Autumn has arrived in Lyon. Mild, rainy weather at the end of last week has been followed by cooler, sunnier times. On Saturday the clouds clung on, the upside of which was that la bienheureuse spent most of the day dans la cuisine. Magret de canard stuffed with fruit stewed in wine & port, salmon cakes, sweet potato soup and chicken in milk was ample recompense for a weekend without proper football.
Internationull football never grips in quite the same way, but I forced myself to watch France coast to a 5-0 win against the group minnows, the Faroe Islands. The game was rendered truly null and void by Serbia's 5-0 thrashing of Romania, which condemns France to the playoffs. Sunday was the cusp between summer and autumn, sunny but with temperatures still approaching 20C. We took advantage in the morning with our habitual 20km cycle ride, along the river to Parc Gerland, back down to Parc Feyssine, and then home again.
In Lyon the public transport strike petered out a week ago without agreement between unions and management. The former threaten to time future action to coincide with popular events, such as the Fêtes des Lumières or the Christmas period...
In the wider France, Frédéric Mitterrand seems to have weathered the storm (a poll says 2/3 of people want him to keep his job), though the National Front are still trying to stir up trouble by claiming he intervened in a court case of two brothers accused of rape in Italy while he was principal of the prestigious French Academy in Rome a year ago. Meanwhile Sarkozy's 23 year old son looks likely to become head of the government agency in charge of developing La Défense, the main business district of Paris. Accusations of nepotism are inevitable...
