500 Up and Still Going

This is my 500^th blog posting and whilst I have thought about stopping the blog and starting on my book again (nothing for nearly 2 years – writer’s block maybe !), I always get the urge to pen something, no matter how banal. If my life is boring sometimes, you’re going to share it with me – so there!

So what wonderful things do I have to say on this momentous occasion – nothing much really. You may have noticed that I keep changing the fonts on my postings. This is due to the new template I am using which I think is quite a bit more modern and professional than the previous one and I was quite chuffed to see that quite a few blogs are now using it including the Cannonball Run blog which I featured yesterday. The downside is Google’s frustrating ability to change the published font, almost at will and so I have to review and change it. Maybe one day it will settle down. I actually thought that the first font I used on the new template was OK until Tan said that it made his eyes go funny, but I reckon that was just the booze from the night before!

So what’s been happening out here? The world cup ended with me giving Tan €20 because Spain won but I’ve not paid him yet and he’s not had the brass neck to ask – so we’ll see how it goes.

I was actually picking up my latest visitors (cousin Sue and her husband Alan and my brother Robert) when the final was on so I recorded it and we watched it when we got home and had had dinner – about midnight! We finished watching it at 2.15am and as I’d warned Tan not to shout over the score or even go out on his terrace (so we wouldn’t know who’d won), it was like watching it live. I managed to resist the temptation to fast forward at 16 times the normal speed but I’m appalled to say my Brother still managed to fall asleep during the half-time break – maybe that had something to do with his 6 pints of IPA (beer) during his 6 hour stopover at Gatwick Airport!

We ventured off to SanRemo in Italy on Wednesday and in addition to the market being absolutely mobbed, it was the hottest day by far this year. This didn’t manage to stop J from finding a mink jacket on a market stall on sale for the princely price of €2,900. Who, in their right minds, would buy a mink jacket costing that much from a market trader? J says the jacket was a copy of a design by some fancy fashion house (D&G, Dior, M&S, Primark ?) and had actually started negotiating with the stall holder. I just fainted.

We went for lunch at Garby’s which does an amazing meal for €15 – 4 plates of pasta (each), a main course (my brother had a huge Duarade fish complete with head, tail and teeth!) and then a dessert which includes the best Tirimisu in Italy (apparently). The problem was that I’d booked a table inside and when we arrived we’d been usurped some some Italians. I have long since recognized that you don’t argue with Italian men of the older variety because they have some ‘interesting’ relatives – nuff said!

We ended up on our own on their roof-top terrace which had magnificent views of the washing on the balconies of the surrounding flats, the roof of the fish market and a guy (fat, greasy, sweating) who was sunbathing on his balcony in a pair of grey underpants which looked as if they’d never seen the inside of a washing machine.

Nevertheless, the food was as good as it usually is and we headed home with everyone asleep except the driver – me! Final point about the trip was that I was only offered one watch (huge,silver Rolex) during my visit and if you’re wondering about the relevance of that remark, look back a few postings and you’ll see one about SanRemo watches.

So it’s now Friday and my visitors go home today after an all too short visit. My cousin (my mother’s sister’s daughter) managed to trace my brother after some 40 years and we’re now ‘genes reunited’ and it’s great to see them again.

It was Sue’s birthday whilst she was here, appropriately enough on Bastille day, when huge firework displays lit up the coast. She’s still not too sure if I’m being genuine when I said I’d paid to have the displays just for her!

Photo is of us at lunch on Thursday. From left to right – my brother (Robert), Sue’s husband (Alan), Sue (my cousin), J and Kitty.

And finally, finally, if you’re waiting for an update on the wasps, I still haven’t plucked up the courage to hit their nests with that deadly poison which doesn’t work! 

The Cannonball Run

Do you remember the 1981film of the same name with Burt Reynolds, Farah Fawcett, Roger Moore et al? Well they have a Cannonball Run through France, Belgium and Italy, organized of course by the Brits but the aim is not quite the same – with Cannonball Europe, the objective is to get to the finish destination having travelled at an average speed of 61mph.

There have been many stories of the event in previous years, but 2010 seems to have taken the biscuit with all sorts of illegal driving going on.

Last year, the race started in England and finished in Croatia. This year, the event ended at Brighton, England but I’m still searching to see where they started off from. It’s all very secretive with not even the competitors being told where their next destination is until the morning they set off on each leg of the trip.

It costs £5,950 to enter and that pays for ferry crossings, accommodation and entry fee but of course, the majority of the participants are high-rollers and so the entry fee is but mere pocket money with huge parties being thrown by them when they reach an evening stop.

