…good intentions turn out wrongly. But in a funny way.
Yesterday in church, we had a lady slip into the service late. She sat quietly, received communion, and then during the last hymn, slipped out again.
I thought I should check she was okay, so I followed her out. She explained she was in Royat for “a cure” (to take the waters) and that she had been going for a walk, seen the chapel and pushed the door to see if it was open. We had a little chat and then she turned to go.
“Dieu te —-” I started, wanting to say “God bless you”, but realised I couldn’t think of the French for “bless”. So, in desperation, I thought “Use the English word but with a French accent ” (it does sometimes work) and said “Dieu te blessé”
God send a thunderbolt
As soon as it was out of my mouth I knew it was wrong. Because “blesser” means “to injure/ to do harm” I’d just asked God to do her harm. No, I yelped. She looked confused, but then smiled and said in French “It’s difficult, isn’t it?”
Oh, I did feel a fool. “God give you good things…” I managed to say, but I’m not convinced she understood. Hey ho.
It was strange seeing adverts for insurance lawyers everywhere – on huge billboards next to the freeway, on the back of benches, in residential areas.
“Accident?” they screamed at us “Phone Joe Bloggs on —–”
“We got 3 million $ with Ronnie Biggs” yell a smiling couple on a billboard. (with “individual payouts depend on your situation” in tiny letters at the bottom.)
“Flood Damage? “shouts another “Fred Smith will win your case!”
These things just don’t exist in France, or in the UK and I found it really strange. But what was the most unnerving was the way these changed as we went from one district to another.
As we were driving through one district,because we didn’t have the tag for the toll roads, and the sat-nav took us the zig-zaggy route across the city I noticed something rather disturbing. I was in the passenger seat, watching everything going by (because, let’s face it, it was all so different!) when I noticed that we had gone from “Car accident?” or “Accident at work?” notices in a more high-end district to (and I kid you not!) “Injured in a drive-by shooting? Phone —-” in a much more run-down area of the city.
Drive-by shooting? Good grief! I thought. How likely is that to happen?!
Please, don’t take this as a criticism. This is just one of my “Things I noticed” posts , but I think that was one of the moments when I was very much aware of the difference in gun laws in the US and in France. I was a tad concerned – not that anyone was walking around toting a gun, you understand, but it was just the fact that it was common enough for insurance lawyers to find lucrative to advertise about it.
And my readers in the US, how do you find this situation with guns? Is it something you don’t really think about, because you’ve always lived with it? Do you find the gun laws too lax (or too rigid?) I don’t want to cause any conflict; I am genuinely interested in people’s view points.
Here’s one of the things I noticed when we were in the States.
When we went to buy things for our breakfast we chose this cereal:
It looked tasty, and had strawberries and blueberries in it, as well as yoghurt. Although I’m not sure what the tagline “Naturally flavored with other natural flavors” is telling us. But with crunchy rice and wheat flakes, and oat and fruit clusters, it must be healthy, right?
When we tasted it, the first thing we noticed was how sweet it was. Oh boy, it was sweet. Which made me start to wonder how healthy it actually was, so I carefully inspected the ingredients list… Third ingredient: sugar! Sixth: sugar syrup! Seventh corn syrup! Plus unknown quantities (but less than 2%) of honey, dextrose and molasses. No wonder it tasted sweet! In fact 33% of this cereal is sugar!
And where’s the fruit in this? The strawberries and blueberries pictured on the front? Look carefully. Under “Contains 2% or less of” we have apples (just above salt!) and further down, we have “red radish juice” – presumably for colouring the apple so it resembles blueberries and strawberries!
I’m not saying that breakfast cereals in France are any healthier than this – in fact over half the cereal aisle in Carrefour has chocolate, or caramel, flavoured cereals. But this seems to be deliberately trying to fool us into thinking that this cereal, 33% sugar, is healthy, with its fruit pictures, and yoghurt-y chunks illustration! Of course it looked nothing like this.
