France This Way...the blog!!

All is pretty quiet here at the moment. The holidaymakers are happy because the sunshine is back after a cold, wet day or two. I am happy because the holidaymakers are happy. One child is back to school and the other is about to go, after a summer that has of course whizzed by without doing half the things we talked about doing.

We went to a Chinese restaurant in Villeneuve-sur-Lot last week, a scrappy looking place on the edge of a roundabout (the restaurant, not Villeneuve) that you wouldn’t normally go in but someone had recommended. That was good, my first Chinese meal since 2000 and a chance for the girls to learn how to flick food across the floor because they don’t know how to use chopsticks.

I haven’t had fish and chips, or an Indian meal either, for five years, although I do occasionally eat marmite, specially imported by concerned relatives. Curiously I haven’t been back to the UK in that time. Although it was not and is not my intention never to return, I just never seem to get around to it.

Possibly I’ll need to go back soon to see the bank – I’m trying to open a company bank account for a UK based company and it seems they want to see the whites of my eyes before they approve it. Something about needing to be sure I am not about to establish an international drug smuggling and money laundering ring. I think when they see the paltry amounts of money I generate they will see they were over-reacting slightly. If I can ever earn as much as a gang of swindlers and fraudsters, or need to handcuff briefcases full of money to Mrs B’s hand when we go to the bank, I’ll be well pleased.

My cycling adventure at the weekend went OK – in fact, the three of us that usually go together were better on the hills that the rest of the group, so we did pretty well. Funny thing cycling with a big group – on every long hill the group splits up, and the fastest need to wait at the top for the slower riders to arrive. As soon as they get there, the group sets off again. Because of this, the slower riders never get a chance to stop and rest either, so are even less able to keep up on the next hill. That was me a year ago, and I can tell you it’s not funny.

I should admit we were in the ‘second’ group – the ‘first’ group were all shaved legs, streamlined helmets and super lightweight bikes, and went further and faster. You have to be pretty confident that you can go fast before you shave your legs I think, so I will resist for the moment, despite my daughters daring me to do it.

I was disappointed when I got home to be told that Pluto is no longer to be called a planet – why can’t people just leave things as they are, wonders the grumpy old man in me – so now about 27 zillion science books need to be destroyed. Perhaps they will just put a little ‘erratum’ note in the front: page 94, para 3 should read ‘there are eight planets’ not ‘there are nine planets’. Please ignore Pluto.

Only a couple of weeks earlier they were talking about an even smaller rock even further away and whether it was a planet, so they might yet change their minds. Perhaps next year there will be ten planets, so I would hold off on the re-print for now. In fact since I am usually two weeks behind everyone else on hearing the news, perhaps there are already 11 or 12…