Day 11 Covid 19 How do you pass the time?

Day 11 and I'm getting into a sort of rhythm which it will probably be difficult to quit once the barracks doors are reopened. You know the score... just when you're at cruising levels of containment activities, it'll be back to work and we'll be in shock all over again!

But that is all in the future, something to look forward to.

In the meantime there is telework, exercise and finding things to do.

Exercise
We are allowed to go jogging beyond the front door but I've always hated jogging, so I'm currently congratulating myself at not having thrown out the mini trampoline I bought over a decade ago and haven't used in almost as long. It's proving to be a merry little activity, bouncing in various ways for 10 minutes or so at intervals during the day. I've even got the instruction leaflet which I found when I was going through a bunch of papers. Glad I never invited Kendo Bled (?) into my home to throw out stuff that no longer brought me joy. You never know when it might bring you joy and much needed exercise relief in the future!!

Finding things to do

Housework is very very boring, and there is a whole internet out there to explore. I've drifted into a daily theme. One day I might be listening to some of the excellent podcasts on Radio 4, such as File on Four or Out of the Ordinary, with lots more to explore on Sounds.

The other day I watched video after video of Dame Emma Kirkby, enjoying the brilliant lightness of her soprano voice singing early music, plus a masterclass that she gave which was very interesting. There's a wonderful recording of the Messiah from 1982 with Christopher Hogwood and the Academy of Ancient music performing in Westminster Cathedral. Emma Kirkby's voice is that of an angel. Here she is singing some Purcell.

Another day the theme was ballet and I watched a number of beautiful performances and discovered the videos by a former Royal Ballet Company dancer Claudia Dean. I am no ballerina. I had some ballet lessons when I was knee high to a grasshopper but was convinced my teacher didn't like me. At the end of each lesson we finished with a butterfly dancing in the middle of a circle of the other dancers. I always wanted to be the butterfly, but her choice was based on who had been the best pupil, and obviously even at that young and tender age, it was clear that a career as a ballerina was not going to be my path in life, and I never got chosen. Even on my LAST DAY! I've never forgotten it (as you can see...).

Anyway, I'm sure my whole life would have been different if I'd had Claudia Dean as my teacher. She is motivating and fun. She is no longer dancing, but is now a ballet coach and she makes these merry videos not just of coaching, but dealing with ballet issues, messing about with her sister (who is not a dancer), and doing little tests. One that I enjoyed was testing the English way of dancing to the Russian way. I didn't know there was one, but now I do!

Starting the day with humour is definitely one way of beating confinement blues, and I have a good laugh watching Tripp and Tyler videos. If you have ever participated in a video conference, you'll recognise this:

Finally, I've also been watching L'atelier des Chefs chef Nicolas Bergerault who has been making cooking videos from his home. He is stuck at home, like the rest of us, with his family, and so his daughters are filming the cooking with a phone, and he cooks dishes that he can rustle up easily from the stuff in his cupboards. On day one he made a salad of frozen peas with lardons and a homemade curry mayonnaise. On another day he made a spinach lasagne, and on another day he did pasta with an anchovy and caper sauce. His daughters amuse themselves adding the odd silly filter and giggling behind the camera. It's all very homely and merry.

Fun times!

Overheard at...

Overheard at the sports hall whilst signing up for tennis club membership.

A blond active-type woman, perfect golden tan, polo shirt and shorts is standing next to the tennis stand. She's obviously a regular, probably active member of the club, and she's talking to the people behind the table.

(in French)

"Well, I've just spent 1400€ on music lessons for the kids, and with you lot it'll be 2000€ and I've still got the gym to pay for too!"

That's a hefty sum, thought I as a signed a cheque for 150€ adult membership and licence, no lessons. When I had sat down at the table saying I wanted to renew my membership, the woman behind the table looked at me with surprise saying she didn't think she'd ever seen me before.

That's normal, said I, I hardly ever play tennis and I never go to the club. As I filled in the form, the guy next to her saw my surname and recognised it from the emails he sends out, so then I became legit and she started asking whether I played well. Heavens no, I'm crap, said I (and intend to stay that way), so if you're wondering whether I could be roped into joining a team, think again (or words to that effect).

Naturally she was a bit disappointed because they were looking for women for the team. She suggested I take lessons, but they are on a Saturday, and frankly, I'm involved up to my eyeballs with VTT and footie already for the boys and have no intention of adding to my obligations.

By this time, the sporty woman was talking about her kids and how the one in 5e who is in the most well-known private collège in Montpellier is working very hard because they get sooooo much homework. I piped up that my eldest goes to X private collège which is the nearest one to where we live and the alternative to the homework-heavy one. Where? she asked, obviously having never heard of it.

I thought this was pretty funny really. I mean, here is a woman who is so regulated by 'what one does' that when she was deciding on her kids' schooling she didn't even reflect on the different options because, as far as she was concerned, one sent one's kids to X collège willy nilly.

