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Feels like spring

The magnolias are flowering, the weather is mild, the rain is gentle and fine and I'm going to a garden centre! I'm after troughs to put on the balcony, compost, seeds for lettuce and tomatoes and also perhaps some trailing petunias and African marigolds (if I can remember the French name for them!)  

Living in terror

On Wednesday evening we took our stagiaire, Hannah, who has been camping in my office since January, to her forever home not far from the boulevards. It's a journey by car of about 12 minutes, but we needed to do it at rush hour so it took about 30 minutes to get there and about 45 coming back.  On the way we were overtaken on an uphill stretch by a pastor friend on his one-speed bike.  Going was easy but slow and good for learning patience. Basically we spent the majority of the journey in a traffic jam, and the rest looking out for bicycles. Coming back was a NIGHTMARE. We let the Citiz car's GPS guide us, but the GPS in the car had not been updated to reflect Bordeaux' ever more complex of one way streets and bus lanes. Such it was that we were rarely able to follow the GPS directions without deviating wildly, and at one point we found ourselves heading down a bus lane for about 250 meters with no obvious way of escape. Vigilance is always essential as bicycles come from

First MRI scan done

 The ophthalmologist noting an "anomaly" on my optic nerves, he ordered a series of tests which will happen on a month from February to May. February was a Doppler Ultrasound scan of my carotid arteries and of those which feed the eyes. The doctor turned out to be a long-lost cousin from Brittany, he found nothing untoward and we parted vowing to search each other out next time there's a family reunion. (It's a celt thing). March was today, and an MRI of my pituitary gland to look for any inflammation that might have affected my optic nerves. The scan found quite the contrary, a pituitary on the small side. Next, in April, I see a psychiatrist for a sleep study. I have six questionnaires to fill out first.  Then in May another MRI of another part of my head. I'm half-way through, and that's very encouraging because these tests tend to set off attacks of hypochondria.

Flooding in Bordeaux

The Spring tides are very high just now, with a coefficient of 117. 99 is considered exceptionally high.  So much for that.  The upshot is that several streets on the right bank around the Bastide area flooded yesterday and are flooded again this morning, and the fancy shops, restaurants and cafés down by the waterfront are faced with a walkway under about 6 inches of water. This is because of the coincidence of very high tides linked with the recent persistent, constant, incessant, torrential rain. Meanwhile in the Gard several people are missing following the downpours in that area.

Saint David's Day

When I was a child this was the happiest day in the school calendar, except, of course, for the end of term... We prepared for weeks beforehand.  The school was divided into four houses - Dyfed, Gwent, Gwynedd (my house) and Powys. The houses were named after the old kingdoms of Wales. Dyfed's colour was red, Gwent's was blue, Gwynedd's was green and Powys' was yellow.  Some time before in February the competitions were announced. Each subject would set a competition, and there were additional competitions for music and for choral recitation. Each competition could win points to your house's score for first, second or third place, and there would be bonus points for especially good additional entries. I remember the following :  For Maths : Make an icosahedron. Make a dodecahedron. We had to find out what it was and construct one. For Religious Education : Make a model of a first century Palestinian house. For History and Geography it might be essays. For English yo

Montpellier

ICC-Eurasia is the network of International Churches to which we belong. Last week they held their annual Prayer Retreat in the city of Montpellier, somewhere I've never been before. It takes five hours to get there by train. The deal was to stay in a hotel together for which a group price had been negotiated. It was quite a pleasant little hotel in a residential part of the city, but close to where the Montpellier church meets and not far from the edge of the city centre. Montpellier seems to exist mainly because of being a staging post on the pilgrim route to Santiago de Compostella in Spain. It's right on the Mediterranean, so it's sunny and bright most of the year though it doesn't have beaches itself. We spent the bulk of our time sharing news of the churches and of the ICC, and praying for the various issues raised. Pat didn't come with me, though some wives came. She was kept pretty busy at home.

Remodelling the city

The southern approach to Bordeaux is changing beyond all recognition. When we first moved here the main access road passed disused abattoirs, demolished warehouses, a municipal dump and dingy hotels. It was dead, dirty and unattractive. This didn't matter too much because you passed it on an urban freeway with a 70kph limit. But our area of the city is part of all that and the plan is only partially accomplished. They aim to take away the urban freeway and replace it with a city boulevard, limited to 50kph, or maybe even 30kph. This will be punctuated by crossings to allow people access to the river from the offices and apartments of the newly redeveloped southern part of the city. The quays of the Garonne, transformed from a disused dockland into a wide and airy garden promenade, will be extended down to this southern part of the city. A new bridge, the Pont Simone-Veil, will open this year, linking the southern banks of the city. It will have wide cycle paths, dedicated bus lanes