tola

I've just had 15 minutes of increasing hilarity. Someone with a strong but comprehensible Indian accent tried to sell me Skyphone in spite of protestations that I'm not the resident. I couldn't get through to him at first. He thought I couldn't understand what he was saying so he offered to speak more slowly, which just cracked me up. Finally he got it, that I'm not "Mrs" R (see, they got the title wrong too which might have annoyed Dr. R). Then he wanted to know my name. I told him it wouldn't do any good, but he insisted, and somewhat evilly I gave it to him. It's not an easy name even for a UKian so that wasted some more time, though I did keep telling him it would do no good. Then I told him I live in France, which resulted in several more misunderstandings. By this time I was almost helpless with giggles and he started laughing too.

I had to hang up at the interesting point when he said complimentary things about my laugh and what a pretty name I had and asked where I live, because it's time to get ready to go out. Off-shore call centres, eh?

The weather is lovely, all warmed up again. Just before cycleboy1957 arrived it was warm, the day he leaves it's decidedly spring, and the week in between was cold and nasty. Argh!

In fact, spring arrived so suddenly that the wildflowers came out all at once. The vineyards which had been mostly brown in the morning were decorated with blue and yellow carpets of myosotis and various other blooms, only three hours later.

... and the tv works :)

Pity there's nothing worth watching.

cycleboy1957 has been very busy in the last five days.

He helped buy windows and other essentials and carried them into the house. He has put up insulation in the unstructured attic room as far as possible without another person (taller than me) to help. He built a bedroom cupboard. He sorted burnable wood in the barn. He moved logs from the garden to the terrace. He installed a rotary line in the garden and tested it with a load of washing. He went up on the roof and did things with satellite dish and cabling (which may not work because the old cable which goes to the wrong part of the house was fastened directly to the dish with concrete or something). He changed lightbulbs. He assembled tv and decoder wossnames. And finally he has cleared the junk from the mezzanine and scrubbed the floor and is now varnishing it.

Oh, and most important: we went to Mirambeau and bought a plane and he re-shaped and re-hung the front doors. They can now be opened and closed and I shan't have to pay the 4,400 euros for replacements (yet).

Marvellous.

Sunny afternoon, though still cool. I have been in the garden, mostly reading in the mobile sun-room aka car, in the company of the young retriever from down the lane. Letting her into the car was the only way to stop her barking. Not knowing what her name is, I call her Gingerpup, and she seems quite pleased with it. She's totally untrained, which is rather worrying.

Email received today from Hong Kong, pasted below.

Attn: Beneficiary,

We the entire members of the Royal House of Treasury, on behalf of the Government of Great Britain, under the auspices of the Her Royal Majesty Queen Elizabeth of England II held a meeting this week concerning payment,both foreign and local contractors and some inheritance funds which weren't released to the right benefactors. Her Royal Majesty, has just informed this office (Royal House of Treasury)that All the listed contractors and Inheritance funds benefactors whichtheir CONTRACT PAYMENT SUM AND INHERITANCE FUNDS were not paid to shouldbe released to them with effect. We discovered that your payment listed to us Seven million five hundred thousand dollars (US$7.5M) approximately Four million Great Britain Pounds(GBP 4M), you are advised to respond with effect so that we will process your payment to be made in any
form you wish to receive your funds. Kindly respond to this office so that your payment will be process andtransferred under 72hours of receiving this email. On going through files yesterday, we discovered that your file was dumpeduntreated, so at this juncture, we apologize for the delay of your payment and please stop communicating with any office now and attention to the appointed office below for you to receive your payment accordingly. Now your new Payment Reference, Allocation Password, Pin Code and your Certificate of Merit Payment ,
Released Code ; Immediate Telex confirmation; Secret Code , Having received these vital payment number, therefore You are qualified now to receive and confirm Your payment with the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland immediately within 72hours You are directed to reconfirm your full detailed information, as stated:
FULL NAME, HOME ADDRESS, PROFESSION and MARITAL STATUS, AGE, HOME PHONE NUMBER and CELL PHONE NUMBER
as well as time to call you on the phone +44(0)703-181-9624

johnhenry_2007_2007@yahoo.com.hk

Best Regards Sir.
Mr. John Henry
Royal House of Treasury

Oh wow! Plans to put a moat around Oxford! What a brilliant alternative to a ring-road; probably just as quick by boat in rush-hour, too.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/uk_news/england/oxfordshire/7895938.stm

My "hair" userpic has morphed into this -



Or at least that's what I'm seeing. Other people are still seeing my userpic. I've re-loaded, looked at it in a different browser, logged out...

