Key costs

Before three days of almost continuous rain arrived, the last two days of last week were reasonably mild and sunny, which made for a pleasant start to the long Ascension bank holiday weekend. On both days we took advantage of the good weather with afternoon outings on the bicycles. On Thursday we cycled to the Parc de la Tête d'Or, a pleasant little trip, which had an undesirable ending. On returning to the garage the keeper of the keys (he that wears shorts with zip-closing pockets) searched in vain for the key. Only then did he remember that there was a hole in the particular pocket in which the key had been deposited. Oops. In my defence, the garage key is rather large and the hole rather small. Still, it had obviously slipped through somehow, and an hour spent retracing our route scanning the ground carefully was singularly fruitless.

And so the bikes accompanied us back to the apartment and were laboriously lugged up six flights of stairs. The next morning a call to a serrurier produced a reasonably prompt response and by early afternoon the garage was open. The locksmith's method of gaining access: a large screwdriver and a couple of judicious blows with a hammer. Not the most secure of lockups. Total cost of a lost key: 210 euros. Admittedly that included a replacement lock & keys, but apparently Friday counts as the weekend when it's a bridging day, hence weekend callout rates. Hmm…

Anyway, as the weather was still good my disgruntled mood was cured with another pleasant little balade à velo, further upriver this time, as far as the Parc de la Fessine, where la petite adventurière could wander far and wide without need for immediate parental intervention.

Creating a stink

Make that three, or even four maladies in the space of less than four weeks. Head cold, followed by eye infection, followed by brief fever and spotty torso for two days, followed by a cough, which has afflicted the whole family. It all adds up to a little girl who is difficult to feed and swings from sweetness and smiles to screaming fit in the space of seconds. Not looking forward to the terrible twos if this is what the ornery ones is like…

She was however, mostly well-behaved for the visit of her aunt earlier in the week. La soeur arrived on Saturday evening to be met at the airport by her belle-soeur and niece while her brother was enjoying a little jaunt across the Channel to witness a stroll in the park against Villa and to enjoy another convivial evening chez la petite beaucoup et le grand gooner chef.

Nice weather in London too, to match the weather in Lyon, where it remained unseasonably warm and sunny for the entirety of the sororal visit. La bienheureuse meanwhile was in the midst of two exhausting weeks of travel to Milan and Monnheim respectively - a total of seven days and four nights away from home, where papa, tante and la petite passed the days playing, promenading in the sunshine and negotiating the obstacle course that the pavements of Lyon became during the two week garbage collectors strike. Large, albeit mostly fairly neat, piles of rubbish collected at various points in the streets, including one directly outside a primary school round the corner. The one outside our building slowly matured in the warm weather but was collected early in the week before the smell drifted as high as the third floor. Not sure how many potential restaurant customers were put off though. The strike eventually crumbled at roughly the same rate as the bin bags and apparently ended yesterday. Judging by the number of rubbish piles still sitting and stewing on the streets round us this morning it will take some time to clear the backlog though…

Light visits

The 2011 version of la Fête des Lumières came and went with the usual crowded streets and a couple of visitors making it a crowd chez nous. A bit of a mixed bag this year - some good, some a little underwhelming. Perhaps the moderate impression comes from the fact that we didn't get out to see a great deal of the displays, partly due to the logistical difficulties that come  attached to evening sorties with a 9 month old baby, partly because I rather thoughtlessly booked a flying trip to London last weekend. Which only caused me to miss one night, spent with only a cat for company as my usual hotel owners were all out partying. Nonetheless it was worth the trip because the 1-0 victory over the Toffees coincided with the 125th anniversary of the best football club in the world.

Earlier in the week, visitor number two, la soeur, arrived to see the lights and her niece, not necessarily in that order of priority, on the night of the 8th. Her chauffeur was late arriving at the airport because he lingered to watch the opening night fireworks and trusted the Lyon airport website when it said the flight was twenty minutes late instead of early. Never mind, she got here in the end and the next night her brother treated her to a marathon grand tour of the main light sites in the town centre while the three generations of the other side of the family restricted themselves to a shorter look.

