The SnippEthel

It's that time of the year again. With regret, you think of the past weeks when you were just lying on the sand, drinking fresh rosé and contemplating semi-naked people. Cricket is over, flying over canyons too. Soon, it will be too dark to play tennis in the evening. Everything seems so far away... even your tan is slowly fading. You have to do your own washing up now. Your alarm clock is on. You are back to work and you feel tired. You already look forward to your next holiday, a few days at Christmas, months from now. Your colleagues look just as depressed as you are, that's the only thing that comforts you: everyone's back to work. Everyone? Nooooo... I'm off for a week on the beach! So long my friends!

Going through my list of keywords to translate, I have discovered a brand new word I had never encountered during my stay in Britain.
This word is CONGENIAL. The Free Dictionary (very useful reference website) gives this definition (amongst others) : sympathethic, friendly and sociable.
What the Free Dictionary doesn't mention, and probably doesn't know is what 'congenial' litterally means in french. A 'con génial' means a great idiot or a fantastic damn foul, if you prefer.
These funny meaning differences can cause great misunderstandings. I would probably have been very upset if anyone had told me I was congenial (although it would have been unlikely, I've never been told I was sociable in my entire life).
I think I have possibly put the finger on the reasons why Britain and France have never managed to really get along and why so many Britons and French assume the people on the other side of the Channel are weird, mean and stupid. Although this is sometimes true... take Bernie for example, whose real name, by the way, is Bez... which, funny enough, litterally means 'fuck' in french... isn't it brilliant ? Languages sometimes seem to fit to the perfection.

Last Tuesday was a bank holiday in France.
August 15 is off for all the French to celebrate Mary's assumption to heaven, although I very much doubt many people bear a thought for poor Mary, that is, of course, if they even know this day is dedicated to her.
This is also usually a "dead week" in France with most people on holiday and many companies and factories closed.
August 15 was a family day for me. My brothers and I came back home for a family lunch followed by a walk in the mountains (and a wild blueberry feast!).
This kind of reunion is usually a good occasion to grab some of the rare anecdotes my parents like to keep secret from their past. With the help of champagne and wine, my mother became more and more talkative as the meal progressed, to our greatest pleasure.
My dad grew up five minutes from where my parents live now, surrounded by his five sisters and four brothers while my mum was growing up in another farm, forty minutes away, surrounded by her seven brothers and four sisters (that's when the authorities realize how important it was to develop contraception).
While dating, we learnt my mum sent a bunch of herbs (??) to my dad. To our total bewilderment, my parents came to explain that in return, my dad, with the help of his own father, sent in reply a box with rabbit's poo balls and a dead rabbit's head!!
They couldn't quite remember the hows and whys of the event, but were both confident it all made sense at the time.
At this point, we came to realize my parents were serious weirdoes, but we kind of knew that already, and that partly explains why my brothers and I are such weirdoes too, which is reassuring in some way, because we now know we can have fun and succeed in our lives with that handicap, just like my parents did.

Back from the circles of gastro-enteritistic hell, I have discovered this great website :
http://www.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~morph/Transformer/
where you can picture yourself as a man (if you're a woman), a chimp, a manga, a baby, an African/Asian/Caucasian, or as painted by Modigliani or Botticelli, etc.
Here is how I might look like when I get old... scary!

Yesterday I wondered: 'what can you do on this lonely night to cheer up?' Then I remembered we are supposed to eat five/six fruits a day to stay healthy.... As I ransacked the local market at the weekend for apricots, peaches and blackberries, I decided to hold a fruit feast for myself. It looked like this:

I don't think you are supposed to put chocolate on top (especially that much) but it tastes quite nice, I can assure you! It reminded me of my last week in Britain when Tim, Mike, Shaz, Princess Lizzy (wish it'd been Tess instead) and I went to Madame Chocolat to have a chocolate fondue. Madame Chocolat is a tiny chocolate shop in South East London where we had to eat our fondue with the plates on our knees, hoping no clients would come in (that would have proved very difficult anyway, since we were kind of blocking the entrance). It does seem years ago now, but the good news is, if Tim, Mike, Shaz & Tess do come over to Lyon some day, I know I'll be able to provide a great fondue for everyone!

After my glasses broke, I was in some sort of big problem, as you can imagine. I tried to call an eye doctor but I couldn't get an appointment until September. Leo, before leaving for the Loire Valley to perform Haendel, was giving me the odd look, probably wondering what I would break next (a bowl? already did. the cafetiere? already did. my little toe? already did... probably a plate then!)
This afternoon, I had to take a decision since I only had about 10 pairs of one-day contact lenses left. I find an optician and enter the shop (aaaahhh air conditioning... this is SO GOOD, I CAN'T STAND THE HEAT ANYMORE, can I stay here forever, pppllleeeaaassseee). I expose my problem to a young lady who is very polite :
- I broke my glasses
- can you fix them even though I didn't buy them here ?
- if so, how much is it going to cost me ?
The lady takes my little babies to the back of the shop and leaves me on my own, for five minutes, just next to a huge bowl of little sweets... mmmh, sweets!
She comes back and says that if my glasses are made of titanium, they will prove unable to fix them but if they aren't, then it will cost 15€. I say ok and she asks me to come back in an hour. During this time, since the flat is just unbearably hot at this time of day, I go from air conditioned shops to air conditioned shops, pretending to browse through their items although my only goal is to find the coolest area of the shop.
An hour later, I come back to the shop (which has, by the way, the best air conditioning of the whole commercial street, and you can trust me, I almost went in all of them). Another girl who is also extremely nice explains to me that my glasses are made of a weird material. They managed to fix them, but it doesn't look too nice...
I am terrified to see what they did to my beloved binoculars. She shows them to me...

...not much of a difference if you want my opinion... that's when the girl says : 'since they look awful, we won't charge you for them.' YYYOOOUUUHHOOOUU!
After saying many thanks, I come out of the shop very happy with myself and go straight to the Virgin Megastore to spend my 15€ on the Madrugada live album at Tralfamadore that I'm listening to right now.

The thing is, now I feel quite guilty about those sweets I took... you know....

My boyfriend says I'm a bully to my glasses.

They didn't fall on the floor. Noone walked on them. But they were old, could it be at all possible that they just committed suicide while I was cleaning them ???!

Take a crazy German-French couple in visit, a computer with a web cam and Photo Booth and you'll get this:





Have a great weekend... byyyeee