The other day I had to open up a big Provençal farmhouse for viewing by some possible buyers. The owner was away and had asked me to let this couple in. I didn’t time how long it took to open up all the shutters, but I know it takes half an hour to close them.

After politely offering to take off their shoes, to which I politely replied they didn’t need to, the viewers had a very long look around the ground floor, and sat down and talked about how they might arrange their furniture. I pointed out the possibility of turning a different room in to the sitting room – so then they went and inspected that.
I knew when I was spot-cleaning the windows earlier, that these people would be tall – I should have cleaned the higher panes. Damn.

They went up and down the three staircases in turn, to look at the bedrooms and bathrooms, and seemed particularly interested in the fireplaces – were they still functioning, or had they been blocked off? What would I know?! I’m only the cleaner. I gave up hope of getting home in time to take my daughter to her interview.

Before they left, the man told me they were going to have another look at the garden, and let their puppy out of the car, as he would need to stretch his legs by now. Got to love those British euphemisms.

That same day, I received a text from a woman who had got my phone number from a friend of mine; she was looking for someone to house and puppy-sit for the weekend.

The exciting conclusion to this story is that when I phoned the puppy woman, she turned out to be the same one who had viewed the house that very day. I had never seen nor heard of her before, so we both thought it was quite a coincidence.
Well,yes that’s it.What did you expect – something interesting?

Bloody hell. I do try. The rain had stopped, so although it was dark, I decided to take the dog for a walk.

We got to the end of the road and turned round as usual. Fine. Then as we were starting to go down the hill, a jeep full of shouting people roared past. Next thing there was a loud explosion – either the jeep backfiring, or somebody letting off a banger – the car was out of sight by now. Alfie and I had synchronized heart attacks; we turned back and headed for home – he ran, his ears flat with fear, and I followed his lead – though obviously without the ear-flattening.

We had barely reached the gate, when there was a very bright flash of lightning followed by thunder. Exhausting – and that was without much walk…

I have just lent ‘On Writing’ by Stephen King to a friend of mine; she is roaring through it from what she’s told me. I am reading ‘If you want to Write’ by somebody Ueland – it’s good, but it must be a publisher’s nightmare, because the author is promoting that idea that we can all learn to write, and that we all have something to say – we just need to find it. God help us. No wonder the world is so full of badly written drivel, and mundane conversations…

The Stephen King one is very good, which is why he is getting a new paragraph. I haven’t read any of his novels – too creepy and horrible for me. ‘On Writing’ however, was recommended to me. I wasn’t expecting much, but it is brilliant – he is very generous with his writing experience and advice, and includes great little (if that isn’t a contradiction) anecdotes from his life. He’s got a real bee in his bonnet about adverbs, she added unnecessarily.
By the way, did you know his first book was published because his wife hooked it out of the bin?

Remember – you heard it first on Mundane Conversations.

I decided to cook the porridge oats this morning – usually I just have them uncooked with almond milk (which has probably never seen an almond in it’s life).The almond milk is just sweet enough that you don’t need to add sugar to the oats/porridge – and a sprinkle of cinamon – which is supposed to boost your metabolism;not sure if that is a good thing, as mightn’t you end up eating more?

I need to have a word with those Stats people, as there’s no point in me getting excited about the visitor to my blog if it’s me!

More incredibly interesting minutae coming soon.

…..unless you happen to have eaten a LOT of, a lot of saturated fat, a lot of carbohydrate generally, and now a third member of the extended family is showing the same mystery bug symptoms as the first two affected.  ie. nausea and feeling cold.

Not feeling great myself actually, but this is more of an age thing – if you’re a woman in your fifties you might know what I’m talking about; I don’t mean the menopause – there’s no pause involved here. Without going in to detail: when I say heavy loss, I’m not talking about the money spent on Christmas presents. Enough of this. We’re going to Cork tomorrow. I’m too tired to write anything brilliant right now. More soon.

The above was written at Christmas, so sorry if it’s out of order with the rest of my scintillating scripts.

During our recent Christmas trip to Ireland, my grown-up son and I boarded (not with planks of wood) a bus in Dublin city centre.Being the tourists that we were, we didn’t know that Irish bus drivers – though strictly speaking,this one wasn’t, don’t accept notes;we didn’t have enough change between us for the bus fare, so the driver said “Ask the other passengers for change – they’ll give it to you”.

While my son cringed in to the handrail, I addressed several old ladies at the back of the bus.
“Excuse me, does anyone have change for 10 euros,please?” Almost before I’d said it, about six women opened their handbags and wallets and held out money to me.I didn’t take any of it at first,as the change was coming from so many different sources, I couldn’t figure out who to give the 10€ note to.

One lady sitting by herself behind the others said “How much is the exact fare,love?” I told her 5,50 and all these women started pouring change in to my hands. And they were all smiling and laughing! I thanked them,made sure they understood that I wasn’t going to sing for them, and went with my son to pay the driver.

Then I went back and sat down with the lady who had asked how much we needed. I offered her back all the excess change, but she wouldn’t accept, and said “Light a candle for me next time you go to church” – actually, she might have said mass, but that’s one detail you are spared, as I can’t remember.

