Friday, 5 May 2017 to Thursday, 11 May 2017
It was cold and cloudy again today… And what made it colder and darker still was the fact that I have had no feedback from MTN yet regarding the deactivation of my sim. Surprised? No! Expected? Yes! I’m not sure how this company does business. Being rather busy yesterday with our OFII process I did not follow up on the MTN query, but today was different, I had the world of time on my side. I re-forwarded the forwarded emails to the same addresses as before, twice, just to make sure they get them.

After a 45 minute yoga session and breakfast I continued with admin, did a spot of blogging, but were often distracted by a variety of things, mostly it was just procrastination on my part. We stayed in all day as the weather was really miserable. We dearly wanted to go out for dinner but alas, when the time pitched there was no way we were prepared to face the elements out there, supper was had at home.

It was early evening when I finally received a response from MTN requesting the number on the back of the sim for further investigation. Have you ever tried to read a 10 digit number off the back of a nano sim? I thought so, me neither, but now I was being pushed into a corner. I strained and strained and nearly sprained my eyes, but those little digits never stopped swimming. I commandeered Adri’s reading glasses up and after experimenting with various distances between my eyes, the glasses and the little digits, I finally managed to make sense of it all.

I sent the result off and an hour later I was advised that the sim was actually deactivated in September 2016 already. This week I have been in contact with three people from MTN and received three different answers, how is this possible, do they not work off the same system? First I was told the sim was 100% and just needed to be reset. Then I was told it was deactivated last Sunday and now I’m told it was deactivated last September? How can one have any confidence in a company that seems to be fact-free?

Be as it may, I responded to the last email and I tried an innocent “Can you reactivate the sim for me please”, just like that, no question mark but rather a statement. Now the waiting game started all over again.

Saturday morning we woke up to a soft drizzle which soon enough thankfully petered out and by 11:00 the sun tried to break through to the other side, managing it only from time to time.

I set the alarm for 07:00 this morning to watch the Lions/Rebels rugby match but silenced that damn thing in a quick but perfectly aimed and executed touch to the screen. I’ll watch the highlights package later on.

It was just after midday that Adri had an urge, an urge to go for a walk. That walk of course had a purpose, it lead us straight to the Carrefour, ostensibly for washing powder and cacahuètes (peanuts). I won’t bore you with the details, but just like Baa Baa Black Sheep, yes sir, we returned with three bags full.

Back at home I was just in time to see the end of the first half of the Sharks/Force game. After halftime I cracked open my first Stella and she did not come alone, she brought cacahuètes, salty biscuits, Gouda cheese, olives as well as some chips along to the party.

During the course of the day Adri received a text from Estie confirming that she and Dries will be visiting France early August. We are so looking forward to seeing them!

I watched rugby into the evening and after the SA games were completed, there was a surprise for me. Covered live from the Altrad Stadium in Montpellier – where we were a few weeks back – was the game between Montpellier and Stade Francais Paris. Montpellier was lying third on the Top 14 log and would move to second, guaranteeing them a home semi-final, if they won and other results were in their favour. It was not, Toulon overcame Pau to hold on to second place on the log. Be as it may, the Montpellier game went down to the wire which they only just won 27-26, and that only after Morné Steyn, playing for Stade Francais Paris, missed the goal kick after the whistle went. It was a nail biter but not a very pretty affair.

It was a lazy Sunday morning but we had to hurry, we had places to go. It was just before 12:00 when we were outta there and parked ourselves at the bus stop. We waited and we waited and yet again, just like the previous time, the bus did not arrive. This bus to Marseillan is really starting to peeve me off. Adri looked at me askew and I uttered, in silence of course “But the schedule says 12:08 at Le Penitents”. I checked the schedule yet again, and again, each time arriving at the same conclusion. Other bus lines came and went, people boarded and disembarked, but us, we just parked off. And then finally, 20 minutes late, the bus appeared in the distance.

The lady bus driver refused to take our money, ostensibly there was something wrong with the ticket machine, maybe she did not know how to operate it, maybe she just took pity on us. We were on bus line 9 which takes one to Marseillan Plage (beach) which is about 8km from Marseillan proper. From there you take bus line 15 for the final stretch.

