She
06/13/2012, villelongue

yesterday, was a totally hurried day, of packing and preparing to leave. B back to Paris on the TGV and Pat and me to NY for ten days. My ninety year old neighbour and his wife, would look after my prized geraniums for me, while we're away. As we were washing the last of the dinner dishes, I took a plate and placed the remaining giant, red Rousillon grapes and apricots on it, to take over to M. Roger and to give him our courtyard gate key. Pat said, don't let this take an hour now. As I've said before, conversations in the village, go slowly. Things that we normally take five minutes to do, take an hour. So, I said, ok will you please take this and the key. Tell him, this is la cle pour la porte, ok. Pats French is improving, slowly:-))!! He said I should stand by, in case. I stood well back and listened. And then laughed so hard that I could feel the joy seeping into all of my tired cells. M. Roger is a proud Catalanian, as are most of the villagers. The more Pat tried to convince Madame Jeanine, that he ne parle pas francais, the louder she rattled off in Catalanian. Utterly convinced, that the louder she spoke, the more he'd understand. That's when M. Roger, joined in. Now there were two of them, going hammer and thongs and Pat trying to be polite. The final straw came when I heard M. Roger saying demaing, instead of the French demain and I hear Pat repeating demaing after him!!! Finally, he returned to the kitchen, white faced and frustrated, only to find me bent over in laughter, unable to move!! I'm seriously going to learn to speak French now, he says!! Not sure what he's going to learn in our village. I teach him French but all the neighbours teach him Catalanian and he's too polite to say anything:-))!!! So, soon he'll be speaking a good mix of the two:-)). To be honest, the Catalanian is way easier..our neighbour Chantelle keeps referring to the veng mareng. Le vent Marin, actually. The sea wind!! I had to stop myself. Like a tune that you can't get out of your head, I kept repeating veng mareng in my head, because it rhymes so well.  Well, time to prepare to board our next flight from Paris to NY, so... A la prochaine xx

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xx
06/09/2012, xx

testing if this new 3G works

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06/01/2012

Centre court

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She
05/28/2012, Xx

When I updated this latest position and then looked at it on the map, it was hard to believe, the very long way, that this 46'leopard catamaran has sailed!! Soon, she will be tied up safely in Canet port. Almost unbelievable. Cape to Canet!! Well, by Gods grace, all went well. I'm too nervous to say much more but will write more, once they're safely on dry land. Should be this afternoon.

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She
05/27/2012, xx

just received this position update from Captain Patrick < 3 I don't want to jinx it, but I think that they should be in Canet Port by tomorrow afternoon!! I am beyond excited!! It feels so funny. Half of me is excited and the other half nervous!! And we've been together for sixteen years:-))) is that not plain ridiculous?? He never ceases to thrill me, after all these years!! Only the girls will understand this!! I went shopping yesterday afternoon and bought gorgeous new French lingerie. :-)) you would swear we were dating!! Ridiculous, even to my own ears, but....that's how I am:-))!! My mom used to give up on me when I was very young. I always insisted on wearing, only matching, very lacy underwear!!! What if you're in an accident, she would lament. They'd think you had a dubious profession. Never mind, that she's exactly the same, even today, at almost eighty years old!!!< 3 thanks, mom!!!< 3 Today will be spent with the vacuum and swiffer, room fragrance and flowers! Another jour de férié in France tomorrow, so almost everything's closed!! Sherbet!! I think it's the third week in a row, that one day at least, has been a public holiday!!! It seems to me that the French are either, on holiday, planning a holiday or just coming back from holiday!! Non-stop! I only learned this by fluke. I recharged Frenchie at SFR yesterday because the lady doing the voice prompts, speaks rapid fire French and I couldn't succeed in choosing my free number to call and text, on my own, so decided to ask them to do it for me. After waiting patiently in a que for twenty minutes, to be served a young girl took Frenchie and asked what I wanted. Even she struggled and she's French, darn it!!! She was red in the face and I was drenched in nervous sweat!! They required almost every piece of information about me. And this was just for a cellphone top-up/ free number activation. Finally, with a flourish, she said , eh ben, bon alors, voila!! Is it marching, I asked? No, you need to come back in 48 hours!!!( they were now going to verify all my info!!!!!) ok, I'll come back on Monday then. Oh, no, Tuesday. Monday's a holiday......and so.....Tuesday it is:-)))
I buy SFR recharge for 25€, purely to be able to call B in Paris, or text her in Paris. It's valid for two months only. After ages of doing this, I was reading the fine print on my slip the other day, only to discover, that one gets a bonus of a choice of three numbers to select, to which you can phone and text to, for free, for goodness sake!!! You need to select your three numbers within a few days and they can't be changed. Nobody, has ever told me this before!! So, I've been using my euros, to call B, when I could've been calling her non-stop, for free!!!! Hope you're all remembering these tips, for your next French sejour:-))!!! Well, soon the boys will be home, so...
A la prochaine
Xxx

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x
05/25/2012, x

Sailblogs is the most frustrating site. Lost half my blog plus loses position:-(( only posted less than half my blog. Sorry!!!

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