Another visit to Monsieur le pédiatre, arranged for a vaccination she probably should have had last visit (do we suspect him of spinning out these visits for financial reasons?) last week saw la not-so-petite push the scales close to 10 kilos, and stand more than 20cm taller than when she was born. Standing is something she now does a lot of, able to stay upright more or less as long as she wants. We've even seen the odd involuntary solo step. Walking is only a few short paces away…
Otherwise it's been a quiet week at home and, as usual, a busy week at work for the travel-weary travailleuse. Another overnight trip to Germany five days ago, another to Milan today followed immediately by yet another to Brussels. Thankfully only one scheduled for next month. Meanwhile the house-husband got a small break from his less onerous duties on Saturday evening with a rare trip to Gerland to watch OL eventually overcome local new-boys Dijon to keep up their decent home form this season. It's away from home that les gones have struggled recently, and the three teams above them in the league all also won over the weekend.
It felt perishingly cold in the stadium on Saturday with the chilly north wind blowing down the neck, but with the temperature close to freezing it was positively balmy compared to the -11C they are forecasting for next Saturday. Pretty cold today with a maximum of about two degrees and the first snow of the winter on the ground in Lyon.
In the wider world, Monsieur le Président made another of his solo appearances on prime time TV to announce more measures to combat la crise financière. Headline grabber was the hike in VAT, the so-called TVA social, which seems a bit of a misnomer to me. The extra tax raised is supposedly to allow reductions in charges levied on businesses, which is supposed to help the recovery from recession. Or just puts more money in the pocket of businessmen, depending on how you look at it…
The increase won't be applied until October, after the elections, and the president's likely opponent and predicted winner, François Hollande has already said he won't apply it. Sarko still hasn't confirmed that he will be standing, and the elections are now less than twelve weeks away. Not quite sure why he's being so coy when everybody and his uncle knows he will. Who else have the ruling party got, after all?
