Cluck Cluck?

The Duck

Behold the duck.

It does not cluck.

A cluck it lacks.

It quacks.

It is specially fond

Of a puddle or pond.

When it dines or sups,

It bottoms ups.

Ogden Nash

Quacking or clucking, a sign of life would be nice?
Is everybody on holiday, gardening, looking after grandchildren?
Any excuse will be fine, so long as it's printable.

Vignettes of Life in France (#10 in a series)

 

As you might have heard, things are hopping in Cannes.  The last time my Favourite Belgian and I made an impromptu visit to the festival, we failed to see a single famous face and went home, only to find out the next day that U2 gave an impromptu concert on the steps of the Palais des Festivals moments after we left.   

A friend persuaded me to give it another chance this year.  We spent the day strolling the Croisette but missed Brad Pitt(who looks more and more like Johnny Depp)  drumming up business for The Tree of Life (which was booed), and could only speculate who was in the helicopter that made the 30 second flight between a rather large yacht and the rear entrance of the Palais des Festivals.  I doubled-checked all the tall blondes for signs of being Uma Thurman but they seemed mostly to be Slovenian wannabes. 

But the day was not spent in vain!  Here’s what we did see:

Mere steps from the red carpet were these two insouciant fellas.    That’s their boat in the background.   

 

And this could only be a famous French film director, blending in with the locals at a sidewalk cafe.  Or was he actually the man my friend’s Monday horoscope meant when it exhorted her to :’ Head for a beautiful seaside resort. You'll meet someone with a sexy voice and attractive build!’? We’ll never know – his hair put her off.   

The Rue d’Antibes, one street in front from the Croisette.  While Armani and Dolce and Gabbana have prime seafront locations, there are way more people on the Rue d’Antibes, mainly because the shops there have stuff you can actually afford.  I came home with two bathmats for 15Euros and had a 3-hour lunch with the blonde in black-and-white.     

My first car

My next car

Oh!  My double – on, or near, the red carpet!! No wonder she looks happy, with her very own bodyguard to muscle autograph seekers out of the way.   

That’s it, my celebrity stalking is over for this year.  Although, if I run into Helen Mirren at the supermarket (she’s got a house just over the road) I’ll be letting you know. 

New adventure

If one is to have a tire blow out...it is best to have it on a sunny, if windy, day . . . on a highway where there is a good shoulder to pull over . . . where the view is forever of greening fields and trees of bright green, chartreuse, gold, and the hawks stand still overhead looking back at their observer.
It is good to have roadside assistance on one's cellphone service so that the truck shows up in twenty minutes and one is back on one's way within a half hour after the "pop! rumblerumblerumble."

And it is good to come home safe, not having been blown over by passing eighteen-wheelers.

True Story

I've posted about the weekend's May Festival at Valley's End at my blog. One of the attractions was a stall with a man who had all sorts of small animals to show. As you might imagine, he was very popular with the children.

With each animal he had a few bits of information, something about the creature's nature, its natural habitat, etc.  When he held up a gerbil, he explained that this particular one came from the Andes. To involve the children, he also asked them questions.

"Does anybody know where the Andes are", he called out.
"At the end of our armies", came the instant answer. I kid you not, I swear it's true.

The old ones are still the best.

Tidying Up

As instructed , I've just cleared the back of my fridge of recent scraps :

I parted with nearly seventy Euros at the DIY shop and spent Easter weekend up a ladder painting the outside of our kitchen window frame. I'm now going to find out what a housepainter charges per hour.

The pre-schoolers were asked today what their favourite fruit was . Most liked apples and bananas , the odd one liked grapes . The really odd one said " Mine is pears because they taste like bananas ."

There is such a thing as being too diffident . An extremely polite friend was told last week on the 'phone that there was no need to see the doctor about her sprained ankle . Today she finally asked again and ended up spending the rest of the morning in A&E . She'd actually broken it .

Double Dactyl

Happily drinkily,

cheekily tiddley,

here's to the toper with

bottomless pit.

Boozily tippleing-

multihysterical-

after the wine has gone,

who gives a s**t?

N.B. This was inspired by the name only, not by anything enclosed in a bottle!

Good luck sis

My parents live in an apartment that is actually ours and they have bought new flooring. It’s something that looks like wood, but isn’t. And it’s not laminate flooring either. Nor is it vinyl. Oh no! Dare not say that it’s nice vinyl flooring, because my mother will kill you with her eyes! It’s PVC (I think). And it was very expensive. So there!

My mother turned 80 last month, my father is 87, or 88, I’m not quite sure. Anyway, they are at the age that their friends tend to exchange earth for eternity. With that thought in mind, my mother said: “When we die, and you’re going to sell the apartment, you’ll have to remove the flooring and lay it in your house. You can easily remove it and it wasn’t a cheap floor (we know mom, we know), and other people will perhaps not appreciate it and throw it in a skip. That will be such a shame!”

“We have to lay it in our house?”, I said.

“Or don’t you like it!”, she snapped.

“Yeah. I like it here. But not in my house”, I carefully tried to soften the blow. “Besides, you’ll be dead. I don’t think you’ll be that interested in what happens to your floor when you're dead. You’ll have other things on your mind.”

And then she gave me that look that I always get. The one in which she suggests I’m not all there upstairs. If you know what I mean.
I just think I’m funny. In the ‘haha’ way.
She’ll probably try to convince my sister next that she needs a new floor in her house somewhere, when they can’t enjoy their NOT vinyl floor themselves anymore.