Wtfiiaa?

This particular blog started as a way of recording the renovation of a property... much as many others have used a blog format as a journal.

However, it also became unintentionally, a vehicle for an emotional journey, after the break-up of what I thought was a relationship made-in-heaven.  No such thing exists, I have discerned.  My vulnerable dream was shattered by my own negative energies and those of another.  My dream of having a relationship that incorporated all that I dreamt of in terms of 'happy family' sharing when my parents never did, came to fruition fleetingly and then was quickly dissolved by irritability. scorn, criticism and blame and maybe other stuff.  Let's not go down that road for now!

This blog has seen a few up and down episodes of my personal life since 2010 or whenever I started to blog, in retrospect to that time that I bought my property.  This blog has also commented on places and events.  It has witnessed my observations of, and in, my village and surroundings.  I try to avoid personal and family pics.  I try to be cautious with global internet exposure but sometimes fail!

On occasions I tried the challenge of blogging every day of a month by writing articles ahead of time when the facility to do that became a possibility,  or I discovered it!  It takes time to get photos prepped and an article written.  I have posted deliberately and unconsciously as a form of creativity, as well as avoidance of doing other tasks - let's call that procrastination!

Sometimes I write ahead, then edit and re-edit before publishing.  Most often I write and publish.  To the discerning few who bother to read this ego-centred self-published material, they may have identified that sometimes I edit after publishing.  Sometimes I feel I've been too public with the emotional outpouring.  Or a poem needs to be improved or altered to make it, in my mind, better!  Or my form of dyslexia has come to be too garbled in its word-salad, so I have to rewrite the nonsense sentences into ones that can be understood and not misinterpreted!

Sometimes there have been major gaps between postings, where I've become silent, unmotivated, dispirited, when words or creativity are blocked.  The gaps might signify I have been occupied or that I have nothing worthy of publication. The gaps may signify that I have been in a dark hole of depression or contemplation of the thought:  "W--- t--  f---  i-  i-  a--  a----?"
This posting is in itself an admission of that.  Excuse me for any sensitivities of the use of an expletive. Isn't it amazing how few letters are required for one to be able to read a sentence? My children at school loved that they could read, if I covered the ascenders or descenders of letters!

It is also an admission that I do NOT produce this for others... I produce it for me. Very ego-centred!  I am aware and what is wrong with that form of artistry?  I do not seek compliments but if you wish to make them then I feel honoured.  If you feel you want to refute me or disagree then you can do that too!  My blog is a kind of diary.  I am proud of it.  I am proud  of the progress I have made in writing skills when at the end of my career I was writing absolute goobledy-gook for important documents: no one told me!!!  - no one even understood - least of all did I realise that dyslexia manifests itself under stress. I feel it is remarkable what I have achieved given that at the age of 17 I had not much idea about literacy! From an early age I read the dictionary at bedtime to learn vocabulary and spelling because I'd read the main reading material - the family print company's selection of Charles Dickens novels.

I have made progress coping with and in the particular challenges I've experienced of living in France.  All the downs and all the ups.  It is called LIFE and possibly would not be any different wherever I lived.  I am who I am!  However, I think the very fact that one lives in a different culture where the primary language is my secondary language, does make an enormous difference to sanity, as also does the fact that the country is huge.  To go to a supermarket or anywhere to experience culture is a often a long journey necessitating the ownership of a vehicle!

My former blog tried very hard to gloss over the hidden REALITY that was not exposed to others in the lifestyle that my former partner and I were living,  although there were some who knew and who were helpless to help, because as for all of us, there is only one who can make a difference, and that person inside us needs a certain amount of  knowledge, skills and talents that perhaps doesn't quite exist when it is required.  Some friends and members of my family said they would not read either of my blogs because the first was not REAL!  It was my real!  It was often the better parts of life as it stood then in a chocolate box cottage surrounded by sheep and a pony where I learned to write poetry.  We had some wonderful positive experiences and I really should find the time and expertise to transform these blogs into book format.  For me. for my grand child.  For posterity or they can burn it at a later date!

People make things. I have done so. I made music.  I fed children's curiosity. I have in the past sewn,  crocheted, knitted etc. I like to write.  My poetry is quite substantial now and this too I would like to get published alongside my photography such as it is!

