No April Fools Day joke – It really did snow the first day of April in Lille. VERY rare and very unusual timing. “30° feels like 23°” according to our weather app that greeted us that day. Much of the month was cold and windy – a trial to brave our 30 minute walk to class each day. Somehow we were not too surprised that we both caught colds which lasted a week, but thankfully we tested negative for the virus. We did lose an entire week of classes and had to cancel dentist appointments. I was upset about the former, not so much the latter. Not all of the month was cold and dreary, Spring has sprung!
We took care of our US taxes, a nice relief. On the 14th, we had our last language class of the A1 sessions. G and I talked about how neither of us could believe that we’d come to the end of our 12 week run. It had seemed overwhelming at the beginning. We took the A1 level class test before the finish. Passing was 50% and I got 75%, which surprised the heck out me. I still feel like I have to retake the last 8 week session before going on to an A2 class because I struggled so much in the last three weeks. Especially since we will be taking a big break – until fall. All due to the fact that we have three sets of visitors coming during the summer, plus one planned trip to meet another, south of Paris. Keeping our knowledge from sliding away in this summer break, will be the trick – losing the flow of learning. Even the language institute director stressed that a break isn’t a good idea. Which led us to wonder if we should retake the class we just finished, in fall. Hard to say what we will do but moving forward to the next class does not feel like a good idea for me. At least taking the 8 week class over, I won’t feel I’m at the bottom of the class. Truly, there were days that I felt I should just show up in a dunce cap and openly show my stupid.
With the last class at a close, we all metro’d into Lille Centré to have a drink, to say goodbye. We were such a diverse group – two males, three females, the countries represented were Japan, Venezuela, Bangladesh and US. The woman from Bangladesh brought sweets for everyone along with a small gift for each, to celebrate the Bangladeshi New Year. The young man from Venezuela brought chocolate bars for everyone and collectively we gave the instructor a box of Au Chat Bleu chocolates as a thank you. She had been revealed as an ardent chocolate lover in the first 6-week session class. We all ended up being buddies, so with the instructor, who was as young as the other students, we trooped on the metro, to Fool Bar (G’s suggestion) in Lille center and it turned out to be the best relaxer. They have an electronic dart board and after settling in with drinks – we all played three rounds of darts. A first for a couple of us. Everyone had a great time there and it was a perfect finish to the difficult journey. G and I left first, to allow them to continue their good time while we went home to relax.
This was the month to put up mosquito netting on the windows, as the hatching season was upon us. The windows needed a good cleaning and the 4-year old velcro replaced because of the exposure to the elements. We clean off the old peeling velcro, replacing it with fresh, followed by new window netting material, using last year’s (which we saved when we removed them last fall) as the template. The door screen to the balcony needed the same kind of attention. Towards the start of fall last year, we were duct taping the corners because the weight of the door cover was pulling the peeling velcro off rather fast. It’s a real necessity to have screens because G goes ballistic when he hears them in the apartment – he really does suffer and gets a bit more than I. I keep telling him it’s because I have low iron in my blood. He isn’t buying it. He thinks they have it out for him. Specifically.
We managed to get some regular health things taken care of. Last month was heart and the gastrointestinal check ups. This month was prescription renewal and a mammogram for me. Lots of the requisite pushing and smooshing, ending with a clean bill of heath. So that is three things checked off. We’ve got to dig up an ophthalmologist, a podiatrist and an otolaryngologist. Think that will cover the basics and have to tell you, getting the translations on those items was not easy.
We had a royal scare this month when a letter was hand delivered, registered and needed a signature, telling us that the apartment building had been sold. It shocked us because this building was the landlord’s grandfathers and he had lived here as a child. The stained glass shutters have a large “T” in the design, for the family last name. With such a personal history for him we had thought that surely he would be passing the building down to his sons. After a quick text to Fabrice, we were assured it was a title shift of companies, not a sale. Nothing was to change and we can live here into our 100’s. Well, if we make it that far.
