Tuesday, March 16, 2021

Virtue.

While The Old Farmer checks the brakes on the venerable Mercedes his 'lady friend' keeps busy in the garden. She cuts a magnolia  branch and sticks individual stems in the large concrete urn at the front of the house. Not satisfied with the impact this makes she then sticks magnolia flowers in the two pots and two hanging baskets on either side of the garage doors. This is an unusual style of gardening but helps her whittle away the time until the brakes are considered 'safe' and they can drive off again. The 'lady friend' shouts across the lane to let me know that both of them have had their second jabs and have had no side effects.

Sophie, who has found something savoury in the ditch, seems as unimpressed with the end gardening result as I am.

The donkeys are at the bottom of their field this morning. Angus sits on the concrete drainage ditch with Sophie by his side. The donkeys ignore us with studied indifference while we put the world to rights. 

The big news in the village is that Madame Bays eldest daughter Sandrine had arranged to have a jab today along with her husband , the 'good for nothing' Hugo. Hugo exists by doing 'odd jobs' and engaging in a variety of money making schemes that border on the nonsensical. These schemes often involve old Citroens that he's going to do up and sell on at a profit.  They have a garden full of Citroens that are waiting the arrival of 'parts'. Sandrine has somehow managed to convince the local medical centre that they are both 'essential workers' . You could just about imagine that Sandrine , as the local hairdresser, could fall into this category but Hugo with his rusty Citroens most certainly doesn't or shouldn't.

Anyway, despite 12 million AstraZeneca doses being distributed in the UK with no apparent side effects, the French government has decided that the vaccine programme should be suspended pending an investigation into blood clotting. Todays jabs have been postponed.

Later we go to the water park where Sophie observes that a new pontoon has been installed. She considers walking along it but , on reflection, thinks it's wiser to stay on dry land. Prudence is a PONette virtue.


 Psychology :https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17439760.2021.1897871


5 comments:

Lisa in France said...

Well, the magnolia branches probably look better today than they will tomorrow. I was happy to receive confirmation that spending ridiculous amounts of money buying toys for Charlie is in fact good for my own mental well-being. On the other hand, while the concept of negentropy is interesting, if you were to try and use it in the workplace, the first thing that would happen is someone would decide to form a committee to study negentropy and the committee would hold meetings and, and, and . . .

WFT Nobby said...

Bertie heartily approves of the first link.

Coppa's girl said...

Sophie is very wise to stay on dry land, you never know with these pontoons....they sometimes have a habit of wobbling, no matter how sturdy they appear!
One wonders at the French governments' swift decision to suspend the vaccine programme. Is there some hidden agenda, is it just an excuse to cover up deficiencies? Sadly whilst vulnerable people are waiting, the next surge may be gathering in the wings.

Jean said...

Exactly my thoughts. Politicking and procrastination to cover up a poor vaccination programme. There is no proven link and a much greater risk of serious illness from catching the virus than the minuscule chance of getting a blood clot, according to what I have read.

Yamini MacLean said...

Hari OM
...magnolia... or Camellia flowers??? I think the latter and I rather suspect so does Sophie! I need to work on my negentropy around the Hutch. YAM xx