Change of Address

Please note that I am moving my blog to an expanded website at yvonneyoung.ca. It is still developing and will become more comprehensive (hopefully) as time goes by.

Merci

Fire

It looks much better in the pictures than live. The damage is not great but the soot and smell are horrible. Tomorrow a cleaning crew arrive.

A Fire

Yesterday, Rob and I were up in his office, the attic, trying to get my email to work when the electricity went out. Rob went down 3 flights of stairs and saw a light was flashing in the fuse box. He opened the door and flames lept out. He called up to me. I came running down and when I saw the flames panicked. "Get somebody," he yelled. "Call the fire department." Neither of us knew the emergency number. I ran to David's house and screamed our house is on fire. He said he would be right there. I ran to the Patisserie and asked the owner to call the fire department.

We watched the flames climbing up the wall and still no fire department. Finally, twenty minutes later they arrived. I have no idea how many fire men and women there were but they appeared to move in slow motion... Rob was furious but couldn't do a thing. The police arrived. Our small street was crowded and I nearly cried as I watched the fire spread while the firemen talked about what to do.

Several used an extinquisher on the fuse box. They were about to leave when Rob yelled, "There's smoke coming out of the second floor. In slow motion again, they went for a ladder and hoisted it onto the next roof. Firemen went in with smoke masks and opened the first and second floor windows. (Oh yes, they did, while we stood there shivering in our pjs, helpless.)

In the end, the bottom floor, ground level, one wall was destroyed. The first floor (second in our language) was destroyed and the firemen sawed it up and then lay plywood. The whole house is covered in soot and smells like smoke. No electricity. No phone.

The electrician came. Our builder came. The insurance agent came. No one knows how this could have happened when the whole house was redone a year ago. The insurance agent simply said "restore it" in French.

And so Rob and I slept at Susan and David's last night. At 6:30 in the morning, we left for our planned "holidays". Rob is in London, taking a French course. (Yes.) And I am in Paris with Gillian, awaiting our Irish cousins (mother and daughter.)

C'est la vie.

The First Days of the New Year

The house is silent again. On January 1st, Brendan, Gillian, and Yeliz returned to Paris after celebrating too flamboyantly New Year's eve whereas Rob and I had a quiet night in the company of friends where we dined and played games - charade and dictionary - because Adam's two young boys were there. I secretly desired a little ruckus and music but still it was pleasant.

After the trio left for Paris, I went to a noon champagne and oyster party at Susan and Davids - a yearly event attended by English and French-speaking villagers where glasses of bubbly and platters of oysters are continuously replenished. I never liked oysters until last year when David begged me to try one (he'd bought too many) and I was surprised not to mind the texture and taste. After several, I began to enjoy them.

Isobel Allende in "Aphrodite" says that "Oysters are the queens of aphrodisiac cuisine, protagonists of every erotic scene recorded in literature or film. The best way to eat them is raw, after squeezing lemon over them to test whether they are alive..." Ah, I didn't know that's why the platters were filled with lemons.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I did not feel any great pangs of desire after slurping up 5 or 6 this year, but I can imagine they could be quite sexy at a table set for 2, with white linen and candles, half shells (top discarded), lemon squeezed liberally... in slow motion, raising the pearly shell to my lips, mouth open, oyster slidding down, down... (Allende says a lover may put the oyster in her mouth and then deliver it to her love's lips.)

After an hour, I left the party and went home to nap. I am not used to staying up past midnight. Finding myself not able to sleep (the oysters?) I went through the day in slow motion.

Today, I woke early, and felt a need to do something, anything, outside, wherever and so I drove to Gaillac and wandered round the Sunday market. I've been feeling housebound and needed some air and alone time. (I miss my small house in the garden though Rob and I seldom disturb the other during the day. He is on the fourth floor. I am on the bottom.)

I bought an almond croissant and went to Cafe Sport for coffee. The place is crowed. A line of men stand at the bar drinking beer (and it's not 11 a.m.), a number of grey-haired men sit a tables playing card games, and a woman across from me (there are few women) sits with her small dog, a long-haired mucky little thing, with a straight-up ponytail (tied with a red elastic) but you would think him (her?) her true love, as she positions him on her lap, paws on the table, and strokes his body, back and forth, absentmindedly.

And so the new year has begun slowly and I'm in a quiet frame of mind.

Welcome 2010

Last year was an extraordinary year. In March, I turned sixty. In May, I went on a gypsy pilgrimage to Les Saintes Maries de la mer. In July, Rob and I finally sold our house. In August, we welcomed Michael and Mackenzie "home", then emptied this home, and moved to France.

Since August, we have been enjoying, struggling, entertaining, and getting used to the novel experience of not having a Canadian address and debt. Rob says he's happy here and doesn't want to return to Canada. I don't know what I want. I miss friends and family. As far as writing goes, it has been a slim year. I did manage to send one story out in December and will send out another before the end of this month.

I am hoping 2010 brings clarity, direction, productivity, contentment, and good health.

Happy New Year

The day has disappeared like so many is the last while but I want to catch those I love and wish them a happy, healthy, prosperous new year and though these words are too often used, I wish for all these things in 2010.

Lacking time to think clearly about what the end of this year means and the beginning of another (more on this soon), I steal from other writers:

• "One resolution I have made, and try always to keep, is this: To rise above the little things."
  - John Burroughs
  
  
• "The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions. Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective."
  - G.K. Chesterton
  
  
• "For last year's words belong to last year's language
  And next year's words await another voice.
  And to make an end is to make a beginning."
  - T.S. Eliot, "Little Gidding"

I have been working on a new expanded blog that will appear soon and might have happened before the new year but I am so damn fussy and though Michael worked till four this morning to transfer files and improve the appearance, it'll take another day or two (hopefully not longer) to appear.

Now I will dress up to bring in 2010.

We had such a lovely Christmas Evening

The Night Before Christmas

By 5 p.m., the Christmas tables are set, mistletoe hung, candles lit, and the only missing ingredient is our middle son and his love.

Rob opens a bottle of bubbly and Gill, Yeliz, he, and I toast the occasion. Alice arrives first with a lush green salad (to be served hot) and a gift of foie gras that she tells us to hide. Bob and Rosemary are next and without a doubt, Rosemary is the belle of the evening in her slinky blouse, Spanish tiara, and elf slippers. She has presents for everyone. She gives us a trio of pates, 2 of her novels - signed, homemade chocolates, a mincemeat pie (that she began 3 months ago), and cheese sticks and curry pastries for appetizers. Ruth comes up the stairs with a rich salmon mousse, surrounded by greens to be served as an entree, and chocolate cake, Francis following with white bowls of spinach, green beans, savoury stuffing, and hot red cabbage, then Adam and his two sons arrive with a leg of lamb and 2 pans of roasted potatoes. (Susan notes that all is delicious - surprisingly everyone can cook.) Gill scurries around the kitchen, re-heating what needs it, and laying out the bounty.

And so we feasted and sipped red wine. After the main course, we all trooped downstairs to hear Ruth on her violin and David on his cello, play 3 German Christmas songs. We all wanted more so Alice, in her high clear voice, sang a couple of rowdy ballads, and then I, who have always been told I can't sing a note, who was the one in the school choir told to mouth the words, cut through my embarrassment and fear and sang a few lines of Christmas carols so Ruth could catch the tune and accompany us.

Later, Adam told Rob that I had a beautiful voice - a stretch, I know. But Alice, in her no-nonsense way, told me that I have an adequate voice, that I can carry a tune. I cannot explain why her comment and not Adam's, filled me with such pleasure. I will not be so fearful next time.

And so this was Christmas.