Meanwhile the spectre of a kitchen room haunts me...
It seems so obscene,  the price it will cost to have the kitchen room electrics rewired for first and second fix!  The flooring seems reasonable but I am undecided on wood or ceramic that looks like wood but I think real wood will win the day!  Then the furniture  and appliance costs seem so obscene.  Yet what I love is expensive. I have expensive tastes as a pauper!  My mother aged 89, said to my daughter when giving her a Christmas gift and not one for me, that I have everything I need!!!!!!!  Maybe she is correct. I have relatively exceptional health for someone my age and I am stil young even if old but I hold no bars to my daughter...who gasps at some things I say... and yet it is tame, very tame, compared to some tigers! All my life my mother has always said that I have ideas above my station! And indeed I have... and wtfiiaa in this isolated west facing property  on the outskirts of a beautiful ( so they say) village!!!!  They don't live here!  Let's not go down that road.

Broken willow tree

Evening spring warmth and light
brings me to the risen river
swollen with clear rushing water.

Purple violets here and there
raise their heads to feel the air
church tower ding dongs the hour.

Here I sit near broken willow
stood majestically tall six long winters ago
where I sat with a Lover for a Christmas dinner in snow.

Our barbecue winter four course meals, whatever the weather
unfashionable, until others as mad as us, announced it 'de rigeur.'
Then it was, that willowy tendril garlands decorated our day to tumble on us there.

Willowy strands reminded us, kept us in touch
with the geographical history of man
but Nature does not stay;
willowy tendrils like love can be broken
as all things pass,
whilst the River and Water of Life flows on and on
carrying flotsam and jetsam.

Walking on
found jazz on a 2cv.
A party.
A glass of white wine and company.
Society.
I am alive.
Like willow I can regrow.

This winter broken

with still an eye to view

the barque

the chateau

the church

Thank you willow tree.

Up, down and rescued

I hate feeling 'down' but I had slept an extra three hours, after being 'up' and out at a beautiful concert the night before.  Today, I lay lazily in bed because it was so cold!  I'd lit the fire at 8h30 when CAT decided she wished to go out. Invitingly, warm bedlinen cossetted me, tea and toast!  After coffee, email and news updates, the mind was overwhelmed with thoughts trudging in the mire of my mind. I was needing to communicate, yet be alone.  Tasks and stuff seem to crave my mind for attention.  The stuff needs to be sorted, and sorted it is being, but it does seem to be a slow process at this stage.  Then I wonder is it all worth it! When maybe I wish to be out and about elsewhere but these responsibilities keep me tied to the security, saftey and haven of my poperty. Then, when I think that other stuff left here isn't mine, and that the person to whom it belongs has almost total freedom within that person's limited financial capacity then my mind becomes scrambled.

I am wondering what is next and how to achieve it! Planning is tricky!  I suppose I have been somewhat spoilt by having had somewhere here very part time in the last four years to help me.  Now gone!

A few days ago, all seemed positive whilst happiness and achievement surged whilst I amended and printed hard copies of writings stored on the laptop...
My story had started... but of course more paper only adds to that which is higgledy piggledy in boxes.  A jumbled mind creates a jumbled life or vice versa... yet, I am determined to get it done and also realise that perhaps I have a slight obsession with trying to keep rooms clear and as organised as I can be!  This is after years of muddle!

Ola! Knocking on my door was my dear friend. She is wonderful. I had just started to get a grip, having put on my jacket to go out (garden or road?) when I told myself to clear the washing / wiping up, so that the clean and tidy kitchen would be motivating on my return.  She came to invite me to accompany friends to a much-loved restaurant as she had to go to London.  How kind!  Then seeing me 'down' she invited me for 'moules and beer' for lunch! How very kind! How I hugged her!  Spirits were raised immediately. She said I had to get out! But getting out means I don't do the things I need to do and piles of stuff mount up and so it all becomes a vicious circle (in my head!)
As HER friend says " Don't worry about stuff, life is short, be with friends, have fun!"
I walked home before 4pm.
Apart from the small glass of red at the Theatre yesterday and the beer today I have managed one whole week without drinking alcohol at home!  I think I can have some with my meal at the restaurant!  But then when I met my friend's friend she had done alcohol free for 31 days of October.... 