But back to this year’s shenanigans and some paragraphs from the Daily Telegraph….    

Seven British drivers were yesterday branded 'spoilt delinquents with more money than sense' by police after being arrested for racing through France at speeds of up to 130mph.

All were taking part in the annual Cannonball Run Europe, a six day rally which attracts minor aristocrats, entrepreneurs and others who can afford the £6000 per car entry fee.

French gendarmes intercepted three of them on Thursday afternoon at a toll station on the A6 motorway at Fleury-en-Biere, in the Seine-et-Marne department, south of Paris. A Bentley Continental GT and a Porsche 911 had been travelling at about 50mph above the 80mph speed limit. Both cars were confiscated and their drivers, men aged 40 and 52, were charged with "endangering others".

The drivers, who were not named by police but are believed to come from London, were bailed to appear in court at a later date and their cars, worth more than £100,000 each, will be sold.

The driver of a Ferrari was also stopped at Fleury-en-Biere. All three drivers received on-the-spot fines of euros 1500 (£1258). An Audi RS A6 and another Porsche 911 were meanwhile stopped on the A6 at Mercueil, in the eastern Cote-d'Or department, while an Audi R8 was also stopped near the eastern city of Dijon.

All had been followed by a specialist high-speed unit of French officers in Subaru Impreza WRX cars, who were determined to clamp down on the annual Cannonball Run, named after a 1981 comedy-drama film.

"We are dealing with spoilt delinquents with more money than sense," said Captain David Adam, who said that a seventh Cannonball car, another Bentley, was stopped doing twice the 45mph speed limit through the Mont Blanc tunnel in the Alps.

"What they were doing was utterly selfish. French roads are not a playground for these spoiled delinquents.

After being released by the police and paying their fines in cash, all of the drivers involved booked into £350-a-night bedrooms at the five star Trianon Palace Hotel, at Versailles, near Paris. They were then escorted to the Channel Tunnel by gendarmes, and told to return to England.

See the Cannonball Website here (it’s too early for the 2010 story but there are some blogs posted from this year’s participants) ……

http://www.cannonballruneurope.co.uk/index.php

Revenge On The Creepie Crawlies

Apologies for the late posting but I have my relatives with me and my PC is knackered again so my priorities are somewhat changed. However, my priorities have not changed regarding the extermination of creepie crawlies, in particular wasps, and the title above is not a mistake. Last week’s post was about ‘Revenge “of” the Creepie Crawlies. This week it’s my turn.

Since the weather turned hot, those pesky wasps have been lying by the poolside sunning themselves and then dipping into the water making it sometimes impossible to get into the pool by the steps. Generally, they don’t bother you as they’re there just to get some water for their nests (presumably) but they’re a pain all the same.

There was a programme on TV last week about nasty things like snakes and wasps (prophetic don’t you think after my snake bite?) and it portrayed them (the wasps) as industrious home makers, hell bent on looking after their queen and the larvae in the nests they build from paper.

Our wasps have decided to set up home under the roof tiles and it’s but a short flight down to the pool to get their water. I can only assume, given that the programme did not cover their water carrying instinct, that they need the water either to feed the larvae or to help turn the wood pulp they gather from trees and bushes into this paper material which they mould into the most fantastic creations for their nests.

Now my brother is due here for a week’s holiday (he’ll have arrived by the time you read this) and he hates wasps even more than I do, running about in circles like a demented loony bin patient whenever he sees one, so I had to take some action.

First, a nest had been constructed under the pool umbrella and I couldn’t imagine him having a peaceful, relaxing break down at the poolside when a wasp’s nest was about 2 feet from his head and so the other day I took action. Getting the pool brush which when extended is about 12 foot long, I stood beside the pool, poked the nest until it fell off and then I dived (dove ?) into the pool, staying under as long I could.

I poked my head above the surface and the little buggers were there in a cloud, just waiting for me. Under I went again and swam (swum?) to the other end and stayed there until they gave up and headed for their brothers and sisters on the tiles. Job done!

But then in the following days they increased in numbers around the pool to the extent that I was sure that Robert wouldn’t be able to have a swim without a full wet suit and diving mask on so on Sunday morning at 5.30am I crept up onto the roof with a deadly wasp poison, not generally available, and scattered it over the tiles. I did not see a single wasp – I assume they were all sleeping.

On Monday the wasps seemed to decrease in number but some of them were still sunbathing by the pool so I reckon I need to go back on the roof and squirt the poison up the tiles and get them but I’m still plucking up the courage cause I hate  wasps and they hate me. Wait for the next bulletin.