[UPDATE] Couldn't stand it, deleted the pic and loaded in a replacement which was downloaded from my userpic by Noodles... IYSWIM. So now the blonde girl has gone. Still worried about what's going on there.

I was listening to a lot of radio while bereft of internet, and noticed something about most of the songs on France Inter (apart from the world music). Memorable songs usually have an interesting and distinctive introduction. These songs started (and continued) with what sounded like samples packaged with a musicmaking program. Anodyne. Stairway to the other side of the room.

If this is rife, what will the teams on Never Mind The Buzzcocks do?

Mon's next singing weekend is in Ernen, a beautiful small town up in the mountains of southern Switzerland.

These weekends are marvellous: very friendly, fantastic surroundings, and Mon is a superb choir and ensemble trainer and director.

Booking deadline 25 February.
Tenors and basses especially welcome.

http://www.buckland.ch/english/singingweekendse.htm

Last Monday, the storm arrived. It wasn't as bad as the Great Storm of January 2009, but close. I made sure all the shutters and doors and windows were secure, and went to bed early. Soon afterwards the power went, leaving me huddled in my four-poster, curtains tucked in, with the wind-up radio and the solar/wind-up lantern (with thanks to tig_b - brilliant it is). I didn't sleep much. All night the storm would start to move away, and then come screaming back. I could hear things crashing outside. France Inter was running reports every 15 minutes, and in between there was soothing music and friendly chatter. It helped me because... I was scared. It was alright while I was awake, but when I dozed off the noise brought dreams of shipwreck and houses falling into the sea, and I woke in panic.

When I went to make tea (thank goodness for gas cookers - Mama always said you should have a gas hob in case of power cuts) it was surprising to see how light it was outside. The clouds were intermittent and the moonlight showed trees thrashing frantically. Poor trees, the ground is so wet this winter and their roots are not firmly fixed, and they have had to fight another storm before recovering from the first. Someone on the radio said that this was another once-in-a-century storm, and it's the third in 10 years, so how's that for climate disruption.

Around dawn the noise dropped to strong wind, and I slept.

The next day, all was well with my house, just a few things moved around in the garden and we lost the bird restaurant. Nothing was damaged in the hamlet apart from a wall on M. Magister's property, which started falling down onto La Concierge's house. She called the mayor out and he sent a digger to demolish it. She's quite annoyed because they will have to pay for the removal of the wall, which has been unsafe for years - the old man hadn't had any repairs done for decades. We're wondering what will happen to his house: whether the sons will try to sell it, or one will move in, or they will just let it crumble. It would be a shame because although it's not in a good state, it is old charentais style and could be very pretty.

The trees won.

I'm being very lazy about catching up on events that occurred while the ADSL was off.
Monday 2nd - rain cascading off the roof and roaring through the storm drains under the side of the house.
Tuesday - 'net down.
Thursday - found the bike/motorbike/kart workshop in St Fort, but there was no-one around to ask about repairs to Broomstick.