Purpose

A Sense of Meaningful Purpose, however temporary, is important because it helps us to feel that whatever we are doing is of value. It helps us to to not feel self-abandoned or abandoned by others. It prevents a feeling of loss and being lost.  It helps us to feel in control of destiny!
Does 'not settling down' with someone mean we don't have purpose?
I can find Purpose without living with A.N. OTHER. 
Keeping busy is a strategy for maintaining PURPOSE.
Helping others is a strategy too. We are social creatures who need other human beings.
We might look after our health, or work productively... but being a workaholic might mean we are avoiding Purpose!
Projects and Passions with intended actions and decision making supports Purpose.

I've read that retreating into a fantasy world or a dream-like state means that Purpose is not being met!  I've read that underlying issues, such as feeling inadequate or feeling low self-esteem may prevent a sense of Purpose so that one looks in others for what one cannot find and support in Self.

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.

Feeling the pain and rising above it........

I felt the breeze change last night. Autumn cometh.
The weather has changed: temperatures  in / out  for day / night have been similar for some time BUT NOW a 10C degree difference between outdoors / indoors accompanies the rain, scuppering an idea to clear the wood pile! Sabotage!

I feel Life's tempest brewing ......

I haven't posted because living alone allows too much opportunity for introspective thinking on making sense of this world and I am fast coming to the conclusion there is NO SENSE:  it is all NON SENSE!
LIFE is short.  Perhaps it has to be enjoyed no matter how hedonistic.  I've invested too much time and energy in the man that I thought I loved. I know I did love him even back in 1998 when first we became unstable.  Why has it lasted so long? Why does it take so long to heal? 

MY STRUGGLE IS THAT I HAVE deeply rooted PRINCIPLES of prudishness, pride, honesty, loyalty, integrity, decency and dignity and feel that I should be honoured and cherished for my womanhood and that THAT is also what I should offer for any man who wants to be with me!
BUT IT AINT ALWAYS LIKE THAT!!!!!!
I've made errors of judgement with my principles / behaviour but I don't have to punish who I am. 
One tries to go with the flow of life... tries to keep busy... tries to keep calm and reflect, consider motives for what I WANT TO DO IN MY LIFE, now that someone says I am a liberated woman with a thousand voices and says I rock his boat !
How nice! How flattering but it can't last!
BUT then the dream and reality of unreality crashes on the rocks! The rock is on a stormy sea. I clearly contributed to The Previous One's behaviour.  it wasn't all my fault even though he blamed and criticised me for my imperfections, failings, weaknesses. THAT is exactly what he worked upon to keep me down whenever I got strong.

Why is it that my rebellious teenager or my playtime seeking child won't listen to my adult? 
 
How much can anyone ever believe anyone?
How much can anyone trust others ... or is it all to be interpreted as a pack of lies as each one of us in the world seeks to meet our own individual needs in a selfish world?
Have I become too cynical?
Have I too much time to think?
Is it because I've been down on the floor so many times, picked myself up, dusted myself down and started all over again that I will keep doing that until I learn what it is I need to learn?
Someone please shout at me the blindingly obvious!
How can anyone ever protect themselves from the pain that is bound to come when one has had pleasure or feels bliss when it all disintegrates?
I get blissful whilst on my bike, whilst looking out with wonder across stubbled fields, clover, fields where millet ripens, huge leaved crops that must be the Nicotiana family ... tobacco,  yellow and green sunflowers in serried ranks, praising the SUN, which I do too ...... I bow my head as I eat my apple and praise God for the fact that I am alive and mobile and my happiness pours forth into the world.
I need to be emotionally inert.  That's a laugh a minute ... it'll happen when I am dead!
One tries to see good in everyone ... and know that as human beings we all feel the same ...
One tries to be compassionate and caring. I do try to love who I am and what I am so that I can share that love with others. It all sounds so trite.
One tries to know purpose in life and to what degree of fulfilment one could achieve for Self and to give to others.
I wish to meet new people, go to new places, hear new stories, do new things, see culture, so that I can learn more about REALITY.
I want to go travelling, be a hobo, but the time is not yet here.
There is a roof to be re-roofed, a kitchen to be gutted,  a bunion to be lanced, logs to be collected / delivered / stacked and how to do this with a hobbly foot will be interesting and then the rest....
This the former professional, a sometimes feisty woman who used to juggle two kids as a single parent with a full-time teaching commitment working all hours that God sent in order to prove my worth (the failing school grew from a roll of 30 ish children to 120 on roll when I was Acting Head [for my sins]). I studied for my degree status  at the same time. Before that the three of us lived in a house with subsidence where inside temperatures were below zero! Was I too busy with my job to take care of me and my kids. On reflection it did not seem to be enough but it has to be because it cannot be redone!

