What would you tell your bank if.......................?

What would you tell your bank if your parrot ate some euro notes? Well, this happened to some friends of Lisbeth. They have a lovely parrot called Jeeves. Jeeves is actually a she, despite the name, because the current owners only discovered her gender when 'he' produced an egg!

Anyway, Jeeves, who has free run of the house, helped herself to some euro notes that were on the bedside table and chewed approx 150 euros worth of paper notes.

The owner gathered up the remains of the notes and the surrounding confetti and headed off to the bank. The bank were very good about it. Having examined the confetti and shredded notes, the person on the desk made a phone call to check out the procedure for chewed euros. Lisbeth was told that the person on the other end of the phone agreed to a full refund, credited to the account. He then added that, in France, parrots are usually fed on nuts, not notes!

The Statue

This is a life-size statue of Jesus. Lisbeth saw it in an antique shop in the south of France. Unfortunately, his hand has broken off. To avoid it getting lost, they have taped it around his neck for safe keeping.

Hello Maud and Paula

Thanks for your comments, Maud and Paula. I'm not as keen on Christmas as Lisbeth is but she hasn't put decorations up yet, if you were wondering? She doesn't believe in all this consumerism staring in November. It was me, passing the nice heart that hangs on the cupboard. It just reminded me of Xmas.

I don't think she's thought much about the festive season, because she's having a hard time of it in the apartment. The paint won't stay on the walls, the wood won't sand and Lisbeth lent on one of the panels in the kitchen units and it broke. So now she has to mend that, as well. Tomorrow she is doing a favour for a friend and then, in the afternoon, she is going to a funeral. So you see it isn't all sun and wine in France. Far from it at the moment. It is cold and grey and miserable.

That being said, I am in good spirits, for saying. The rooms are nice with fires in them and the grandfather clock ticks reassuringly throughout the day.

Red for Xmas?

Christmas. It will be on us before you can say 'mouton'. These hearts on one of Lisbeth's doors just made me think about it. It must be the red colour that set me off.

On taking a closer look I found that the big one, hanging quite low, smells of spices: orange and cinnamon, etc. All the traditional smells of Christmas. Hmmmmmmmmm

Are you sitting comfortably?

As I've been a bit down, lately, I've been browsing the web more than usual. I look for stuff on mouton - of course - and on sheep. That doesn't mean that I don't look at anything else, but these two tags are my favourites.

Well, last night, I came cross this sheep chair. Now I don't know what you think, but I think it looks weird. Lisbeth says she wouldn't like to sit in it and I wouldn't like to be it, so it's thumbs down from us. Would you fancy it in one of your rooms?

Thank you, Maud

Thank you, Maud for your concern. I have been a little down lately, as my lack of posts indicate. You sound a very nice person and I just might be looking for a new home! Thank you for the offer.

Facebook neglected sheep

Am the first Facebook neglected sheep? If Lisbeth isn't working, she's on Facebook. I know it's nice for her to be in touch with so many people that are far away, but she isn't really spending as much time with me as she used to. She's 'poking' them and 'sending gifts' and the like and updating her status!

Well my status is fed up. I'm not properly in my winter quarters and I don't like my surroundings.

That's all I've got to say, really.

Woolly Wisdom

In all the fiddle and faddle that's been going on here, I forgot to tell you that Lisbeth received this lovely book for her birthday from Maud (one of my readers). It's about time that our wisdom was recognised!

It's called Woolly Wisdom by Dan Donovan and is full of great quotes such as: "I think animal testing is a terrible idea; they get nervous and give the wrong answers"Joseph Blosephina.

Of course, Lisbeth knows all about woolly wisdom as I am here to keep her on track and on message. What I'm not able to do is to get her to take better photos. This is quite lamentable but it's all I could find. (And with all those cables!) As she was also given a pretty snappy camera for her birthday, which she absolutely loves by the way, I'm hoping that she will be uploading better ones than this; when she's worked out how to use it, of course!

I am stardust

I am stardust and walking with joy
And my stars I would like to employ
To make everything bright
Not just shining at night
But all day for you all to enjoy

Road names, names, names

Lisbeth has been visiting some friends down the road, this afternoon. Not unsurprisingly, one of the topics of conversation was........you've guessed: numbers and street names. They were discussing the formal letter telling the residents on this road that the name has changed from Route de Montmorillon to Rue des Artisans. Lisbeth said that in her letter, it said Route des Artisans, instead of Rue. They checked theirs again and found it said the same.