That incident spurred me to address a nagging little issue on my back burner. Our clothes hung on rolling coat racks that we bought from a now closed home decor shop, when we first moved in, since there are no closets in the apartment. Personally, I was tired of staring at our clothes, hanging in full view. I designed a simple closet consisting of two rows of shelves, a clothes hanging rod and a curtain rod to go against our bedroom wall. Little required in material or labor and it would take care of an irritation to the eyes. However, we needed Fabrice’s approval and now that we were assured that we could live here forever, I sent him the drawings. He had no issue with us installing it and then we called our fabulous handy guy, Giovanni. After Giovanni viewed the plan, he gave us the cost of materials plus labor and we were off and running! It was done in half a day and the result just thrilled my little pea heart.
As mentioned earlier, we needed to prepare for two different visits, set two weeks apart. They are the first visits since before the pandemic. The first visit is to be from a dear friend from Oakland, K. The second set are relatives, P&A. They all fly into Paris of course, before we train back home into Lille. K had been to Paris quite some time ago and was not looking for the regular tourist checklist. Her only requests were to see the Louvre and Brugge in Belgium. She wanted to experience France in the way that we enjoy; the foods, the people and neighborhoods. Of the second two sets of visitors, A had been to France, doing the hardcore tourist trip – tours, museums, monuments, architecture, churches and our neighboring countries as well. She was looking for things which were unique, which she had not experienced in that trip. P had not been to France and was only coming because I asked him to. We needed to plan out a couple of days in Paris before coming home to Lille – for all three of us. And for P, he needed to see some of the things that A had already seen, so we needed to balance both interests.
From start to end of our researching, we were really put through our paces. That’s the golden lining of having visitors. It’s two-pronged; First, you finally do that deep cleaning of your abode that you’ve been promising yourself that you would do but never seem to get to and second, you end up understanding more about where you live, if you are stretched to find new things to entertain folks.
The remaining part of this month, we researched Paris, Lille and Brugge. First we nailed down the timetable for K in Paris. It was meticulous, made with several coffee and later wine breaks. A large part of the planning can be applied to P & A’s visit. There are a good amount of places that we ourselves have not been to, in Paris, so it should be really interesting. The Brugge trip required a bit less but still detailed. It is compact in the center and there are specific spots we need to hit on the walk into town. We had to fit in as much as possible for the visits, in the short window we had, without too much fatigue becoming a factor. After planning out the days, G looped back around through the list and made all of the reservations needed for train, hotel, restaurant and the few tours. When it was all in place, early enough to avoid tourist crowd sell-out problems, we were so spent that we were ready to take a vacation ourselves. BUT, then we had to plan the meals prepared at home. It’s a good thing that we love them all. You’ll have to wait until next months blog to see what we’ve come up with and our report on how it worked out.
A really cool happenstance is that Lille has a huge city wide celebration every three years and this is the year it is coinciding with K’s visit. She’ll see the opening parade that passes under our balcony and we’ll have a ton of events in the town to take advantage of, the weekend before she leaves. The weather promises to be good, versus three years ago when we huddled on the balcony, under blankets in our mukluks, drinking alcohol laced coffee. Three years ago you may remember me writing about El Dorado, with pictures of the huge 2 story tall, colorful statues lining our street. This year the theme is called Utopia, centered on nature and the environment, and the pictures of the coming statues show large moss covered, fairyland type people.
One evening, we met Arthur, the second person we met in Lille, when he was managing a cafe called Peacock. We hadn’t seen him since before the pandemic and before he stopped dating a young woman that had caught his heart. He decided in the event of the pandemic, to go to college and is now in the AI field, which he is thoroughly enjoying. It was so wonderful to visit with him – a very funny, personable guy, who was looking very relaxed and happy. He invited Xavier, a friend we had come to know, along with Arthur’s band members, before the pandemic – also a very funny fellow. Below you will find a YouTube link of a very short film they made together. No speaking and cute. Xavier arrived, just like his character, with a little flower in his mouth – it was perfect .
We continue to explore new and exciting dishes to make in our kitchen and this month, the best find was a butter braised lamb chop dish from the Washington Post, which went well with a cauliflower gruyere gratin and a sautéed asparagus in garlic olive oil. Of course we added a great red wine to go with it all. After all, we aren’t silly and believe it or not, eating like we do – here, we are steadily losing weight.
