Catching Up

Since I last put finger to keyboard I have been hijacked by the Irish, distracted by the football, amused by vegetables and looking after my guests - oh, and so depressed by the weather that I have found it hard to get motivated.

My Irish guests arrived on Thursday evening and after settling them in, I sent them off to eat and went out to meet Patrick for a drink at the Makhila. We were close to calling it a night when my guests, Tom and Niamh (pronounced Neve - I'll never get the hang of Gaelic) turned up. Well, it appears that because everyone in Ireland knows everyone else who's ever been to Ireland or is a distant relation to someone that left the Emerald Isle two centuries ago, that Patrick's neighbour in Chicago is Niamh's (pronounced Neve's don't forget) best friend who spent a year and a half travelling round the world together. So naturally we were all best mates and practically related which meant that we had to try and drink the bar dry for some reason. Being an innocent (sic) bystander in all this, I introduced them into the joys of pastis and several locals tried to introduce Niamh into, well, themselves actually and Tom said "Aw, she's havin a grand time" even when she was looking a bit scared of the various moustaches circling her. I finally managed to exert some influence by persuading everyone not to go to the nightclub (good thing Chris wasn't with us!) and we made it home.

As a result, Friday wasn't as productive as it might have been - but breakfast was made and the Apartment was prepped for Saturday's guests and the paint was ordered for the renovation upstairs.

It rained all day on Friday, with some particularly nasty downpours from time to time and Saturday wasn't much better and Sunday was at least dry if dull and overcast and cold - I actually got my fleece out again! Frankly, we have all had enough of this most unseasonal weather. Apparently, there was record rainfall in May and today we had cloud, and then a lovely sunny afternoon and then another monstrous thunderstorm this evening - just when the locals were settling into watching France at Euro 2008 on the big screen erected for the occasion.

Despite no British presence at Euro 2008, I have, of course, watched every bit that I've been able to see, working around canapes on Saturday and dinner on Sunday for my new guests. I have been enormously underwhelmed so far, but as a true fan there is no limit to my perseverance - so having sat through another numbingly boring game (France v Romania) - I finally got the match I had been waiting for when the World Champions, Italy, took on the Masters of Total Football, the Dutch, this evening. The result will see many large spliffs being lit and lots of crying into camparis in Milan and Rome - rarely have the Italians been so beautifully humiliated - what joy. Inevitably, the Dutch will play like the Masters of Schoolboy Football next time they play, but then that's the fun of it all - peaked way too early in my opinion.

Vegetables, you ask. What about the vegetables? Well despite the well known benefits of eating duck, foie gras and cassoulet until you burst and drinking as much red wine as possible, it appears that the French Department of Health wants us all to eat more fruit and vegetables! As a result, there was a display and a promotion of their health benefits, in the square, on Sunday - with a band to jolly everyone along. It was a typically avant garde French display with fruit on sticks and a vegetable scarecrow and strawberry trees and produce piled all over the fountain in a fabulously decorous way - and everyone was drinking wine to celebrate the occasion before the inevitable 'free-for-all' at the end when everyone tried to grab as much produce as they could. Hmmm - not sure they got the message across to those that need converting.

One last carrot and apple juice and I'm off to bed