New Years Eve

With Xmas over I can now turn my attention to " how not to celebrate the new year". As last week my only concession will be an increase in the quality and quantity of the food and wine consumed.

I had a close escape from attending a party night at a neighbours house, which having accepted in a moment of weakness, I then found that I had to concoct an elaborate subterfuge to evade it. They had asked to borrow a mobile heater, so the youngest boy and I had popped round to deliver it and take a post Xmas drink with them. The neighbours have all their children and grandchildren coming for the New Year, his from Spain and hers from Belgium and they were a bit upset to find the boy and I would be celebrating it on our own. So they invited us to join them

After we'd accepted we found out that not only were there no English speakers amongst the other guests but most of the Belgians and some of the Spanish didn't speak French either. My french is just not good enough to extract us from this situation without causing offence. So we withdrew to consider our options.

I came up with a "Jolly Wheeze" ( this is something dated back to my former work place, where if there was a problem it would usually be me that came up with the solution, which I would announce by saying "I've got this Jolly Wheeze"). The boy was to go down with the flu.

So I contrived to meet up with the neighbours yesterday when they were on their evening walk with their dog. I laid it on very thick about Andrew being ill, in bed all day with a high temperature, adding it was unlikely we would be able to make it tomorrow (today). I even made up a story that when taking his temperature I had realised that I was using the thermometer normally reserved for the DOG (and you know where they insert those!). When he found out he leaped out of bed,rushed to the bathroom and made prodigious use of the mouthwash; much laughter all round but a complete and utter fabrication.

I met her again this morning on her way to the shop and confirmed Andrew would not be fit enough and I couldn't, in all fairness, leave him alone tonight. She told me that Jean-Claude was still in bed and couldn't assist in the shopping as he had a terrible cold and fever.

Back home I repeated this to Andrew who said "Lying Bastard, he's just trying to get out of the shopping!"

FAT Old Fart (III)

It's about a week since I realised I must do something about my weight and general health and decided to do so by way of New Year resolution.

This last week I've been sort of practicing, the odd half bottle of wine in lieu of a full one, less potatoe,more veg and less bread. I've also established "Yard Arm Time", it relates to the time I start drinking. In my little world the (theorectical) Sun rises above the Yard Arm at 12.00 hours and that's the ealiest time I can start my lunch time appero! Similarily, in the evening it dips below the Yard Arm at 20.00 hours, at which time I take my evening one.

I did a weight check this morning and watched the dail slowly creak up to 95 kilos (again!), I wasn't REALLY expecting much change but non-the-less a little disappointing. I realise a little later that I had forgotten to empty my pockets and found that I had 3 euros and 75 cents in my one of my pockets.

This means that I have lost 3.75 euros in just one week and, what's more, if I keep this up I will have lost 195 euros in one year.

Pruning

A couple of weeks ago the boy and I had built a great pile of dead wood from the orchard and the woods, to form the base for a grand bonfire on which to burn all this years green pruning. Although we had covered it, the cover had shifted and I was feared that it might not burn.

Today dawned a good day to try it and the boy went down and managed to get a good blaze going, he then swarmed up the large willow tree and started to cut out all this years growth. I joined him as it's my job to feed the fire and put on all the green stuff. We spent a very successful and knackering 2.5 hours, cutting, lugging and burning. We left a tidy blaze and struggled to the top of the slope to the back veranda, which today was sunny and nicely sheltered, to open a bottle of local red.

Working like this after an hours walk with the dog is my utter physical limit and quite frankly I was desperate for a drink and convinced myself that I couldn't possibly put a bit of lunch together without a long sit down and a good slurp. This does not bode too well for my slimming resolve perhaps I will have to make a choice between slimming and DIY.

I did in fact get a local gardener to prune the willow last year and it cost 400 euros; I was so impressed with the hard, uncomplaining effort the boy put in that I might slip him a 100.

Christmas Cheer

A week to go and I can't wait till it's over because I've always thought it a load of commercialised humbug. With kids and a wife that was an even bigger kid about Xmas I had to go along with it. Now that I'm on my own I can do it the way I want.

I do confess to sending Xmas cards to friends and family, who, of course, reciprocate and my sole concession to decorations is two bits of string over the ingle-nook on which I hang the cards.

I get round the presents dilemma in two ways, firstly with direct family I pay their air fare out here and entertain them to a summer holiday each year in lieu of birthday and Xmas presents. If they can't make it or don't want to that's hard luck to them and a cash bonus for me! Secondly with indirect family and friends they get cards but no presents,surprisingly, over the years they have stopped sending me presents !! There is one exception, a cousin, who refuses to play my game and sends me a jazz CD every birthday and Xmas; always making an excellent choice.

Returning to the Xmas decorations theme, like the UK, french people are decorating the outside of their houses with flashing or not electric lights (in the worst possible taste as someone famous but dead once said). Even in this remote corner of the country they do it and almost every other house has a Santa swarming up a rope or drainpipe and what is most disturbing about it all is that the worst excesses are perpetrated by young couples !!! There's even a woman round the corner who has draped her garden shed with coloured flashing lights; presumably the budget doesn't run to buying enough to do the house.

The youngest boy (who's here helping with the DIY) has, I fear, been affected, even brainwashed, by the flashing lights and Santas. I don't blame him as a walk round the village, after dark is like some fiendish chinese torture . He has rooted around in the barn and found an old imitation Xmas tree, which, when plugged in, shimmers with multi coloured fibre optic lights.

Although he professes not to be interested in Xmas, he's not had the benefit of my years of practice as an Xmas Scrooge so he can't resist the temptation of turning on the tree. I have discovered the perfect counter measure. It's a digital radio station that, at this time of the year, plays non stop Xmas music, rather like the Xmas Muzak one finds in super markets and shopping malls through out the western world.

