Quickie update... Its Friday Oct 31 Halloween and Scorpio and my own very own Independence Day. I am home. In my new apartment. All day yesterday Claude and the landlord, Florent, worked to make sure I was comfortable. Result? I am what the French like to call: a coq en pâte a rooster in a pastry??? Please dont ask me where that expression came from. I am in my big, sprawling bed in my big sprawling apartment surrounded with books and pillows and glasses of water and some pills (of course and good friends. My bedroom opens onto the solarium so as soon as it warms up a bit I can open the windows and let in the sunshine and garden air. My Vietnamese/French restaurant friends make my food and Claude goes to fetch it. We lunch together. Florent goes to lunch at his grandmothers down the road. Comes back at 2 pm to install the TV and wifi. But he fails. We will have to wait till Antony comes at 4pm from Aups to deliver the new TV. Hes a specialist. He can install the whole shebang. Meanwhile Florent talks for about one hour about truffles. This man knows everything about truffles. I mean everything. There are many varieties and growing conditions vary vastly. One guy bought 800 hectares 20 years ago, planted truffle oaks and has never seen a single truffle. Its dangerous business. Armed thieves come in the night and steal the truffles. Its a mafia. Most truffle forest owners are incognito. They do not want anyone to know where they live. They sell their truffles to chefs and charcutiers au noir (in the black). This practice is not only to avoid taxes; it is also done to remain anonymous. Many truffiers drive their unmarked panel trucks 1000 kms to Paris by night and deliver their wares to restaurants, get paid in cash and drive right back to the Var. One successful truffle guy has a huge forest. Its mined. The thieves come anyway. He sashays out to greet them with crusty warm croissants saying, This morning I offer you croissants. Next time I see you I will offer you several of these (he pulls a bullet from his vest to show them) in your chest. The robbers dont come back too soon. There are movies to be made about these truffle dudes. Then Florent, assisted by Claude, sawed the headboard off one of my beds so it would fit in the guest room. Then Antony finally showed up with his assistant and my new TV. Nothing works except the wifi. The decoder for the TV was the wrong one. Besides we need a new one for the 2nd TV... France is a most complicated place. Nothing is simple and everything is expensive. So for now, I dont have TV. But I do have wifi. Today Claude will go fetch the new TV equipment and tomorrow Antony will come install it. He also has to order me a stove. Its called a Piano. A chefs stove. They can be very expensive. I will get a cheaper one. Nice and solid and 90 cms wide. So we are moving ahead toward something akin to settled. No TV... but with Wifi and Ken Follet on my Kindle, I can keep myself busy while I finish the big 2015 book. 10 more pages to go and the book will be ready for review. Any takers? I give prizes in return for positive reviews. If your review is negative, its better you delete it before I burst into tears and tear out what is left of my hair. Hugs for Friday. sw
Posted on: Fri, 31 Oct 2014 08:39:14 +0000
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