Another Monday, another check-up for expectant mother and baby-to-be. Latter still squirming with energy, former still has slightly high blood pressure, which means yet more checks. Seems the next ten days are all about waiting: waiting in one waiting room or another while waiting for la petite to make an entrance…
Outside the cosy world of the unborn, the weather in Lyon has finally broken. After a month with virtually no rain, most of it with virtually uninterrupted sunshine, today it's raining. We took advantage of the afternoon sun yesterday with a stroll round the crowded park, where the zoo is suffering a run of bad luck. After the theft of four monkeys last week, this week the elephants have been put in quarantine after being diagnosed with TB. All this follows an incident last year when a lioness drowned after falling into the moat round the big cat enclosure, and the sudden death of four zebras a year previously.
Not a good time to be a zoo animal in Lyon, or to be part of that other zoo in French life, politics. Monsieur le Président treated us to another of his marathon TV appearances on Friday evening, spending two and a half hours replying to questions posed by a panel of ordinary French citizens. At least he was supposed to be replying; as far as I could see (though we only lasted ninety minutes before exhaustion got the better of us) he spent most of the time appealing to base emotions and posturing about when he would do for the country, without directly answering anything. Sarko refused to see anything wrong with his prime minister and foreign minister accepting free holidays in Egypt and Tunisia respectively, the latter at the height of the Jasmine revolution, though he has now effectively banned foreign holidays for government ministers. No apology either for the ill-chosen words about a highly publicised murder, which sent almost the entire judiciary on strike in protest last week. Plus ça change…