Is this normal in the US? Can you easily buy healthy cereals? I’ll admit we were only in a mini-mart so the choice was limited, but this was the only healthy (so we thought) one there. Can you buy better cereals in supermarkets?
This is a post I wrote back in February and somehow lost. It was only yesterday that I re-discovered it, posted as an extra “page” on the top of the blog. Not at all where I wanted it. So here it is for your delectation – it came out of my post about our cooking class at a primary school in Clermont Ferrand.
I remember a few things from my school dinners – in primary school,(in the late 60s) I distinctly remember grey, shoe leather liver in gravy (which I think put me off liver for life) and a very glutinous shepherds pie (which I loved, by the way!). And of course, a tray sponge with pink icing and pink custard. I’m not sure that there was much concern about nutritional values, but certainly there was no choice, and no foods like burgers or pizzas. There may have been “beefburgers” but certainly no buns. And probably no chips either. There was also an eat-everything-on-your-plate policy – which for the liver must have been a nightmare!
In secondary school (1972-1978) the choice was better. I think there was a choice of two main courses, but I might be wrong. Again, we were expected to eat everything we were given, but we could ask for a small portion. I somehow ingratiated myself wioth the dinner ladies and so would often get extra big helpings of chips or something else, if I asked!
From time to time, the Headteacher would sit at a table with some of the fifth formers or sixth formers and so we were expected to be on our best behaviour, and make polite conversation. Everything was served from serving dishes, instead of queuing up for it. I remember when it was my turn, I had taken a rather large helping of sweetcorn (which I had never tasted) and discovered that I really, really didn’t like it. However, there was no choice but to choke my way through it, as leaving it would have been frowned on.
When I was in sixth form, there was a nod towards the fact that some people didn’t want a large hot meal at lunch time, and the sixth formers were allowed to choose soup and a filled roll if they wished to.
On my post about the Cooking Class I went to, someone remarked on the choices at the Restaurant Scolaire, run by Fabrice, our instructor. The school is a private one, so perhaps their menus are a little more elaborate than the public schools, but even so, here is a menu from the state school system. This is a primary school menu:
That first day – smoked salmon, hamburger with foie gras, chips!! However, I highly suspect that the two “Surprise menus” at the end of the half term would be made up from whatever was left in the fridge/ freezer! The state says that every week there must be a vegetarian day, and there is pressure for all produce to be local, seasonal and organic.
This is a menu from a Lycée (secondary school), with each day providing a starter, a protein, a vegetable, a dairy choice and a desert.
I do have to say, I have no idea what school meals are like in the UK. They may have improved enormously, but I doubt if they are this good. Certainly when I was teaching (1982-2000) school kitchens were being phased out, and everyone bringing packed lunches was the norm. For those poor souls who were entitled to free school meals, they got floppy sandwiches with processed ham, or cheese, a bag of plain crisps, a biscuit and a piece of fruit (usually a brown banana or a soft apple) all put in a plastic bag and allowed to sweat until lunchtime.
This is a recent primary school menu from the UK, which shows a big improvement from what I remember, and which, to be fair, has a vegetarian option every day, but all the same it doesn’t strike me as being quite as “adult” as the French menu
and one from the US
Certainly, it’s good to see no liver on the menu, even if they are both serving pizza and baked beans at least once!!
Fabrice explained that they are trying to guide the students to consider their food as a pleasure, something to be savoured, so that they want to learn how to make it themselves. He said that they even make their own in-house tomato “ketchup” instead of buying sachets of ready made stuff. I noticed at the French school, is that the crockery is proper crockery, the glasses are glass, the cutlery is proper, paper napkins are provided. It is much more “grown up” than the plastic trays found in UK primary schools, which, I’m afraid, make me think of prison!
En France…
En Angleterre… And what on earth is in the lower left hand compartment?!
I think my body is totally confused – when we went on the cruise, we left France in snow to arrive in Miami with temperatures around 27°C; the heat in Mexico was even higher. We returned to rain and grey weather; today it’s due to reach the high 20s, but then cold and rain are forecast again for next week. I keep forgetting it’s only mid-April.
