Leaves, or rather a depressing lack of them.
In normal times, the leaves begin to fall in late September here in Lyon, and it takes up to two months before they are all gone, but as the photo above, which I took yesterday afternoon from my window, shows, autumn for leaves is almost over already, and it's not even September yet!
And it's been the same for the last few years now mainly due to episodes of severe drought and dangerous heatwave conditions.
My point being that if this is how things are now, and taking into account the fact that our governments and other powers that be aren't doing anything like enough to slow down global warming to an appreciable degree...
...all I can say is god help today's young people and children, because unless radical changes are introduced very soon their futures are going to be very bleak indeed. 🙍🙍🙍
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Big Belly Blues
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| A very fat Me in February of this year. |
I've been lucky enough to be slim all my life.
Well I was anyway, until last year, when following almost a dozen hospital stays I ate like a madman to put back on all the weight I had lost, but I overdid it and found myself with a bit of a biggish belly, which is very bad for one's health, no?
Well I was anyway, until last year, when following almost a dozen hospital stays I ate like a madman to put back on all the weight I had lost, but I overdid it and found myself with a bit of a biggish belly, which is very bad for one's health, no?
ME? A BIG BELLY? NEVER!!!
But it was true alas, so I started half-starving myself in order to lose those life-threatening excess kilos I had gained, and, lo and behold, I am pleased to announce that I am now almost as healthily slim as I was before. Happy days indeed!
Yeah, but my happy disposition was cruelly destroyed a few minutes ago
when I read the following headline in today's Figaro (translated by yours truly) - 'A larger stomach is like added life-insurance': after 65 years of age a bit of extra weight is better for you than being slim.
(Right, I'm off to eat four massive bacon sandwiches followed by a large plate of charcuterie. Bye bye all!)
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Oh and before I go, here's the story about what happened when I came to Lyon for the first time. Those were very strange times indeed...
It was the early 1990s and I had been working very hard for several hot summers as a waiter in the Mediterranean resort of Canet Plage, and each winter would see me working equally hard in various French ski resorts as well as in Andorra.
In other words, I may only have been in my early Forties, but I was totally burned out both mentally and physically because few people last more than a few years in that job and in those very poor conditions. It was time for me to look at other options.
I had been thinking of eventually becoming an English teacher and French/English translator, so I decided to contact someone I knew in Paris to ask if he could put me up for a few weeks while I found a job and my own place to live. A translator in Paris. How romantic and exciting it all sounded!!
And that's how, just a couple of weeks later, I found myself on the northern outskirts of Perpignan just before lunchtime, my thumb sticking out and praying for someone to pick me up, direction Paris. It was a bit cold at that time of year, but I kept my spirits up by imagining all those lovely Parisian girls I'd soon be wining and dining and seducing and all the rest of it. The world was my huitre!
The motorway was quite busy so I made good progress, and in what seemed no time at all the car I was in plunged into the darkness of the Forvière Tunnel before flying out of the other end and into the light one minute later. I didn't see much of Lyon but hey ho, onwards we went and less than an hour later the car dropped me off near Villefranch-sur-Saône.
Brrrr, it was now early evening and I'd been waiting for what seemed like forever for someone to pick me up again when a youngish guy parked up just at the entrance to the motorway, got out of his car, and began eating a sandwich whilst leaning against the bonnet. The road sign at this entrance offered a stark choice - Paris or Lyon - so hoping that the 50-50 chance would go my way I asked him if he was going towards Paris.
'Sorry' he said, 'I'm going down to Lyon.'
'Oh well, never mind' I said, 'But thanks anyway'.
However, as I began to walk away a cold gust of wind reminded me of how cold it was getting, and as it was almost 7pm I knew it would get a lot colder soon. Hmmm, bad news that, I thought, because another problem was that with much less traffic about I might be forced to sleep in the only shelter I could see, which was in a dry ditch near a hedge.
So I stopped in the middle of the road, turned around, and said to the guy, who was just about to leave, 'Errr, I've changed my mind so could you take me back down to Lyon?
'Sure' he replied, and so it was that I found myself speeding back to Lyon, a city I'd never visited, a place I knew nothing about...
I mean just think. If someone had picked me up earlier to take me to Paris, if that guy hadn't stopped to eat a sandwich, if the weather had been warmer, if, if, if, if...
...I would never have spent almost 30 years in this beautiful city.
Funny how it's often the little details that change our lives completely.
Fripouille
