As part of the public service brief adopted by this site in its jjoint venture with the local newspaper, Le Quotidien de Faire-le-Dodo (87), here is the latest online edition of our Community Noticeboard: Super-Loto: Saturday night at the Salle Polyvalente. Join us to sit on uncomfortable plastic chairs in overcrowded conditions for six hours…
After a mild winter, the life cycle of the flora that surrounds us here at Tranquility Base is already well advanced. The forsythia is budding, the Narcissi are in bloom, the air is filled with birdsong. And the grass needs cutting. This year, we have a new weapon in the unending war against nature. I’ve cranked up the shock…
Hard to believe I know, given the absence of any residual physical evidence, but I used to be a bit of a gym rat. No, really. Not for very long, admittedly, and to nothing like the obsessive extent of the creatine-guzzling monstrosities that you might see pictured on the cover of magazines with titles like ‘Bulge‘, ‘Musclebound’…or maybe ‘Transformers’.…
Today, we feature the latest product of the joint venture with the online edition of our local newspaper, Le Quotidien de Faire-le-Dodo (87). Our regular reader will recall that we set this up at the beginning of this year with the aim of enhancing mutual friendship and understanding between the local and expat inhabitants of our fair…
My passport went off for renewal last week. Naturally, the application process entailed getting some new identity photos. Or, as it’s also known, a reality check. Compared to ten years ago I’m rather paler (the Abu Dhabi tan has long faded) and the face fungus is still a comparatively recent addition. Otherwise, not too bad really: a little more…
There are very few things I’d claim to know more than most about. This rather limits – to put it mildly – the range of possible responses to this recent Daily Prompt: “Take a complicated subject you know more about than most people, and explain it to a friend who knows nothing about it at all.”…
[The latest post in a series, prepared in conjunction with our sister publication ‘Le Quotidien de Faire-Le-Dodo (87), designed to promote greater understanding and integration of the local and expat communities in our fair commune. This one is particularly aimed at recent incomers, who may still be familiarising themselves with daily life here.] You’ll already have…
A recent WordPress daily prompt enquired: “What are the things you do within 30 minutes of waking up to ensure your day gets off on the right foot?” In my case there are two essential tasks that must be performed. Of the first – and I do mean the first – nothing more needs to be…
Previously, we’ve written about the Concours de belote, a competition with dodgy prizes that makes almost no sense and whose (many) participants are almost exclusively French. It’s hard to think of a closer parallel within the expat community than the pub quiz, a competition also involving dodgy prizes and many participants – in this instance almost exclusively British – that…
I’ve always been attached to my hair – and thankfully my hair has always been attached to me. I was born yelling lustily and sporting a good headful of hair. Of course I don’t remember that but there’s an obvious parallel with my earliest memory, which was equally traumatic to me (although I suspect my mother…
the only deadhead in the hameau 