Mindful in solitude, I try to do the following but make little headway because of self-sabotage. 
1. Wake up ... go to sleep.
2. Eat and drink a balanced diet to lose weight before the foot incapacitates me for 3 to 6 months.
3. Exercise - I spent too long on my bottom last winter.  This Summer into Autumn I am proud of activity. I can easily walk fast for an hour in the morning and cycle for an hour or two each afternoon / evening.  It is not enough. BUT is enough for someone who had M.E., who could not walk between two groynes on a beach without a helping hand, who had to crawl up the stairs and shuffle down on her bottom, who fell asleep whilst the kettle boiled!
4. TRY to tick off jobs and tasks...e.g. currently having to make a decision on MUTUELLE payments as this is a task that has been shelved for 7 years and the recent enquiry with quotes is one year old... I have to pay out for my health costs because I have chosen to live in France. Only a percentage is picked up by the NHS... (what is that these days?)  Other goals must be to decide how to purchase a new vehicle so I pray that my little Clio keeps on moving....
5. TRY to Sort & Clear out STUFF I have not used, do not use, will never use again... Whew that is such a challenge!!!!!!  There in my attic are family photos ... newspaper cuttings, memorabilia, treasured items of monetary and emotional value...  There on my computer are photographic memories and a muddled collection of writings....and the whole story needs strategic thinking and a million ways of threshing to dump or keep in an honoured way. It's pretty scary to open sealed boxes from the past, when memories good and bad arrive to hit one in the head and heart. Currently the floor is littered with books not sold at the Books Festival ... not the same as a UK Literary Festival! but that is what this village needs to do.  It is stuck in old ways and is not keeping up with modernity... One can't keep presenting the same format... We did that at school for sports day and barbecue nights and then someone came and shook it all up!!!!! It needed a revamp and so did we, the staff!
6. TRY to think clearly, proactively. logically. No thinking would be good too.
7. TRY to formulate ideas for a plan for the future!
8. Laugh A Minute!    It keeps a level of sanity in the why of why this has happened in my life.

It's my blog... I can write about what I choose.

Angles sur L'Anglin

This is a link to a previous but existing blog 

that was created to my design with the skills of my former partner about 

Angles sur L'Anglin.

I am publicly publishing this information because the blog contains personal, creative writings about previous Feu d'Artifice (firework) events at this beautiful village.

It explains how he / I / we found this beautiful village and recently people have been asking how I came to live here.  It's hard to find the short story! This explains!

I had intended to expand that particular Blog,  but, within my inner psyche,  I was locked, blocked, stuck, ashamed. in regret, in remorse, in bereavement. It was and has been and IS difficult to accept and acknowledge all the good that there was In a Previous Life!  

Indeed, I might add to that blog  for which I have paid the domain name,  but for the Now, I have other objectives.  I enjoy self-publishing my photos and scripts as part of being Restless in France.

Perhaps it is time to publicly celebrate MY STORY and not to hide the past.

I'm wishing to remember and celebrate my past, my life, my long friendship with my former soulmate. I'm wishing to celebrate who I am and where I've been to get to where I am, despite the LOSSES experienced and despite an emotional HELL that I seem to have allowed myself to go through, for whatever reason. Agreed, it is nothing compared to what others bear in their lives.   It is just who I am. I seem to feel things very deeply and wish I didn't.
Nevertheless that does not diminish the love I have for my inner core and the love I have for other people and things.  Most of the thoughts that are truly in my head are linked to emotions. To stop them or put them into a box may mean to become mentally and emotionally inert.  I don't know about that! I am told that I have to put the past to bed in order to heal, to prevent the inner torture.

It is ironic that I come to live on a street called the Road to Hell and another plot is number 13.  I never knew these facts when I signed for the property. If I did, I would not have completed the purchase.  This actually makes me laugh... because what else can one do but see the humour in the twists and turns of life... otherwise one would go completely barmy and need the institutional nuthouse!