And there’s more! Remind me to tell you about Aer Lingus letting us on the plane after the gate had closed and our suitcases had been taken off – they put them back on again, and we were allowed to board, even though we were about fifteen minutes late.

I am reading a book called  Creating Affluence, that my daughter bought. She says she knew it was a “spiritual” book when she bought it (online-where else?) – I’m not convinced.And I’m not convinced by the book either – you know, all that stuff about everything being made of the same stuff. And that you just have to think of a word for it to become reality, because everything begins with thought, and there is an “infinite supply” blah blah. Well, there isn’t an infinite supply. Take land, for example – suppose everyone on the planet wanted a piece?Once we have bought it/built on it, that’s one bit of land less, isn’t it?

I love all these books like ‘The Secret’ and ‘Creating Affluence’ and ‘How to get Rich’ (might have made that one up, but I doubt it);they do create affluence – for their authors.Anyway, check back here in a year and see if all my thought-words have concretised – I’ll let you know.

I have just been looking at an article on how to make your blog interesting – and it said………………………………………. Make it interesting! Well, that was helpful.

I spent Christmas in Ireland – first a couple of days in Dublin, and then down to Cork. The highlight of my trip was feeding pigeons in Stephen’s Green (a park) in Dublin. A man was sitting on a bench surrounded by pigeons, and he was feeding them porridge oats; my son and I stopped to watch, and the guy asked if I would like to feed them. He gave me a handful of oats,and within seconds there was a pigeon on my arm, and another on my shoulder! The birds were very gentle, and happily, didn’t do what they are best known for, on me.

The guy said we could walk away with a pigeon, and it would fly back,so this is what we did;about 50 metres along the path, I bent down and lowered the pigeon on to the ground and off he flew – back to his keeper.We waved to the man and he waved back. Keeping it simple.

Hiver is French for Winter – well,not everyone knows. Funnily, shiver contains it. Big drop in temperature this evening. When I came in from my car, the gauge was reading 12.5 degrees.

Had a line rehearsal at a friend’s house this evening – mega tired – so just checking in.

My son was washing a car at the car wash yesterday, and managed to leave his car keys behind. (There’s a riddle for you). Luckily he has managed to trace the previous owner, who has a spare car key, but I’ve got to give him a lift to Monaco, and need to be up early.

Realized yesterday that the play is on next week.Shite. Scarey. Why am I doing this? I ask myself this every time, but then I’m brilliant and everyone adores me, and I remember why. This is an “ensemble” piece – there are ten of us in it, so plenty of room for some spectacular mix-ups if people miss their cues/jump in too early, as can happen – but won’t.

More crucial news from Mundane Conversations soon.

Vide Grenier is French for jumble sale/car boot sale – or Empty Attic/loft.

I know you will all – (all one of you) be keen to hear about the sale.It officially started at 9:00,but the daughter wanted to be sure of a good spot, so heroically we got up at 6, having had about five hours sleep.We arrived at the school car park by 7:30 for setting up.
Crikey – all I can say is, don’t do a car boot sale by yourself – and you need good peripheral vision.

We had barely opened the boot when people started approaching us. “Have you got any mobile phones?” “Any bijoux fantaisie?”  – whatever that is – cheap jewellery?. One bloke had the cheek to shine his torch in to the car, asking us if we had any “antiquaires” . These guys were the dealers, and were extremely focused and unjovial – come to think of it, I haven’t met many jovial French people – unless you count some of the mothers I used to meet picking up their kids from school – but they were on anti-depressants, judging by their constant smiles.

We set up our trestle table – (impressed?) and our clothes rail (oh yeah), and folded some of the clothes to display them on the table,calling on my sales experience in Laura Ashley’s 30 years ago – I knew it would come in handy. Almost immediately, we were surrounded by people – picking things up, turning things over,asking the size then the price.

One woman tried on a red Nike hoody, and obviously knew her colours, as she didn’t doubt us when we told her it suited her. She went over to show her papa – he was around 80, she was about 60; and he smiled, so she paid, and walked off still wearing it.She got a bargain, by the way – paying a tenth of the price she would have paid new.

There were quite a lot of North Africans. A stout woman dressed in kaftan and veil was interested in a big roll of blue Provençal cotton material which I had propped up against the back of the car; it had been in our basement for over twenty years, and smelt strongly of damp.We agreed a price and she paid me, and said it was to make duvet covers for the grandchildren. I told her she would have to wash it;then as she wanted to put it in her trolley-bag, she asked me to unroll it. She had the last laugh, as I hadn’t realized how much material there was.

I stood there unrolling and unrolling, mentally trying to calculate how much I might have got had I sold it by the metre. I folded it in to a big pile and put it in to her trolley for her, and off she went, leaving me with hands stinking of damp basement – but 4 euros richer. The material had been left behind by a tenant of ours, so you could call that 400% profit – there’s good money in textiles.

If I learnt anything, it was that yes, it is best to get there early – we had sold 90% of our stuff by 10:00. Also, I think you need to be thinking in terms of getting rid of stuff before it goes mouldy, rather than any great profit. You heard it first on Mundane Conversations.