I didn't make-up my bed today, etc.

I didn't make-up my bed today

This news did not make BBC, Al Jazeera or CNN. “But it is made,” you might say looking at the photo. Well not exactly. My bed is a click-clack, what the French call a sofa bed. The name comes from the click and the clack made when it is converted from one to the other. Only when I’m sick or have a guest, who doesn’t want to convert it, do I not change it from a bed to its canope form seconds after rising (nature usually, but not always calls first). I admit to be neurotically neat. A newspaper goes out with seconds of being read. My dishes are lined up symmetrically. When I finish with something it goes away. Nothing but nothing is left lying around. That is only when I’m alone. When I have company, I only care that they are comfortable. This reminds me I can be sane. So J if you’re reading this, when you come you save me from myself

Cold vegetables are springing up

Despite the wind and cold, villagers with allotments on the edge of town are already fiddling in their gardens. This one has produced perfect cabbages, although the man who owns the allotment wondered POURQUOI I wanted the photo. I love walking by them to see the progress. They carry good memories of our Victory Garden on the Fenway. After work we would go weed as a family, play word games as we did, and enjoy the results of our labours. We got to know our neighbour gardeners too, albeit is superficially

Judges BOOOOOOOOOO

A real luxury: reading a newspaper in paper format with breakfast. Okay, the weekend edition of the IHT on Wednesday isn’t a Boston Globe, but it is still a paper with ink not screen squiggles. One of the stories concerned the two Pennsylvania judges that made over a billion dollars taking bribes from private prisons to sentence youthful offenders there. One girl’s crime? She put up some impolite things about a teacher on Facebook. She spent three month’s in prison for that.

Canigou

My daily meanders around the village and its outskirts were slowed by the wind, but bundled up I head to Château Valmy. The sky was crystal clear. At one point I had to hop a stream, which most of the year is merely a drybed, lost my footing, righting myself with only one wet booted foot. Coming back, I saw Canigou for the first time, snow-covered and comforting. True, the mountain doesn’t equal an Alp, but certainly qualifies in the beauty category.

Cake Eating—Gold Medal Category

An old boy friend called me a cake eater, a person who wanted her cake and to eat it too. What is amazing, is often I can, and I think I just qualified for the gold medal of cake eating. My neighbour was in for a week from the UK where she spends her winters. She invited me for dinner and scrabble Sunday night. On Saturday I picked up a bouquet of flowers and took them to her, explaining since she was leaving on Tuesday, I though it better she have the extra day to enjoy them rather than just on Monday. Thus as she left she gave me back the flowers, which were in full bloom. Now if that’s not having your cake (giving someone a gift they enjoy) and eating it too (having them come back).


Retirada

Today marks the beginning of the commemoration of the Retirada, the Diaspora of the Catalans who escaped from Spain during the Civil War. There will be films, presentations, displays and a parade to the beach where the refugees huddled for years. Having tea at a history-loving Brit’s house, he showed me a graph of the population of Argelès, which dipped during the 20s and 30s (it should hit 10,000 this year) to under three thousand. The refugees weren’t counted in the censuses of the times. I’ve seen a documentary that included many oral histories of the suffering as the people marched for days in the snow carrying the little they could carry to escape the fighting. Crossing the border involved huge glitches, and finally they made it to safety and a life of deprivation. Today, the beach is a peaceful place. In the summer it is filled with tourists, playing volley ball, sunning themselves and trying to decide which restaurant to eat at. As for the border, unless the police are searching for a criminal, we drive through. Although we are at peace in this part of the world, the horror of war, of people trying to escape from man-made tragedy goes on in Gaza, Somalia, the list goes on and on. Ad the Peter, Paul and Mary Lemon Tree Song says, “when will ever learn…”