les Davey de France

I had a rendez vous with a friend who wants to buy a computer and needs me to translate for him - nothing to do with French - just that he is the least tech-savvy person I have ever met, so ... well you know. Anyway on the way I decided to check out La Grande Poste. This splendid place is an old post office that has been turned into a kind of concert hall and restaurant with shops in a gallery above and a couple of salons around the side. I wondered if there might be rooms to let. The place was wonderfully impressive and some trombone brothers are playing there in a couple of weeks' time. It was good to look round, but there's no chance of us using a room there. Meanwhile the owner of the theatre we visited last week is a good egg and has had his thinking cap on. He has come up with various suggestions for us, too. Anyway I managed to steer my informatically-challenged friend towards a tablet rather than a fully-fledged computer, knowing that whatever he ends up with he...

So in my new resolve to be a good boy and do what the quack says I booked an appointment with a local physiotherapist for 10 (ten) sessions of massage on my neck. I was then thrown into confusion because the physiotherapist has two surnames and one was given in the yellow pages but I had written the other  in my diary so when I checked the address - just to be sure - I was plunged into the most profound uncertainty. But reasoning that surely I'd choose the nearest I went along and, thankfully, got the right place. After some administrative 'ow's yer father I went up the the massage parlour, was told to strip off to the waist and lie on the bench with my nose through the hole. Then the fun began. kneading. pulling. pushing. It was not at all unpleasant. "If I fall asleep you will forgive me." "You will be forgiven, and you will not be the first." I was told to behave better, to elevate the screen of my computer and wear my stupid glasses, stup...

So this morning I learnt that the day after an election it's a good idea to go to Lidl for the weekly shop. The good folk of Pessac were unrestrained in giving their opinion of the result of the election of the presidential candidate for the Republicans (right-wing). They see M. Fillon as a "catho intégriste" (an extreme catholic), as someone who will not be able to resolve the problems facing ordinary people because he represents all the old catholic families who are loaded with money (bourrées de pognon) . They're not keen on Hollande either, especially because of the extreme measures that have come from Valls. I think people here see M. Juppé as a moderate pragmatist who manages to find a way to make things work. I thought about saying that we could be thankful that Mme Fillon is Welsh, but then decided to keep my big Welsh trap shut.

I've always thought of myself as a person with convictions. Oh well.

6:18 - no, I'm not going to go for a run this morning. It'll be a rush anyway today. 6:22 - come on, you're awake, you feel OK, just do it. So I trotted off through the drizzle. Just 3 kilometres this morning, though. Faster than usual, though. I passed a chap running the other way, young, lithe, swift, running with grace. I thought of my crazy friend, Desmond, the evangelist who lives in a van. "What's happened to you?" he said again yesterday, "you've lost a lot of weight, sure you have*" I haven't. Perhaps between 3 and 8 kg. That's not a lot! However: 1) All my life I have inflated in people's memories. I put on weight in their recollection.  This means that almost every time people see me for the first time in months, they think I've lost weight. 2) Redistribution. I'm like a good French steak, whatever colour the outside is I'm pink at heart, and I've redistributed some weight from my haunches to ...

I have to have a 'flu jab, and to do that the nurse will come to the flat, would you believe! Doctors' surgeries don't have nurses attached, and nurses don't have surgeries. They come to you. I also have to have a physio look at my neck, but for that I'm going to their office! I've been a good boy this afternoon and sorted out appointments for almost everything.

So this morning was the pastorale of the CNEF33, the Conseil National des Evangéliques de France for the Gironde. I had foolishly agreed to bring the "meditation" so I "exhorted them to make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace". I told them from Ephesians that how we express our real spiritual unity, accomplished by the Holy Spirit revealed: 1) The triune God 2) My character 3) My commitment to it There were about 25 people there. It was good to see our mates, colleagues and folk from the various churches. You sow and wait and see what God does with things. One guy afterwards said he doesn't have a preacher for the 16th January and could I help them out, so it couldn't have been totally inadmissable, I suppose.