While I was away feeding a habit, the four ladies enjoyed a weekend of not doing any Christmas shopping or any lights viewing. A visit to the Marché de Noël was abandoned due to the crowds. Still, the visitors found their main entertainment without leaving home. On Sunday the traveller returned and did his duty by staying at home to look after baby while the three older ladies visited the park to view la Mythe de la Tête d'Or, one of the highlights of the Lumières.

By Tuesday the visitors had returned from whence they'd come, la bienheureuse was back at work and reluctantly out for dinner in the evening, which meant la petite had only papa for company. A return to her own bedroom met with mixed results. Decent daytime naps were somewhat counterbalanced by a half hour complaining session before she finally went to sleep in the evening. Similar story the next night, with la travailleuse out being quiz master at another work do, followed by a day when she wasn't keen on going to sleep at all. At lunch the situation was complicated by the fact that I was waiting for Monsieur le chauffagiste to turn up to service the boiler. By the time he phoned ninety minutes late to say he was on his way la petite coquinette had won the nap battle, and later in the evening it took an hour for her mother to finally get her to sleep. Two days later things seem to have returned to normal. Famous last words...

Late departure

A hastily arranged trip last week gave us three pleasant days across the Channel, even if one of those days was taken up by the funeral of the family doyenne, the reason for the long weekend. And it was a long weekend. Woken in the small hours of Thursday morning by an SMS from Air France to say our 9am flight had been cancelled wasn't the best start, even if it also said we'd been put on another flight later in the day. No-one told la petite though, so no luxury of a lie-in…

We eventually reached Birmingham airport in the early evening and set off for the three hour drive north; three hours in theory - rush hour traffic on the good old British motorway system pushed it closer to four, and inattention to road signs added another half hour as we got lost somewhere in the wilds of Teeside. La petite suffered being cooped up in a car seat for over four hours remarkably well until the physical discomfort (and an emergency stop occasioned by the driver's lapse in concentration and clumsy use of walking boots on the pedals) got the better of her and brought forth most of her dinner. It was thus a somewhat bedraggled trio who eventually made it to great-aunt's house late in the evening, where we had a quick snack before joining la belle-mère et le beau-frère for the short drive to a nearby hotel.

There was no lie-in the following morning either. Despite the lack of sleep the previous evening, the little alarm clock woke us close to her normal hour (French time). She was however persuaded to join her parents in having a good hour's nap after breakfast before we checked out. From the hotel it was back to join the assembling family at the senior S-sister's house prior to the lunchtime service, and then la petite enjoyed a 45 minute siesta as papa perambulated round an estate of mansions while everyone else said goodbye to the last of the great generation at the crematorium.

There were snacks and much catching up after the service before those not staying overnight made their way homewards. Which for us meant our Cheshire home chez la grand-mère. Despite more rush hour traffic on the M62 and a short screaming fit solved by a stop to feed la petite and interrupt uncle's fast food dinner, we were there by 8pm and in bed by ten.

Saturday we finally managed a lie-in of sorts as la petite coquinette woke at her normal time but then caught up on some sleep by dropping off for another hour. First bowl of porridge of the winter was on the late breakfast menu before we headed off to brave the hounds in north Wales for a deluxe meals-on-wheels lunch. Everyone should have a Lebanese father-in-law who likes cooking. Thence it was back to Tattenhall to give baby a much-needed early night.

A late afternoon flight back to Lyon made for a relaxed Sunday morning and drive back to Brum, and a grumpy baby was kept more or less quiet during the latter part of the flight by drip-feeding her biscuits and dilute apple juice. We finally got home in the early evening, put la petite straight to bed, and ate defrosted red cabbage before getting a welcome early night ourselves.

No rest for the wicked, or the saintly for that matter. Work for la bienheureuse on Monday was followed by a late afternoon visit to the baby doctor - routine 9th month checkup after an hour spent in a waiting room unusually full of other babies and parents. While notre petite was pronounced to be in bouncing good health, elsewhere there were sniffles aplenty and one baby suffering from bronchitis - winter fast approaches.

