After June’s heat wave (the hottest ever recorded for France), July started out in the mid 70’s. With the fresh produce shop around the corner, of course we dived right into making great salads! It was also the bi-annual month for store sales and we did a lot of leisurely shopping for odds and ends that we needed.
Fabrice, our wonderful landlord, after hearing our description of the old styled dentist which we’d visited in town, asked us to meet him over at his dentist down the street. We were pleased to see the same equipment when we met his dentist that we would have seen in the states. And she wears gloves and a face mask when she works! G dragged me out before I began to hug everybody. Who thought I’d be so excited over a dentist? We liked her offices too! Old style elevator that we used to take us up.
In dealing with a radiator that kept running in the hall because of a broken knob, even during the summer, we staged a picture of G cooking on it. Since Fabrice has such a great sense of humor, we sent him the shot, with the caption – “Wait! If you fix this, we’ll lose our second stove!” which he loved. But best of all, he came over to show us how to get subtitles working on our TV since all the screen instructions are in French. Whoo Hoo! Now we don’t rely only on the pictures during the news!
We have discovered an interesting disconnect with the timing through the year, which we experience here. The movement of time was, for us, sad to say, often marked by the television advertisements and the window displays we saw (and G’s Holiday work schedule). One can’t miss that it’s President’s day weekend because of the cheesy commercials. Always a plethora of actors in awful beards and top hats, portraying banter between Washington and Lincoln, while hawking some product. As Valentine’s day products march by, followed by the St. Patrick’s day sales, Easter bunny window banners, even the tax filing deadline stories in the news, one cannot miss notice what month it is. Here, we don’t see any real indication in the shop windows, nor do we get visual cues from the evening news which we watch (as it’s reported to help with our language quest).
So as a result of not really knowing the events scheduled around us here, much less knowing (yet) how to find out, the months do not have markers which signal to our brains exactly where we are in the year. Our family and friends email about their plans during events like Labor Day, Memorial Day and in this month, Independence Day. And sometimes it’s a bit of a jolt to be reminded what time of year it is. In homage to the 4th, we made picnic favorites of ham sandwiches, potato salad and a blueberry peach pie.
But we did have a tricky time getting the tastes right. We found Heinz American Style Mayonnaise but dill pickles were tough. We tried three different types of pickles (Cornichion here) and came close. But the pickling is so different it wasn’t quite the right match. And I opted to make a blueberry peach galette instead of a pie because I didn’t want to invest in a pie dish. The meal was refreshing and comfortingly familiar. No parades or flags though. That comes later here, on Bastille Day. G got a haircut in celebration of the 4th! Everything’s open, obviously. We had a beautiful sunset…
But la Fête Nationale (Bastille Day) was very different in Lille than in Paris. Last year, in Paris, le quatorze juillet (July 14th) was an all-day event, filled with crowds celebrating in every part of town, much like the 4th in the states. Here in Lille, the streets were relatively quiet during the day, although we did see fireworks in the evening from the balcony, toward the outskirts of old town.
We surmised later that it had to be at the park on the river marina, but we’d never seen an advertisement in advance of the event. But then, we didn’t even know Elton John performed on his final tour, here in Lille, until we read it online after the fact. We really need to get a handle on how to become better informed of events and celebrations.
What shadowed the entire month, was the fact that G somehow hurt his back, around the 3rd. At first we thought that he had pulled a muscle, so we used heat patches and rest but that wasn’t working. After a week or two, it was evident in talking with my brother, who’s experienced something similar, that he had in fact, pinched a nerve. He was then put on ice (so to speak), resting and was having difficulty finding a comfortable position in standing or sitting or laying down. He would improve but then too much activity would bring him back to the beginning where everything was difficult. Most of the month we were apartment-bound and the few forays out were to stroll after the heat of the day, seeing the crowds or street performances. One of the groups, Artists In The Wind, we liked so much, we bought one of their CDs. Take a listen.
Also, in our outings we encountered a puppet dancer, a student trio, and a dance club doing their thing in the Grand’Place (Place du Général-de-Gaulle).
We did not travel to investigate the free language classes because a metro ride was out of the question. It underlined the fact that we chose to do this immediately following retirement, partly because we are in our best health now. This back issue had such an impact on our month and luckily, it isn’t something permanent.
We traveled to Paris to see our doctor and I was examined for the foot sprain that has dogged me since April. She thinks it may be a tendon issue but has ordered scans to rule out a fracture. I can walk but get tired easily and one small, wrong move can shoot pain through the foot. As it happened on the excursion, our previous Paris landlords, and now, wonderful friends, were in Paris for their summer visit and we all got together for hugs and a catch up. Federica and I keep in touch by email sporadically but it was great to see them all again.
Otherwise the month was rather sedate. We bought sport’s shoes upon our return, on the recommendation of our GP, to step up our walking for a faster heart rate. After G recovers, we will have to go to the train station plaza or indoor mall for the smoother pavers, for the fast walks. We read a great deal, while G convalesced. I worked on starting to put French vocabulary signs on the walls, as I had done in the states when we were working with a tutor. Our meals were very light and often cold, since the temperatures rose again. The last week’s temperatures broke records again, as they had in June. The 23rd and 24th had the high 90’s but the 25th soared to 107, the highest ever recorded in Lille. Paris topped out at 109. With the open windows and cross breezes in the morning and evenings, plus AC at the height of the temperatures, we were OK. Any errands I needed to run, were done in the morning. We were incredibly grateful to have the tools to survive the miserable weather. It was only on the last few days of the month that we were able to go out in the evening and enjoy a meal out.
In many ways, it was a bit of a difficult month between G’s back injury and the heat. It was quiet and I missed our activities together but we fared better than many others with the weather. We did get out into our immediate neighborhood for quick, short trips, that sported all sorts of activities that we mentioned above. We also just take photos of things that interest us. We ran across these folks below from a restoration company south of Paris working on an interior mural from the 30’s in a building across from the Opera House. The restoration specialist told us the building once housed a bar, then a Post Office, and soon again, a bar.
The last few days, fortunately, ended with much cooler temperatures and rain. But of course, August is typically the warmest month, which does makes us wonder of what’s to come, next.
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