It is impossible to believe that once I was a person of social standing with more responsibilities for others than I could manage!

However,  here I am, mostly extremely happy to live in this most beautiful of villages despite that sometimes perhaps I do not make as much of my life every day as that which I could!  I miss many things. The clock is ticking as I search for the next adventure!

 

It's Saturday and I peel myself out of my warm, warm, bed.

I peel myself out of my warm, warm, bed.
Some may think it terrible but I think it was necessary to go to bed with clothes on, apart from my denim workday jeans and coat.  My hat soon fell off as I lay in bed with my head on the pillow reading horizontally and sideways, reading glasses being pushed off by the pillow.  Hunkered down with an ikea soft muslin-type shawl around my shoulders (the shawl is probably for a baby or child).  I am like that now as I need to be warm and loved in the cold and yet I can love myself when I am warm.  I laugh out loud. I am happy even though conditions are extreme.

This morning I peel myself out of my warm, warm bed.
Not so much shiver but feel the BLAST of cold air as I lift up the edges of the three duvets... I shall go and check these out for tog ratings ...normally the two is sufficient!   
{I think that the use of is, is better than the use of are but I am ready to stand corrected}
I feel the blast and snuggle down, check the clock of which the alarm rang 45 minutes ago.
Now to get up, for a friend is coming to help make a bathroom!
I stand at the side of my bed and an expletive emanates forth from my person.
I jump.  Star jumps.

I have peeled myself from the warm warm bed.
Get the coat on first, and light the fire. I chuckle.  How ridiculous is life!
A huge log has not even burnt in half.  Maybe I left the dampers open and yet one would have thought the log would have burnt through. The glass is relatively clean but I clean it anyway with newspaper and white vinegar, rake the ashes and leave most on the waffle bed, sprinkle with waste paper and kindling wood in a teepee fashion, replace the huge oak log which I temporarily and dangerously removed ..it was cold to the finger touch.. but as the air reached the underneath up-turned,  it was becoming to gently breathe in air and exhale smoke.  Now, all is in place as I push the door to, and whoosh the flames go, for the draft of the air has caused combustion from the heat in the cinders to the paper to the kindling sticks and to the oaken wood.

I need to attend to ablutions (from the Middle French/Late Latin abluere = to wash away) and put on the outer lower garments. I'm looking in the mirror and laughing, to see my face wrinkling and so I laugh more because now I can laugh when before I would have just grumbled.
Better to see amusement in life, better to get through it!

You see, it is 10C in my room and I am not in my warm, warm bed. 
I proceed to the kitchen where an icier blast hits me whilst I pour icy water into the kettle and return to put on a purple-soft, muslin scarf and my Nepalese red hat.  How I remember the "123 learning to read" books about The Red hat, Yellow hat and Blue hat families!!!!   Oh dear, I've disturbed the  blackbird as I peer out of the kitchen window. Bird seeds in a tin are taken outside and put onto the temporary, flat, terracotta tile, balanced on the snow. The soft, soft snow has a hard crust.  Break it and find the flurry of snowflakes sticking together. It's not the snow for making snow sculptures!
I came to the computer to find the correct time... I come to my blog and write... I like writing... I am beginning to like jotting about the moments of a real life....and thoughts, random as they come.
I have just opened the steel, cold gates, having heaved and shoved the wooden ones into an open position, the wooden ones hanging heavy on their hinges dropped on their hinges, scraping the drive heavily.  If I don't get them open I won't be able to get out!   Though I have a back gate.  The daily alarm has already occurred.
A telephone call rings twice to let me know he's leaving: "Get out of your warm, warm bed".
(I am not an early riser, unlike he who has been awake since 3,4,5 or 6 o'clock in the morning)
It'll take him 20 minutes or so in my car.  
He's coming to work on my bathroom.  How I love him for his kindness.  Imagine the dedication and commitment to helping me as his friend despite all our failings, errors, human weaknesses, ability to share joy and security, to annoy and irritate, to create aggression and anger,  passivity and passing of war and peace and all the memories.
An angry person cannot rationalise.  He or she has to be left to recover their inner harmony because it is their anger and their pain, their projection, their difficulty that they cannot say what is wrong and cannot meet their own internal needs without the storm. The angry person needs space... maybe a moment, an hour, a day, 3 months, a lifetime even.  Meanwhile everyone and everything in their path is ruined, even themselves with the anger or frustration turned in against their Self. 
I have been uncontrollably angry.  It was when I did not love myself and had poor self-esteem. My kids made me angry. Work made me angry. I tried to deal with it and then became passive and am now dealing with the consequences of passive-aggressive behaviour.  I am not blaming anyone or criticising anyone. I am facing up to what IS.
My dad was regularly a very angry, hostile man and yet you would never have thought that by his social demeanour.  Some people would never have known the ugliness of my past behaviour and for that I am deeply sorry. Anger is fear, frustration, needs not met and requires an honest, painful telling of the truth even though it may hurt.  It needs strategy for coping with.
Whatever the colour of anger and how it is transmitted I never wish to be angry again. I never want to receive anger from those who have purported to have loved.  Anger is not Love.  I never want to see Anger and Castigation being given to me nor someone else and I never want to hear it being projected onto me or anyone else.  If it starts I have to laugh or just walk away.
Too much thinking.
Stop now whilst I get my tea and toast.
Get on with living. The past cannot be undone but it can be learned from, in my warm, warm bed.

