It is now official: yesterday, Emmanuel Macron was sworn in as the 8th President of the 5th Republic. He and his newly formed party, La République en Marche now faces the big challenge of cobbling together a governing majority in next month’s legislative elections. I sincerely hope he manages it and is able to enact the reforms he has planned. Otherwise he could end up little more than a figurehead who is continually thwarted at the Assemblée Nationale. What with the endless farce of the Trump presidency and the spectacle of the UK becoming an illiberal, insular one-party state, it is wonderful that there is at least one positive political development to follow.
At the other end of the political spectrum is the dramatically declining state of my home country. Recent local elections saw the Labour party get decimated, as expected. Less expected was the very poor performance of the Liberal Democrats, a party that traditionally always does very well locally. They are the only officially anti-Brexit party and seeing as nearly half of the country didn’t vote for Brexit, they’d hoped to make huge gains. Alas, it seems the public cannot get enough of Theresa May and just want her to get on with trashing all that was great about the UK – a job she is undertaking with breathtaking enthusiasm.
The Labour party recently unveiled their manifesto and I have to admit it turned my head for a moment. If enacted, it would massively transform the country for the better. Problem is that, by supporting a hard Brexit, Labour has ensured the death of the UK economy, so their idealistic plans to increase NHS funding, scrap tuition fees, increase the minimum wage and renationalise services are inherently impossible to achieve.
In any event, the polls show the Tories are due to slaughter Labour next month, so its a moot point. In fact, so sure is Theresa May of victory that she’s refusing to participate in debates and hasn’t even bothered to do any actual campaigning. The only policy she has announced is the reintroduction of fox hunting, a measure that only 15% of the population support. I’m sure she did it just to prove that she really can say what she likes and still the public will love her. In a recent poll individual Labour policies all rated far higher than Tory ones. However, most respondents to the same survey preferred the Tory Party. This is proof that the problem with democracy is the stupidity of voters.
Anyway, back to the relative sanity of France. It is a gorgeous day today: clear, sunny and 25 degrees. We’re due two more hot days before we return to unsettled and stormy, which has been the default all month. Even though the weather hasn’t been fantastic, we’ve still gotten some planting done this week. Matt purchased some tomato, pepper and squash plants on Saturday and that afternoon, we got them all planted in the potager, along with three of our ten special plants.
The remaining seven special plants are still too small to plant yet and as Matt mentioned last week, they’re suffering from a parasite infestation – fungus gnats to be precise. These are tiny wee flies that plant their eggs, by the hundred, in moist soil. The larvae eat the fine roots of plants, stunting their growth. I’ve dealt with an infestation before in a houseplant and they’re not too hard to get rid of, but they are real danger to very young seedlings and can even kill them. Before we realised what was happening, they’d killed one of ours plants and have severely damaged two more that may or may not pull through. They’re currently in intensive care. The remaining five were more established and look like they will make it but we’re going to plant them in the ground too, even though they’re a bit small yet.
On Saturday, we invited Manu & Mathilde and Gael & Corrine over for dinner. The latter couple have finally progressed enough on their renovations to be able to move into their house, so showed up on foot. They’re really pleased to have gotten this far although by the sounds of it, they’ve still a long way to go yet. The talk inevitably turned to politics and it was no surprise to learn that none of them are too thrilled with their new President. The ladies were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but Gael refused to vote and Manu only did so at the very last moment. The meal was Sloppy Joes with sweet potato fries, followed by carrot cake for dessert.
No big news on the wedding preparations, except that we have finally started making progress on getting the required documents together. One of these is a certificate of celibacy, an official document that confirms you’re not already married. There is no equivalent in the UK or the US, but the UK government will happily take £50 off your hands to produce a substitute that does the job. For the US one, it was looking like Matt was going to have to go in person to the US embassy in Paris which would have been a giant pain. He went to the mairie to talk about options and they said if he just swore on his honour he wasn’t already married, that would suffice for them. The advantage of living in a tiny village!
Work is steady for me, but not frantic any more. I’m still working on the ALS project for the team of five that don’t agree on anything, but it is inching forwards. I also have one other one on the go, and the other day, got approached about a new one, so things should keep ticking over. Matt is much busier with numerous other new projects cropping up, all thanks to Abby in the States. Speaking of being busy at work, my poor Dad is being run ragged with his bench kit sales. April broke all previous records for monthly sales, and this month is set to eclipse that comfortably. There’s still no progress on the sale of the business, but he has had a few enquiries. Another sale that is not progressing is that of the house that he and mum are buying out here. It should have all been sorted weeks ago but they’ve been the victim of bad luck. The agent made a mistake with one of the documents he sent off that caused a delay. In the meantime, the Notaire dealing with the case retired. His replacement was due to start immediately, but at the last moment, his official swearing-in was cancelled and no-one knows when it will now happen. We cannot change notaires, so in the meantime, we’re in limbo waiting for a phone call.
The other “P” of my title concerns my application for a French passport. I don’t technically need one until the UK exits the EU but thought I may as well get it sorted anyway so on Friday, I went to Nontron armed with all the necessary bits of paper. I now have a wait of three weeks before it’s ready for collection and then I can continue to enjoy seamless European travels, no thanks to my home country.