Friend's Photo Friday

These statues are on the sentier sculpturel de Mayronnes, south of Carcassone. They are the work of Deborah's daughter, Lucie Geffré, and will be there until the middle of August.
What do you think? I like them.

Tunisia

Not sure if this slideshow is going to work. Is there anything more boring than being subjected to someone else's holiday photos? ("Was that the Wednesday morning darling, or the Thursday afternoon?")



I'm still paranoid about one day stumbling on photos of my children's heads amateurishly stuck on top of naked bodies. But if I know you or your blog, and if you're not a paedophile but still enough of a masochist to want to see the "people" ones too, drop me an e-mail and I'll send you a Flickr invitation to be my friend, please.

We've been, we're back

We're back, we're back and we're very tired. A wonderful time was had by all, of course, despite a few minor hiccups. Here are a few handy hints on how to spice up your holiday:

1. Apply for your passport well after the deadline. Arrange to have it delivered twenty minutes before you have to be at the airport by which time you will be standing in the street hailing all passing vans.

2. Once in the airport, nerves still clattering, encourage your little boy to announce just as you arrive at the security check that he has a toy pistol in his backpack. Aghast, watch said pistol being confiscated by disapproving security people for immediate destruction. Reassure little boy that he will not be going to prison.

3. When you arrive at the hotel try to secure that wonderful big family room that has a fabulous view of the pool, the palm trees and the beach. At 2 a.m. wonder why you didn't realise you would be sleeping (ha ha) directly above the trillion-decibel sound system in the disco below. Only manage to change to another non-vibrating room two nights later.

4. Arrange to have several family members infected with conjuctivitis: preferably the variety in which rivers of yellow slime flow from their reddened eyes day and night.

5. And finally, why not have the bus for the return flight leave the hotel at 1 a.m.? That should ensure that you get back so tired that the benefit of a week of farniente will have been entirely cancelled out.

Photos later.

To pack or not to pack

8H50. We leave for Tunisia at 13H00 and the passport still isn't here. The Embassy told me they were sending it yesterday and we should get it this morning. But then they said the same thing the day before yesterday. I don't know whether to pack or unpack.

10H42 Still nothing. The TNT website says it is "en cours de livraison". I hope that means it's in the back of a white van somewhere near here. I feel sick and stupid.

11H46 It still isn't here but I have to close the computer down. Bye (but maybe not for long).

Weimaraner

If you'd like to have a dog like this, my friends the Bonniers have 11 (eleven!) puppies to find homes for.

Braque Weimar Weimaraner

Where is it?

Make yours here

It's a ho-ho-holiday

For some strange but wonderful reason, I’m on holiday, three days before P. and the children which is why you find me now, at 9H30 in the morning sipping a third cup of coffee in front of powerbookbaby, flitting from site to site in a euphoric state of indolence.

So it's going to be three days of idyllic freedom, if it wasn’t for having to take le boy to the school doctor for his pre-primary visit today slap in the middle of this afternoon. Oh, and having to nervously hang around the letter box just in case UPS delivers said boy’s passport. [Did I mention that major cockup in the Tunisia holiday plans? I only realised last week that his passport had run out and sent in an application to have it renewed last Tuesday, in other words very late (too late?) — so there is no guarantee that it will actually arrive before we fly on Friday. P. and I may end up drawing straws at the airport to see who gets to go.] There is also the small matter of finding a plumber to fix a radiator upstairs that inexplicably fell off the wall bending all the pipework while I just happened to be standing on it fixing a shutter. I also have to go to aquagym every single day in the desperate hope that a few hours of splashing around in the water will erase all signs of a winter of sloth. I also have to fit in a visit to the hairdresser, a run to the Secours Populaire, prepare a couple of classes for the first day back, buy a few t-shirts, do a bit of paintwork in the house, .

Right, time for another cup of coffee I think and perhaps a little daytime TV………

Quais

Quais
Originally uploaded by Lezzles.

Why when we sat outside having afternoon coffee in wonderful pristine sunshine yesterday, are we huddled inside around an open fire today ?

Why was E sick on Thursday, right as rain on Friday but terribly sick again yesterday and today ?

Why does the author of Moondust, which I’m reading at the moment, bandy technical terms about rocket science and Apollo missions yet explain that V is « the Roman numeral for five » ? Come on, give the poor readers some credit, if we’re reading the book, we’re literate.

Why suddenly 0 peers in 0 seeds when I am so desperate for my weekly dose of Tony and C° (If you don’t know, don’t ask)

Why can’t I get my wifi dongle (love that word, dongle, dongel, dongle) to work on the i-mac upstairs ?

Why is there no surefire pre-holiday diet for people who need to lose a couple of tons in five days before revealing their legs after a winter of pasta and pizza?

Gold Star

When my Mum moved house a couple of years ago, she arranged to have about a dozen boxes full of miscellania that she'd been storing for me in her loft sent over to France. They're now in my own loft.
The other day I was going through one, wondering what to keep and what to chuck out, when I came across one of my very first writing jotters from primary school. I suppose it was my first plog — paper log.
Here's a sample page. You probably can't read the 6-year-old writing so the text is underneath.

29.11.68 Helping Mumy
I oftin help mumy. I yosily dry the dishis and Ronald washis the dishis. Wen I have nothing to do I asc Mumy wot to do for her. At Grany's I wash the dishis and dray them. Sumtim I dust. On Sundy or Mundy mumy is gong to do the spring clining I am gong to help. I aryn with my toy aryn with Mumy.

Can you hear the Hebridean accent in that last sentence?
This time next year, Z should be at about the same stage in reading and writing, at least in French. I can't wait for him to start plogging. I wonder if he'll come up with as many fibs as I did to gain the teacher's approval.