Arriving at Marseillan Plage we had a few minutes to spare before our connecting journey so we walked across the road to the tourist information centre but was greeted by an array of tables and people rather than bus schedules and otherwise. They were closed for tourists but open for voting… Oh yes, today was France’s second and final round of voting with Emmanual Macron and Marine Le Pen doing battle.

 

And doing battle they did in the debate last Wednesday. I watched the full debate on a channel that translated the goings on in real time. Le Pen came across as being an unprepared snickering bully whereas Macron was as cool as a cucumber, setting her straight on many issues, pointing out her lies and deception. Afterwards even her own party lambasted her on her performance, it was woefully inadequate, one could never imagine her as the president of France, but then again, one could never imagine Trump as the president of the US.

Anyway, we did not want to interfere with the French election so we left the information centre empty-handed. Back at the bus stop the same bus with the same lady was still there. She soon enough changed the electronic number from 9 to 15. The ticket machine was obviously still not working, or whatever, so we were unwilling recipients of yet another free ride.

 

Arriving in Marseillan we intended to get off at the Le Port bus stop but the bus did not stop, the port came, and the port went. Okay, maybe I should ring the bell for the next stop, that did not work either, the next bus stop came, and went; this lady was on a mission impossible for me to stop. Finally the bus came to a standstill purely because it was the end of the line. Not sure what that was all about.

 

No harm done though. We walked back to the port area and found many boats and bars and restaurants and people dotting the area, all having a lovely sunny though windy Sunday afternoon. We walked around this and then that side of the port area and settled at a restaurant further down that was less busy and also had the most comfortable looking seats overlooking the port.

 

“Deux Pelforth s’il vous plait” (Two Pelforth please) I ordered as we settled in for a lovely sunny sit-in. With beers delivered I was too afraid to ask Avez-vous le wifi  (Do you have wifi), I could not handle further wifi rejection, so we read offline while sipping our Pelforths. The lady next door to us made a video call back home to England, so I guess there was indeed wifi.

People walked passed and back, kids on their wheelies went past, an old man in a four wheeled electric golf cart went by with his dog on a leash, leading the way. The beer made us lazy in the sun and we refused to move. It was 15:00 when the boat in front of us with its eight paying customers left the quay for a visit to the oyster park in the lagoon. And still we sat.

The wind was tugging rather violently at the vinyl shade covers above us, I feared that my beer may be knocked off so I hid it under the table; if anyone was going to knock it off it was going to be me. Across the port one could hear the wind rattling the rigging against the masts of boats moored and while that sound could be annoying it always brings back great sailing memories for me.

Time was moving on, so we moved on, to another restaurant for another beer. A group walked by with a small dog on a leash, a tiny long haired cute little mongrel. The wind was blowing from the north, this party was walking north, the hair of the dog was blowing wildly backwards, seemed like he was stuck in a wind tunnel. The poor thing only kept its footing due to the leash around its neck. I swear, had there been no leash he would have been blown out to sea, never to be seen again…

On the way between Marseillan and Marseillan Plage one passes over the Canal du Midi and it is essentially around this area that the canal starts its winding way inland.

Back home at around 18:30 we started watching the French election coverage on Sky News and just after 20:00 the preliminary projected results were announced, an emphatic victory for Emmanuel Macron who triumphed with two thirds of the vote.

Monday was a beautiful sunny day, one of the best we’ve had here thus far, it had to be, the high was predicted to be 23°C. Today was the first time in a long while that we did a full one hour yoga session, it felt great, really great to be back to a level where we were for such a long time previously.

Adri made an egg pizza for breakfast, or at least that’s what she called it and that’s what it looked like. The large omelette was covered with fried onions and mushrooms, tiny cubes of freshly cut tomato, salami slices, all of which were covered with a gooey Gouda cheese, now melted into the mix. Remove the omelette and replace it with a pizza base, yup, I get it now.

After the French elections of yesterday all the news sites this morning covered the results extensively. And according to them, France sighed a huge collective sigh of relief after the Macron win yesterday, nobody wanted a French Trump in charge and it showed in the election results, he came away with two thirds of the vote.