Tuesday morning la travailleuse endured a 6am alarm call and an all day trip to Germany while la petite and I slowly got used to having only each other for company during the day. Apart from when the locksmith visited to replace the broken front door lock, and the survey lady visited to complete our official entry into French work statistics.

Sunny lockout

The long bank holiday weekend was blessed with sunshine and mild temperatures. We duly took advantage with a long afternoon promenade each day. On Friday we followed the crowds along the river to the park, where la petite was treated to her first open air autumn goûter - yoghurt and biscuit on the menu. A pleasant afternoon ended in consternation when we returned home to find the key wouldn't turn in the lock. Not the ideal situation, being locked out of the apartment with an 8 month old baby, but fortunately the upstairs neighbours were there (unusually for a bank holiday weekend) and came to the rescue, providing the phone number of a reliable locksmith, drinks and shelter while he turned up and drilled his way in. New locks on the agenda this week…

Saturday we joined the shopping crowds on the Presqu'île and then had the bright idea of climbing the hill to Fourvière. Baby carrier rather than pushchair might have been the right choice but it was still rather a hard slog with an extra 12kg on papa's back. At the top the crowd queued three deep to look at the view with Mont Blanc just visible in the distance. Second open air afternoon snack on the way down with la petite gourmande demonstrating her raspberry blowing technique to all and sundry. Sunday saw another jaunt to the park - a more genteel amble this time - to mingle with the crowds and the falling leaves. The fine weather continues this week, with night time temperatures inexorably dropping. The first frost isn't far away…

Milking it

And so the learning curve continues. Another appointment and weigh-in with the nice lady at the child care centre showed stable weight - not ideal in a 2 week old baby. So a new regime was instituted. Automatic milking machine hired, installed and duly put into action - a quite fascinating process, which may not be much fun for the milk provider but provides a certain amount of titillation for her husband. Thereafter, breast feeds supplemented with expressed milk and formula as required. Two days of pumping later, weight up by a hundred grams, and a further hundred at today's weighing. Back at birth weight. Marvellous.

Meanwhile, la nouvelle grand-mère arrived on Wednesday to meet her first grandchild. The family threesome set off for the airport to meet her, and got as far as the garage round the corner. Failure to freewheel and a grinding noise at first led me to suspect an old problem, seized brakes, but with passersby pointing at the front offside wheel, it eventually dawned that we had a flat tyre. It being lunchtime our friendly local garage was closed, but fortunately I only had a couple of minutes to demonstrate my total lack of competence in tyre changing (which I put down to inexperience - first puncture in 30 years of motoring) before la bienheureuse spotted someone in the garage. Of course, asking French workmen for help in their lunch break is often a risky exercise, but a sweet smile convinced the nice mechanic to change the wheel for us.

Dodgy spare thus installed in a matter of minutes rather than the hour it would have otherwise taken we set off and arrived at the airport only about half an hour late, to introduce la belle-mère to her petite-fille. One way introduction, as la petite slept through the whole adventure. However, she woke up later and immediately ignored the stranger in favour of a good suckle. As well she should, but they've got to know each other since. Amidst the full time job of feeding, nappy changing, bottle washing, pumping, cooking and shopping, sightseeing for la belle-mère this week has been restricted to strolls along the river with the pram in the glorious sunshine we had during the first few days of her visit. Spring is here even if it's raining now…

Fire and ice

The long cold winter continues, but the Fêtes des Lumières is over for another year. Slightly muted event this year but still some impressive displays - the projections on a water spray in Place de la Rèpublique and the beautifully lit Bartholdi fountain in Place des Terreaux among the highlights. The fiery display in Parc de la Tête d'Or was also good, but it was the one place where the policy of avoiding crowd bottlenecks failed. We turned up at the same time as several thousand other people early on Saturday evening, and joined the crush trying to get in through one small gate. Getting out was even worse, despite the main gate being open by then. The complete lack of crowd control meant there was a logjam between the entrance and exit flows. Fortunately we extricated ourselves and extra bump without too much alarm…

