Another boring day!

Do I stand or do I sit?

A school in Thailand has opened a new toilet block for transsexuals. Maybe they should open one for all those that haven't quite made up their minds! The list could go on.

A lucky man

You'd have thought that walking the dog was quite a harmless activity. Not around here. Bryan was out with his dogs yesterday in the garrigue behind his village. He noted that they were widening the tracks that he was walking on, presumably to make them more efficient firebreaks, when he saw this big cloud of dust ahead. He called the dogs and got them under control when this huge tractor pulling an even bigger flaying device turned around about 40 metres ahead of him. Suddenly this cricket ball size stone came flying towards him and struck him on the side of the head severing the cord holding his sunglasses and causing some damage to his otherwise impeccable features. He was a very lucky man because had he not turned his head at the last moment the stone would have hit him full in the eye. He returned home dazed, very sore and almost certainly concussed. So much for a quiet stroll in the country!

More toys to play with

Late yesterday afternoon my new toy arrived. Whilst on its way here, it seemed to spend a few days in the north (near Lille), presumably in customs, however it was delivered by UPS as promised, and on time. That's pretty neat really.

Anyway, then started the 'fun', transferring all the settings from the old computer to the new. It's a job that is time consuming and boring so I let it run through the night. At 05.30 (during an unscheduled night time run to the bathroom) I noticed that the transfer had finished so I set about installing all the rest of the gunk that would make my life easier (and happier). I finished at about 12.30 today.

It's been such a long winded process that I'm already bored with my new toy and I'm off to play with the box that it came in!

More friends to play with

Our next door but one neighbours, Glyn (above), Gill, Tom and Katie arrived yesterday evening for a summer break. That made nine of us for a barbecue meat fest of lamb steaks, pork kebabs and saucisse. Excellent. Whilst I normally don't drink red wine in summer, this time I remembered to get some out to lower its temperature. In addition to the Gris from Domaine du Grand Chemin, we tried three different reds from a local cave cooperative in Carnas. They were all nice but one was a stunner so I'll nip over to Carnas soon and see if they've got any left. When I've bought my fill I'll tell you what it's called!

An Italian tale

This one's from Will who thought about Jan digging the veg plot.

An old Italian lived alone in New Jersey. He wanted to plant his annual tomato garden, but it was very difficult work, as the ground was hard.

His only son, Vincent, who used to help him, was in prison. The old man wrote a letter to his son and described his predicament:

Dear Vincent:
I am feeling pretty sad, because it looks like I won't be able to plant my tomato garden this year. I'm just getting too old to be digging up a garden plot. I know if you were here my troubles would be over. I know you would be happy to dig the plot for me, like in the old days.
Love, Papa

A few days later he received a letter from his son.

Dear Pop:
Don't dig up that garden. That's where the bodies are buried.
Love, Vinnie

At 4 a.m. the next morning, FBI agents and local police arrived and dug up the entire area without finding any bodies. They apologized to the old man and left.

That same day the old man received another letter from his son.

Dear Pop,
Go ahead and plant the tomatoes now. That's the best I could do under
the circumstances.

Love you, Vinnie

Show me yours and I'll show you mine

Ben, Paula, Ave (Paula's mum) and 3 months old Kate arrived last night for a long weekend.

So, it was off to Sommieres market this morning for a picnic lunch at Elie's bar. They (the Barcelona contingent) find it strange that you can eat your own food at someone's bar and I must admit that I found it strange at first. All Elie wants you to do is ensure that you drink his stuff with your food. That's the easy bit!

Elie is such a nice man, which reminds me that I still haven't paid him for the 90 litres of beer that he let me have nearly a year ago (August 2007) for my son's wedding. I keep offering to pay and he keeps saying that he'll phone me when he works it out. Great for me and not so great for him. Still, there's nothing more that I can do. I wonder if I can put today's drink 'on the tab'?

It was great to see how many people came up to Jan and commiserated with her about her heart problems. We didn't realise just how many people liked her. Bob W, of course, had to point out that he'd had two stents inserted last year. A sort of 'mine's bigger than yours' syndrome. When my time comes, I'm going for nothing less than three. That'll show him.

