How much sharper than a serpent's tooth (is the drill of the dentist)

Thursday 5 March 2015

Sunshine!!  5 degrees rising to 12 degrees

Thursday is one of my favourite days of the week.  I get to go down the market, root around in the charity shop, and drink coffee and catch up with friends.  Today, oh joy, the sun has made its reappearance and bright puffy clouds are scudding along at great speed.  The lawn is sparkling and dewy.  Whatever it is that is in the loft that given me a night's respite from its rootings and chewings, and I feel ready to get up and welcome the day.

OH declares his intention to come down and work in the rental unit whilst I 'gallivant' around the market.  I put on my new crystal and think 'synchronicity', I am ready for what you are about to send my way.  We park up on the outskirts of the town and are cutting through the narrow cobbled streets towards the centre, when an English couple stops us and asks for directions to the market.  OH immediately engages them in conversation (think he misses being in sales) and they say they will be looking to buy in the area - OH immediately tells them that I am an estate agent (without letting me get a word in sideways).  Ah, says the man, that is synchronicity....   OH goes off to paint and I take them for a coffee and they are charming and coming back with their family in the Summer to check out the area.  We swap details and they leave smiling.  How good is that!  I rub my crystal and say, well done you.

The bar in which we had been drinking the coffee has recently undergone a substantial renovation.  It has lost its squashy sofas and the days newspaper.  The bar stools, which accommodated bottoms of all sizes, have also been culled.  The lighting is subtle - which means for old gits like me - you cant see what you are drinking after twilight falls.  The older clientele are perching unhappily on the new stools or are parked at the spindly tables.  In the toilet, there is more subtle lighting, including fish shapes, circling around the walls.  If I didn't love the people behind the bar, I would not be going in their any more.  The new owner is looking to attract younger clientele and will be opening up a music venue in the back room. The people who live down town will really love that and the timid policeman will not be sleeping easy in his bed.  He is the one who went around to see the woman with the dogs who were aggressive with me.  He told her that I had complained and when she started to argue with him - he just passed the phone over to me

http://leavingmynormal.blogspot.fr/2015/01/somewhat-shaken-with-good-news-later.html

I leave when I see the owner approaching and I know he is going to ask if I like the change and I know I will have to say no.

Here are some photos of today's market:

1950s booklets

Hats ahoy

Anyone for pork?

Telling a story

Supine jeans and very scary leggings

Mountain chic

Installation or for sale?  Figurines demand table status

OH rings me up and is very excited.  A Chinese guy who he recognises from the gym, is visiting one of the other flats in the building.  I am to go immediately and find him and show him our flats.  I go to the Chinese restaurant and explain slowly and carefully to the Chinese girl on reception that I am looking for the man who is Chinese who goes to the gym and does he work here?  She smiles and nods throughout and then says, Do you want to eat?  I say do you understand me and she smiles and says No.  I run around to the gym and rifle through the membership cards to see if I can find a Chinese name.  No joy.  I hover in the queue and wait for the receptionist to get around to me.  Behind his head is a large screen, advertising the various membership options and services available.  Who should pop onto the screen, carefully massaging green slime into a smiling and happy client's back, but the Chinese guy.  Aha moment!!  He is not there but will be there later on in afternoon.

Unhappily, I have a date with my dentist.  He is from Corsica and he is absolutely gorgeous with black hair, malteser brown eyes and great teeth.  He is also very solicitous and keeps asking me if I am OK.  I tell him he will know if I am not OK because I jump.  Ah yes, he says.  He immobilises me and pumps in great, jump inhibiting, quantities of anaesthetic and takes out my fragile crown.  The receptionist comes in and there has been a mix up between two clients and they and the nurse try and sort it out on the screen there and then. You are getting a little break, Signora B, says the dentist happily.  My breathing at this point has almost gone back to a normal rhythm.  I hate the smell of burning tooth, the sickliness of blood on my tongue and especially the various drill noises - the high mosquito whine, the droning of the medium needle but what I particularly hate is the deep grinding of the heavy duty jobbie.  I make the mistake of opening my eyes and see that he has a needle the size of a mutant wasps sting and is about to insert it into my tender gum.  I ask him if he has nearly finished and he has.  His nurse is a trainee and keeps running into tables and my feet.  Finally, after an hour, it is over and I have a temporary crown which is slightly too long but I will have to put up with for ten days.  I go and slurp a coffee and get pitying looks from people on surrounding tables.  

