28 May 2010

He Should Have Gone To Specsavers

It’s the annual dog shearing time and Shadow goes off to the poodle parlour to get his shampoo, cut and blow dry today. I have to say he comes out smelling a lot better than he does when he goes through their doors but for €70 I wouldn’t expect anything less!

In order to try and remove some of the brambles, weeds and other things he gets stuck in his thick coat when he goes for his afternoon and evening walks down to see his doggy pals, I took him down to the river last night for a swim (see picture). Reluctant as always to go into the ice-cold water which comes down from the mountains, I literally had to drag him in by his collar but once immersed he swims around quite happily. Problem is, as soon as he comes out he picks the nearest adult to shake himself against which is rather unfortunate and highly embarrassing if there’s a French family having a picnic on the rocks, or worse still, a couple having a snog on the river’s edge! Talk about having a cold shower to cool one’s ardour!

A quick brush to remove any remaining debris in his coat is usually a futile exercise because as soon as he’s free, he’s off to find a patch of soggy, dirty gravel to roll in so I have to try and curb his animal instincts and drag him back to the car.

The problem I had was, do I keep him locked in the house the night before his haircutting ordeal so that he cannot go and roll in whatever he finds in the woods or do I just let him go and do what he wants and trust him? In the end it didn’t matter. As soon as he got back from the river he disappeared into the ‘jungle’ and returned looking like one of those camouflage soldiers – grass and weeds sticking from every hair.

It’s just so embarrassing when I take him into the poodle parlour as all the other tiny dogs look at him and turn to each other with their noses twitching as if to say, ‘my God have you seen what’s just walked through the door – smelly or what? But I do like a bit of rough sometimes.’

However, I should relax because I think (and I’ve never stayed around to watch the process) that the first thing that happens is that he gets a bath. Or maybe that’s the last thing ? I don’t know – all I do know is that whenever the girl goes to cut his hair round his bum or his ‘doggy bits’ (well what’s left of them after his op several years ago – you see Shadow and I have something in common !) – when she goes back there, he turns and snarls which is very unlike Shadow but hey would you want a stranger going for your hairy bits with a set of electric clippers?

I’m sure it will work out fine – see his picture on Monday. I just have to make sure he doesn’t see that Specsavers advert on the telly where the short-sighted farmer shears his sheepdog instead of the sheep!

And finally, I was having a quick look at our local buy and sell forum (Angloinfo) and there was a guy, a guy no less, selling a second hand breast milk pump. Is nothing sacred ? And does his missus know?

27 May 2010

Promotion M’Lud ?

OK – so I’m a law nut. I don’t know where this unhealthy interest in the law came from – maybe it was because I had the ‘law patch’ when I was in IBM? They never bought anything, but some of the meetings in those amazing buildings in Chancery (pictured) must have had some sort of latent influence on me. Whatever it is, I follow trials, love law programmes on TV, read transcripts of trials on the net and as some of you may know, I have even attended trials in the Old Bailey in London, one of which I described in the following posting:

http://tomsfrenchblog.blogspot.com/2009/05/icy-cold-stare-of-killer.html

One area that has taken my interest to a new level however is Family Law – divorces, pre-nups and the like (J – don’t get too worried – yet!) and it just so happens that a lady with whom I used to work is married to a rather eminent ‘legal eagle’ who makes the news regularly and gives me an excuse for my rather ‘anorakish’ interest in this form of civil law.

Many of us in the UK will have seen the programme, ‘Judge John Deed’, about a rather unconventional high court judge, who takes all sorts of apolitical decisions and cannot be sacked because high court judges can only be sacked by the person who appoints them – the Queen!

Anyway, it was an e-mail from my ex-IBM colleague telling me that she was now a ‘Lady’ which made me look her hubby up on the web to see what was happening – and sure enough, he’s been appointed a High Court Judge and with that appointment goes an automatic knighthood, hence the ‘Lady’ bit, but it was the money side which interested me more.

As a QC representing clients such as Paul McCartney he was raking in an astonishing £1 million a year. Indeed, way back in the late eighties when this girl worked for me in IBM, she used to tell me that taking a week’s holiday cost her about £7,000 as whenever her husband wasn’t working (lawyers and QCs are basically self-employed), he lost £1k a day!

Anyway, what made me think and probably admire the guy is that once appointed a high court judge in the Family Division, his salary went down to a ‘measly’ £160k a year and high court judges are not allowed to take on any other work or be involved with other companies in any commercial way, so asking to be promoted, cost the poor guy over £800k a year!