Saturday was Theatre: an evening of sketches in the Hall at the Foyer Rural, which is a kind of community centre and home of the town council's social and cultural committees and offices. The theatre group was excellent, with most of the adults at professional level, and two of the teens are heading that way. I understood almost all of it with the exception of one of the comic songs sung by the commère (that's not a typo, it was a she) during scene changes, which appeared to be in Charentais. The evening started late, at 9pm, and was so entertaining that I was amazed to find that it was past midnight when it ended. It was a very cold night, with frost and the moon by which you could see the houses and road as if the streetlights were on. I spent a little time on the way home just looking at the hamlet and fields by moonlight. That's how I noticed a light in the window of the little house: it must have been on for over a week. Even with the bright moonlight I didn't fancy sliding over the icy lane and opening the frozen old door to look for the off switch (I've never turned on the light because I'd only go in there in the daytime), so took a look round the dangerous jumble of electrical wiring and boards in the barn, to see if I could find a way to cut the power to the little house. No luck. There must be a feed somewhere, but that spaghetti wiring and the collection of random, sometimes live, junction boards is no place for an electrically-challenged wimp.

ADSL working again :) What have I missed?

I'm too scared to log in to worknet...

Am in cafe to borrow computer; no internet at home since Tuesday. Can't log in to work. Weather is good, though.

Miss you all :/

The tv decoder arrived (from France Telecom/Orange, part of the netz package at no extra charge except oh did they forget to mention the deposit of 53 euros?).

There are never enough power points.

At Pons, though the Donjon is closed for the winter (you can go into the tourist office and press your nose to the glass door and try to peer upwards), the sadly pollarded trees are fighting back with small new branches reaching vertically to the sky, in bright dark red. In the sunlight the trees look as though they are on fire.

In Leclerc the tv sets are very expensive and we left without buying one. There must be a cheaper source.

My beloved old PC, which appeared to have survived its year in storage and powered up with no trouble when I collected it, won't power up now.

FAO cycleboy1957 - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/uk_news/7855847.stm

On Saturday the river that runs through St Dizant had overflowed into the fields; the picnic area by 1000 Frais et 1 Fred had become a large lake. Shame I didn't have a camera. Fortunately the water stopped a few metres from the building: it's draining now and the river is back inside its banks.

The debris has been mostly cleared, and the weather is normal for January. So many trees lost :(

Photos on the BBC site

Ryanair's Stansted to Angoulême starts at the end of March. At the moment there are flights for less than 30 GBP return.

Pity it's Ryanair, but that's a good price. Angoulême is 90 minutes from home by car, or a couple of local train-rides.

Flights back were quiet and fast. On the way to Chicago the mountains were very clear; on the second part we didn't fly over Greenland, but it was cloudy anyway (though not bumpy except for a few minutes over Norn Iron) and dark so nothing to see. As we came down from 38,000 feet the clouds cleared enough to be able to see the ground, so it was a surprise when the pilot announced his disappointment that although we were early we'd be landing almost on scheduled time because of fog. And there it was, Heathrow, in a mucky puddle around which we circled for half an hour.

Not having slept for a long time, I was so pleased to get sms from bro who came to collect me and immediately made tea when we got to his house. I'd missed tea.

And then up the M25 to near-Harlow, where I slept eventually. Today I was reunited with my old PC and discovered that it still works, after 18 months. Ahhh, Debian :)

That reminds me, in Redmond there is a shop with a big label on its roof: "TUX SHOP".

Today there was little sightseeing but much cultural exchange.

D invited me to a birthday lunch (Thai, and very tasty too) with a group of women whose children go to the same elementary school. I can do children-talk, having been there (you don't forget...), but there wasn't much of it. The conversation ranged from triathlons and almost drowning in open water (personal experiences of several of them) to the meaning of... well, you don't want to know O_O. We did have a shared rant about testing in schools, which is as rife in WA as in UK, and as popular. They talked of entertaining and other social activities; I like the idea of shared cooking days. They discussed their various jobs and projects and the small businesses which a couple of them have started. It was most enlightening as well as amusing, and they were so friendly. The birthday girl is actually from London, married to a Cypriot, and most of them have travelled abroad. It was both like and unlike my preconceptions (gleaned from literature and of course tv/films).

