The lack of dozens of photos showing our new room being built this week means -yes, you guessed it- the new room was NOT built this week.
At all.
Which is sad, but not at all unexpected. The French building contractor is a rare, shy creature and you really can't expect one to show up according to any kind of predetermined schedule. Wild and free as the wind itself, and all that.
It's a bit tiresome, but that's how it is.

So, this week, instead of watching the addition to the house go up, I kept busy with other stuff. "Other stuff" included taking Severin on a shopping trip to buy badly-needed winter boots. His old ones were worn to shreds and about a month ago started getting actual holes in them, which is not really what a person looks for in winter footwear. But Severin hates shopping so much that he'd rather have snow melting all over his socks all day long than set foot in a store. In fact, he'd probably rather have his entrails torn out by rabid hyenas- but I didn't give him that option (so messy and painful, don't you think?) Cleverly bribing him with promises of a lunch at McDonald's, I managed to get him into a sporting goods shop. We found him a pair of Columbia boots that he liked and, at 40% off, they were a complete win.

What was not so "win" was the moment, right after we left the shop, when I realised that my key card was NOT in my purse any longer.
I dumped everything out of my purse, but it wasn't there. We all (I actually had all four of the kids with me) went out to the mall parking garage, just to make sure I hadn't somehow left it in the car.
It wasn't there.
And to make things worse, I could see our housekey sitting on the armrest inside the car. This meant that if I couldn't find the key card and needed to go home and get the spare, I wouldn't even be able to get into my house. Unless I broke a window....
But no need to borrow trouble. I was sure (kind of) that I'd be able to find my key card somewhere in the mall. It had just fallen out of my purse somewhere.
Or had it?
(This is where you get a small insight into the workings of my tiny mind. And let me tell you, they are some strange workings indeed...)
Right then, I looked around the crowded parking garage and this thought flashed through my brain: "Maybe it was stolen! A clever car thief took my key card and is watching us right now! He's followed us in order to find which car is mine and the minute I take the kids and go search the mall, he'll click the door open, start her up and drive away. OMG!"
Yes, I am insane. Thank you for asking.
I told Sev (my six foot tall son) and Tya (5'9" and quite capable) "Guard the car". Mallory stayed with them and Alexa came with me to help search. Luckily, we hadn't gone to very many places that afternoon. There weren't too many places to cover.
First, we searched the McDonald's. My purse had fallen on the floor at one point as I'd fussed over my salad, so I had a strong hope that the black plastic card would be found on the floor under our table.
No such luck.
I talked to the manager, but nothing had been turned in. So, we walked to Go Sport, looking at the ground the whole way. The store manager there was super-helpful. "I lost my keys at McDo once. I'd put them on the tray and then got distracted by the kids. Threw them right in the garbage! " she told me. Her previous experience (which ended happily after she searched the trash bin) made her very sympatheitic and she helped us look through the whole store.
Nothing.
Disappointed, I left her my name and cell phone number and trudged back down to the fast food place. I was just lifting one of the tables so Alexa could look under it, when my phone rang. It was the Go Sport manager...someone had turned in my key card! It had been found wedged under the bottom edge of the front counter where the cash registers sit.
So, it turns out I was NOT the target of fiendishly clever car thieves.
Imagine that...

For those of you who are not devotees of the genre, a feature found frequently on amateur mom-blogs is "Wordless Wednesday". Every mid-week post is just photos with no text.
I find it a bit dull, to be honest.
Instead, I've created "Taciturn Tuesday".

Here's a pic from the start of Sunday's desperate scramble down to the foot of the cliff.

This is my car. If you come to our corner of France, you can't miss it. I am the ONLY person in the Haute Savoie (possibly in all of France) with a NFP bumber sticker. (Thanks Art!)

This is my garden. I have been too ashamed to post a pic of it because it is so very tiny. I know that my constant complaining must have made it sound gigantic....but it is a dainty little thing. I don't know WHY it's such hard work!

And there you go.

I'm not sure I'll do this again.

But then, maybe I will.

Ok- maybe my new car doesn't "excite" me, but we have finally bonded. It even has a name.

It's all Valentine's fault. We were in the village today, walking through the parking lot, hunting for our car. It's metallic grey, which is THE color for cars lately, so it was hard to spot. Especially as it's not all that tall.
"Considering that it has seven places, it's actually quite low", I said to Valentine.
"Yeah- but it's wide. And long. Look! There it is ! I see it!. " Then she turned to me and announced gravely: "Mom, our car has a big booty."

And she was right. There were all the Clios, Twingos, Pandas and other cute little cars with tiny flat back ends, like they do car Pilates 24/7 or something, and then there was my car, the back end sticking out very conspicuously.
Of course, as someone who looks like she has an end table stuffed into the back of her pants, my heart immediately went out to my poor, afflicted vehicle.

"Our vehicle now has a name. I'm calling it "J-Lo!" I announced. "Wear it proudly, little car. You are now one of the family."

Tomorrow, we are driving J-Lo down near Lyon to the Walibi amusement park.
Amusement has been kind of thin on the ground around here this summer, so I've planned a nice outing and picnic for the kids. Actually, I've built up picnics to the kids as big-time fun, as eating out is SO expensive in France. Heck, it's even expensive to eat in, especially with four children. Sev, in particular, is a bottomless pit into which we throw vast quantites of food as offerings. I'm 5 ft 7 in and he towers over me now. And he's only 12 years old!

