Friday, September 4, 2020

The kind concierge


The Parisian lady is dropped off at the airport for the flight to Nice. When she gets there a car will pick her up and take her to her daughters hospital. The concierge at a large and luxurious hotel in Cannes proved invaluable in arranging a car and driver ( and when he learns of the reason ) at cost price. 

For Angus and Sophie it's a quiet start to the day. Three coy deer watch us from the safety of the tree line.  With no hunters around the natural order of things is reasserting itself. 


The stream once again drying out. A couple of shady pools enable the family princess to enjoy a refreshing drink. If we don't get rain this weekend then the pools and the stream will evaporate away.


Four tables taken on the cafe terrace. One couple wear their mask while enjoying their morning coffee. They remove their masks, take a sip of coffee, then put their masks back on. It takes no less than seven separate sips and 'puttings on' before they've finished their cups. This seems to be taking things to excess although there were 23 positive cases in our quiet little department yesterday. The highest level recorded so far .


We ignore the tinned pineapple, mandarin orange slices and raspberry tart and consider whether to invest in a raspberry or strawberry alternative. Today the raspberry offering wins.

At the greengrocers the fresh peaches are finished. The first of the Mandarin Oranges arrive from Morocco. An early hint of Christmas to come.


This is apparently a thing in Wisconsin : https://www.insidehook.com/article/booze/ice-cream-cocktails

Worth a read  : https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/thai-king-reinstates-royal-consort-and-her-titles-palace

Global warming in an unusual setting : https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a33864835/crater-methane-eruption-russia/





13 comments:

Lisa in France said...

Hmmm, so you are going to leave us guessing about the rating for today's croissant? It's hard to tell, rather strangely shaped but the crust looks nice - I'll take a chance and wager a 9.2. Sophie seems very engrossed in that shot of her moving through the field and then happily relieved to find there's still some water left in her stream. As for me, I think I would prefer a Moroccan mandarin to a Wisconsin ice cream cocktail.

Taste of France said...

I read you late last night and couldn't get the Parisian lady out of my mind. Family in ICU--my first thought wss Covid, then I got to the wrong-way driver. A drunk? Laws against drunk driving are still considered fun-killers here, instead of as a way to stop killers.
Bravo to the Font for the hotel.
Hoping the family all recover.
Re Covid, 8 teachers at my kid's school have it, but are at home, not hospitalized. My kid predicts two weeks of school and then it will be back to online classes. Aude has one case per 100K people in Aude, but a lot of hospitalizations compared to the rest of Occitanie. (Lots of old people?)
The NY Times has an interactive "game" where you can move different battleground states to either Biden or the buffoon, and see the electoral college results: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/elections/election-states-biden-trump.html?searchResultPosition=2

WFT Nobby said...

Good choice of tart. One day some Covid risk averse customer is going to forget and end up with a mask covered in coffee. Maybe there's a video of this happening already out there?

Tigger's Mum said...

What no croissant score today? Just as a matter of interest what goes into the croissant score? – taste, texture, smell we assume, what about size, shape, colour and mode of service? And is there a score sheet and some complicated algorithm that combines the sub-scores with appropriate weighting etc? We jest, naturally, but were just imagining a college course in croissant scoring ….. which these days would include a considerable amount of high-tech programming and …well, we leave the rest to your readers’ imaginations. Less ‘good croissant’ and more BS would be the result one suspects. We’d all be better to leave it up to Sophie to pick the good ones.

Coppa's girl said...

Agree, Bertie, the raspberry tart would be first choice here too. In fact I went shopping this morning and bought two small punnets of fresh raspberries, which will be eaten by the time the weekend is over!
Interesting - I thought that there were no fresh peaches today, but there were still a few of the yellow variety. No sign of the nice rosy ones, or the "squashed" ones. In their place were huge plums - the size of crickets balls!
Not sure about the croissant rating - it looks somewhat like a bread roll at first glance. Maybe a 7.3?
We hope that all is well for the Parisian lady and her family, and that she will be allowed to visit them regularly.

Sheila said...

Here's hoping the Parisian lady's family are recovering. If they are all in ICU, though, must be quite serious. One can only imagine the price of a car hire in Cannes even 'at cost.'

Who knew Popular Mechanics was full of so many interesting articles? I'm going back later for more reading. Have to wonder how much permafrost remains to melt and how deep it will go.

Angus said...

More an 8.5.

Angus said...

We are still trying to figure out how you can go down a motorway entry slip road the wrong way from the toll booth. Takes some doing.

Angus said...

If there is a video like that it would go viral.

Angus said...

Taste and texture the key issues. Shape and flakiness also important.

Angus said...

The Parisian lady will need to stay in the South for a while. Her husband will be visited by Angus tonight with a rather good bottle of Barrolo.

Angus said...

Thankfully Cannes and Nice are both more affordable this year.

Poppy Q said...

In the mid nineties there was a rather dodgy American Cafe on the Kings road where me and a bestie had many a memorable evening having their icecream cocktails. If I remember rightly it was blended vanilla icecream with peaches, peach schnapps and Kahlua. We felt awfully sophisticated at the time, and probably horribly sick after.