Dyson, now that's what I call service

We have one of the first Dyson cleaners, and at a guess I'd say that it's about 8 years old. It works pretty well but just lately hasn't been too good on the few bits of carpet that we have. I called Dyson France and the lovely Veronique (you are so easily distracted! - Ed) asked me to parcel it up and Chronopost would collect it the following afternoon. If my beloved hadn't been a bit of a hoarder, god knows how we'd have boxed it up, but she disappeared into the garage and came back with an enormous box. Despite waiting for Chronopost, all afternoon Tuesday, they finally called at 18.42 to say that they'd pick it up the following morning. This they did at 10.46. That was Wednesday morning.

Grief, the vacuum arrived back this morning, fully serviced with lots of new bits, all the way from Paris. They'd received it, serviced it and returned it the same day. Now that's what I call service!

Don't do as I do

I think that I should point out to all my friends that you are safe. Just ignore this advice.

Don't blame the messenger

On the theme of upsetting women.

A plane passed through a severe thunder storm. The turbulence was awful, and things went from bad to worse when one wing was struck by lightning.

One woman lost it completely.

She stood up in the front of the plane and screamed, 'I'm too young to die.' Then she yelled, 'If I'm going to die, I want my last minutes on earth to be memorable! Is there anyone on this plane who can make me feel like a WOMAN?'

For a moment, there was silence Everyone stared at the desperate woman in the front of the plane. Then the man from Australia stood up in the rear of the plane.

He was handsome, tall, well built, with dark brown hair and hazel eyes. Slowly, he started to walk up the aisle, unbuttoning his shirt as he went, one button at a time. No one moved. He removed his shirt. Muscles rippled across his chest. She gasped...

Then, he spoke...

'Iron this -- and then get me a beer.'

A miracle

Jan's recovery is just amazing. She started digging over the vegetable patch yesterday and this afternoon she finished it! Naturally I helped. I shouted encouragement from my hammock on the terrace and that seemed to spur her on! (That's guaranteed to wind a few women up - Ed)

A new toy

I finally cracked. My computer is about 8 years old and actually not in too bad a shape, in the scheme of things, but it hangs and becomes unstable a bit too easily and something fundamental is broken because it won't show videos. I'm not talking about 'special interest videos', as Chris W calls them, but You Tube stuff, news clips et al. I could probably change this but it needs stripping back to the metal and a clean install of everything to get it back into shape. Given that an up to date copy of Windows would costa plenty and I don't want to spend the rest of my life updating software and, even more importantly, If I attempted to do it myself it would probably leave me without a machine for days. These things are never straightforward. As much as I would like one, I can't afford a Mac. So it's back to Dell. In the past I have bought three Dell machines and been very pleased. They do what they say on the tin.

With Dell France you used to be able to order on-line, in France, for a UK spec machine. Not anymore. If you try to order on-line in the UK you have no choice but to input a UK address. In the end, and after a lot of frustration because I could never get through on the 0844 sales line, I called Dell head office in the UK and they put me through to a chap in India.

I ordered the machine on Monday, it was built on Tuesday and left Limerick in Ireland today, Wednesday, with UPS. So far so good.

Spam again

That's it! Did it! No spam overnight.

Bella Italia

I've finally realised what I miss about Italy.

Apart from my aunt and uncle whom I will see in August, I miss:

The countryside
Hilltop villages
The architecture
The 'centro storicos'
The roads
The cars
The anarchy
The motorway service areas
The crazy driving
The triple parking
The chaos
The happy people
The joie de vivre
The food
The obsession with food
Fresh ricotta
Fresh mozzarella
The restaurants
The hospitality
(That's enough - Ed)

I was driving through Nîmes this morning, through some very narrow back streets, on a diversion, when I got this wonderful cooking smell in the car. It made me realise that when you drive near houses in France you rarely smell food cooking, a gross generalisation I know, but in the same situation you seem to smell it everywhere in Italy. The smell that I love, which reminds me so much of my youth and my time in Italy, is the smell of a big pot of slowly simmering tomato sauce. A smell, along with that of freshly made espresso, so typical of southern Italy. It makes my mouth water just thinking of it.

Anyway, I picked Jan up from the hospital and, via a cholesterol inducing lunch at the relais, got her home without mishap. It's good to have her back.