That’s dedication for you.

26 May 2010

Summer's Here ????

What a difference a week makes. No longer looking out of the window at 8am and seeing the rain and going back to bed to ‘silver surf’. The sun is shining and that makes all the difference. We’re back to the mornings where the mist gathers in the valley (see picture of yesterday) and then gradually rises with the warm air which comes up from the coast.

It’s down into the ‘jungle’ beside the house to attack the brambles for which there is no known death other than to (a) rip them out including the roots which thankfully don’t go too deep and then (b) cover the ground with a permeable membrane which allows the earth to breathe but which kills off everything with a root.

It’s been a long time coming with each day presenting a new problem which keeps me from the brambles. Earlier this week it was my heavy-duty strimmer, called a débroussaillage which just wouldn’t start. It took me a couple of hours to strip it down, go off and buy a new spark plug and then come to the conclusion that leaving it out in the rain wasn’t a good idea. I suspect the bill which will run to about €150 will teach me a costly and valuable lesson!

So it’s up to my elbows in those horrible thorns cutting them out with my hedge trimmer and then getting down on my hands and knees to complete the job with the roots. It’s probably the worst job in the garden but at least once it’s done it’s done.

Thankfully, the pool has now reached a temperature which allows me to plunge in to soothe all my scratches without turning me blue although yesterday when I emerged after a couple of lengths, my hands were literally blue until I realized that it was the dye from my gardening gloves which had discoloured my palms and fingers – phew!

But I do miss my débroussaillage which cuts down most of the heavy weeds within seconds but which also covers me from top to toe with green bits. I didn’t understand much of what the guy was saying yesterday when I took it in to be repaired but I’ve no choice – just got to wait for the phone call to tell me it’s ready. Hopefully, it will be something simple I’ve missed when I tried to fix it myself.

But just as I was thanking my lucky stars for having a back-up in the shape of my hedge trimmer, it decided to go ‘bang’ and stop working. Taking it to bits was quite straightforward until there was a loud ‘twang’ and wires and springs shot all over the garage. A couple of hours later it seemed to be working despite several bits being left over on the garage bench!

Then there was the trip to the bank to ask them to replace my credit/debit card which had stopped working a few days ago. As most of you will agree, and most certainly J does, these cards are now essential to daily life and when the bank clerk told me I’d get a new one ‘in about 8 days.’ I was aghast. 8 days – the thought of carrying my cheque book around with a couple of forms of identity for over a week was horrific – I’d get all those disparaging looks in the queue at the supermarket as I tore out a cheque , signed it and passed it to the checkout girl for her to check it several times against my ID card. I reckon the banks take their time over this as they then have your cash for several days on which they’ll make some interest.

8 days ! Only in France! I won’t even be able to pay for my débroussaillage machine.

25 May 2010

House Exchanges

I mentioned in a post a couple of weeks ago (I slept in Marilyn Monroe’s Bed …) that I’d exchanged houses with a lady in San Francisco.The house exchange I featured in that Blog was in fact my second time and, I have to say, was significantly more successful than my first.

There I was, sitting in my BT office in 1993 wondering what I could do for a holiday. I don’t know how it came to me but the fact that we had a business in the San Francisco area made me wonder if I could arrange a house swap. I sent an e-mail to the company’s HR asking them to put an advert in their staff restaurant and that very afternoon I got a call from Wanda.

To cut a long story short, Wanda, who lived in Freemont (about 45 mins drive outside San Fran) was up for it. We agreed a date and my brother, my two youngest children (Ross and Timmy) and yours truly flew out to San Francisco on the 4th July.

Wanda’s flight wasn’t until the next day, so on the first night I slept in her lounge. The following morning I drove her to the airport and that night I looked forward to a bed after a first night on planes and the next night on a sofa. As my head hit the pillow, there was an almighty ‘clunk’ and when I lifted the pillow, there, lying in all its ‘wild west’ glory was, what I would have called a six-shooter – a gun!

I called Wanda (she was 8 hours behind) and asked her why she had a gun under her pillow. ‘It’s in case somebody breaks in and tries to rape me. I’d shoot the ******* she said’.

Well that was alright then! But then Wanda had a complaint. During the ‘negotiations’ about the details of the house swap, Wanda had said she was reluctant to swap cars as hers was some sort of classic Cadillac or something similar. Eventually, I insisted and the exchange was to include cars – mine was a company sports coupé so I wasn’t too worried about it but on that first day, she said she’d spent 2 hours in the airport car park trying to work out how to engage first gear. She’d never used a manual gear box before!