My clothes are all in a mess too – usually I have my autumn/winter collection which I change (usually at mid-April) for the spring/summer collection. But I had to raid the spring/summer for the cruise, it didn’t get put away (let’s be honest, it didn’t get ironed!) and now I have a real jumble of clothes to hunt through. You’d think that by the age of 64-and-a-half I would be more domesticated.
NOT our balcony – but a picture of the trellis.
Yesterday was cooler, but equally as sunny, so I got onto the balcony to tidy it up, ready for the growing season. I’ve moved the veggie pots to the other end, to try to give more room to put the washing out when it’s good weather. The flowers will be at the end nearest the door, where the table & chairs now is. I also bought from Lidl a trellis with artificial ivy on it – this completes the barrier on the balcony railings to stop cats squeezing through the bars. They can still jump onto it and balance along the top, but we do what we can to discourage this.
I’ve also bought something similar, but not quite as realistic to put on the fence between us and the college next door. It’s only a lowish fence, so people can still look over, but it gives us a feeling of privacy. This is our courtyard last year – you can see the leafy stuff, but also a gap to the left. This is what I want to fill with the new stuff. There needs to be a lot of clearing up in the courtyard, and replanting, but Mr FD started this morning by cutting back the buddleia so our Bleeding Heart plant can breathe, and cutting back the elderberry tree before the birds start nesting.
I haven’t done any planting yet, either on the balcony or in the courtyard as the “plant man” hasn’t been in the market yet. The Plant Man comes for about two months, selling plants from the back of his van, and is very popular. I usually buy three tomato plants, two butternut squash and two courgette plants from him, as well as various annuals to fill hanging baskets and other pots. We plant the veggies on the balcony because the courtyard is plagued by snails and slugs who decimate most things. We’ll see what happens this year!
I also re-potted our tree. This started off as a small plant which was self seeded. We left it to see what would happen, and it grew. And grew. We now have a 2.5m tall tree (possibly a rowan?) which we think is dead every winter but which somehow struggles back to life. It has been in its pot for several years and not looking happy, so on Friday I shelled out 25€ and bought another pot for it, which is about two times the size of its old pot. I hope the tree is grateful! (I noticed it had some leaf buds on so it has at least partially survived the winter!)
I even had my lunch on the balcony today – and needed to put up my parasol to shade me from the sun!
I’m sorry. I haven’t told you about our last day in the US. Last week I felt terrible over the Easter weekend, and my cough is still dragging on. I feel generally OK, except for being fed up of the cough. But it took quite a long time to recover. We did both test ourselves for Covid, and were negative, so we’re guessing it was a nasty bug caught on the flight home. Better on the flight home than the flight going.
Wednesday 20/03: So on our last day, we went out for breakfast. We’d done some research and there was the traditional Denny’s diner nearby, or the Cuban restaurant we’d been to. They had an avocado, egg and bacon sandwich which I thought sounded good, so we went there. Mr FD had pancakes & blueberries, I had the aforementioned sandwich.
Sculpture of a chameleon at the Flamingo Park
Then we headed up to Fort Lauderdale, and went to the Flamingo Park animal conservation centre. This was interesting, and we saw lots of birds and wildlife. It wasn’t too busy, and there was a “petit train” ride around the grounds, which was good as we both had tired legs!
We took the car back to the airport and checked in for our 17.15 flight – to be told that it wasn’t going to be leaving until 21.15. We had a 5 hour wait in a not very interesting airport. Happily we both had books with us, so we settled down to wait. I suppose we could have maybe gone back to the city, but I’d’ve been worried about making it back at the right time, so having a good long read seemed better. We were given a 9$ voucher each for food, which we spent on tea/coffee and a bun, but we also had a pizza from Pizza Hut to keep us going (we’d not had lunch because of the big breakfast, but by about 17.00 we were getting peckish!)
