a schizophrenic citizen

The calves head lined with tongue and tripe stew with carrots and tomatoes were a great success. A grinning group of 75 year olds left Papillon happy and content with full tummies and slightly wobbly walks following rather too much calvados and cider. Meanwhile we closed up, did some admin, then started to prepare for our Monday morning meeting avec madame le juge. Found the tribunal d’instance in Alencon and handed over the sheaths and sheaths of required paperwork. Amazing. Nothing seemed to be missing. Translations were in order, we had the right documents, the bank manager and notaires had come up trumps and provided us with the right stuff, the clerk of the court was more and more relaxed as the mile-long list of things required had their little boxes ticked. Phewwwww. All that needs doing now is for the dossier to be assembled and then Gregoire and I pass before a jolly of judges (not sure of the collective term, but jolly seems the least likely and yet most fitting) and one year later I get a big fat rubber stamp on all my papers as well as a lovely spanking new carte d’identité plus, most importantly, and my reason for doing all this really, the right to vote in Presidential elections. Et alors mes amis. Dual nationality could be mine in July 2009. We went to Alençon in my Golf (named the chick-mobile) and she drove like a dream. Even overtook on a coupla occasions. Gregoire has since replaced brake pads on the XM (which had merrily worn down to the metal and were probably highly illegal and extremely dangerous) and we are now back to having 2 roadworthy vehicles. Probably a first for us. Soon, the big motorbike will be going and we will be a truly happy family. Tomorrow I teach my first student, so am once more preparing for the lesson, and should therefore sign off and get back to my lesson planning.

boothie nights

had a luvverly evening avec louise and Micky - and a restaurant full of punters too, but they didn't stay (too) late really. Tout le monde came for lunch today so Scarlet and her cozzies ate many sardines and rack of lamb and peppered steak and ma and pa and micky and lou chomped their way through large portions of Grégoire's yummy food too. At the same time we have been preparing for a mega buffet ce soir in Bellevue, the restaurant is chokka again ce soir and tomorrow we have our lads in for tripes and calve's head. A source of much amusement to les boothies I should add, am half-tempted to send them a little platter of the delightful delicacy via la poste. P'raps not such a bonne idée.....bit whiffy I would have thought. Scarlet all tired and happy and post-cousined out. A quiet night in front of Ratatouille for her methinks...the young Suzanne is helping out tonight so I should be able to nip up and down the stairs to check on the yung'un during service. Roll on tomorrer night I say.

chin chin

first meeting tonight as a councillor. This is for the tourism side of things - hopefully I can kickstart my fellow councillors into seeing the importance of having at least a web site for the village. At the moment they seem to think that it is enough to have a little brochure with listings of shops and businesses. Hmmm. Have been a quiet little blogger lately - mainly down to lack of words in head. Have been busy and life has been jogging along nicely, but have lacked the wherewithal to put it into words. Strange. This weekend we have our annual birthday boys in for their tripe and calves head lunch. Yum yum. Not. They are the class of '53 (meaning that they were 20 years old in 1953) - think about it. Do the maths. A nice present arrived from Mr ex-mayor and his wife earlier on. They brought me some beautiful old champagne cups...dated 1900 and 1925 - all old glass and etched crystal. Had belonged to his grandparents whose house he is emptying following it's sale, he heard I liked glassware so keeps turning up with old carafes, decanters, glasses etc from late 19th/early 20th century. Cool.

Vote for meeeeeee

2008 municipal elections in Saint Fraimbault. The current mayor is standing down and an all new all singing all dancing team has been chosen to represent the village. Amongst these brave and courageous candidates was petite moi. I was asked as I represent local businesses, local Anglophones and it has been said that I have ideas on marketing and publicising our lil old flowery town. Elections happened on Sunday 9th March and boy – oh boy – was it a heated exchange. Much mumbling, muttering' and general mitherin' and many old scores were settled outside the mairie. Luckily it rained so people couldn't stand outside arguing for too long. A rank outsider threatened to throw proceedings and hung around the voting hall all day reading his civil code in a menacing fashion and checking for irregularities. The polls closed at 6pm and 4 hours later after much counting and double checking and administrative bladiblah the results were finally announced. Jubilation all round. All 15 names on the list were voted in as a clear and outright majority. Yeeeehaaaaaa. Back to the new mayor to be’s house for much champagne …I crawled into bed at about 1.30am …..it all having got rather raucous chez Albert. And here we are pictured au Papillon. What a luvverly bunch of reprobates.

Putting on the Biar-Ritz

What a truly fab holiday. Biarritz is oh so chic and yet at the same time super cool surf trendy. A pretty interesting mix. Neighbouring Bayonne is a lovely town - much more hippy in its feel, lots of bookshops, second hand clothes boutiques, narrow winding rickety lined cobbled streets etc. Forgot to bring some bayonne ham back though. Scarlet swam in the sea and pretended to be a surfer chick, we visited museums - absolutely fantabulous museum of oriental art covering Tibet, India, China, Nepal, Japan ....found a cool militant basque shop and learnt about the Basque people and the separatist movement (the Welsh could learn a thing or two from them) and tried to understand (in vain) their strange language, ate many many oysters and mussels and lots of very good food, oh and did I mention the sunshine? It just blazed away over our heads and onto our pale normandy skins every day. Feckin' marvellous. Chocolate museum was a treat - if a tad contrived. Oh and there are scooters EVERYWHERE.