Other news:
Mr. D. is doing ok. He's still walking kind of cautiously, but is expected to recover speedily.

Valentine's bedroom has been stripped and one wall was almost all painted yesterday...but then all the paint fell off in the end. So, the Frogman and Sev primed two walls today, hoping to solve the problem. We'll see...

The weather has been gorgeous all week long. This has set all the local farmers to cutting their hay. So, the air smells great- I adore the smell of fresh-cut hay! Of course, the one road through the valley is constantly clogged up by the tractors hauling wagonloads away to the barns, but I don't mind the delays. It's SO worth it!

Alexa's health has been excellent since we arrived in France. Shes' even eating a bit more!

It's almost my birthday. Just a few more days...

We picked up Mr. D at the vet this morning, leaving behind a bit of his anatomy. He doesn't seem to be missing it much so far. He has spent the day lounging around on my bed, having the girls fuss over him. Mainly, he seems grateful to be back. I think he had begun to suspect that we'd dropped him off at the vet's office and had no intention of coming back.
Cleo, our female cat, seemed rather taken aback to find that we'd brought Mr. Darcy back home again. And come to think of it, she seemed to have enjoyed her day without him yesterday a little too much. In fact, we have a theory that SHE was actually behind Mr. D's bad behavior that got him sent to the vet for "re-adjustment".
"Go ahead and pee on the bed again. They LOVE that." she whispered in his fluffy white ear.
"Gee. I don't know. They seemed kind of upset about it last time..."
"No! Really! They thought it was ADORABLE.. I heard them talking about it afterwards."
"You really think so?" Mr. Darcy said doubtfully
"Absolutely. Trust me."
When her rival was carried off in the dreaded blue carrying case yesterday morning, Cleo thought that her diabolical plan had succeeded.
But Mr. D is back and better than ever, even if somewhat lacking in reproductive parts.

I haven't blogged about the goat village visit because we have been WAY too busy around here. We are stripping wallpaper, painting walls, repairing tiles and we just bought a new car.

Yes, a brand-new, straight from the factory kind of car. The kind that doesn't have to be repaired on a weekly basis.
It's a Renault Grand Scenic. The big attaction is that it has seven seats, but isn't as big as a minivan.
When I picked it up today, the dealer kept asking me if I was "excited". The answer is: no, cars do not excite me. This kind of crushed her. I guess she's used to people being wound up about buying a car?
I found it pretty strange.
Yes, I am happy to have a car that can carry my family and friends and that can haul around stuff I need. It's nice, but not exciting... Exciting is a word I reserve for great books, travel, goat races and, of course, the Frogman (aka my French husband).

Things fall apart. You may think it’s the title of Chinua Achebe’s famous novel of post-colonial Africa. It is also the description of my house, my car, my clothes…even the bloody furniture. I went into the kitchen this morning and was confronted with a large amount of sawdust scattered around a small stool. Has someone been doing late-night carpentry?

No- closer inspection yielded multiple termite holes. I hoped fervently that none of them had gotten to snacking on the table or the cabinetry and threw the thing out the back door, cursing mildly as I stepped in a puddle of water. What’s this? A leak under the sink, bien sûr. The plumber had just spent two whole days here fixing the sink and toilets, and here is the result: Lake Tengrela transported to my kitchen.

I mopped up and stuck a bucket under the trap. That was VERY brave of me, as I live in dread of the giant roaches under the sink. I usually only open the cabinet if I have a can of bug spray with me or one of the cats as a bodyguard. But I was rewarded with only ants, which I can bear. But they have invaded the walls. I think they are eating the wiring. That could explain why our electrical system bursts into flame regularly. The ants and the leaking roof could both be causing that. Severin’s bedroom has a huge leak in the corner, as does the storeroom. The later is more serious, as the fuse box for the whole house is there. (I took a photo of the fusebox so that I could post it so you could all see that I'm not some completely hyper-perfectionist, delusional, depressive, paranoid lunatic. But Blogger isn't letting me post pics today for some mysterious reason. Conspiracy!!!!!)

Will the owner fix any of this? No. Have we tried to? Yes, but it’s useless. The roofer comes, but two days later, the whole mess is leaking again. The same for the plumbing and electricity.

And the car is definitely falling apart. I tried to put the Toyota into gear yesterday, and it wouldn’t budge. At first I thought maybe one of the kids had sabotaged it. I had told them last night that we were going to church Sunday morning and they were less than thrilled. And I know they’ve seen heaps of films where the clever protagonist rips off the distributor cap to prevent the bad guys from making a vehicular getaway (The Sound of Music springs to mind. ) But no, Hassan the garage guy has just informed me that the clutch has a problem. An expensive problem, of course. We had him “fix” the problem and we have just been out for a test drive. In first gear the whole truck shudders like an elephant with malaria, in second it jumps and howls like a snakebit hippo. It runs pretty well in third, which is good, because I am fresh out of bizarre metaphors.

Trying to leave the house and go for a swim, JP noticed that the front door lock is nearly broken. The lock on our house in France is 100 years old and it works just dandy. What IS it about this place?

One theory could be that a European lifestyle is completely incompatible with the West African eco-system - that maybe the habits of living that developed there do not translate well. Maybe running water, electricity and locked doors just shouldn’t be here.

Then again, it could be that JP offended some bush spirit while he was out doing research and now we are CURSED. That seems much more likely.