Click here for more Lumières

After a morning visit to a new 'British èpicerie' (pretty well, and relatively inexpensively stocked with normally unobtainable staple items such as Marmite & philadelphia cheese), la bienheureuse spent last Sunday baking cakes - flapjack, lemon tart, figgy cake. Alas, not all for me, but for work colleagues to eat in celebration of her birthday (joyeux anniversaries, ma bien-aimée). Strange custom, but  she left enough at home to keep me happy for a week. When not eating, I've spent most of the last few days on traditional pursuits for the time of year - sorting out the heating, and improving our TV viewing experience. Finally decided to upgrade our cable TV subscription to take advantage of HD and a hard disk recorder. All installed fine, lovely picture, but impossible to record anything. Thus I was back in the shop yesterday attempting to exchange the decoder when I received a phone call from Monsieur le Chauffagiste, who had arrived chez moi 45 minutes early.

Not at all what one expects from a plumber, but in other respects he lived up to the stereotype perfectly. He was there to fix a pressure leak in the boiler, but I'd earlier asked him for a quote to put in a heating thermostat/programmer: 450 Euros. Beaucoup trop cher, I thought, and promptly found a suitable device on ebay, brand new for 60 euros. Phoned him again for another quote: 300 euros. Still too expensive by my book, so I figured out how to attach the thing to the boiler myself and told him as much when he was here yesterday. "You can't do that," he says. "Yes I can," I says I, "unless you want to do it for 100 euros."
He wouldn't bite but negotiations eventually concluded with a deal for 150 euros. Cash of course. Still seems steep to me, but it means I don't have to do the scrabbling around, drilling holes, running wires up and down and through walls, etc, etc…

The rest of the week has been unremarkable, save another disappointing trip to the pub on Monday night. 11 without a win in games that really matter, and still counting. Boys must become men eventually, surely…
Perhaps I'll get a clue on Saturday when I return to the sacred stadium to witness the battle against the high ball bombs of the Potters. Weather permitting, that is. Up to 10 centimetres of snow forecast here overnight. Brr…

Spring is in the air

Ignoring a wet yesterday, le printemps lyonnais seems to have definitely arrived. Lovely weekend, spent mostly recuperating after exhausting holiday apart from a Saturday evening trip to watch OL stumble & slog towards a 7th successive title. Tight and uninspired game against 3rd placed Nancy was finally decided 15 minutes into the second half when a Juninho free-kick was deflected into his own net by an Alsacien defender. Lyon retain the 2 point lead going into the final game of the season tomorrow at Auxerre.

The other sign of spring in this part of the world is the annual platane (Plane tree) seed invasion. In the current breezy weather, the fluffy pests blow everywhere. Most somehow seem to find their way into one's eyes. Some days goggles are necessary.

Meanwhile, on the home front, I finally signed the surrender in the battle of the leaking pipe. Le plombier was duly called on Tuesday & turned up on Wednesday. Quite impressive service for a plumber, particuarly as having originally said he might make it on the Tuesday afternoon, he actually phoned in the early evening to apologise for not doing so.

On the political front Sarko continues to make somewhat heavy weather of his 2nd year in office, though not quite as heavy as Mr Brown. This week we've had a totally unexpected oppostion victory in parliament, defeating a bill on OGMs (genetically modified organisms - though said bill was pushed through the next day after the government mobilised forces), and a teachers' strike to protest against pay and cuts in education.

Explosion? What explosion?

Funny how a headline-making event can happen just down the road from here and I only learn about it when I switch on the TV at lunch. Particularly an event that goes off with a bang. I heard nothing even though it seems the explosion occurred at roughly the same time as I was arriving home from a shopping trip. Since, sirens have been coming and going all afternoon.

Uncomfortably close to home mind you. Less than half a mile away, and right opposite a small supermarket I was contemplating going to for my shopping trip. Good thing I chose to go in the opposite direction. And they've been digging up pavements and roads, replacing pipes round here for the past few months...

