Cleaning day

Every day brings a little challenge.

I do not always sleep well, so this morning I got up late and have been slow getting started.  But there is plenty to do.  The cleaning lady comes today, and although we have never met, we are becoming accustomed to each others little ways.  That is to say, she and I both recognise that I am not tidy and ordered in the way she would prefer.  I leave my laptop and iPad on the table charging with cords trailing across the room, do not stack my notebooks and guide books in a perfect pile, arrange my bathroom necessities in a useful not aesthetic manner, and drape scarves and other small clothing items over the back of the very convenient chair in the bedroom.  Not only that, but I line my slippers up against the wall instead of tidily tucked under the bedside table.

All of this and more offends her sense of order.  When I come home in the evening not only does the apartment sparkle and smell divine, it is also re-arranged in such a way that I cannot find a thing.  This came to a climax last week when she tidied my yoga routine cards away so efficiently that I have yet to find them.  Luckily I remember the routines.

So I spent a good 30 minutes this morning picking up and tidying, in the hope that everything will be where I left it when I come home after my afternoon walk.  But that was not the challenge for the day.  No, the challenge for the day was my second trip to fill up the car.

Not to go anywhere in the car, you understand.  No, just to fill it up in anticipation of future use, because after my busy weekend it was almost empty – or down to 1/4 tank, which for this typical Virgo is as good as empty.   The first challenge is to actually get the car out of the garage, which fits it like a glove.  It is a new car fitted with every safety device imaginable, so it screeches continual warnings that I am about to collect the side of the garage as I back out.  It does the same thing as I manoeuvre past the cars parked in the narrow lane that leads onto the tiny one-way road at the back of my apartment block.  I am already sweating by the time I reach the intersection.

But this morning all went well.  I have, surprisingly, yet to give it so much as a scratch.  And I may say that is more than can be said for most French cars.  Drivers here slip into such tiny parking spaces and through such tight gaps, that almost all are battered, scraped and dinged in a manner that would horrify most NZers.  The owners seem not to care.  Strangely, I quite approve of that attitude.  I have always thought the car was there to protect the driver, not the driver to protect the car.

Anyway, without any drama I made it all of 500m down the road to the nearest petrol station.  Then I pumped gas – not something I ever do for myself in NZ – determinedly ignoring the sign that ordered me to pay before doing so.  If I am filling up, as my father taught me to do, how can I pre-pay without knowing how much it will cost?  As it happens it cost around 40 Euros, so clearly far from empty, and the attendant did not growl at me when I went to pay.  I was home within 10 minutes.  Result!

Such is the minutiae of the life of a middle-aged woman alone in a strange country.

Off now for a walk, and to leave the coast clear for the cleaning lady.  It is beautifully warm and sunny, but it will be freezing by the time I come home, so I need to dress appropriately.  What will I see and do?   Perhaps I will have some new photographs to post.  Perhaps I will buy something.  Strangely my anxieties and inhibitions about language and behaviour disappear completely in the retail sphere.  Perhaps I will buy some boots that do not make me slip and slide on the wet paving stones as the ones I have been wearing do.  Certainly I need to buy something for my dinner at least.

Who knows?  It does not matter.  The point is just to enjoy it.

By the way, I will get back to the Grandma story ….

And I am back …

I expected nothing from my walk today, and did not intend to add to this blog.  But in fact it was perfect.

Do you know that feeling of pure happiness you get sometimes?  Hearing a piece of music that lifts your soul;  the softness of a baby’s head nestled under your chin;  lying skin to skin with another person under a cosy cover.  Well I had two experiences of pure happiness this afternoon.

To begin with I bought a pair of the best kick arse boots you can imagine from a very posh shoe shop.  I know it was posh because I had to press the button to be allowed in, the man knelt on the floor to fit my boots, and the prices were très cher.  That made me happy, but it was not the thing that sent my spirits soaring.

The first ‘moment’ was when I had to pinch myself to believe I was sitting in an outdoor bar in the last rays of the Provencal sun drinking a dry cider, eating the free potato chips, and generally watching the world go by.  The light was golden, the air was crisp, the waiter was polite, and it occurred to me that I had nothing to do but enjoy.

Then, on the way home, there were flocks of thousands of birds (starlings? swifts?) wheeling around creating fractals in the sky above the trees on Cours Mirabeau in the dying light.  It doesn’t get much more perfect than that.

So now I am home in Cours Gambetta, glowing a little, and wondering what tomorrow will bring.