End of November

 

Well, we have seen Napoleon (the film..)  We do like our local 3-screen cinema, and the film did not seem too long.  But a bit boring partly because of drear dialogue.  It did have interest for us after a long period reading about that confusing period between the Revolution (other revolutions are available) and the mid-19th century - timeline of important events was well mapped out - and the battles were well-staged, but in the end they are battles and by definition confusing and noisy.  Josephine was well-acted despite the words she was given.  The music was bad to awful, and the credits at the end were simply endless - we gave up witing to see who played what music in case the cinema management locked us in!  Back home for a supper of M's delicious apple crumble.

 In my catalogue of aches and pains last time I did not mention the psychological effects.  Really it's all to do with not wanting to fall - I'm a bit too heavy and despite regular exercise I find getting up from the floor hard even when I am unshocked.  The result it shtat I love slowly and sometimes eem to shuffle just toe make sure I stay upright.  It is ironic - I used to stride out quite confidently, now Mary quite easily outpaces me, and I hold onto handrails a lot.   I am reminded of my father who always used to say going downhill was more difficult than climbing, and more recently I think of my brother Tom who also strode out before his final illness left him nearly immobile before his sad death.  Thankfully I am still realtively mobile and Mary is remarkably patient as we make our way round.

As you can see the autumn colours have been magnificent this November, with little wind yet to make the leaves fall.  We must make the most of plane trees,because what with road widening and disease a number are cut down every year.  A variety of alternatives are planted instead, but of course they take a long time to grow, which is a problem for sites like the Canal du Midi whose banks are largely denuded over long stretches.  Also in the centre of town (disease) which is being changed in all sorts of ways - we hope the efforts of the mayor and council to gee up the centre will be successful, though the supermarkets that ring the town militate against a certain commercial future.  Happily town centre commerce such as our excellenet greengrocers and the covered market Les Halles have an enduring place in local activity

 

 It is a quiet autumn for us all round, our tv watching has move on from the zany comedy with emotional asides, the American series Soap to the equally crazy but darker Twin Peaks.  Our DVD collection is being well used these darker evenings.  And we read a lot - one excellent discovery (thanks to Juliet who sent it to us) has been Lea Ypi's Free about her growing up in Albania - she is now a professor at LSE - which shed light on that very hidden country and society, emerging even more reluctantly than other communist states from the shadow of authoritarian rule.  It must seem as if the old evils might be preferable to some of the modern populist manifestations, but nobody really has any choice and where they do,  in place of rigged elections we now have mass voting for oppressive politicians, or control by gangsters as sems to have happened in Albania.  We met some really nice Albanians who have emigrated to France and are hav been takn under her wing by a marvellous French friend, older than us, who came on her annual visit to collect kakis (persimmons) from our tree.

Some of our regular activities have been going on week in week out since 2007, an amazing length of more or less continuous activity.  Our Tuesday French groups (some French people join us in separate sessions to improve their English as well as helping us with our French) has now extended to a second session for some of us French learners on Fridays, and the general pattern has settled into reading a text and then trying to translate bit by bit, a challenge for us all.  A good shared lunch always helps to round off the session.