Home to survey the damage or scary flashing flowers

While I was on my Marks and Spencer big knicker hunting trip to London, Darling D organised a small party...
for 55 people.
Her Dad was persauded to take dog and camping car to a sandy beach for the night, in order that the party goers would not feel too inhibited.

They weren't inhibited at all.

My peace of mind was disturbed on holiday by a bizarre and brief message.
The gendarmes had been called out in the small hours because someone had been rearranging garden furniture in the village down the hill and disturbing the righteous slumber of somebody called Odile.
On my return, I found that the police had visited the next day, after Mysweet H had returned, and said it was possible that one of the villagers might make an official complaint. Mysweet H and Darling D tried to head this one off at the pass by writing a grovelling letter offering to pay for any damage. They bravely set off into the village to place this in everyone's letter box (20 houses or so).
Those that they met seemed to think it was funny rather than anything else, saying that their doorbells had been rung, but no harm done, and yes they had been known to party themselves at that age...

Later that day, a red faced man, known locally as someone who is very fond of a drink, staggered up the hill, to complain at length, in person.

His doorbell had been rung...late.
Someone had moved his ladder.
His 10 chickens had gone.
His neighbour, the elderly Odile, had been horrified to open her door after the bell had rung and find a frightening plastic flower with little flashing lights stuck in the pot outside her door.

Dad and daughter withstood the ten minute diatribe.

When the man with the red face appeared to have run down, Mysweet asked what damage he had sustained.

"Well, the ladder is still there... and the chickens came back, they know where their food is. But it was the disturbance and the worry, he said. You must give me MONEY."

He got an apology and a ranting opportunity, and that will have to do.

Darling D is trying to track down the culprits so they can go and apologise to Odile and give her some real flowers.

capillarity or the power of absorption

I have just spent Saturday and Sunday doing another jazz workshop on the north Brittany coast...with 18 ladies of various ages and one brave man...
We have explored dangerous harmonies, frightening English and the concept of singing something in a different way to the way that it is written on a score sheet. They stepped bravely up to the line and even sang some stuff on their own from time to time. I love doing it, but it is exhausting...like being on stage for six hours a day.
I came home and Darling Daughter was playing the piano and singing. In times past, I have bitten my tongue and sat on it and run off into other rooms to prevent myself from interfering too much in her musical development. I have played and sung myself, knowing that she was listening, and dropped little hints, but tried to stay hands off and allow her to blossom.
I washed up this evening, listening to her voice soar and dip and improvise effortlessly. She is nearly there. And she has done it herself...

Happy homecoming, with a small element of vomiting

Oh it is good to be home!
And what did the children have in store for me? Well the dog was not painted blue and the house had not burned down. But they hit me in my weakest spot:

No Internet…

When I arrived there was a faint odour of vomit on the staircase, but at least attempts had been made to remove it. But no Internet…

The dog was not blue, but was off her food. I concluded that this must be related to the faint odour of vomit. This was confirmed when I was informed that vomiting had also taken place outside, of which there was now no trace. Porridge had cleaned up for me…

Still no Internet…

I phoned Orange helpline, and paid 0,34 euros per minute to be insulted by someone with a foreign accent (not French) for not speaking French with a good enough accent, who then slammed the phone down on me safe in the knowledge that he could not be traced, after I told him that I could not believe that someone could work for service clientele and be so very rude…(I ascertained that he was likely to remain anonymous with my next phone call to Orange, taken by a charming woman who said that I could have arrived at any call centre before and it certainly wasn’t hers and we would not know which one it was unless the rude bastard had opened a file, which is pretty unlikely isn’t it?)

This charming woman, who was as nice as the other was nasty, then proceeded to make lots of checks on my line, which she said was very noisy, and this was causing the problems because the server could not recognise my number and password. Mmmm noise…..
There must have been a leak during the teenage party and noise had escaped into the telephone system. Was it the sound of retching or simply heavy post modern metal music?
I knew it had to be their fault.
I continued trying to join the cyberworld at intervals throughout the day and finally in the early hours the universe became quiet enough for my little voice to be heard. Tomorrow, a technician is coming to check our line for noise. I will not tell them that I have managed to log on, noise and all. If you can’t get proper revenge, something small and petty will have to do…I feel better already.

Ps.I will tell you about my trip to London next time. I am too emotionally drained for now...

Party Animals

Now that my children are teenagers, they get out and about more. “Yes, this is a good thing,” I think to myself. “More freedom, not having to worry about cooking family meals every night, especially with my sweet H, who is partial to meat and hooves, not in the house. Perhaps a little stir fry tonight…a carrot and some tofu and beansprouts...”
But No! Now they flock like birds. You don’t see a teenager for a while because it has been feeding somewhere else. When it finally returns it is accompanied by the rest of the flock/herd/plague and they fall upon the freezer and strip it in seconds like locusts.
I am about to go on a little voyage to London and so have been frog marched to the supermarket by the teenage house guardians who may be having a little party…The freezer has been temporarily restocked, the wine cellar locked (they supply their own), and my bedroom will be barricaded, probably to no avail.
Drummer boy’s girlfriend has just had her tongue pierced and is unable to eat or drink anything for the next three days without using a straw, but I expect that help will arrive to demolish the freezer contents. Darling D has just tidied and vacuumed her bedroom without nagging for the first time ever, so I think that she must be throwing her room open to the public. That just leaves Porridge. Drummer boy has mentioned dying Porridge blue, but he can’t be serious, can he?

The workers left behind or what a Rock Progressive group does on a Sunday afternoon...

I am sure that mysweet H must be worrying about his wood so I am posting some proof for the traveller that we are hard at it, tempted though I was to say that the whole lot had been stolen by gypsies and we would have to use the expensive central heating from now on. Drummer Boy managed to organise his musicians to come and help, and managed to organise himself to not be there for the first hour, which we all agreed was very like him.
Darling D was persuaded from the television to rub shoulders with the future Rock Gods. Only one of the guitarists took up my offer of gloves...presumably concern for his finger picking overcame his need to project a macho image.





There was a sticky moment when it got too dark to continue and I realised that there was no beer in the house, but everyone seemed quite happy with hot chocolate.