Party invitations

I was invited to the party - my granddaughter's 2nd birthday party this afternoon at a cafe in a park near their house. Not really my scene, all those two-year-olds and young mothers discussing children. Still, the weather was good and the children all impeccably behaved. Quite amazing, really.

But someone else has not received an invitation to the party being held later this week to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy. Originally our Government said they didn't plan on making a big thing of it as our big celebrations had been for the 60th anniversary, so it was not intended that any representative of the UK should be there. I wonder if President Obama's planned presence had anything to do with a change of heart? Whether it did or not, we will be represented. But the Queen will not be going. The French say it is up to us to decide who should represent us: 10 Downing Street say that the Queen was not invited. So the line-up will be two heads of state (Presidents Sarkozy and Obama) - and Gordon Brown.

Perhaps the exclamation should be 'Gordon Bennett!'

49ers

Sheila and I could, I suppose, be considered 49ers. After all, we do have a house in the French département of Maine et Loire, which is département 49.

Each French département is numbered, starting with 01 and ending in the 90s, the numbers having been allocated in alphabetical order. So Loire Atlantique is 44, Mayenne 53 etc. I'm told that French schoolchildren are expected to learn the names and numbers by heart. Why and when this numbering happened I don't know - possibly something to do with Napoleon Bonaparte who was around when the metric system of measures was introduced - but it is an example of the French love of bureaucracy.

There are, naturally, exceptions to the alpha-numeric rule. Corsica, for example, is divided into two départements which are numbered 2A and 2B, and there are several départements around Paris (75) which have numbers in the 90s, way out of sequence. Probably because one large département was split into smaller parts.

The numbers are used in the French post codes. These consist of five digits, of which the first two are the number of the département. Car registration numbers consist of three or four numerals followed ny two or three letters and finished off with the département number, and if one moves house from one département to another one is allowed six months to re-register one's car. I understand that there are plans to do away with the département indicator but that there is resistance to this.

Quietly musing as we drove along an almost deserted motorway, I decided that if I were to support an American team, it would have to be the 49ers. I had a vague idea that this team was based in California (and presumably named because of the gold rush), probably in San Francisco, but I had no idea whether they played basketball, baseball or football. I discovered that they are a football team. My knowledge of American football is scant: in fact, most of what I know came as a result of reading John Grisham's Playing for Pizza, so I decided I should learn a little more.

I wish I hadn't bothered. The rules seem even more complex than those of cricket.

I think I'll stick with stoolball.

A Sussex Success Story

Time was...

...when I considered that if I had started reading a book, I should finish it. It was almost as if it were a duty. This may have stemmed from studying English literature at school when set books had to be read time after time so that one could refer to certain passages or even quote extensively when answering exam questions. It was years before I decided that life was just too short for that nonsense and that if, after the first couple of chapters - say 50 pages or so - I was not enjoying whatever book I was reading, the time had come to put it to one side. After all, I read for pleasure, not out of duty, so why punish myself?

This all comes about because I have given up on two books in the last ten days, which is actually quite unusual for me. But now I am well into (and enjoying) The Edge of Madness by Michael Dobbs.

It's stopped!

A dry walk this morning - and I even managed to cut the grass this afternoon. I also managed to get the June issue of Jungle Jottings sorted after yesterday's fiasco. There was one page that seemed to have a mind all of its own. I got it laid out just how I wanted it, saved it and converted to pdf format, only to find that the page had gone all haywire. I think I spent the better part of two hours trying to sort it, but in the end I gave up and emailed and printed it as it was. Part of the reason for my frustration was that I was up tight against a deadline for getting names to the president for next week's zone social - a skittles tournament between the various clubs. Of course, this morning there was no pressure and I git it right first time, so the issue on the web site is OK. Oh well - c'est la vie.

Quote for the day

As I was getting ready to take the dog for a walk this afternoon (yes, still raining) King Lear's words sprang to mind and seemed particularly apt:

"That way madness lies."

And still it is raining

That makes three days in a row that we have had a wet morning walk.