I go back to the gym and the Chinese guy isnt there and so I leave a message and go home and feel exhausted and discover people have been falling out on the group and someone has left.  PM people and tell the offenders they are on point.

Great British Sewing Bee semi final night and it is leather and lace, with a wetsuit to alter.  I loved Neil's contribution of a well fitting halter neck rubber top and lovely lace skirt.  The winning article from Debbie was a bit of a monstrosity.  I do love Claudia Winkleman - she gives wonderful innenuendos such as 'they want it stiff and big' and 'this is my first time boning'

To bed early. 

Market day, treats and progress

Thursday 15 January 2015 or 15 01 20 15  pleasing balance to the numbers

6 degrees rising to 14 degrees
Very windy later on in the day

OH (other half in case you were wondering) is 56 today.  He is in remarkably good condition - fine teeth, still quite a lot of hair and youthful skin.  Has does have bad feet and legs but I won't be shooting him just yet.  The Armagnac and chocolates are very well received and we have lazy breakfast before going down town to the market.   The sunny weather has brought out a lot of people and the stalls are bursting with good things.  As we walk around, gorgeous smells waft on the air - from the Indian stall, the dense aroma of onion bahjis and chickpea curry, the sharp spice of olives from the Provence stall, the sickly sweetness of fried batter balls from the Algerian stall.   

I am drawn to the coffee shop and we have café gourmand with a selection of tiny treats, surrounding a foaming mug of coffee - chocolate mousse, beaten to a sharp peak, a piquant apple crumble, a pale pink macarron, a white chocolate square.  Totally delicious.  We are joined by one of my sellers called TT and a lady whose house we rented when we first came over here.  She is a tiny lady and in her late 60's and her favourite word is fuck.   Her house has been for sale for five years now.  For five years I have been telling them that they need to put in a fabby kitchen instead of the small cupboard that they have at the moment. Again, it falls on deaf ears.  'I should never have let T (her husband) buy that effing house. We have spent an effing fortune on it.  We had some effing people over to view last week and they bought a small modern house near effing Orthez'.  (TT's house is over 200 years old with a massive plot of land)  Alas, I know who these people are and it transpires that the offer they made was 100k under the asking price.  Did that not give them a clue that the area is unsellable?

TT is with another lady who says that she is looking to rent over the summer so I take the pair of them and show them the rental units - all of them - just in case they express a sudden and irresistible urge to buy one of them.  TT's friend says she will have a word with her husband.  About renting.

Get phone call from partner agent who tells me that the visit today went really well and that his clients want lot more information.  My seller has gone off to sodding exotic island for three months.  Email him and spent three hours pulling weeds out of the stone flags of the patio.  Weather warm with a spirited wind.

The money transferred supposedly to my bank account from this week's sale has not been credited.  The notification that my bank had received it arrived at 12.30.  At 4.30 I ring the bank and the lady tells me that it should be there within 48 hours.  48 hours!!! I squeak (temporarily forgetting to be zen) How on earth can it be 48 hours - it is electronic!  It should be immediate! Where is the money now?  The woman gets rather het up and says I cant expect it immediately because it has to go via three computer systems.  I tell her that is ludicrous.   OH is outside, suppressing molehills, with a venom normally reserved for Billy Connolly or non peripatetic gypsies (he is not keen on peripatetic ones either).  He channels his inner TT and says fuck too.

The bank obviously hangs onto the money and, somewhere, someone will be earning interest on it.   I was once told by a notary that the funds from sales used to be kept by the receiving notaries for up to six months before they were released to the sellers.  The notary would then lend the money out, at huge rates of interest, which they would then keep for themselves.   I was stupefied.  The notary then had to reassure my sellers - whose eyes were at that point bulging out on stalks - that this no longer happened.  How on earth did people accept this practice?  I ask of the notary.  Ah, we were Gods back then, he said ruefully.

Listen to Alan Bennett's play about the lady who came to stay in a caravan in his garden for three months and ended up being there for 15 years.  Lady played, gloriously, by Maggie Smith.  What a treasure she is.  A real treat to listen to.