So he plugs in; I switch on and it's then a question of who breaks first !!

FAT Old Fart (ll)

So I've got to work out a way to reduce my calorie intake for my New Years resolution. There are already underlying health issues so I don't eat too unhealthily most of the time. I don't buy cheese and other dairy product nor paté or eggs for most of the year; I do when people are here on holiday and it would be churlish not to indulge when they are served. I generally eat in restaurants once a week and eat anything I want to. These are the concessions I have had to make to a normal diet because of a high cholesterol level and which have for a number of years kept the level largely within relevant ranges, albeit with the help of a daily Statin tablet !!

I am also plagued by an elevated sugar level and because of this I rarely eat sweets,cake, biscuits or desserts, even in restaurants.

This existing diet doesn't seem to leave much scope for improvement other than reducing existing calorific intake, although I reluctantly concede that the problems could be alcohol related as I drink a full bottle of red wine at both lunch and dinner; except at week-ends when I polish off a bottle and a half at each sitting.

I think it unlikely I'll be able to give up fattening and unhealthy things entirely but have already made a start on a 50% reduction in potatoes and bread. Other sacrifices will have to wait for the New Year or rather the Monday after New Year. I need the delay here because it's my old firms Annual Reunion.

It used to be the Annual Reunion and Xmas party but the powers that be were warned that the heady aphrodisiac melange of mistletoe and booze could lead to allegations of sexual harassment that might open the company to the risk of complaint. So they moved it to after Xmas to take the mistletoe out of the equation !!!!!

FAT Old Fart

After a restless worrying night I've come to the conclusion that I have really let myself go over the last 10 years or so. This morning I decided to weigh myself and jumped on the scales after I'd had my morning dump, which must be worth half a stone in any ones avoirdupois ! The machine creaked to a shocking 95 kilos (almost exactly 15 UK stones). I'm determined to do something about it.

More exercise is a prerequisite of weight loss, and I've over time begun to slack a bit on the morning walks with the dog, so this morning I resolved to double the distance that has become the norm. Off we set and 100 yards after the normal turning point the dog disappeared into a field that's completely over grown with bracken and gorse and would not come out. I walked on a bit, not too far as it's not really wise to leave a dog untended in the hunting season in case a frustrated hunter is around.

After much whistling and calling she finally appeared, with a smug satisfied look that indicates she's probably found and disposed of a pile of excreta of the enjoyable sort! I put the lead on and vowed that the greater part of the new extended morning walks will be made with the dog under control. I also intend to start half an hour earlier.

Tomorrow I intend to analyse my calorie intake

The Tempest

Last weeks Tempest came round full circle over the week-end. The wind and heavy rain battered the cover of the swimming pool leaving it half on the bottom and half covering the garden. The last of the leaves from the oaks in the woods came down choking the pool.

As last week the next day broke calm and sunny so this mornings task was to clear the pool, refit the cover and make new elastic fasteners. Luckily I'd seen the impending storm and had turned the pump off, so no damage was done to the system.

Another side effect of the frequent storms we get here is that the not very legal TV satelite system doesn't work, so apart from French football (of which I am enamoured) there's nothing to watch. As luck would have it a friend had sent me a DVD made up from some old cam-corder footage from the mid-90s. This we ran early Sunday evening and sod me the very first clip was of me clearing out leaves and recueing the swimming pool cover. (the friend whos film it was is a frequent visitor but likes to keep out of the way when there's work about; hence the passion, I suspect, for amateur film making).

As the film played the youngest boy said " Cor! weren't you thin then". It's true I was. Over 10/12 years I've let myself become a FAT old fart and I've got to do something about it!

So that's my fucking new year resolution sorted!

Gavarnie

Gavarnie is a small mountain village and is a real summer tourist trap, it consists entirely of hotels, restaurants and gift shops, mainly gift shops! Its only claim to fame is that it sits at the bottom of the most picturesque cirgue in the Pyrennees; but it was my late wifes favorite place.

I went there today to light a candle in her memory but it was closed!! The village I mean; nothing was open not even the little pilgrims chapel (the village is on one of the pilgrims routes to Compostella). There were a few parked cars about but I didn't see another person. There is a shrine in the graveyard and I had gone prepared with a candle in a pot, so I lit that.

Clearly my fears of yesterday about the snow were misfounded, the snow line was considerably higher than the village but the cirgue itself was beautiful, snow covered and towering above and almost round the village and not a soul to appreciate it.

The Tempest

We've been in the midst of a tempest for the last 24 hours and more, or so I'm told by my dog walking chums.

This is sods law in action as the boy and I spent the week-end collecting dead and fallen wood from the woods and orchard. We built a huge bonfire with it, which we intended to use as the base for burning a large amount of green wood we've pruned from over grown shrubs and a couple of trees. Now of course the bonfire will be too wet to light.

It is in fact double sods law,as tomorrow is my late wifes aniversary and I always go up to a small mountain village and light a candle in her memory in the chapel there. All this rain has probably fallen as snow and I won't be able to make it through the snow to get there.

I have a real whimpish phobia about driving in snow. Many years ago, at easter, I was driving a car load up to a beauty spot called Troumouse when we hit a patch of snow. The car, without snow chains, was stuck in the snow and every time I tried to go forward it slid sideways and every time I tried to reverse it slid in the same direction. Looking out and down I could see the Auberge where we had eaten lunch, it was about the size of my thumb nail !

The 3 passengers with me had jumped out directly the problem arose, leaving me to my fate ! After a while they sheepishly emerged from the trees on the other side of the road where they had been hiding. They got me out of the predicament by pushing the car downhill into a snow bank on a hairpin bend, from where I was able to turn and drive down to a nearby parking area.

The ensuing fag was the best one I have ever tasted