The flight finally left and after an aircraft meal (chicken?) I watched a couple of episodes of a comedy series and then drifted off. I slept reasonably well, and must have got about 5 hours sleep.Of course, the delay leaving Miami meant a delay at Heathrow – another 4 hours! We read (I was onto my second book by now!) had a sandwich from Pret, wandered around Duty Free and I bought a couple of books from WHSmith. The Heathrow-Lyon flight was fine, and we were home by 20.00. It had been a longer-than-anticipated journey – almost 24 hours. We fed the cats, had some toast and went to bed ourselves! Home again!!
We really had a great time, and I couldn’t really pick out a highlight. Of course, seeing BBT in concert was great, and the cruise was a novelty. Seeing Cozumel, and Florida was great – I liked Florida/Miami much more than I expected to from people’s comments. I rarely felt unsafe, which surprised me, and found the city interesting and attractive. I’ve got lots of posts planned about things that surprised me, or particular places we went to, etc. They’ll be popping up as we go through the year.
I hope you’ve not been bored by my more-detailed-than-I’d planned account of our holiday.
Oof! It’s Easter Monday today (scheduled post being written!), and I can’t settle to anything. I have been ill with a nasty head cold – hopefully not Covid! – over the weekend, and I’m now in the buckets-of-snot stage. Apologies if that’s TMI! I’ve tried reading, zentangling, updating my zentangle patterns book, reading blogs…I can’t stick at anything. Maybe another blog post will be a success.
So, we’re reaching the end of our holiday. The decision was to be made: Key Biscayne or the Everglades for an airboat ride?
Tuesday 19/03: As Key Biscayne requires a Toll reader and we didn’t have one in the car, the decision was made for us! We headed out for the northern part of the Everglades for an airboat tour. The map from the National Park that we had named three companies, so we guessed these were supported by the National Park as being the most ecological. We drove to Everglades Safari Park which was about 1.5 hours’ drive from where we were.
The ticket guy was very friendly, and we chatted about the weather and how we were going to have a more enjoyable day than yesterday’s visitors, as it was cooler and much less humid. He was certainly correct regarding the weather. For the first time, I was glad to have my cardigan with me. The ride was great – we didn’t see a lot of wildlife, but there were some alligators to be seen (if you had sharp eyesight) and some birds. I enjoyed the ride anyway, and there was also a short “nature show” with some reared-in-captivity alligators, and a photo opportunity with Snappy, the baby alligator. I declined, as Snappy had his jaws forcibly closed with a band of some sort, which seemed unfair. The nature trail was interesting though, with the opportunity to see both alligators and crocodiles, as well as turtles and birds.
It was getting past lunchtime, but we could see nowhere marked on the map where we could eat. Google maps showed us a Subway further along the road so we headed there. However, on the way, we passed Joanie’s Blue Crab Café. It was only after we’d passed it that I realised it looked good, so Mr FD swung the car round and we headed back to it. I’m very glad we did! It was a delight. The owner and the servers were charming, and couldn’t have been more helpful; we had a delicious meal of crab cakes, with hush puppies (I’d never had them, and had no idea what they were. They were OK, but I’m not sure I’d have them again, as these seemed a bit too sweet to go with a savoury dish), fries and coleslaw. We had a Key Lime Pie for dessert – a different style to the one yesterday, heavier and less “gourmet” but just as tasty.
We drove on, taking the “Loop Road” which was a scenic route, taking in many, many alligators in their natural habitat. We also saw ibis and egrets. And some slightly stupid drivers who just stopped their car in the middle of the (admittedly not very busy) road, to pile out to take photos of said alligators. We also saw one stupid bloke chucking stones at an alligator to make it move. We drove on, so we’re not sure quite what happened to him!!
