Home again

We arrived home last night, a little before 9.30 pm. On the outward and return journeys we got the ferry before the one we had booked. I have done most of the unpacking and some of the laundry. We visited the old man in the nursing home; he ate most of a chocolate iced doughnut and drank some tea. I shall not see him again until next Saturday as I have my second vitrectomy tomorrow.

Friends invited us for supper, which was eaten in their garden. We brought back cigarettes and Armagnac for them. One of them has given up smoking. His wife is resolved to do so but their business is so busy at present that she is smoking to help deal with the stress. I sympathise but I am fond of her and would like her to give up that habit because of the long-term health risks. While we were there her neighbour dropped in with invitations for all four of us to her fiftieth birthday party in September. It will be in the upstairs room of a local restaurant. We shall go if at all possible. If our daughter had been still with us, I think that she would have invited her as well. Katy loved a party.

Emmanuel Macron has been elected President of the Republic of France. We watched very little television last week because of the coverage of the presidential elections. Marine le Pen makes the dreadful Theresa May look almost human. Macron is, I suppose, the lesser of the two evils. We shall see. Our car was searched at Calais last night, by young French soldiers with formidable guns. One traveller, obviously annoyed at having his car searched, asked the young man if he was old enough to carry a gun. The soldier replied "I do not speak English". He was quite dead-pan. I admire his panache.

I shopped for clothes for my new great-nephew when we were in Vence. I bought a little two-piece outfit of denim trousers and top and a little blue-striped T-shirt. They are bigger sizes than the baby needs now.  My niece is going to visit her cousin and his family later in the year and will take the gifts with them. I have a silver articulated fish that belonged to my late aunt and shall send that to the new baby's sister.

We shall return to Vence towards the end of June. Before that we shall go to Hay-on-Wye and to visit my niece.

I am tired; time for bed. First I must lay the table for breakfast.