Out of interest, Lisbeth's friend looked them all up in the new telephone directory because - apparently - this has all the new addresses in it.

I'm sure you won't be surprised to find that it got more complicated, not less. While her friends are in under Rue des Atrisans, the people over the (same) road are in under Route de Montmorillon and Lisbeth isn't either. She is in the book as living in Le Bourg. The phrase for the centre of the village.

Road names

Our new road name is Rue des Artisanes. That's what the panel says at the end of the road. However, Lisbeth has just received a letter telling her, formally, that her new address is Route des Artisanes. We think that they were thinking of the previous name of the road: Route de Montmorillon and forgot that it is now 'Rue'. I'll see if I can get her to take a photo of the new sign with her fancy new camera.

Some have new and some have two!

You will remember the consternation and unrest in our village over the introduction of house numbers and new street names.

Lisbeth (I know I've gone back to calling her Lisbeth. It's just one of those things!) is finding the whole thing quite fascinating and charming as she listens to the various discussions of the pros and cons (more often cons) of the new arrangements.

Just the other day, she heard that the people who live in the new houses up past the salle des fete, already had numbers (unlike the rest of the houses in the village). With the new arrangements, they've not only been given a new street name, but all the houses have been given a new number. Now both the residents and the post people are finding it confusing.

Then there's the friends of Lisbeth who live down the road. They have two entrances onto their property and have been given two different numbers: one for each gate. Both gates open into the garden: one each side of the house. I wonder if you can write to a garden?

It's all very 'French', as they say

Eddie Izzard's Encore on Computers

A contribution to my 'French House Numbers' posts

My friend has sent in this photo of the number on the house where he used to live in Essonne: 65, Grande Rue, Dannemois. Although you can't see clearly, from this photo, it is the traditional white on blue colour. Thanks for that.

THE spooky image

The photo, as promised, from yesterday's post. Mr Occasional Stirring's recreation of the spooky image: My sister and a volcano.

Spooky Image

One of my regular readers, Mr Occasional Stirrings, has been in touch to tell me about a very weird thing that happened when he was closing one of my posts. The post in question carried a photo of Lisbeth's sister sitting in front of an open fire. (The photo wasn't very good - a bit blurry - but I had posted it anyway.)

Well, it seems that when Mr Occasional Stirrings closed the post "... it left an afterimage on my desktop pic (a volcano in Ecuador) which was quite spooky. Spookier than the attached attempt to recreate it, but you'll get the idea."

Check in tomorrow for his recreation

Boswell: all grown up

My regular readers will remember that I have written a number of posts about Boswell, the gosling (left). Boswell belongs to one of the programmers at IBM (T. J. Watson Research Centre in the USA) and Boswell has had several poems written for him, penned by yours truly.

The earliest was entitled The Goose Engine and was, I believe, one of my better odes. Later, when he was ill, there was one written before an operation, then another for his return home, afterwards.

I can't tell you how delighted I am, therefore, to say that Lisbeth has heard from his owner, again, along with this photo of Boswell all grown up. What a handsome goose he has become! And judging by this photo, he is doing really well.

Hi Boswell.

The camel is chewing with very big teeth

The camel is chewing with very big teeth
They're not from on top, just the ones underneath
They really are big and take up lots of space
As they can't help but dominate this lovely face

I choose to believe that he's smiling at me
And that if we could talk, we would surely agree
that this life thing is hard, and the world's in a mess
but that teeth are for chewing and there to impress

The camel is chewing

The camel is chewing. His head is held high
He chews very slowly and never thinks why
He's biding his time, in a world of his own
Is he thinking of life, of his chewing, or home?

The camel is chewing. He watches us pass
We all stand and watch him regurgitate grass
The landscape is bare, with no flower or tree
I'm not even sure that he isn't a 'she'!

The camel is chewing. I hope she's OK
She's looking quite calm and not eager to play
Whatever the gender, the regal shows through
So I wish this good camel a heartfelt adieu

Chewing camel

Lizzie sent me this picture. I'm now not even sure she's with her sister. You expect postcards of pretty villages, not chewing camels.

She's certainly gone a bit weird. First there was the obsession with house numbers (which I'm not sure is over), now a camel!