The best that one can do

I'm doing the best that I can:
with exterior morning temperature more than -9C with a 'feels like' -14C according to the metéo locale.  My brand new mercurial thermometer is below the -12C that it shows.
The indoor bedroom temperature is at +9C.
The door is open to another room where the woodburner has almost no red glow and there it is +11C.   The next room, the kitchen has +7C.
Outside in the Municipal where I put the electricity heater on to protect the toilet and water pipes from freezing as they nearly did..... it is +13C... not quite warm enough to have a shower but if I were to put the more powerful electrical radiator on perhaps it would be warmer over there!   I will measure that another time.
I have to confess that last night I slept with all my layers of clothes on minus coat and scarves, with abandonment of the hat at some time... accompanied by two hot water bottles and with three efficient duvets, feeling cold at 6am but getting up at 7am.  All I had to do on waking was to just put coat, hat and scarves on and I was ready for the day, to light the fire and try to get warm.  Star jumps are brilliant for raising the body temperature as also is playing the piano.
I never trusted the digital thermometer. My friend and I had three between us and last year we did a quality control on them. They all read differently both for the interior and exterior communication between digital technology.  Back to ancient barometers and thermometers it is!
So glad I bought this small device yesterday. It is comforting to know. Where I used to live previous to this house, I used to have the horrors in similar extreme weather conditions when I went to the wetroom or bathroom because both rooms were often less than +10C. One made a quick visit to return to the splendour of the 'too hot living room' where the woodburner warmed the room better than toast and where I felt claustrophobia.  I can't complain! We did the best that we could.
I've read that gas connectors can get frozen up so I don't know if that is the case or that I have run out of gas in the cylinder for the gas hob. I have read that it is best not to touch it if at all uncertain. So am I suffering unnecessarily? I am not suffering for I have the electric oven which also has a grill.    So the day before yesterday I put the all-metal frying pan under the grill... warmed up the oil, cracked in the eggs, splashed over the oil, and popped it back under the grill and in a jiffy I had fried eggs (instead of an omelette that I wished for) and wedge potatoes (previously cooked) instead of my chips.
Today I popped about 8 small potatoes in the oven whilst I went to La Presse..... where le monsieur has a shop selling newspapers, magazines, food, postal items, and a bar where he needs to be trained that I like HOT chocolate drink, and trained that I like VERY HOT chocolate drink, and after that with a bar of crunchie chocolate bar, I had a coffee and I sat by the fire and read in French the book I purchased which has the definitive historical guide about my village. A pleasant read for almost an hour... where some old boys came in for the apero before lunch plus an Englishman I've seen before who speaks impeccable French. I only knew he was English because he let slip a few English words with English accent. Here I was, the old girl, sitting by the café-bar fireside, with my Haute-Savoie / Nepalese red hat with flowery tassels and my black woollen coat and my brown silk and woollen scarf over all the rest of my attire.
So here I am... doing the best that one can!
And over there, wherever you are .... you, he, she, they are doing the best that they can.
It is all anyone can ever do.
To be truthful to who we are.
I am trying so hard not to tell lies, not even to my self.
I received someone's irritation and more today, but it was really about someone else and yet it was projected on to me.  Later I heard someone else's anger, but not at me, not about me, however, in that context I could help the person because the 'she' was able to do anger management control whereas the 'he' lets it damage himself and everyone and everything that comes in his path. Shame.
As far as I know, I don't get angry anymore and yet I know that in the past I have been angry with my SELF and my family and even my best soulmate.
NOW that I am older and distanced from being a parent and a grandparent because they are far from me, I realise that some of the anger I had was borne out of frustration, having very little constructive and positive ME time, though there were times when I was alone. Usually it was consumed by work or study or poor relationships and having few, if any, people to advise me, support me in a proactive manner. My cousin was always supportive even in the direst of emergencies. She would bring the medicinal Armagnac, give me one small dose, sometimes two, a hug, wise words and disappear to her own family.  I had a female friend who took the children to give me space.  I have regrets but they have to be released. I was responsible then for my sometimes poor parenting as well as for my good parenting but I am not responsible now for them.  I think my children do not hold it against me.  I did the best that I could.
What is the purpose  of causing pain to one self?  One would not wish to hurt another person so why get angry with anyone or the SELF?