When we finally arrived back at the apartment, we packed our bags, as we needed to be out of the place reasonably early. We decided to have breakfast out, so we could tidy up the kitchen too. As we’d eaten well, and late, we ate some of the leftovers that we had – bagels, cream cheese, frozen onion rings, and yoghurt (not very healthy!) – and then watched an episode of House. Bed at about 10.30
Monday 18/03 Mr FD wanted to drive right down the Florida Keys to the very southernmost part of the US. He’d done some research, and there were a couple of gardens that he thought would be nice to visit. So we woke early, as it is a good 2.5 hours drive down the causeway to Key West. The hotel breakfast was much better than the one in the hotel when we arrived in America, and we ate well.
The drive down the Keys was interesting, and we arrived in Key West at about 11.30. After being lucky with a parking space, we headed to the first tropical garden – closed for refurbishment until tomorrow. Grr. What to do?
We decided to head to the restaurant that had been recommended to us by a friend – it was a 30 minutes walk away. I have to be honest, it felt a lot longer than that in the baking heat. I wasn’t feeling a very happy bunny when we arrived. However, it looked a lovely place. We asked for a table – and were told it would be a 40 minute wait. Well, as there were some gift shops to explore (and we needed to buy a couple of gifts) and a shady bar to wait in across the street, we agreed. In fact they came to get us after about 25 minutes, so that was good.
We were shown into a lovely shaded courtyard, with a busy atmosphere, a guy singing, cockerels and chickens strutting around. It was lovely! We both chose an Arnold Palmer to drink – iced tea and lemonade – which was really refreshing after the long walk. I chose to have fish, with a meltingly soft charred aubergine, corn bread and a delicious salad. Then we shared a Key Lime Pie and a Caramel Banana Bread dessert. We certainly ate very well there!
Then we walked to the Butterfly conservation centre – lots of butterflies and some rescue flamingos, and turtles. Unfortunately my phone had run out of battery so I didn’t get many photos, but I did have an enormous blue butterfly land on my chesticles and then refuse to get off! It took a lot of persuasion for it to move. It was a lovely place to be, but it was really hot and humid! So we headed on out to another garden we wanted to visit, only to find it closed at 16.00. Which seems really early to close! A bit frustrated, we decided to head back to Miami, but to pause at some of the National Park areas on the way back to have a walk by the sea.
We arrived home around 20.00, and just had a light snack as we’d eaten well at lunchtime – some bagels, ham and cream cheese. We discussed what we wanted to do tomorrow – either Key Biscayne or an Air boat tour in the Everglades, then watched a bit of TV, but then went to bed quite early.
Sunday 17.03 Now we had the car, we were determined to make the most of it, so after an early breakfast we set off for the south of Florida, and the Everglades. We could have got there much quicker if we could have taken the toll roads, but we were restricted to the non-paying roads, which of course were much busier.
Still, we reached the gateway to the Everglades National Park at about 11.00: The Ernest F. Coe Visitor Centre. This introduced us to the area, and gave information about what was there. From here there is basically one road right down to the coast at Flamingo, so as it was getting towards lunchtime, and there was nowhere else to get food except at Flamingo, we decided to drive there directly, and then to meander on our way back.
On the way, we called in at the site of the nuclear missile launch installations from the Cuban Missile Crisis. While it was interesting, and one of the volunteers talked to us about his experiences on a launch site elsewhere in Florida, I found it rather chilling and unnerving that it had become a tourist site. Our guide couldn’t quite understand why I felt like this, as I obviously didn’t explain myself well enough, but being there, next to a decommissioned missile made me feel very uncomfortable.
With the pause, it took a good couple of hours to reach Flamingo, but once we were there (about 14.30) we found the restaurant and had a club sandwich with fries and a large berry smoothie. Then we walked along one of the trails for a while, and saw a beautiful bird – the swallow tailed kite. It was so swift and agile in the air, we both stood and watched it for about 5 minutes!
We then drove back, stopping in different places to walk the trails, to see the wildlife, and to enjoy the strange beauty of a habitat we had never seen before. We saw alligators, turtles, white herons, egrets…and other birds I didn’t recognise.
We walked along boardwalks out to the edge of lakes, or over marshes, and we visited creeks where vines hung down and alligators probably lurked. The landscape wasn’t really what I had expected (although I wasn’t really sure what I had expected!) but it was really varied and interesting.
