Darker evenings

Autumn roses

This blog began, more or less, with my experiences of the French health service.  At our age, the subject is often in our minds, and we are as ever impressed with the care and treatment we receive.  My latest anxiety was occasional but persistent sharp pains behind my right eyebrow - as always, I thought the worst but a scan revealed nothing more than chronic sinusitis (nothing new for me) but also in a place I had not suspected had sinuses!  I knew the ones behind the cheekbones well enough, but not in the forehead.  The scan (delivered to me less than an hour after I’d had my scan, as a web link) shows moving images of the inside of the head, so that you can see exactly where the blockages are.  It remains to be seen if anything can be done to relieve them, and my sense of taste and smell is often badly affected.  But thankfully (for a wine enthusiast this is important) the senses return in glorious technicolour every month or so, so I look forward to those brief moments and hope the medics can help make them more frequent.

Visits to the dentist are no more appealing than they ever were, but we found a good dentist many years since and have stuck with Dr Brechet, who does not cause unnecessary pain and seems to choose a careful path between conserving teeth and limiting expense.  French dental work is rather like British - you pay something whatever the circs, even under the public health service.  These days it seems both our mouths are affected by shrinking bones in the jaw and skull, so you have to put up with slightly wobbly teeth, but we have little pain and can eat still, so we are not chasing expensive treatment at the moment.

Our daily lives are overshadowed by the fuel crisis in France.  Even though a minority of service stations are formally closed, it is hard to find diesel and we are limiting our journeys and driving economically.  This was an article in the Guardian recently.

Among the subjects that rear their ugly heads in the news I read (mainly in the Guardian and in the local French press) is the treatment of refugees.  I have never understood the apparent glee some politicians take in penalising people looking for safe asylum - penalising traffickers is fine, but punishing people who have already left everything behind and risked health and safety is just inhumane.  The latest story, about sending refugees back to Albania, is just a mild example, and the tip of a huge iceberg. I can’t see how any humane asylum process can send people back to a place they are plainly frightened of.   Abandoning home for a risky journey is a huge step, and people who run that risk deserve at least humane and careful hearing.  Small boats are a frequent, dangerous last resort.

A birthday plant

We look for crumbs of comfort, humour and empathy in our reading, and one person who often provides them is the poet Brian Bilston.  Do explore his work if you don't already know it.  He is clever and insightful, and I love the variety of wordplay he finds.

Our most regular weekly, even twice-weekly activity is in the Language groups we go to or host here on Tuesdays and Fridays.  This has been part of our life since 2007 when we started to attend the Réseau (network) meetings originally organised by Marcel Bombart.  His ebullient presence still hovers over the mutlilingual, multinational group which includes English, American, French, Belgian and Dutch people currently.  Here are photos from the most recent one, at our friend John's house in nearby Calvisson.

  
   

The world is still an unpleasant place - stories of Iranian women attacked for not dressing as the men in charge wish (it is barely imaginable but all too real when a 16 yr old girl can be beaten to death - beaten at all - for refusing to sing).  Often I find pictures are more telling than lots of words, and I often post links to wonderful photos in the Guardian.  It’s almost indecent to view these striking photos of calamity - a terrible world in which, by turns, drought and floods ruin lives and livelihoods. The water and colours here for instance provide easy wins for good pictures telling an awful story.

But one photographer I always search out is Andy Rouse, whose photos often come up on Facebook - the link here is to wildlife photos but there is much more.  I discovered him originally through a friend.  Others I enjoy include the galleries of images of the Pic Saint Loup (our local mountain and a favourite place of mine, though the climb is now beyond me!) by Régis Domergue.

Back to books - I love good bookbinding, and since I am unlikely to handle any of these rarities I’m delighted to have these pictures via the Guardian.

I wrote about sport a little while ago - recently we have enjoyed cycling in the world track championships with plenty of British success, but also an amazing world record ride from Filippo Ganna in an all-Italian pursuit final, and French triumph - the roof came off the Paris stadium when Mathilde Gros took the sprint title in style.