Vive La France

One of the best aspects of life in rural France is that there are so few mirrors here. There are a few, but I hardly have time to glance at them and if I do, it doesn’t seem to bother me that I look like a fat, country farmer’s wife. In fact, I quite like it. Of course, this comfortable vanity-free living will vanish before the wheels of the plane have touched the ground but in the meantime, I am certainly enjoying it. So much so that I don’t hesitate to eat cheese sandwiches, ice cream, and apple tarts all day long. Full fat yogurt, sugary tea, cherries and cream, the more, the merrier.
I’ve completely stopped watching the news, although the one or two stories I’ve caught involve crimes so minor, no U.S. media would bother to touch them. It’s refreshing to see that Europe remains much safer than our gun-laden country. I saw a five minute segment on a car crash!
Here, the weather is the top story, every day because it determines what can and can’t be accomplished in the garden or on the farms. For us, it determines our running schedule, although not really as we’ve run in the rain more than the sunshine and it’s made no difference at all.
Here, news includes a mentally deranged fly whose chaotic flight patterns and incessant buzzing leave us all wondering if it will die soon or if it’s some kind of new hybrid fly, pumped up on hornet poison. Andrew has tried to get it many times with a large yellow towel, but this seems only to make it stronger. It’s buzzing around now and if I’m quiet enough, it can probably be heard through the computer.
Global-warming is no stranger to rural France sadly, the pumpkins are already ripe and they shouldn’t be. Everything is a few months off schedule.
The philosophical hornet-man, who came to take the nest out of the chimney, gave us a fine lecture of the value of work and the lack of morals taking over the world. He said you can set 50 Euros on a table and they don’t mean a thing. Take some rocks out from the driveway and they don’t mean a thing. Waah them off, discard the dirty ones, polish them up, and now you have something. It’s the work that makes things valuable. Sounds like a socialist rant now but it sounded oh so wise in French and so unlike the typical MBA American every man for himself speech. A cultural indoctrination that I prefer perhaps. Plus, find me a hornet-man in the States who waxes philosophical about the state of the nation. Although I know a furniture guy who will…
It all started because he mentioned that he was trying to get his kids to value work instead of the value of money. Fat luck.