Friday, 7 July 2017 to Thursday, 13 July 2017
Since my blowout a few weeks back I’ve been searching for new plakkas (sandals) but none of the plentiful pairs that I’ve tried on speaks to me, there’s not even a whisper. So this morning we walked up to the Topy shoe repair shop to see whether my dearly departed could be resurrected. After a prod here and a stretch there the prognosis was positive, they could do something for it. “Combien?” (How much?), I innocently asked, but for that price I could easily have bought a small farm in the Luberon… inclusive of a few olive trees, a mini vineyard and house to be restored.

This is when I decided to try self-medication. On the way home we acquired a super-strong-super-glue from Carrefour and back at hone I started operating. I realized this stuff was super-strong-super-glue when I came to within a whisker of gluing my index finger and thumb together. Fortunately, in that one single millionth of a second, before the glue could set, I managed to separate the two from bonding forever. I am happy to report that the operation was a huge success. My one plakka might fit a tad tighter than the other, but who’s watching. One can only hope this success lingers.

It was late afternoon when we strolled back to the store where we yesterday saw a shirt that I wanted, I needed. And of course, that shirt was no longer there; obviously someone else had the same taste as me. But, I should never fear when Adri is near, she cunningly hid that shirt behind a pile of “no-go” shirts, and mine was thankfully still there.

From there we walked up to Cours Julien, or Marseille’s artist’s quarter for a drink, me a beer and Adri a caipirinha at, of course, a Brazilian restaurant/pub. Where else would one trust a caipirinha. Both drinks were great but it was only later that I discovered they also served that wonderful Brazilian beer called Skol, in a rather peculiar bottle size of 355ml. I was tempted, sorely tempted, but the hunger pangs won the day.

 

 

 

 

We were craving a good Indian curry so walked a short distance down the road where we had noticed such a restaurant the other day. We ordered a platter of curries for two and waited with great anticipation. But, oh dear, when the food arrived it was not what we had expected. There was not even one curry dish on that platter; it was made up of several types of tandoori meat; chicken, lamb and prawn. Let me be clear, the food was great, just not what we expected.

By now you will be familiar with our wifi woes and although frustrating, we have learned to live with it. Now this morning would be no different. I of course wanted to see the last grudge rugby match between New Zealand and the British Lions and during the build-up the wifi was fine. During both anthems it was fine, during the haka it was fine, during the kickoff it was fine, it was when the receiver was about to catch that ball that my troubles started.

I tried this and that and the other with the different wifi options at my disposal but to no avail. Frustrating? Nah, it was much worse than that. I then remembered that I still had about 500Mb of 3G left which was getting itself ready to expire within a few days, so I started streaming via 3G. It warned me that it uses 4.5 Mb per minute of streaming. A quick calculation showed that I could probably watch a second game later on. So now I’ve been downgraded from a big screen, to a midi (Ipad) screen to a mini (Iphone) screen, but at least I was watching the game.

And this exhilaration I felt lasted for all of about six minutes when 3G also refused my stream, just too slow. Somehow the Ipad piped up again with the video lagging about 50 seconds behind the audio, rather distracting, I preferred the audio to disappear completely. I set the volume to zero and watched the rest of the match in silence.

Now that silence pervaded my space, sounds from the city entered that space and somewhere someone was listening to Rodriquez’s Sugar Man, blaring out “Silver magic ships, you carry, Jumpers, coke, sweet Mary Jane”. Never did think he knew much about rugby.

I had promised myself… and Adri, that we would go down to the beach today. After watching my silent movie we moved house to the soft sand of the Catalans beach. It was hot, it was packed, it was great! We made ourselves comfortable on a tiny open space, slapped on some sunscreen, and sat in the sun, soaking up that free vitamin D. It felt like being on holiday… Uhm…?

By mid-afternoon and back at home I was ready for more rugby. Communications were now down to a trickle, the only thing I was allowed was to listen to the radio commentary of the afternoon’s matches via the TuneIn radio app.

Like last week, it took me back to listening to the rugby with my dad on our old transistor radio back in the early 70s. But, I must admit, those days the commentary was of a much higher quality. One can never forget that icon, Gerhard Viviers, in my opinion the best rugby commentator ever, delivering an insightful, detailed action and colourful description of the game. Take a listen below, see what I mean.

Sunday morning I woke up with a crash, a boom and a bang, and then an alarm went off, and when that ceased I heard She Drives Me Crazy, by the Fine Young Cannibals. What the… I thought as I stumbled out to the patio. Seems like a guy drove past listening to the song – was probably texti

ng – lost control of his car and… you get the picture. He searched around but didn’t find the owner of the car he crashed into and after much fussing left a “sorry” note clasped under the guy’s windshield wiper. I know someone who’s going to be pissed when he gets to his car.