By the time we left the national park, it was getting quite late. We’d booked a hotel, rather than driving back to Miami, as the plan was to drive down the Keys the following day. We set the Sat Nav for the hotel and off we went (again, a slightly longer route on toll-less roads); when we arrived, at about 19.00, the desk clerk apologised and said he couldn’t find our booking. Mr FD showed him the booking on his phone and “Oh, no, sir. You’re in the wrong hotel. This one’s about 30 minutes away…” The wrong hotel had been programmed into the Sat Nav (I’m not saying who did that, but we weren’t using my phone…) So off we set to find the right hotel. Of course, on toll-less roads it took longer, but we were finally installed in our (correct) hotel an hour later.
We could barely struggle across the car park to the diner we were so tired. I had a chicken Caesar salad (that was so big I couldn’t finish it!) and Mr FD chose barbecued shrimps and a side salad (that was so big he almost couldn’t finish it!) By 21.30 we had both fallen into bed and were asleep! All this fresh air!!
Saturday 16/03: Today was the day we were going to get the hire car, because we wanted to travel beyond the bounds of Miami. Mr FD had cleverly thought that he should hire it from the airport, for 2 reasons: 1) The transport links from Miami to the airport were good, so it would be easy to get there to pick the car up and (2) When we were going home, we would be able to take our luggage by car to the airport, instead of manhandling it on public transport. The pick-up was at 15.00, so Mr FD suggested we went to visit Vizcaya Gardens which were over on the right side of the city.
We retraced part of our journey from yesterday, and arrived fairly early in the morning, not long after the gardens had opened. They were beautiful. The villa was also very pleasant, although neither of us are as interested in visiting houses as visiting gardens, so we didn’t see a lot of the house. The villa was built between 1914 and 1922 for a rich businessman, James Deering, as his winter home.
The construction of the gardens was finished about a year later. The property originally consisted of 180 acres of shoreline mangrove wetlands and dense inland native tropical forests and Deering made efforts to conserve at least part of these mangrove forests. The rest of the gardens are in the Italianate style.
They weren’t kidding about the mangrove swamps! This gentleman was within touching distance in the garden!
Just one example of many on the internet of “Vizcaya Gardens instagram”
We wandered the gardens, pausing in the shade from time to time, enjoying the ambience. The main problem was that they are so lovely and picturesque that many people want to have “insta worthy” photos – there were so many young women posing in front of arches, in arbours, by statues, in front of banks of bougainvillea that it was sometimes hard to move around. They didn’t seem to be enjoying the gardens, just looking for the next location for a photo. I wish I’d taken a picture of the slightly overweight gentleman, who was obviously taking the mickey out of these women, by posing, stretched full length next to a fountain, while his laughing companions took photos of him!
We had a sandwich and a drink in the café before taking the Metro train to the airport to pick up the car. Everything went smoothly, but unfortunately, the company told us we didn’t need to take out the tolls option – which meant we couldn’t take any of the toll roads around the city and beyond. While the Sat Nav always found an alternative route, these were sometimes 30 or 40 minutes longer than taking a toll road.
I wanted to visit an American shopping mall, maybe to pick up some cheaper-than-in-France clothing, or to just experience one. We knew that there was one, Aventura Mall, reasonably near the apartment so we went to visit. Oh, no, not the mall for us mere mortals!! Among the shops in the centre were Chanel, Givenchy, Abercromby & Fitch, Balenciaga, Louis Vuitton, Ferrari…. I think you get the idea. Not quite what I was looking for. We hastily decided it wasn’t for us, and drove to a very nice food store to purchase our dinner – we decided to eat at home. We had salad, steak or chicken, chips, and a dessert – I chose coconut cream pie, and Mr FD a Red Velvet Sundae!
After we’d cooked, eaten and tidied away, we started to watch a film, but predictably, we both dozed off, and so decided to stop and go to bed!!
View from the Teapot 