les Davey de France

May is a special month in France because of the number of public holidays. We mark : 1 May - la Fête du Travail. We mark this by stopping as much work as possible. Even the buses and trams do not run. 8 May - Le 8 mai. This commemorates the cease-fire at the end of the Second World War. Le jeudi de l'ascension. Ascension Day falls forty days after Easter and often falls in May. La Pentecôte. Pentecost, coming fifty days after Easter, is celebrated with a public holiday on the Monday. It also often falls in May. Of course, all these public holidays interrupt the pace of life a little, but the work on our new apartment block is still advancing well. Thus it was that we received notice last Friday afternoon that the painting work on our apartment had been completed, inspected and certified complete on the 12 May, and it is now time to pay the next instalment on the purchase of the flat - the last instalment but one. Soon we will receive a letter by recorded delivery to arrange a date ...

Bordeaux is basically flat. This makes it very suitable for cycling. At the same time, Bordeaux has narrow streets and lots of traffic. Less suitable for cycling. However, we live in a new area of the city, recently laid out, by people aware of the huge and growing popularity of cycling in the city. So we have cycle paths and cycle lanes everywhere. Where the tram lines cross two major roads you can find the Place Armagnac. On one side there's the old sorting office, which is becoming a classy hotel. On another you find the back the main wholesale market. The third has our local library. There's a lot of construction going on, of new tower blocks, hotels and offices. And a couple of cycle paths of varying quality and safety. When the square was inaugurated -- we inaugurate lots of things in France -- a large group of cyclists came on their bikes to protest against the poor design of the cycle paths. They denounced them as dangerous. And on Wednesday morning a woman cycling acro...

Yesterday we noticed that workmen had fitted the garage door to our new block of flats. Today I saw that a woman was vacuum-cleaning the windows of one of the flats. I also saw that a van belonging to the firm "Otis" was parked in the garage area. We must be getting closer to the completion, no?  

 A few months ago the garden planners took everyone on a tour of the gardens and explained what their aims were in its layout and construction. Essentially they want an area for playing ball games and so on - mown regularly. Then the other grassy areas will not be mown, instead paths will be mown through the long grass and whatever else grows. For trees and shrubs they planted native species. The goal is to create an area which is rich in biodiversity, supportive to native species and also welcoming to people wanting to walk, run, cycle, picnic, play or relax. As you can see from the pictures below, the are is already scattered with lots of wild flowers. Much of it doesn’t look at all tidy, but dogs and children love running through the clumps and tufts. I think it’s great, though they may find they have to mow once or twice a year.

 Here’s some of what we saw 

 A young couple is moving to Bordeaux and looking for somewhere to live for them and their young family. A mutual friend contacted me. Would I be happy for them to contact me about this flat. Of course. So we met on Thursday and I showed them round this flat. They were predictably impressed by the flat, but not so much by the state of the courtyard and the corridors on the ground floor. So we await a moving date for the new flat, then I can contact the agency and see if they would accept a dossier from this young couple.

 In 1980 I bought a mixer. It was second-hand - a Kenwood Chefette. It came with a big glass bowl and two whisk blades. It had three speeds and that was it. This morning I got ready to make ice-cream for the folk who are coming to lunch tomorrow.  I plugged in the mixer.  Nothing. Not a sound. Not even an attempt. No smoke. No steam. Nothing. Oh well. Forty-three years out of a second-hand mixer isn't bad.

 It's ten years since my burnout. Social media reminded me. Thanks. It's not a bad thing to look back and see what has come out of a difficult experience.

"C'est pas trop logique, mais on le fait quand même." The cashier in our local supermarket was looking forward to a weekend on the sofa as everything closes down for Labour Day, the Fête du Travail. Literally everything closes. There are no trams or buses. Supermarkets are closed. Even our local pharmacy is closed. The city becomes beautifully quiet. Or it would, if there was not also a demonstration each year on 1 May. I don't think it's a demonstration about anything in particular. It's just the Manifestation de la Fête du Travail. This year it kicks off at 10:30 and will follow quite a long route around the centre of the city. The demonstration is one thing. It will be peaceful and orderly, if a little noisy. However the usual fans of anti-capitalists and anarchists will tag onto the end of the march and engage in pitched battles with the police. As for us Daveys, if the weather is clement we might take a little walk along the right bank.