Later I met J to go to a Chinese restaurant in Bellevue. We had a brief unguided tour in getting there, which was interesting for me as I learned about road patterns and signage and naming schemes. The restaurant was very good indeed. We were welcomed with enthusiasm and "Happy New Year" (they are starting celebrations early and will probably continue into February!). The tea was poured as we sat down and dumplings were offered, as something to eat while we waited for the meals to be cooked. They were delicious, as was the rest of the meal. The portions were massive and doggybags are expected: no point for me, going back to a warm hotel room at 10pm. I did briefly consider saving some for breakfast in the style of sommitrealweird, but tomorrow morning I have to attempt to cram everything back into the suitcase and catch a taxi to Tacoma, and will be too stressed for breakfast.

I wish I were staying a bit longer.

Seattle itself.

First, to the Space Needle via various roads and buildings. J was unsure whether the Space Needle would be worth paying for, with visibility cut down in the gentle drizzle, but fortunately it was clearing to light cloud and we could see all of the city and most of the harbour and lakes. There are 24-hour time-lapse videos of a summer's day, so I saw what Mount Rainier would have looked like (very impressive!).

Having a resident with me was good, because I wouldn't have had a clue what any of the tall buildings are, nor which district and stretch of water was which. J wasn't too sure about naming the islands, except for the one which is a "reservation". We looked at the information screens, marvelled in mild disgust at the photos of the Gum Wall, and planned the rest of the tour.

Most important was the Pike Place Market, a marvellous farmers', fishers', and craft market. J announced "Flying fish!" and I had flashback of eating fish in the Caribbean, but they weren't that sort of fish or flying. We watched fish being thrown across a stall (with a sort of shouted chant). Nothing like the fish-throwing in Asterix, but it had certain similarities to the Muppets ;). Drank Market Spice tea in the Market Spice stall, where I bought some things and had to resist massive temptation to buy a lot more; the teasets were especially attractive. We passed a Handmade Cheese shop and the pianist who has been busking outside the market for 20 years, looked at jewellery and craft stands, and generally tried not to buy things which couldn't be transported. Some years ago, around the time J moved here, there was a plot by property developers to pull down the market and build apartment blocks. So glad they were beaten off. Besides, the market must have brought in far more revenue over the years than a couple of blocks of yuppie homes would have done. It's going to be renovated this year, but it's promised to be done with minimal interruptions. If you have the dreaded flash, you can take an online tour of the market.

It was dark by now, so we visited the Troll under the Aurora bridge at his dinnertime, though he'd already caught dinner so we were safe. Later, from another road, we could see the Aurora Bridge in its delicate lacy splendour. It becomes a viaduct further down the Alaskan Highway, but we didn't go that far. Another time.

Seattle goes in for curious statues. There's also the Hammering Man outside the art museum, and various later creations based on the same idea, such as the Drinking Man and the smaller man with a coffee-cup. We went twice round the statue of Lenin to have a good look. It's an excellent statue, but I had to ask - why? J said some Russian friends had also asked why Seattle had put up a statue of Lenin, as there are none in Russia now, to which she'd replied "It was cheap".

I'm not usually keen on skyscraper-type buildings, but some of Seattle's are lovely. There are two made of light creamy stone like the stone of Charente Maritime: one with windows of pale cobalt and the other of turquoise-green. The famous Smith Tower which is purported to have been at one time the tallest building west of the Mississippi (now shadowed by apartment blocks!) is very elegant.

We went to look for food, not so easy on a Sunday evening: the chosen restaurant was shut. Next to it was a most unappetising pizza take-away with a large hand-scrawled notice in the window: "Happy Holidays! Gift Certificates Available".

Unfortunately the lid of the boot^Wtrunk slammed down on my head; J found a place where they gave her a huge bagful of ice, and we drove off in search of another feedingplace with me wearing a cold and somewhat inelegant hat. I was feeling a bit queasy with the headache when we got to the 5 Point Cafe, so I didn't really appreciate the jukebox even though the music was good-to-acceptable. The 5 Point is a proudly scruffy place with a sign up in the window "Ripping Off Tourists-n-Drunks Since 1929". Good thing I had a local guide, eh? The prices are a bit high for a caff, but the food is good.

And so, with a last pass round the city and a wave to the seafront, back to Redmond.