les Davey de France

Happy Birthday Mrs Davey ! Heading out for a slap-up pizza at the café.

Can it be Five Years Already? Has time passed So Quickly? So today was the fifth anniversary of the start of the Gilets Jaunes protests, which started off as an online petition against rising fuel costs, but became a more diffuse, and more violent protest against poverty, precarity, capitalism, the lot. Essentially anti-Macron. So yesterday a couple of hundred people marched from the Place de la Bourse up to the cathedral square to commemorate the protests. There was no violence as far as I know.

Yesterday was the généraliste. Today was the cardiologue. "Your heart-rate is a little fast. Are you anxious about anything?" "Um, I'm at the cardiologist's surgery..." Some scans later... "Your heart's fine". We discussed dictation into the iPad.  "It's excellent. I do it with my phone, too. Arrange a stress-test for next year." Thank you doctor.

'I'd like to think about the management of my asthma.' My excellent doctor had stopped all my treatment because my asthma only flares up occasionally. It's synchronised with my hypochondria. "Why? What's happened?" "Well a couple of weeks ago I caught a heavy cold and since then my breathing is troubled at night." "Why didn't you come to see me?" "Because I had a streaming cold" "Oh, so you only go to the doctor when you're well now!" (Actually, this is not far from the truth.) "No, but viruses are contagious." "Really?" waving a face mask. "Anyway, what could you have done? You just have to keep warm, rest and drink lots." "Are you sure it was a cold? It wasn't the 'flu? Did you have a fever? Aches? headaches?" Anyway, long story short, we did address the asthma question, I came away with a prescription for two weeks worth of paracetamol for the aches I don...

Attentive readers of these pages may be aware of my Welsh origins. I see this as a special gift from God to me, it doesn't make me better of worse than anyone of any other origin, but it does make me different, and the history, culture, language and people of the little nation from which I come has shaped my personality and my way of looking at the world, for the better and for the worse. Over these past few weeks I have been watching some videos produced by a friend in North Wales.  The first is a history of revivals in Wales, telling the story of the arrival of the gospel in the area and of the ministry and influence of the Celtic saints that gave the land so many of its place names, but focussing especially on the great numbers who were won to the Christian faith in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, and the transformation of so many communities that followed. The second was a series of two programmes from Welsh TV, "Dechrau canu, dechrau canmol", the equivalent of ...

Well we had 150kph winds in Bordeaux (90mph) and the shutter on the sliding door onto the balcony took the brunt, but this morning it seemed undamaged and rose unhindered. There's no damage in our immediate surroundings, though some trees have been uprooted in the city, huge wheelie bins have wheeled their winding way, and the tramlines need to be cleared of stuff before the trams can begin running properly again. We slept pretty well, thankfully, our bedroom is on the sheltered side of the building and at the opposite end of the flat from the balcony.

 is scheduled for this evening. Storm Domingos is due to hit us, and to hit us hard. We have an orange warning for high winds, heavy rain and risk of flooding. The trams will stop running from 6pm and the buses from 7pm. The advice is to secure everything to the best of your ability and take shelter. In 2009 we were hit by a very strong storm which cause a huge amount of damage all across the South-West of France and elsewhere. This warning is not as severe. More news soon.

 Well on Sunday I preached with a sore throat on the beginning of Ephesians - just verses 1 & 2. The way we do things - with a live interpreter - means that you speak in short bursts, so it's quite easy when your throat is not at its best. The following day we were to leave for Germany for the International Pastors' Retreat. Patricia looked at me the way nurses sometimes do. "We'll see how I am in the morning." quoth I. Well our flight didn't leave till 4 in the afternoon, but it was clear that I wasn't going to be on it. My nose was streaming and all I wanted to do was sleep. We informed the airline (Volotea, a Spanish low cost that flies directly to Stuttgart). We informed the conference organisers. (I was due to organise two sessions on speaking about sex in the church). We informed our fellow travellers. And I went back to bed, where I stayed for pretty much all of Monday and much of Tuesday. Yesterday I stayed out of bed almost all day! Today I ho...