Macron has a huge task ahead of him in uniting the French people and all the issues that caused discontent in the first place, but I’m confident he will be true to his word. In his victory speech last night he promised never to lie to his people, he will always tell the truth. I hope he keeps this promise and if he manages to do that, he would be the first politician in history to achieve such lofty goals. But for now we have to give him the benefit of the doubt and we wish him well.

As noted previously, last Wednesday I watched the French presidential debate on television and Le Pen was like all the other nationalist populists around the world, full of bluster, bullying, promises, false accusations and painfully thin on policy and substance. Macron shone like a star, cool and calm, deflecting false accusations and calling out her lies in real time. He seemed to have his stuff together, she seemed to be falling apart at the seams, and it showed in the election results.

Truth be told, it seems like nationalist populists are fast losing ground in Europe, like Wilders, like Le Pen, even Farage’s UKIP seems to be self destructing at the moment. And this good fortune, I believe, can be ascribed to the mishap that is Trump. People now have living proof of what such a populist can do to a country, and it isn’t pretty.

It was early evening when I received a response from MTN that stated “The number now belongs to someone else, it is not available for reactivation”, not what I wanted to hear. I contacted Lood to phone the number just to check and he got a message that said “The number does not exist on the MTN network”. The only deduction I could make from that was that I was being lied to; the number does not belong to anybody. Now it was time to elevate this issue higher up in the ranks of the organisation, but I have scant hope.

After yoga and a breakfast of fruit salad of sorts – banana discs and chopped up apple – we caught that unfortunately numbered bus line 13 at midday to the large Carrefour some 10km away. We were actually on our way to Intersport, a large sports retailer next to Carrefour, as Adri had spotted a tiny hole in her exercise pants and of course it had to be replaced, like today.

We strolled around Carrefour for a while but Adri soon grew restless, that garment was not going to wait around forever, you know. After crossing a few streets and dodging cars we arrived at dead man’s door. The place was physically locked up and shuttered closed. “When did they close down?” I thought and after a quick gaze around, “When did this whole area close down, I did not realize business was that bad.” Then I thought we may have arrived on a public holiday, but no, that was on Monday. It’s only when I looked at my watch that I caught on, it was 13:25, it was lunch, France was closed for business. I have by now gotten used to this shutting shop between 12:00 and 14:00 but I just don’t always remember.

Anyways, no harm done, we ambled across another road and into McDonalds for an espresso and great wifi to wait out the wait until 14:00. Today we noticed something new in there; at least it was a first for me. They had two rows of touch screen ordering points from where you can place your order and pay for it. We checked out the machines and they seemed to be rather intuitive.

I think it’s a great idea as it allows one to scroll through the menu at leisure, not having to stare up at those indecipherable menus behind the counter, with an impatient order taker in front and an impatient customer behind you. Could this be the end of McDonalds’ order taking staff? Currently there are still staff that hand out the orders but that can easily be replaced with a small type of carousel conveyer belt. Is McDonalds moving towards a staff-free front office?

We entered Intersport and the waiting started, Adri was not going to be rushed, and of course I would never dream of doing that. After a few rounds through all the aisles, and there are plenty, I suspect the staff was getting anxious about the motive behind my loitering, so I sat myself down on a comfortable leather bench. Adri was at least by now in the fitting rooms, it would not be long now. But I was wrong, she went back twice and then she finally emerged with a victorious smile, which made me smile; she had found exactly what she was looking for. In fact, she did not just find exercise pants but also a tracksuit top that “was just perfect!”.

After we got home Adri donned her new outfit and that effort could not go to waste so we went for a walk down to the ocean. I was not in an exercise mood but accompanied her in any case, with ulterior motives and all, to the breakwater where we sat and relaxed on the rocks. I opened my Stella and a small punnet of cacahuètes (peanuts), my motives weren’t all that sinister, life was great!

 

Wednesday was not a normal day in America. Well, any day with Trump at the White House cannot be normal, but today was way abnormal. Last night he fired FBI chief James Comey, who incidentally won him the White House because of his ill-timed revelations about re-opening the Clinton email investigation – with scant new evidence – just before the elections last year. This firing came just before Comey had to testify before a committee tomorrow regarding the Trump campaign’s possible collusion with the Russians and the resultant interference in the elections. It also came at a time when Comey asked for more funds and resources to intensify this investigation. Smells fishy? Hell no, it is a fish.