I read a very insightful article on Huffpost this morning – written by none other Barbra Streisand – titled The Fake President. I just loved the sentence that starts with “Trump presides over the circus in his mind…”  Isn’t that a lovely way of describing a mind devoid of any substance?

Monday we spent a lovely relaxing day at home, blogging, adminning, oh, and Adri spent time on her Microsoft Office online course, of course. That’s the one that we got her exactly a year ago, and that’s the one that expired exactly a year later, pretty much untouched. The other day, just as she was about to dust it off, she found that she no longer had access to it. Truth be told, we were sure that there was no expiry date, but of course, I have no proof of that other than what my mind tells me to believe. What’s that I hear you say about a circus…?

Anyway, after chatting online with the company it was confirmed, the course was now a no-go area. We were made an offer for renewal, I said “I’ll think about it” We were given a better offer if we renewed the same day, I renewed via Paypal, it was an offer Adri could not refuse. And so it was that Adri today was able to continue on her enlightenment of the intricacies of Microsoft Office.

Tuesday we approached the Society Sociale l’Assurance Maladie with a brand new bunch of documents; surely this time it would be accepted. At the information desk we asked to speak with Virginie who very ably assisted us previously, but she was on two week’s holiday. Virginie told us her boss spoke even better English than her, so we asked for Virginie’s le chef (boss). The lady we were dealing with said she was Virginie’s le chef, but she could not really speak English. She did though look through our documents when I presented it to her, she made a few comments, shuffled and removed some papers, stapled the two mostly correct bunches together, but in the final analysis we were short of one document.

We walked off and into the agency that needed to supply the missing document. All went well until we came face to face with an obstructionist, you know the type; you get them in all walks of life, all over the world. He did not speak English and seemingly nobody in France speaks English and definitely nobody in his office, mind you. This was the second time I was dealing with this specific guy. But before I continue with this tale, please allow me to digress just a little bit…

It seems to me you have three types of people here when it comes to speaking English. In our experience, 95% of the French people are very happy to assist you in English; in fact, I think most of them appreciate having an opportunity to practice their English on you. Another 4% don’t speak, or feel uncomfortable speaking English, but is always very keen to find someone that can assist. But, then you get the one percent, oh, that one percent, the obstructionist… aka the arsehole! We’ve been in France now for four months and we have come across only three such people, so the percentage is most probably even below the one percentile.

Let me count the ways on our way thus far. There was the train guy in Sète who was downright rude, there was the agency guy in Marseille – whom we were dealing with again today – who was, shall we say, most unhelpful, and then there was the prefecture girl in Montpellier. One thing common across these three was that they were all out to get you, or so it seemed from the outside looking in.

Please allow me some further leniency to prove my point. While we were in Montpellier last Monday returning our Panda, we took the time to go to the local prefecture to get a few unclear questions cleared up. All went well until we came face to face with an obstructionist, or arsehole. When asked whether she speaks English she said “non”. Can she please get us somebody that can assist us in English, “non”. Is there anybody in the building that can speak English, “non”. At this point I knew she was just shitting with us. I have learned to deal with bureaucracy, just smile and keep your monotone voice, although by now there was a touch of vibrato noticeable, not to be confused with bravado though.

But it was at this stage that I felt this uncomfortable and almost uncontrollable urge to let out an ear piercing shriek in order to calm myself from this calamity, but I stayed surface-calm by repeating to myself – as taught to me by Moss from The IT Crowd – “I’m in my happy place… I’m in my happy place… I’m in my happy place…”

I had to dump something so headed for the toilets. I let loose on a number one dump and only when zipping up I realized that the men’s urinals are in plain sight of the washbasins where men, woman and otherwise de-dirt their hands! Seemed to me like a cock-up of a design.

As Adri and I were about to exist the building, defeated, we took one last scorning glance to the information desk. We noticed, to our delight, that our lady of darkness and distress had been replaced by a young chap, maybe she too had to go for a dump. We took a second bite of the cherry pie and this time we came up tops. This chap spoke perfect English and eloquently answered all our queries. Wow, what a great experience in the end. And right there’s the rub, this young man was sitting right behind our lady of darkness and distress during our interaction. Now you believe she was just shitting with us?

And now, back to today, this agency guy feigned helping some customer and walked to the back somewhere and as he glided off a lady glided in, and contrary to the arsehole that had just glided out, she spoke immaculate English! So much for “Nobody in the building speaks English”. Now you believe he was just shitting with us?

We got chatting and she wanted to know all about our travels, and when I mentioned the places we visited, amongst others La Motte d’Aigues, she excitedly told us that she knew the place well; her parents live 2km away from there in Cabrières-d’Aigues. This lady supplied us with the documents we required, she couldn’t have been any more helpful, even made us copies of that document, just for in case.