If that had been the only car related problem I’d have been delighted but in addition to running down the battery on that first day, she managed to reduce most of the offside of the car to a wreck as she attempted to get closer to the side of the road, completely forgetting she was now driving on the left!

However, apart from the car problems and Wanda phoning me in the middle of the night to see how things were going (completely oblivious to the 8 hour time difference), the house exchange was a great success. She had a hot-tub in her garden and my abiding memory is seeing my brother sitting in the steaming tub after a long day’s sightseeing with a Miller Light in each hand, just bubbling away!

Now Freemont is a bit inland from the coast and each morning we set off for a drive we’d see that the temperature (on the car computer) was well over 100 degrees – sometimes 120! As we headed off towards San Francisco or Robin Hood’s Bay the reading would drop and drop until it reached 50 degrees when we hit the coast. Bizarre!

Other great memories – trying to buy a smaller than 3 litre bottle of wine in the supermarket. And conversely, trying to order a 2nd bottle of wine in a restaurant where the waitress insisted we had to be ‘interviewed’ by the manager before it was served! The ‘largest sports store in the world’ which was absolutely deserted until you reached the gun department where there was a queue at the counter!

Overall, it was a great holiday which convinced me we should do it again a couple of years later, which we did with a friend of Wanda’s. Thankfully, that holiday went without a hitch.

J and I are determined to do it again, having set our sights on some friends of Tan and Angie who live in Sarasota, Florida. Maybe – just maybe.

By the way (or BTW to texters) – the picture is of the Transamerica building in the heart of San Francisco.

24 May 2010

Route Barrée

This is the most hated sign on the roads in France. I suppose ‘bouchon’ or ‘travaux’on the motorways are almost as hated, but unlike the UK where motorway roadworks usually mean huge delays or slow speed contra-flows, in France a ‘bouchon’ or blockage on the motorway usually means a short delay with the traffic continuing to move whilst ‘travaux’ is reserved for motorway digging which is invariably done overnight and causes few problems. Route Barrée (road blocked), on the other hand can mean huge disruption, especially, if like me, you ignore the sign and carry on hoping for the best.

We have a Route Barrée on the road leading up to our house at the moment. Thoughtfully, the electricity company sent us a letter in February saying there would be ‘works’ on Chemin de St Arnoux from April through to August which, I have to say, sent a bit of a shiver down my spine – 5 months! What on earth (pun) were they planning to do? I suppose it said it in the letter but my understanding of business letters is still at an elementary stage – all I noted was that it was on our road, sorry chemin, and that it would take 5 months.

A few weeks later whilst taking the kids down to the school bus stop, I noticed the JCBs, huge piles of long red, plastic pipes and guys having their breakfast in their cabs before starting work.

The next morning, driving down to the bus stop, there it was, ‘Route Barrée’ which means that somewhere along the road, it will be completely blocked . Luckily we were only about 100 yards from the main road where the bus stop is so the kids hopped out and ran down the hill.

The next morning, in my usual soporific state (it is 7.20am after all !), the ‘route barrée’ was halfway along the road and there was no alternative but to turn round and head the other way. Luckily, Chemin de St Arnoux is a loop and so there are two ways down to the main road but as it’s about 3 miles long, if you hit the barriers almost at the end of the loop, it’s quite a trek to get to the other end, and quite stressful (for the kids, not me) if you’re rushing to get a bus.

Eventually however, you remember that the road is blocked and automatically head the other way but sometimes, usually always with me, you take a chance and head for the road works hoping that , (a) the workers are having a coffee, (b) they are having a chat and the JCBs are at the side of the road, or (c) they are having their 2 hour lunch hour and have left a space to get through.

The worst bit was last week when the road works were right below our house. It meant that to get to the village, we had to turn right (as opposed to left), drive 1.5 miles to the main road and then drive another 3 miles to get to the normal exit onto the R2210. Similarly, when coming back to the house, you have no idea where the JCBs are so take a chance and find that they are blocking your route, literally 10 metres from our drive.

It’s then that I become French and just sit there looking daggers at the workers, making all sorts of hand gesticulations and pointing to my drive.

To their credit, the workers usually relent. The JCB moves to the side, the lorry taking all the earth away has to move to the next passing space and the workers jump out of the way as I speed past and wave and smile.

And just in case you were wondering what all the work is for, it’s to install a high tension electric cable – whatever that is!