Oh how I loved them and still do. Great for dancing and getting warm!
Paul is doing the best that he can!

Car repair

Apart from noises at the front of the vehicle to do with the offside wheel and steering, which necessitated two visits and of course a cost, the garagiste heard a noise from the rear wheel and on investigation discovered that the rear drum brake had broken into two parts!
The initial noise was 3 clacks - one as the car started to roll forward and two as I drove onto the road turning in a sharp right S shape. The car was oiled at suspension points and 12 screws tightened under the chassis, I think for the steering rack joints. When I started to leave the garage there was a different gravel crunching noise.  I called Monsieur J who listened, who called Monsieur E who listened, who suggested I take my car as it was not serious and when the French MOT is due in February and I still have the noise in perhaps warmer weather then to let them know!  Hm?  After I left the garage and within a very short distance I had two new noises that weren't there before:

1. a squeak as I turn the steering wheel to the left 

2. the brakes squealed as I journeyed to the petrol station. 

I found myself writing about the differences between the language of France and England in an email to a friend.
"The car repair bill made a large dint in the pocket but now the vehicle is safe.  It was unknowingly dangerous before the repair.  It was a blessing that there was no accident."
This set me thinking about the use of the word  bless .

LANGUAGE:
It was a blessing that there was no accident. 

C'était une bénédiction qu'il n'y avait aucun accident. 
A blessing in disguise = mal pour un bien

 blesser  verb transitif =  to injure, to wound 

Il a été blessé dans un accident de voiture.    He was injured in a car accident.  

blesser = to hurt physically as well as to cause offence

Il a fait exprès de le blesser.    He hurt him on purpose. 

 blessées = casualties
  
 to bless = bénir
 A blessing = une bénédiction (as from the Catholic religion)
Bless you! = a tes souhaits!
Bless you! when thanking someone = Merci mille fois tu es un ange = Thank you a thousand times you are an     
angel.    

If you are blessed with a gift  =être doué(e)  de  
 Elle est douée d'un immense talent.= She is blessed with immense talent.  

Christmas Greetings 2011

I can't see Christmas robins, nor doves a-cooing-so
Cat never neared a cradle in a stable 2000 years ago.
I see that ox and donkey arrived without ado
but ostrich was excluded and terrible tiger too.
Camels got an invite, as did three wise Eastern kings
giving gifts of gold and myrrh, frankincense and things.
Bankers and financiers mumbled murmurs in disguise
and thought the sleepy shepherds were sensible and wise
to gift soft lambs and washable wool, never to be fleeced.
Herod later came to tell that he wished the baby seized.
Frankincense was costly, as indeed it is today,
signals opulence in churches, mosques, special for the Lord's day.

Will Ethiopians continue to export this wonderful aromatic resin,
When Boswellia trees fail to reproduce for the Christmas season?
Will they continue to tree-tap and let long-beetle attack,
let cattle graze at bark, for this amazing aphrodisiac,
let it no longer help depression, nor give medicinal purpose,
nor serve the perfume industry?  O yay, it'll cost more to purchase.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS 2011