Now this begs the question to my question as to whether anybody in the building speaks English. In both instances somebody with good English was within a few metres of the obstructionist. Come to think of it, this was exactly the same scenario with the train guy in Sète. Methinks perhaps these people are just a tad jealous of their colleagues, yes?

Anyways, with the correct document on file we walked, under a sweating sun, back to Maladie. A new guy assisted us and thus a new set of rules and requirements awaited us. And, we required another further month’s worth of electricity account from Marie and there was a further document that Adri and I both needed to sign, so no biggie. The only biggie was that Marie was out of town and could only help us Wednesday evening; Friday was Bastille Day so a national bank holiday, Saturday we were leaving for Lyon, so our last chance saloon was Thursday. Let’s see how that works out for us.

On the way home we got Adri an Orange pre-paid sim so that we can more easily phone each other while here. Adri was not keen at first to get a new number, she was still on her Thai number, with Line and WhatsApp and whatnot on there. But, the time had come to cut that umbilical cord, it was much more important that I could phone her to fetch me when I get lost.

On our further way home the sun was still sweating down on us so we flopped down out of its reach at the O’Malley’s Irish pub across the way from Vieux Port. It was past five and happy hour, and what a happy hour it was.

I read an article today that stated that coffee was actually good for you and it goes on to say that “People who drank two to four cups a day had an 18% lower risk of death compared with people who did not drink coffee, according to the study.” Wow, read this in isolation and it is quite a statement! The way I’ve been imbibing coffee throughout my life I am sure I will be part of that 18% that will live on forever.

It was late in the evening (There’s a Paul Simon song in there) and I wanted to purchase an e-book from Amazon which I have not done in a long while since joining Scribd. But the specific title I was after was not available on Scribd. As I clicked on the purchase button I was confronted with the security guard, he would not let me in, asking for a telephone number that ends in “81”. Racking my brain – wrecking would have worked here too – I could not remember such number form my deep, dark and distant past. After a number of wildly speculative tries my account was disabled, of course, I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

I selected the option for the Amazon helpdesk to call me, a further selection said “now”, and seconds after I pressed enter my phone started ringing. I was put through to a very friendly helpdesk operator and Daniel could not have been more helpful and friendly. Within a few minutes the issue was resolved and I had my e-book, all the while with Daniel on the line. Wow, what customer service, thank you Amazon!

I happily started reading my book and could not put in down before the clock struck 01H00, amazing stuff!

I woke up reasonably early on Wednesday and wanted to continue reading my newly acquired book but got sidetracked early on with e-mails, admin and blogging for most of the day, lovely and relaxing with only a few minor irritations here and there. One such irritation was that my Stanlib repurchase document was once again rejected for payout, more documents with different requirements yet again, not sure how this company runs its business, but however it is, it is bad… stay away from these people, people.

The other day I commented on a blind guy that click… click… clicked past our building. I have the utmost respect for these people who seemingly, unperturbed, goes on with their daily lives without much fuss. Today another blind guy came past; he had a different, sweeping motion with his white stick, as if he was demining a minefield.

He crossed the road correctly at the pedestrian crossing, and then nearly walked himself disnis (senseless) into a car that was illegally parked on clearly marked pedestrian lines. Wow, my heart sank and went out to him. But, unperturbed, he swept around the car without any fuss and continued on his way. Note to all, don’t ever park on a pedestrian crossing. I know I’ve done it before, I will never do it again…

We planned to go to the beach this afternoon but late afternoon the wind picked up so we rather went shopping. Now Adri insists on carrying that heavy six-pack of 1.5 litre bottles of water, “I need the exercise”, she muses. Now that’s all okay if she insists, but I’m the one that looks like a yoyo and get the skewe kyke (skewed looks), for letting ma femme (my wife) to do all the heavy lifting. I suspect she likes that I’m the yoyo.

Marie brought us, what we hoped would be our final documentary requirement, after a hard day of delivering training and driving back all the way from Alès. She was so tired, but still made time for us, we really appreciated her effort very much!

Thursday we woke up early, we had no time to lose; we had a date to keep. On the way to Maladie we passed a guy dressed like a banker, he looked like a bouncer. I took another glance and that mean look in his eyes spelt bouncer, or wait… maybe…hmm…?

No trip to Maladie would be complete without a stop at the copy shop next door, that would be pointless now, wouldn’t it. After the mandatory copies we remembered that we had yet another a new document to complete and was not sure how to. We asked the copy guy and girl but they were good at copying, translation was not their thing. A client, a young guy, seeing the distress in four pairs of eyes, pleasantly intervened and helped us on the correct path, what a great guy!