All this made me think of an article in the Times recently, from Alpha Mummy about after school clubs and the necessity of indoctrinating one's offspring from a young age in the leisure pursuits of the upwardly mobile. Future private club members are made, not born!

My two are curiously averse to the idea of conforming to doing the 'right' activities. Although my eldest learnt the violin for a few years, as soon as he hit 10 he said it was for sissies and wanted to take up the electric guitar instead. He did, but had an uninspiring teacher who was a classical guitar teacher, and in the end let it drop. He may take it up again later - I didn't get rid of the kit.

My youngest was sent to music appreciation classes when a tot where they get to bang about a lot, make instruments, sing and have a jolly time. When it came to deciding on playing an instrument, he said, no way I hate music. Violin? said I hopefully. No. Piano? No. Drums? (last ditch attempt) No. Some success that course was, then.

I sent my eldest to tennis for a year. He couldn't stand it. He likes playing tennis, but doesn't like lessons and being bossed about.

When asked what he wanted to do, he said, 'fencing'. I drew the line at taking him into the middle of town on a week day evening in rush hour traffic, one hour in, one hour out. He can do that when he's older, in his own time, at his own expense!

Last year I forced him to do a sport and to much moaning, he finally consented that mountain biking was the least unattractive of all the sports on offer. My youngest joined as well and in fact both had a great time. They are signed up again this year too.

My youngest is pretty easy to please, he likes footie, but he'd also love to learn archery. Both would like to learn to shoot.

I think it's a very good sign that the boys have a healthy aversion to conformity. What this country needs is free-thinkers, original minds and doers, not robotic copies of 'les petits parfaits' as my eldest so contemptuously labels the fils à papa who do all the right things, work as they should, and wear perfectly pressed shirts and trousers which stay that way all day.

Which reminds me, I'd better get on with the ironing...

Bilan Week 1

End of Week 1 of la Rentrée. How's it gone? Better than expected actually. Getting up at 6.30am is a bugger, but I'm sure I'll get used to it in the next 5 years or so... On the other hand, my eldest is picked up and delivered home every evening by another mummy who works just around the corner and it's no skin off her nose if she takes my son along with her daughter. So that is a very marvellous stroke of luck and I'm just wondering what I can do to express my total appreciation and gratitude apart from showering her with booze (which is what I'd go for if it was me...).

The private school is fine - he'll be doing Latin which immediately streams a certain sort of child into a certain level of class and despite his father saying it's useless, it's not for various reasons. He'll also be doing 4hrs of sport per week and this term it'll be athletics which should go down very well. Later, they'll be doing climbing and volleyball etc.

My youngest is happy with his class too and it seems I did buy the right book covers so the world will not end because of that. It might end next Wednesday when they switch the Large Hadron Collider on, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it...

Today was the Journées des Associations which is a dead handy way of gathering together all the activities you can do in the town/village under one roof so that residents can come and register with no trouble. The French are very good at organising their spare time, even more so since they have so much of it thanks to the 35-hr week. I'm not complaining; I'm the first in line to say how fab it is as it means I can ferry my children about the place so they can have a fun-filled youth full of meaningful activities to widen their horizons and enhance their spirits... In other words, I provide a full taxi service.

My youngest wants to continue doing footie; a nice healthy sport with lots of running around, teamwork, skill and fresh air. My eldest however, announced he didn't want to anything, except maybe fencing. This announcement went down like a lead balloon as the fencing classes take place in the middle of Montpellier at hours when traffic is at its worst, and equipment costs a fortune. I put my foot down which of course made him want to do it even more. We then had a discussion about 'you can do it when you can take yourself there and pay for it' and that was that. The alternative solution was to go and live with his father cos NewChick does fencing apparently and strangely enough the desire to do it turned out to be not that strong, as I suspected...

What to do then. I was determined that he do something with some of his free time. He was determined that he do nothing with his free time. Guess who won... hehe. I took him to the village next door which is bigger than ours and has more activities. There I signed him up for mountain biking (VTT) which he'll do every Saturday afternoon from 2-4pm. He reluctantly agreed that this might be okay if he had a decent bike, so we'll check out the one he's got and if it's too crappy he'll have a new one for his birthday at the end of the month.

It's difficult to imagine a boy of nearly 12 being sulky about doing something as exciting, dangerous and thoroughly boyish as mountain biking, but he managed it, partly I think so as not to lose face over his original attitude. Oh happy pre-ado days! I'm confident he'll love it and probably be very good at it too.

By golly though it was hard work and I came home and had to lie down for ten minutes to calm the throbbing in my head from irritation.

And me, what am I doing? Well, I signed up at the tennis club again, not for lessons or any of that official, competitive stuff - just to have the key so I can go and play when I like.

