Sophie is harnessed up and loaded up into the back of the car. Time to head off for the breakfast croissants. She gives me a look that suggests we could have gone half an hour ago. The radio tells us there has been more trouble in the Paris suburbs. Bored teenagers fed up with the lockdown. If there are riots now when the air's still cool what will it be like in the heat of August ?
Today will be spent trying to communicate with the Italian wine shippers about the non-delivery of two cases of wine. Their website has one of those annoying auto-replies - 'Honored Client - Due to unprecedented demand during this time of uncertainty we are not able to respond to your question in person. Be assured we shall attend to it at the earliest possible moment. Until then please do not contact us '.
At the bakers we see the tikes mother. We have a lockdown style conversation from across the road. She is hopeful that the schools may start again on May 11th. In fact she's praying that the schools open up then. The two boys and the adolescent daughter gave up talking to each other during the first week of lockdown and filial relations have not improved since. There is also a gaggle of smaller children who add an additional layer of chaos to this Edwardian sized family .
'The Font' is starting a new online course. 'There's no point in hanging around wasting time' I'm told. Angus, who could easily win an Olympic gold in time wasting, wonders if this is a comment on his careful progress towards painting the terrace wall. Much of Sunday was spent ensuring that connections and transmission speeds were up to scratch. Angus is hoping that the teaching staff are as amusing as the last group of fleece wearing Californians who would drink enormous cups of coffee and mutter ' Y'awl cool with that ?' every four or five minutes. Presumably, they will teach from home.
11 comments:
Love the picture of Sophie in the green tunnel. Is it more astrophysics for 'The Font' or a change in direction this time? We look forward to descriptions of the lecturers' attire anyway. Oh and a croissant photo would be good too!
Cheers, Gail.
Is the Font teaching or taking the course?
Maybe the Italian wine shippers have been decimated by coronavirus, rather than just incompetence.
You also read la Dépêche--the articles about stupid reasons for fines--that among the fruits and vegetables, there was non-essential cake or Coke that somehow made the entire outing illegitimate; the man who had papers to see his dying father and was turned back because the father was on touristy Ile de Ré, the man complained and was given the OK to visit but the father died before he got there; the woman fined for going out to buy menstrual products; another for buying a pregnancy test--all deemed non-essential. When you add this kind of arbitrary letter-of-the-law inflexibility to the usual racial profiling, you can imagine that people will lose patience, especially the young ones with too much testosterone.
Re the baker's, I stopped by one after the market and its tables were crowded with groups of men having croissants and coffee. No masks (of course, you can't eat with a mask on). The men were in their 20s or 30s, artisan types who seemed to think they would be untouched by any virus. The woman working behind the counter (and to-the-ceiling plexiglas) looked like she wanted to kill them herself. I walked in, saw them and walked out.
Angus - we hope that 'The Font's' latest online course doesn't include motivating a husband into painting a terrace wall!
Sophie is so lucky that she still has these beautiful walks to go on. We're getting a tad fed-up with the same round the houses. If we were stopped by the police, we could be fined because it would probably be too far from home.
Hari OM
The Font somehow reminds me of my mother; never a second went to waste! I may (just may) tend more towards Angus' style... YAM xx
You might be right but methinks this is the ' we are open for new orders but closed for queries' style of pandemic decimation. After sales service is even worse in Italy than France - It tends towards the non-existent.
Hardly a morning goes by that I don't get a good laugh out of Sophie's first of the day coiffure. Today is certainly no exception.
We are beginning to hear rumbles from many Republicans (especially Senators) who are discussing the possibility of holding China responsible for our increasing national debt and that somehow they be forced to compensate the US Treasury. All based on the theory that China failed to warn the world that a deadly virus was on the loose, etc. When you speak with men in dark suits from there, do they express any alarm about this? It all sounds so far out, but I wouldn't put it past this administration.
Talk about coincidence. I was just reading this update from the first place I ever worked - https://www.hoover.org/research/how-make-china-pay-covid-19
I am a chill out on the couch and watch pointless non educational television shows, and slowly read my book during lockdown type of girl ( I still work full time at the hospital as well). I admire those trying to better themselves or learn a skill while the world is slowed down.
julie
After working at the hospital you deserve to sit down and chill. Well done !
Michael Lewis (enjoyed hearing him on one of the LRB podcasts you recently linked) was interviewed on NPR by Terry Gross in early 2019 after the release of his book 'The Fifth Risk,' and at the conclusion, she asked him if there was anything else which might keep him awake at night. His response was that it occasionally crossed his mind that Trump might take steps to default on US debt to China. I remember thinking 'Whoa' not even Trump would take such a radical step. Now it's beginning to look increasingly like it might at least come under discussion. Fox News a major cheerleader for China pay for Covid 19.
Sounds like isolation is taking its toll. Time for another walk with the PONette.
Post a Comment