Skip to main content

Tennis again

There are so many things to do when buying a property, electric, gas, water, insurance and so it goes on.  Doing everything in a foreign language is challenging but add to that the dreaded masks and it is a miracle I can understand anything.  This morning I went in search of house insurance.  It took precisely 30 seconds for the agent to remove her mask and for me to think, 'thank goodness', now I can understand what she is saying.  She asked me whether I had anything that was worth more than 400€ and was less than ten years old.   I thought about this and came to the conclusion that after a fairly long life I don't own anything of value, not monetary anyway.  She then recommended that I add specific robbery from the house.  Isn't that a contradiction in terms, after all I had just admitted that I owned nothing of value so what exactly would they steal that I would miss?  After all  they are hardly likely to want my photograph albums, or paintings from China, which have no monetary value.  As I plan to move into a very small apartment I can say, with a hint of pride, that I have no junk, and have reduced my life to a manageable size.  When I get it down to 2 suitcases I shall have won.

Nobody signs anything nowadays or plonks a hefty folder of contract papers in front of you.  Whether it is a utility or signing deeds of a house, the clauses are run by you on a screen, a code is sent to you and voila you have signed your life away.  Everything goes onto your laptop, which you drop in the bath, and all is lost.

I had to stop playing tennis in May in order to undergo a cancer operation and the follow up treatment, not forgetting moving house at the same time, but now after 4 months, I am set to hit the courts tomorrow.  Will I last 2 hours?  Watch this space.

My son has just spent 10 days in the gite with me.  How nice it was to have visitors again,  especially one  of my precious family.   Of course, with his 6ft 5in height and his hollow legs I shall have to start saving up now in order to feed him next time he visits.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Oops!

 The air conditioning has broken in my car so it was some relief when the temperature dropped  back to the 30 degree mark.  This gave my neighbours fresh enthusiasm to clear up overgrown vegetation.  At my request my American neighbour climbed down to a flat bit of ground where a tree had grown about 6 feet in as many weeks, to lop it.  My job was to clear all the debris when it fell and drag it to a parking space in the courtyard.  The system was working well with another neighbour and her granddaughter joining in to help me clear the debris.  Meanwhile. up above us the American was in full swing, not stopping at 'lopping' the tree but cutting it right back to its roots.  Soon great big branches were hurtling down and that is when it happened.  One branch, instead of coming straight down to the ground decided to take a detour onto his garage roof, creating a big hole right above where his precious car, a Tesla, was being kept safe and sound....
1 comment
Read more

I'm Free

 After being incarcerated in my son's house waiting for the results of the day 2 test I was finally allowed out today.  I went to Chichester and was saddened by the number of familiar shops that have disappeared from the town centre.  Bognor is the same.  You wouldn't die of thirst in either town though as the number of cafes has increased.  Both town centres were busy making it difficult to keep a safe distance from others but many people were wearing masks in the street. I was pulled over by Customs in Caen.  As I opened the trunk of the car one of the officers asked me if I was carrying goods.  'Yes,' I replied, ' French Champagne and French wine'  They nodded approvingly and waved me away. During my 3 days in the house, I have cleaned, filed all their paperwork, mended the shower, cooked dinner and tried watching television, the latter being totally uninspiring.  The news consists of covid, travel restrictions, forbidden Christmas parties...
Post a Comment
Read more

Playing by ear

My father could play the piano.  Not an unusual skill but he was deaf.  He lost his  hearing fighting in the army in India in the 30s so he was an adult when he lost it and therefore remembered tunes, even though he couldn't hear him.  However he didn't have the skill to learn anything new so  either you liked the old music or you didn't.  He used to say that he played by ear and then would roar with laughter.  He would have struggled in many ways with modern living but most of all during the pandemic, he would have lost his ability to communicate as he always lip read.  There must be thousands of people like him today who still rely on reading lips to understand,  in fact all of us do it to some extent, so please be patient if someone is struggling to communicate while you are wearing a mask. I went to the supermarket today and at the check out, the cashier asked me to move the trolley into a particular position.  As I manoeuvred it ...
Post a Comment
Read more