Anyone for tennis??

Faux Long Weekending

I have discovered an interesting fact. If you do nothing on Saturday that resembles what you would normally do on a Saturday (shopping) then you have the impression that it's Sunday. Then, on Saturday evening, instead of thinking woefully that the next day is Monday and work, you suddenly remember it's only Saturday and you have the whole of the real Sunday to go before Monday.

It's like adding a day to your weekend. You do have to be in France though for this to work, as the shops are all shut here on Sundays. It helps too if you have previously done your shopping so you don't starve during the weekend and then be desperate for Monday to arrive so you can eat again. That would rather spoil the effect.

This is my first weekend home alone since I got back from holiday, and I must say, it's amazing how productive one can be. So far I have
* tidied my trousers shelf
* sorted out clothes for charity
* discovered a yoga DVD and followed the simple exercises twice
* done cleaning and all the ironing
* worked on my book
etc...

The work I'm doing on my book is essentially chronological, but also crap-shooting. Originally, I wrote it from beginning to end. Then I added a whole section near the beginning which rendered some of the later writing obsolete because it no longer made chronological sense. I'm having to cut swathes of stuff out for this reason and also because I now dislike some of the original writing and am replacing it with, hopefully, better text and dialogue.

The main characters of the book are Eleanor - a Brit living in France (gosh, who'd have thought), John - an American businessman living in NYC (although I'm thinking of changing his name to Tarquin.... just kidding...), Eleanor's friend Krista who thinks John is a headcase, Eleanor's sister Rachel who's a right cow, John's younger brother Matthew who's a miserable bugger, and John's friend Chris with whom John meets in bars to admire arses and legs, and to chat. It's not a comedy, but it's supposed to have a decent amount of humour. I, you might be relieved to know, am not a miserable bugger, so I don't write like one!

(That was... my post on book progress thus fulfilling my statuary requirements as stated beneath the blog title to keep you posted...)

Take Action

To continue the subject of slavery, while I sympathise with descendents of the slave trade, I feel more concerned with modern day slaves. Descendents of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade are living their own lives, free, and can make their own decisions. They might feel wronged about what happened to their ancestors, but basically, they themselves are not suffering the inhumanity of slavery.

Others, however, are. All over the world, including the West. What can be done? How can a measily little individual achieve anything? Well, alone, individuals can achieve very little, but together, they can achieve much.

Not wanting to leave modern slaves to their fate, I searched the internet to find an organisation which is fighting to combat this inhuman trade. I had not previously heard of Anti-Slavery International, but I am pleased to have discovered this organisation now. On their website can be found information on historical slavery, and also on today's slaves.

More importantly, they encourage individuals to take action with them; to lobby governments, bug MPs, spread the word and join their campaign. Writing a letter to the Vice-President of Sudan will help raise awareness that the world cares about the 14,000 people abducted by the People's Liberation Movement/Army during 20years of civil war. Sending an email to the Speaker of the House of Representatives in the USA, the Honourable Nancy Pelosi, asking her to put pressure on the Sudanese Government concerning this issue will help.

Action by the charity has achieved results such as stopping the abuse of rubber workers in the Belgian Congo and the use of child slaves - Mui Tsai - in Hong Kong. They have achieved results in Niger, Nepal, West Africa and raised awareness among decision makers and the public which has led to increased action to end human trafficking.

The stories we hear from those who escape their enslavement make my blood run cold. I always think 'there but for the grace of God go I'. Those of us who live in freedom must do all we can to help those who do not. Help those who are campaigning to free the world's slaves. Take action.

Sporting times

This year I must play tennis.

I've just bought tennis rackets in bulk, signed up at the local tennis club, learned the name of the tennis coach and spent an eye-watering amount of money.

So, now I'm obliged to play. There's nothing like financial investment to concentrate the mind!

Today was the 'associations' day where all the local clubs get together in one place and make themselves available for registration and information. It's a great way to get moving at the beginning of the 'year'. The Maire considers every occasion a good one for an aperitif, and as we got there late, the aperitif was in full swing. This made the whole event even more pleasurable, although I think I left my cheque book at the tennis club. Was it the effect of quaffing 'muscat de Lunel' at the same time as signing on to play tennis?

I have been trying to enthuse my eldest with the idea of scouting. It would be a terrific experience for him and enable him to have adventures and share character-building activities with his peers and the young men who provide leadership. We are going on a scouting picnic tomorrow so he gets the feel of it. One of his pals from school is a scout, so the omens are good, especially as this lad seems to be a very nice boy, if you know what I mean!

My youngest is signed up for swimming lessons - vital in this part of the world where every other person has a swimming pool and the sea is 35 minutes away. So the boys will be able to be busy, and also have time to get bored (so important!).

I look forward to a more active year and cast off my couch potato tum!