Back to Spidey Land

Never say die. Die die must kill them all. Those were the thoughts of the week. Welcome back to the farm house, Beau Lotus!

It took me a total of 6 hours' vacuuming spilt into 2 days to remove the spider colonies that tried to take over the house during our absence. And we found 3 scorpions since Sunday night, one of which was adult and very vivacious, I had to drug it with insecticide before I dared squash it with my mop. But babies are worse news, because we now worry that a nest could be somewhere in the house and I have yet to find it.

The woodpeckers visited for sure. Not only did they pecked a big hole in 3 of the wooden shutters on the 2nd floor, they also attacked the wooden part of the windows. And do not let me start on the pigeons, they shitted everywhere but everywhere. What the hell did they feed on to have so much shit? The plants, needless to say, took the opportunity to die out on me.

Anyway, I've been thinking about this and have come to the conclusion that the only thing I can now do is tamper with the ecosystem. I wipe out the ants and flies, the spiders have less to feed on, they diminish and the scorpions starve and maybe they too will decide to go propagate somewhere else. Or so I hope.

Otherwise it is good to be back. It rained almost all the time we were in France, but over here, we're back to 30ºC every day, a little too hot if I may venture...

But how I love France. Je t'aime à la folie...I have been places in the past 3 decades and there is no country (except my own) that could inspire me the way la Belle France could. We started out at 8:40 in the morning on Saturday and arrived in Bonneuil en Valois (an hour north of Paris) at midnight. We cursed and swore along the way, Hubby having printed out some lousy route that took us through Switzerland (3 hours of traffic jams and very expensive junk food) and half of France via national roads, but could not fail to admire the lovely countryside, pretty villages and wonderful food that lined our itinerary in the Hexagone.

And Paris. Probably, no certainly the most beautiful city in the world. Its big boulevards, cobbled streets, Haussmanian free stone buildings, the cathedrals, the markets...We visited our flat in the Capital for the 1st time in 2 years. Have almost forgotten what it was like to live just minutes away from the Champs Elysées, from all the boutiques, restaurants, street markets, theatres, museums, cinemas. And Paris was even more wonderful in August. When most of its inhabitants were away.

Façade of our flat in Paris

Unfortunately I couldn't do half of what I had hoped to do, notably almost no shopping done. We had the flat painted and at the last minute threw in new wooden parquet flooring. Hours spent in Leroy Merlin choosing paint, parquet etc. Supervising the painters. Trying to squeeze in a few visits with friends, a piece of theatre, a few movies, restaurants. But Paris was still magic in spite of that.

Will try to post about some of the stuff we did and ate in the past 2 weeks and at the same time wash, clean, unpack etc. To those of you who have written, please excuse me for the delay in replying. I'm very mono-task, one thing at a time malheureusement c'est comme ça...