A finished floor

Yesterday, 1 year, 7 months and 12 days after the great flood of 2006, and 15 months after they began, the renovations finally reached an end. Well almost. In fact it was just the finishing touches to the parquet that remained to be done - essentially filling in gaps between strips of parquet. Regular phone calls since Christmas to the parqueteurs finally produced a result, and Eric le parqueteur arrived yesterday morning, spent 90 mins whistling and working, and finally left for the last time. I shall miss him...

I say almost, because there is still a bit of tidying up to be done before it all looks absolutely nickel, as they say here. But my friend Eric left me with a full tube of special parquet mastic and a lesson on how to apply it. Might be finished in another 6 months then...

La Fête begins

Today marks the start of the annual Fête des Lumières and therefore also the start of the annual visite de la belle-mère. Drove out to the airport to collect her at lunch-time in glorious, almost spring-like weather. Unfortunately the forecast for the rest of the weekend is threatening a repeat of last year's weather conditions which gave us driving rain and wind for most of the 4-day event.

I retrieved la voiture from our friendly local mechanic before heading off to the airport, swooning at the size of the bill for the service. Not, I hasten to add, because garages here overcharge any more than their counterparts across La Manche. In fact I'd say our jolly garage owner is a particularly friendly, helpful and honest example of his breed. The size of the bill owed rather more to the age of the car. As we're driving to the UK for les vacances de Noël we decided we'd better get it serviced first.

Bad decision. Or good decision, depending on how you look at it. Clutch on the point of failure, bald front tyres, leaking radiator. All needed replacing. Total bill: erm, rather a lot. Let's hope it lasts another few years while we console ourselves that, having been given the chance to buy the garage we currently rent, we still have a car to put in it.

Coming and going

Had an interesting afternoon (and evening) yesterday with our friendly plumber, proving that plumbers are the same the world over. We'd decided our toilet needed replacing, so Mr Plombier was due to arrive 1pm yesterday to carry out the deed.

Quarter to two I get a phone call:
"I'm on an emergency call to fix a boiler, and it's taking a long time. Okay if I come tomorrow morning?"
No problem, as long as you're finished by lunchtime.
Five minutes later, another phone call.
"I've finished, I'll come over now."
An hour later, another phone call.
"I'm stuck in traffic."

Half an hour later, the door bell finally rings. Four hours of feeding him coffee, the new throne is finally installed and he leaves. At quarter to eight in the evening. He is quite a friendly, jolly chap, mind you. Oh, and he's back this morning ("be there at nine", turned up at ten), removing the bidet from the bathroom. Only ever used it to wash my feet...

Hopefully he'll be gone in time for me to catch the bus to the airport. Off over on a flying visit. Flight this afternoon, game tomorrow, flight back Sunday morning, finally reunited with la bienheureuse Sun afternoon.

Footnote (and footmark) to a renovation

Today marked the final bit of renovation work following the famous flood of 2006. Or should have done.

Earlier this year we began to notice that a small area of the parquet was starting to warp & deform. Gradually it deteriorated to the extent that we contacted our insurance expert who told us it was down to the company that carried out the work to make good the repairs. Monsieur le patron wasn't best pleased at being told it was down to him to cover the cost, but he agreed it needed doing, so today the parqueteur arrived to do the job. I'm still not entirely convinced le patron won't try to charge us, but on verra...

Anyway, le parqueteur has been sanding, varnishing and screwing (with a screwdriver rather than any other tool that may have sprung to mind, I hasten to say) away most of the day. All to the continual accompaniment of his own, occasionally tuneful, whistling and singing. He finally gave me a tour of completed works in the middle of the afternoon, carefully pointing out that we mustn't walk on the final coat of varnish for 2 days. So of course, what does muggins here do? Yup, immediately plant one great footprint in the middle of it all...

In fact, he decided to leave plugging up the gaps that have opened between some of the parquet 'lames' till the new year, just in case there is still a bit of humidity left underneath that needs to escape. So final tidying up (including owner's footprint) to follow...