The two security guards inside Maladie by now greet us like old friends… seriously. The lady at our disposal today spoke little to no English but that did not deter her, she was most helpful. But of course we did not complete the newly required document quite 100% so had to redo that, with her guidance. And after that it was plain sailing, the two tomes were stapled several times after which she said “Now you wait”, so I waited. When she noticed my intentions she added “One to two months”.

Hallelujah, our documents were finally accepted! No guarantees of course, so we’ll have to wait it out and see what gets posted back to us, in “one to two months”. But I’m not worried, even if it does get rejected, next time will be easier. By now I had become rather skilled at the requirements; I know every detail of every document and its related requirements, sub requirements and unwritten requirements.

Now it was off to the Orange Boutique to get Adri’s newly acquired pre-paid sim set up to connect to the Orange wifi hotspots. While waiting our turn I spotted this guy having an earnest business conversation on the phone, or so it seemed. At one stage the conversation got quite intense and as he spun around on his heels trying to make a point, I noticed that the phone was attached by its security cord to the Orange display rack, this guy was a nutter!

 

We later spotted him sitting alone at one of the service desks, continuing his discussion, this time with his own phone… Not sure why he was there, maybe he wanted to return his phone as broken as it did not speak back to him. One could laugh, I guess, but I felt terribly sorry for this chap.

 

 

Then came our turn to be serviced, it took a long time before we were apparently good to go. The process for logging on to the hotspot was different to mine, that should have raised eyebrows and an early alarm, but who was I to argue, I was just a customer. Once outside, around the corner and seated at the Brasserie De Lyon, of course we couldn’t connect. I drowned my sorrows with a beer while the owner enthused that his brasserie was one of the oldest in Marseille, been operating since 1854. When I enquired whether he had been around since then he laughed a deep throaty laugh, pointed to his greying hair and said “You’d think so!” What an awfully nice chap.

Back at the Orange store another guy supposedly showed me how to connect, gave me the phone to enter the password that was requested via sms. I entered it, and of course it didn’t work. “You typed the wrong password!’ this guy exclaimed, seemingly exasperated. I knew I did not, now I was exasperated. After requesting another password I handed the phone to him and said “You type it”, and he did, and of course it did not work. I felt like saying “You typed the wrong password!” with an added “Arsehoooole!”, but I bit my lip, I was sure he could correctly interpret my facial contortions.

Then we got another guy who speaks good English, he’s from the island of Mayotte, and he confidently proclaimed that with a pre-paid number one cannot access the hotspots, it just does not work that way. When I shared with him that I connect with mine all the time all he could offer was “You’re lucky”, and with that the conversation was ended. I walked out of there vowing to get to the bottom of this enigma.

On a roundabout way, and up the lovely Rue de Rome, we stopped off at yet another Orange store, just to make sure, but the lady there confirmed “No hotspot with pre-paid”, maybe I am just lucky, but how? As I said, I have to get to the bottom of this enigma.

We walked home, half exhilarated, half defeated, through the wonderful antique quarter. As we wandered we noticed that a number of businesses had already closed their doors for the long weekend, tomorrow was the 14^th of July, the French National Day, also referred to as Bastille Day, with big celebrations all around the country. In Paris there will be a huge military parade with fireworks at night, and Marseille will host its own legendary fireworks at Vieux Port.

Marie had invited us to watch the fireworks with her from a privileged position on the top floor terrace of a building, front-line to Vieux Port, from where one has unobstructed views of this incredible display.

We had just gotten home when we got a message from Marie, she was the bearer of bad news. The fireworks display of tomorrow night had been postponed to Saturday due to strong winds that were forecast… we were so looking forward to this! Anyway, some you win, some you lose, this one we lost. Be as it may, we very much appreciated the invite from Marie and I am sure she will send us a few pictures that I will publish on the blog.

Everywhere around us people were listening to music so I fired up our music as well, first up was that wonderful Van, Van Morrison that is. And after that it was on to The Pretenders with that distinctive voice of Chrissie Hynde which brought back wonderful memories of the time Lood, Andre, aka Muis (Mouse) and I spent living together in a commune in the 80s. Man, what parties we had, what great times we had!! The Pretenders song below received extensive airtime in our abode.

We went for an early evening walk at around 21:00 along the coastal road, also referred to as the cornice (A road on the side of a cliff or mountain, or road on a ledge) and found many people having dinner at the variety of restaurants along that way, right above the water. We ambled on down some steps to get to the water’s edge and found friends and families sitting on the rocks and ledges having picnics and a good time. It was wonderful to be out there, such a lovely holiday atmosphere.

We got home a tad before midnight and I was happy to report that my plakkas had survived its baptism of fire. It was the first extended test toddle I had taken them on since I superglued it, it came away with colours flying. Only thing is, the right thong is ever so slightly thicker due to the improvisation, so I suspect my big toe and its mate will be parting ways over time.

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