May has always been a month full of celebrations in our family with three birthdays and one wedding anniversary, but this year we have also had a few “mini” celebrations too. I shall share all as this post goes along, but first, let us go back to the beginning of the month when we were still in La Belle France.
Mayday (Le premier Mai) is always a big public holiday in France and one which is very strictly a non-working day for most of the population. We were very sad to be packing up to leave our flat on Mayday and although I did get my traditional sprig of muguet, I was not really in a good mood this year. Somehow this visit seemed to have gone by very quickly and neither of us was really ready to go home at all. Also I was a bit anxious about our proposed bus and train travel along to Nice as we were not totally convinced that the buses & trains would be working as usual. However all went well, the bus turned up (late, but that is normal!) and we got a train without any bother. Unfortunately, I realised just after the bus set off out of St Aygulf that I had left my lovely jacket on the bench at the bus stop. However, yet again, there was a happy ending to this disaster, as I had recently made a new friend on Facebook, due to this lady finding one of my painted stones, and when I sent her a message, she very kindly agreed to go and get my jacket and keep it for me until our return in September. That really made my day and now I have someone else to meet up with when we go back to St Aygulf. Our overnight stay in Nice in our usual hotel went well, except that there were no trams working and so we were unable to go into Nice itself in the evening to eat as we normally do and so we had to make do with a bit of a walk around the quite boring area near the airport and ate in a nearby hotel instead. The flight home the next day was fine, and once again, although we had arrived at the airport very early as advised, there were no queues at passport control, and no fingerprinting going on. All the machines are in place though. In fact this time we didn’t even get an exit stamp in our passports. It’s all very strange. We arrived in Edinburgh early and I got royally soaked due to my lack of jacket! Hazel and family were all in attendance to meet us from the train in Carlisle which was lovely, and then we were back to normal things once again…and Carlisle weather too which took us a bit of time to adjust to!
We did return home to a very nicely redecorated bathroom which was lovely. We had arranged this to be done whilst we were away and we were very pleased with it. Since then I have been busy buying some new towels and have also made a couple of pictures to go in it using some of my sea glass collection, so it looks very swish at last. We are not good at changing things or redecorating…that is the understatement of the year really… so getting this done was a big step forward for us! We have also had to get our computer sorted this month when it had a hissy fit, reverted into original French settings, demanded passwords (which we had no idea about) in French using a French keyboard (which we don’t have) and basically being a total pain. Happily, we have a great computer place in Carlisle and they fixed it…but did say that it was a temporary fix and that we need a new PC as ours is ancient apparently! We will get on with that next month I think. And because we were now on a roll with changing things, we decided to get on with getting the new mattress for our bed we have been talking about for ages. It is now in situ and is very comfy, apart from us having a bit of a struggle to get in and out of bed as it is much higher than our old one! I regard all these changes as mini celebratory events by the way!
Our first week back at home was quite busy really. We met up with our friends Mike and Linda and enjoyed having lunch with them and then going to look at the fabulous bluebells at Rannerdale in the Lake District. Linda was doing well following her gall bladder operation which was good. We are hoping to resume our swimming sessions soon. I also had an eye clinic appointment and a discussion /review with the consultant at last. He was quite pleased with how my eyes were and has decided to pause the injections for a while and review again in three months time. This was a pleasant surprise for me as I had expected the injections to continue. Another mini celebration then 
I have resumed my usual shifts in Op shop and have been tempted yet again to part with some cash especially as we have had an unexpected mini heatwave recently here in the North West and I realised that a lot of my sunny weather clothes are now residing back in France. It’s a good job we get a lot of discarded sun tops coming into the shop! Geoff has also resumed his regular dog walking and pickleball playing activities. His shorts are now a semi permanent feature for the dogwalking. He also has been heard to say that playing pickleball here, is not the same as playing pickleball under blue skies with a blue sea background…but unfortunately there is no solution to this! We have also been eating lunch out on Wednesdays again and we even managed a few meals outside in our garden during the hot weather. Again though the view is not as good as on our balcony in France! And we managed to fit in our first outdoor swim of the year at Greystoke swimming pool last week. Hazel and the girls came too and Layla & the baby were in their element. We really love this little pool although due to the school holidays and the good weather it was quite busy that day. Hazel is going to get a family season pass so I suspect this will be the first of many visits this summer.
We did have a night away in Durham too, which was nice. We met up with my two ex-midwife friends, Rose and Madeleine and enjoyed a performance of The Gondoliers at the Gala Theatre in Durham. This meet up is becoming an annual event mainly due to Madeleine’s continued work with the English Touring Opera company and her delight in trying to get us all to go and see more opera. I really do not like high opera, but as this year’s offering was a Gilbert and Sullivan opera (which I love), Rose and I were persuaded to attend too this year. It was very good and we all really enjoyed it. And of course, any visit to the wonderful city of Durham is an added bonus. It is great that Rose, Madeleine and I remain friends after 50+ years too
Our daughter-in-law, Susie, has now completed all her scheduled chemotherapy and so we have also celebrated that achievement too. Hopefully, after she has had her final follow-up scan and consultation we can put that episode behind us. Chemo is never easy and Susie has not always had a great time with it, so now it’s fingers crossed that the rest of the year will be much better for them all. Susie’s sister Alix, has also completed her treatment for leukaemia and the bone marrow transplant seems to be working well. She left her isolation ward last week…several weeks earlier than expected which is good news. Everyone is now just hoping and praying that both these ladies can get back to their normal lives again.
We have celebrated those birthdays too during May. Hazel’s celebration was a bit lower key than Layla’s, of course, but we did enjoy a lovely meal with them on the day. Our friends Rose and Robin were there too for a while, as Robin needed to collect the keys to our French flat, where he was about to stay, whilst he assisted a friend who was taking part in the Rallye d’Antibes the following week. Layla’s birthday was on a school day, but we were invited to a “birthday tea in the garden” (her request) on the actual day and so we were able to see her open her millions (or so it seemed) of presents and share her lovely Unicorn birthday cake. Her actual party was the following Saturday at a local soft play centre…which is my idea of Hell really…but everyone else (including the birthday girl) thoroughly enjoyed it! So now we have a 5 year old granddaughter…where does the time go?? Hazel and Phil celebrated their 11th wedding anniversary too yesterday. They did so in style at a friend’s wedding, by chance. It really does not seem like 11 years ago that we were all rushing around trying to sort out this wedding. We were still living in France then and planning things at that distance was not always easy. We did all have a fantastic day in the end though and we all have many happy memories of dancing the night away to a ceilidh band in the Tithe Barn here in Carlisle. It was a wonderful day all round There is one more birthday to celebrate….mine! That is actually today and after I have opened my presents we are off to meet up with Hazel, Phil and the children and maybe Matthew and our other grandchildren for lunch. Geoff and I are then going to stay overnight in the Lakes and I am hoping to have a nice relaxing day, followed by a swim in the hotel pool and a lovely meal before returning to normality tomorrow
All that rounds May off nicely and so it is now off into June. Flaming June we hope…although there is no guarantee of that up here in NW England! At the moment our calendar looks pretty calm but as I know all too well, that can easily change! We will see and watch this space my friends
A bientot mes amis…