But this is not where the abnormal day ended, far from it. Today Trump met with Sergey Lavrov, the Foreign Minister of Russia, although that was planned, but he also met with the controversial Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. And then it got even weirder, he then met with, wait for it, Henry Kissinger, the man who was Secretary of State during the Nixon era and advised him during the Watergate saga. Ouch! As I said, it was a way abnormal day. Is this the start of the end, or the end of the end… not for Trump, but for America?

After a quick breakfast of croissant with Mortadella cold meat and Gouda cheese, and a final coffee under the belt, we took a slow stroll down to the fresh produce market. Today we wandered further up and on to the clothes and general goods market. There was nothing that rocked my socks but as we turned back to leave I noticed a stall selling ceintures (belts). I looked down at my buckle and belt and felt ashamed at how neglected they looked. They had served their purpose and were ready to be put down; they had seen plenty better days. The one very long brown belt on display was shortened, fitted, and of course it was perfect. Money changed hands.

We ambled back to the main part of the market and took up positions at the Le Barajo Cafe with an espresso each. The place even had wifi, albeit slow but I did not care, we were there to people watch. It was past 12:00 and the stalls were starting to diminish in size as its owners started packing up and away.

We watched the guy at the stall right in front of us – selling cheeses and dried meat – dismantle his station methodically. First he packed those dried meats into sturdy plastic baskets. The cheeses were about to follow but a lady interrupted, she needed cheese, and of course he would not refuse her. Then the cheeses followed the same route as the dried meat, altogether there were about 10 cases, he had a lot of stock.

With tables cleared he rolled up the red and white chequered plastic sheets covering his four aluminium fold-up tables. Then the sign at the front of the table, attached with Velcro, was rolled up after which each table got a folding. Last but not least the two large square umbrellas were taken down and bagged and placed with the rest of the dismembered stall. He then disappeared, re-appeared with his small delivery vehicle, loaded up and once again disappeared, only to reappear next Wednesday and do it all over again.

On our way back home after a visit to Monoprix the wind started playing with my leather jacket, it refrained from doing so once I zipped up, there was a chill in the air.

Supper tonight was pork loin with an assortment of veggies, as well as leftover ratatouille from a day or two ago. Tonight I was forced to have chips, we needed to clear out stuff from the freezer, it was filled to over-capacity… We have to stop buying stuff!

We watched a rather watchable movie tonight called The Bourne Legacy which IMDb describes as “An expansion of the universe from Robert Ludlum’s novels, centred on a new hero whose stakes have been triggered by the events of the previous three films.” It was in the same vein as The Bourne Identity (2002), The Bourne Supremacy (2004) and The Bourne Ultimatum (2007). I have not seen Jason Bourne (2016) so cannot comment on that, but all in all, the movie was great escapism.

Thursday it was dark and grey as was expected. As I opened the door to the outside world the proof of rain during the night lay on the road like a dank blanket. The wind tugged too friendly at my cheeks so I closed those doors without a further furtive glance towards the ocean, I knew it was angry.

And that’s when it hit me, the ice saints had arrived as if by appointment, as I wrote last week in my post titled With the OFII process complete we now have to face the ice saints. Just as Didier had predicted, or rather just stated fact, today was the 11^th and the St Pancras’ day, the first of the ice saints. I initially wasn’t totally sold on the idea… now I’m a believer.

Today would be spent indoors, there was no way we were going to face these elements, and everyone else seemed to be of similar mind as the streets below were devoid of any movement, people, cars or otherwise.

We bought the tastiest breakfast pork sausages from Carrefour the other day and some of those would be the staple in our breakfast… I built myself a breakfast brak (dog) with pork sausage, egg, fried mushrooms and onion and cheese. Man, that puppy was great!

It was midday when it started drizzling and this taunted us for most of the afternoon, but we were okay, we had food and beer, the ice saints could visit all week, we were stocked to the hilt.

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