This photo sums it up pretty well, actually. See the blackbird sitting on top of my
bathroom exhaust pipe, trying not to look too miserable in the wind and
rain? It’s been that sort of a day.
Last night I hardly got any sleep, on account of
miscellaneous idiots celebrating something or other with firecrackers. It went on for hours and was incredibly
loud. I have never heard such a din. They set off any number of neighbourhood cats
and dogs, who added their barks and miaous to the noise, and even the birds
could be heard becoming frightened and agitated. I tried to make the best of the situation by
sitting up in bed reading The Hobbit in French, but it was hard to concentrate.
This morning there was some sunshine, so I took my tired self
off to Valerie’s for bacon & eggs and coffee with the newspapers. Then I had a little amble through the shops
and perused the sales. Unsurprisingly
enough I did not find anything, I pretty much have what I need. Still, it is nice to look. It satisfies my inner Hunter & Gatherer,
I suppose. I ended up in my favourite
leather shop in the Covered Market, as usual.
My Handbag-Guru died a few weeks ago, and I am still very
sad about it. He was still quite young,
only 68 years old. When I went a few
weeks ago it was three days after he had died, and everyone in the shop was
very tearful. His wife is continuing the
business. When I went today they were a
little brighter. There was a bag they
had on sale, which I had almost bought on previous occasions but did not,
firstly because I did not really need it, and secondly because it looks like a
copy of the Bolide by Hermes, and I don’t like copies. Today the widow of my Handbag-Guru saw me
looking at the bag again, and told me that it had been the favourite bag of her
husband, and indeed she herself used one.
So I bought the bag, as a sort of memorial. Now I have enough bags to last me a lifetime! But I shall continue to go to the shop and
perhaps even buy a few more bags, to show support to the widow of my dear old
Handbag-Guru.
On the way home I stopped by the local grocery cum liquor
store. The owner was busy upbraiding one
of his customers for buying cigarettes.
“You had promised me you would stop,” he said, “and here you are buying
another package!” I tried to calm the
situation by suggesting that the lady only smoked to give him some business,
but he said he made very little on cigarettes.
His profit margin on sweets was much greater, he added. The guilty customer promised to seriously cut
back, and I bought a bottle of root beer (a sweet non-alcoholic malt-based
beverage) and some perry (a sort of cider made from pears), and went on to
visit the French patisserie.
The patissier is still trying to learn English. All his customers are trying to improve their
French by talking to him, and he is very frustrated about it. Or they speak English so fast that he
understands nothing. Either way is bad
for him learning English. We had a long
chat about learning languages, slowly and in English. He has to return to France
When I got home it started to rain again. We have had more rain in a few days then
normally in a month. To add insult to
injury we have been informed that the hosepipe ban has been lifted! Great, like anyone is going to go out there
in the rain and water their soggy gardens!
It is quite cool as well, I am back to wearing my cords & woolly
waistcoats about the house. Oxford Europe , incidentally,
the rest of England Paris
To cheer myself up I drank the rootbeer. It worked fine while I was drinking it, but
had no lasting effect, I still felt downbeat.
So I drank the perry as well. It
was only a small bottle, but it takes little to get me drunk and by 4pm I was quite inebriated. Having thus liberated myself from all moral constraint,
I abandoned any pretence of turning this into a productive day and fixed myself
some unsuitable food to eat. Viz, roast
beef (my freezer is full of the stuff), boiled eggs, pickles, and Caesar salad
dressing. Not a vegetable in sight! I wonder whether the perry counts towards my
five daily fruit & vegetable allowance?
I also had the little cake I bought from the French bakery as my after
supper morsel.
Gazing out of the window as I am writing this I see the wind
bending the trees this way and that, and the rain still coming down in
unseasonably large amounts. This is
supposed to be June? Usually we have
this sort of weather in August!
I shall now don my cashmere robe and snuggle up in front of
my PC to watch a nice movie – Spaceballs in French sounds about right!
Pip pip and tiddledipom and all that sort of thing!
