE return to THE WHITE COMPANY... but this stupid laundry company have made black blotches on them and folded them differently ... even the original creases can still be seen...
It is at a cost of £14 in addition to the £133 that they cost me.
I WILL RETURN THEM in the original delivery box with all the original packaging,  once I get them back ( hopefully washed again! ) on MONDAY!!!!
I am an unhappy bunny!

Saturday 5 April 2014

Ten Years

It is ten years since losing my career path, the resulting depression on depression of fibromyalgia, a major debilitating op with the loss and recovery of a working bladder,  selling my beautiful 400 year old inn which was the accolade of my life,  moving lock, stock and barrel to France to not my own house, then suffering what I was told was abuse, becoming single again four years ago and buying my very own French maison which had no bathroom. Now it has, with much gratitude to a friend. I am learning to stop the tears, start LIVING and in fact I think I could say that the tears have stopped and laughter has returned!

The story became stuck in a rut on occasions whilst all the while there has been progress.
LIVING never stands still but mountains have to be moved to make it enjoyable and fun.
When I have fun, my younger, inner child laughs and skips with joy.

I recently wrote in my JOURNAL that:-

I feel alive and who I am... comfortable in my skin.
It has taken me longer than ten years to achieve a self- reliant happiness...
and oh how happy I mostly am.

Thank you to everyone who has crossed my path and travelled alongside me on my journey...
Thank you to HIM who made me go from his house , and put me in the position I am in today.. .
maybe it was all meant to be!  I
The door closed and others opened!
Thank you to everyone for their patience, tolerance and understanding, their love and empathy and willingness to see the good in me.  I am in awe and in appreciation of how you have all stood by me!

I love you all.

Friday 4 April 2014

Thursday 3 April 2014

So tired...

would sing Eric Clapton,  but this is a different tiredness. Fatigue has been stacking up. I should have been asleep earlier but  succumbed to a novel privilege of television!!!

Had a fantastic walk in sandland whilst the vestiges of the Sahara filled the sky.

A ghostly presence disturbed my sleep this morning.  It appeared to be a woman with a navy blue pinched waist-long skirt, a gentle soul....others are convinced it was my imagination.  When I asked was it time to wake up ,  she said " yes it was".  I am waking up!