Here’s the latest news from Mazeroux, where we are today celebrating Matt’s birthday! He has just popped out to the shops for a few supplies while I finish off cleaning the house (and doing my blog post) and then, seeing as work’s still quiet, that will be it for chores today.
Dad is due in this afternoon for another week of working on the house. Mum was supposed to join him in a few days, but he has decided to cut this trip short as he and Mum are giving his workshop a big clear out and putting his equipment up for sale on eBay, so he wants to get back to deal with that. So Mum’ staying back to look after the cats this time.
On that topic, I’m sorry to have to report that they had to have one of their three cats put down last week. Ginger (or Norris as he was also known) had been ill with various things for the last few years, including diabetes that meant he needed daily injections. He recently started losing weight, despite eating well, and a trip to the vet showed he had cancer and it was stopping him from being able to ingest food. The only possible treatment would have been steroids, but his diabetes ruled this out. So sadly they had to end his suffering. He was the most contented, affable (and weird) cat – so here’s to you, Norris. May you rest in peace.
On Tuesday evening, Milhac Loisirs had their annual AGM down in the Salle des Associations. The result of this was that, somewhat to our surprise, the association will continue for another year. Sophie has unofficially assumed the role of President, Jacky is staying on as Treasurer, and our friend Paul stepped up to become the new secretary. This means that Matt was able to step down – although he is now an “active member”, meaning he will still get roped into helping out at events – as will I no doubt. After the meeting the association took all the attendees to the Hotel de France where we enjoyed a delicious meal, all paid for out of the group’s budget surplus.
Our next activity was on Thursday when we went to Angoulême to meet a long-term friend of Matt’s whom he’d not seen since the 90s. His name is Michael, he lives in North Carolina, and he was over in Paris for a week with his lovely partner, Alison. We settled on Angoulême to meet up as it’s only 2 hours from Paris on the train. We kicked off with lunch at a relatively new restaurant called Le Comptoir de Brice. It is run by a parisen chef and each dish was exceptional in both taste and presentation.
The only problem with choosing Angoulême is that there isn’t all that much to do there. Luckily, Michael already had a plan in mind – he wanted to look at some properties for sale to get a feel for the French real estate market. He wasn’t necessarily serious about buying in this area, but he is potentially seeking a holiday home. We had two lined up, but ran out of time to see the second one. The first was impressive enough though: a Charentaise manor house, it boasted a pool, six large bedrooms, and numerous barns, one of which had a jeep and Porsche on the ground floor, and a private gym upstairs. It was an immaculate place and a steal at only 530,000€. It wasn’t ultimately for him but it’s always fun to see how the other half live.
Having missed the second place, we instead stopped for a quick drink before dropping them back at the station for their return to Paris, which they made in the nick of time. I found both Michael and Alison to be very enjoyable company and hope to see them out here again soon.
On Friday we began Matt’s birthday celebrations, which we traditionally do in the company of Manu & Mathilde as the former more or less shares the same birthday. This time though, we’d been invited to Marie & Christian’s for the occasion. We got there at 8pm and it was so mild that we sat outside for an hour or so with our aperitifs before coming in for the meal. Matt made his spinach cheese balls for the aperos and Marie made a stellar main: a traditional french chicken dish, slow-cooked and served with cepes and rice. Mathilde was in charge of dessert and made a tiramisu. We stayed there till around 1am putting the world to rights and then came back home to bed.
We continued the celebrations the next evening round Ridgits’, having been invited when we saw them at the AGM on tuesday. Rich’s speciality is indian food and he excelled himself this time, with a banquet of pakora, samosas, bhajis, poppadoms, naan, saag aloo and more. We hadn’t seem them since the end of August so spent a pleasant evening getting caught up. We didn’t stay late as we were flagging from having done two nights in a row.
Sunday was a quiet day, and the last one of decent sunshine, following two 25+ degrees in a row. It’s grey and drizzly today, but it looks like it might improve a little over the course of the week. That afternoon, we had a mostly productive band practise and then a quiet evening in.
Right, that’s about all for the roundup. Afraid I’m going to end on a low note, but there was a development last week I need to rant about. Since we’ve moved to France, I’ve watched with mounting dismay as the UK lurched further and further to the right. It’s chilling that some of the policies they are pursuing are more extreme than those in Marine Le Pen’s last manifesto. But that’s where Brexit has led us. The PM has announced with pride she is ending Freedom of Movement, as if that were an achievement. Post Brexit, the UK will limit immigration to the “skilled” – by which they mean anyone who earns over £50,000 a year. This excludes professions such as nursing, which depends hugely on immigrants. It’s ideology over reality.
But what happened last week scared me more than any of that. As I blogged about before, an investigation by the UK Electoral Commission found that the official and unofficial leave campaigns cheated during the EU referendum. The EC then duly presented their evidence to the Metropolitan Police. All this happened a little over five months ago, and like many people, I assumed the police investigation was ongoing. I even hoped it might halt or at least pause brexit.
Last week, the Metropolitan police were forced to admit that they’d not even made a start. When pressed further, they said that due to the “politically sensitive” nature of the case, they couldn’t investigate. So the crimes are going to go unpunshished, simply because a number of the criminals involved hold cabinet posts. A far-right wing government is one thing. But a corrupt one that suppresses independent police investigations? That is not a sign of a functioning democracy.