Other ‘new to us’ was that G bought a fire escape ladder for the balcony. We realized that we are on the third floor of an old wooden building which houses two restaurants on the street level. In the event of a fire, the elevator would lock, leaving us to traverse down the wooden stairs. So now we have an escape ladder that hooks on the concrete balcony and then later, across the street at a home decor shop, we found a nice decorative canvas bag to house it. It now sits between the dining table and the balcony door. A nice comfort and purchasing a fire extinguisher is absolutely on the list.
In trying to obtain more information on the Utopia festival starting in mid May, we found that their website was of no assistance in getting any kind of event calendar. We headed to the tourist office and they were able to email us an 80 page document, of course all in French. As a result, I spent many hours, painfully translating it, in pieces as the app I used could only translate a thousand letters at a time.
Although the class has ended and the visitors’ trips are planned, we still have the mechanics of life to attend to. We turn to taking care of the FR taxes, some spring cleaning, making the annual doctors appointments in order to be able to get in after our visitors since all offices will be closed in August and we will of course be looking at the language courses in July so that we can keep moving forward.
Although we make it a point not to discuss politics, this month we experienced our first French presidential elections, in which Emmanuel Macron was re-elected. In France, there are two presidential Sunday voting rounds in April; the first vote among all of the spectrum of political parties that have candidates vying for the position and; the second vote, two weeks later, between the two candidates who received the most votes.
We watched the only debate between Macron and his opponent, Marine Le Pen. Macron is the first French President in 20 years to be elected to a second term. We arrived in 2018 and the last election was in 2017 – the President serves five years. So we’ve only known Macron as President and this year, once the two top opposing candidates were known in the first vote, there were predictions that France could experience its own version of a nationalism movement that had taken the UK and the US in 2016 – being referred-to here as a Brexit-Trump wave.
This year, the vote came down to Macron and Marine Le Pen, a far right candidate who went up against Macron in 2017. Although Macron won again this year by 17 points, they say that France is deeply divided. Almost 42 percent of French voters who cast a valid ballot supported a far right party whose roots go back to the Vichy regime of World War II. In 2017, that total was 34 percent. As for “a deeply divided France,” the breakout of the vote is broadly a picture of two nations: 1) a well-off, well-educated and successful “pro-Macron” France and 2) a poorer, less-educated and unhappy “pro-Le Pen” France. The French press say that the old French Right and French Left political systems have mutated somewhat into a structure of three broad categories: the loosely allied Left and the Greens; a pro-EU, Center that can usually reach consensus; and a nationalist/populist, anti-immigrant and anti-EU Right.
There were many people who were unhappy with both candidates and that was manifested by the 28 percent of registered voters who stayed home (the highest in 53 years). There were also over 8 percent of those who cast blank (a ballot that is an empty envelope or blank ballot paper) or spoiled ballots (the ballot paper is annotated, torn, marked with several different votes, or presented without an envelope). Overall, that was 15 million people who declined or refused to vote for either candidate. Some of the left wing “third” of the electorate “lent” their votes to Macron only to beat Le Pen but they didn’t feel they have any stake in him. In a lot of cases, they really dislike him and believe he should also be categorized as far-right. Jean-Luc Melenchon, the leader of the hard-left La France Insoumise party, who scored 22 percent and barely lost out to Le Pen in the tight first round, told his supporters “We know for whom we will never vote …you should not support Le Pen … there must not be one single vote for Le Pen in second round,”
So, we will continue to experience Emmanuel Macron as President, which is good with us, since as ”étrangers” or foreigners, we would have likely seen some adverse changes toward all immigrants under a Le Pen administration.
The next big election that we will watch for are the June parliamentary elections. With France’s traditional left- and right-wing parties pushed to the margins, the three dominant blocs vying for control of Parliament – Macron in the centre, Le Pen on the right and Mélenchon on the left, will all be working to build alliances among the various parties within those three blocs to put together a voting coalition to pass legislation. If Macron is unsuccessful, he will likely have to work with a Prime Minister of an opposing party/bloc. Jean-Luc Melenchon has already announced that as Prime Minister, who signs off on government decrees, that he will hold Macron in check. Ahhh…politics.
The month came to an end, with warmer weather and the bright prospect of incoming visitors.
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