27 April 2010

What’s Happening at Le Brin ?

Well the African Queen is back from her travels having ‘adopted’ little Felix (pictured) who will now be rehabilitated and educated by the Isaiah Trust and hopefully he will go on to lead a better life than he had ever dared to expect.

Meanwhile, Guy and Kitty are slowly adjusting to a more relaxed household now their mother has returned from Kenya. No longer are they forced to iron their own clothes and they are allowed to stay up later and use their PCs longer. Kitty, who was due to be in Ireland this week on a school exchange visit is still at home due to the travel restrictions caused by the volcanic ash cloud. The Irish boy (Rick O’Shea ??), who will stay at our home as part of the exchange will no doubt take the mickey out of kids who prefer cheese and fruit to sweets and crisps. Let’s hope he’s a bit better nutritionally educated than our last Irish visitor two years ago. At the end of her exchange trip (with Guy) we found all her lovingly made packed lunches in the bin whilst dozens of empty crisp and biscuit wrappers indicated her food preferences!

I’m pleased to say that the weather appears to have changed for the better. Last week was mainly dry (although cloudy) and it allowed me to work in the garden every day getting it ready for the hopefully, hot months of summer. The ‘garden’ by the way, is the bit of land which surrounds the house and is not to be confused with the jungle down below.

The one big job which I have been putting off for weeks now (cutting down vicious bramble bushes) really needs to be attacked with a degree of determination but every time I psyche myself up for it, something else happens and I find a great excuse not to do it. There I was, last Thursday, all ready to get my leather gardening gloves on and get the bush cutter out and attack the brambles, when poor Angie, our neighbour next door, had an accident. The wall at the end of the drive just jumped out at her, quite unexpectedly and caused quite a bit of damage to her car’s front bumper. Ever eager to work on mechanical things, the gloves and bush cutter were put aside and the morning was spent reconstructing her bumper and piecing together her front light cluster. It’s amazing what a roll of duct tape can achieve!

J is back to studying for her degree again after her interlude in Kenya and annoys me intensely by asking obscure questions such as, ‘How did I get here?’ ‘By aero plane I presume’, I reply. ‘No – I mean what route did my life take to get me to where I am now?’ ‘What does it matter – you’re here.’ ‘No – it’s for my course – I’ve to draw how I got here.’ By this stage I’m wondering if she’s secretly regressed 50 years and is attending a crèche where they hand out crayons and ask you to draw little houses, cars and trees and how your life evolved. I’ve also noticed her drawing around her own hands – I’m worried! She’ll be sticking her drawings on the fridge door next!

Finally, regular readers will know my wife’s love affair with our mall, Cap 3000, where she is on first-name terms with every shop holder. I was in the Midi the other day and had booked a table for myself and J. Needless to say, J never turned up and when I apologized to Christine, the waitress, about taking up an extra place saying that I didn’t know where she was, she said in broken English, ‘Don’t worry – she’ll be in Cap 3000’.

When I got home, I took a phone call from a friend of J’s. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know where she is’, I said. ‘Don’t worry, she’ll be at Cap 3000’ was the reply.

Yup - you've guessed it. J was at Cap 3000 giving her purse a spring clean!

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