Balls

Back in the early days of my exile in France after Georgie had returned to Londres, I was on my own with two terriers living in a wreck of a house with a leaky roof, rotten windows, very basic (and a bit dodgy) electrics, no heating apart from an ancient cuisinier stove (operating with a small pile of damp twigs, so not really operating) and a food store that consisted of bread, butter, soup, and a tin of something called casoulet. Luckily, neighbours Isabelle and Christian used to frequently invite me round for supper where I was tested for bravery by being offered such delicacies as garlic snails which I wolfed down with gay abandon.

A common feature of Isabelle's nosh-ups was her battery powered pepper mill which she used to (and still does) operate with obvious pride. Interestingly, by way of contrast, her kitchen reeks of contemporary technology typified by that mill while ours still remains proudly somewhere in the dark ages. Never having utilised a power-driven pepper mill before, I decided to look into upgrading my/our simple and very antiquated peppery thingy. This would actually be my/our first step in the daunting task of much needed domestic renovation. Waltzed into some snazzy shop in Aubusson and excitedly exited with a small Peugeot (non battery powered) pepper mill, the Rolls-Royce of pepper mills. It may have been small, but it came with a surprisingly big price tag.

About a decade later the wooden ring 'twister' at the bottom of the mill split vertically. This meant that to grind the pepper one had to grip the wooden ring tightly. Bit of a bore, but it worked. Then Georgie had the bright idea of wrapping the split wooded ring in duct tape to make it easier to operate.

Then her birthday loomed. Bought the perfect present. A big Peugeot pepper mill - hang the expense. Been using it for a couple of months. Excellent. However, needed refilling yesterday evening. Tricky operation. Took the top off, shoved a small plastic funnel in the opening and poured in a few pepper balls. All was going moderately well until a few balls jammed. Slowly removed the plastic funnel and... disaster. Pepper balls rolled everywhere. On the table, under plates and magazines, off the table onto the floor and into my shoes. I'm pretty sure one or two fell into my vin rouge too. Heated, but brief, discussion with Georgie. I think she opined that I wasn't holding the funnel correctly due to imbibing too much of the red laughing juice. I think I countered with a riposte that she was pouring the balls too quickly. I wonder if Isabelle and Christian have the same contretemps when it's refill time and have the Peugeot pepper mill directors ever been involved in a customer's divorce case? The mind boggles.

The B word

So that was Brexit. Bye, bye Britain. Off you go. You're no longer a member of the EU community.

I still find it difficult to comprehend how so many people voted to Leave. Maybe they blamed Europe for the mass immigration of foreigners to the UK. If so, they were wrong to do so. Or maybe they fell for the lies and propaganda dished out by Cummings, Farage and the right-wing gutter press. Or maybe they believed Johnson's lies about 'taking back control' when control hadn't been lost, or 'getting Brexit done' when it would actually take months or maybe years to get 'done'. Or maybe many Englanders still have a narrow-minded island mentality and simply don't trust Johnny Foreigner, but they do trust Johnny English even though he's a proven liar. Note I said 'Englanders' - Scotland and Northern Ireland both voted Remain while Wales strangely voted Leave even though they benefitted hugely from European subsidies. Talk about turkeys voting for Christmas!

Anyways..., in the weeks leading up to the pre-Christmas general election I posted numerous messages on Facebook and Twitter advising people of the many negative aspects and dangers of voting Tory, and therefore the crass stupidity of 'getting Brexit done'. What I didn't realise though, was that many of my Facebook 'friends' were Tory Leavers while I'm a Labour Remainer. To put it bluntly, I then received some fairly unfriendly messages from chums I'd known a long time. That was when I fully understood what people meant by 'a divided nation'. Great shame, but I've now lost about a dozen or so old pals just because of my anti-Tory and anti-Brexit political leanings. And as for Liar Johnson suggesting that it's time for the healing to begin, well, that suggests he doesn't have even the remotest idea how angry we Remainers actually are.

Anyway, it's done. Now all we Brit exiles scattered throughout Europe have to worry about is our healthcare. Er, and our pensions. Oh, and the exchange rate. And, of course, the nagging worry that we may be booted out of whichever countries we reside in and ordered back to the UK, sorry, K. And that raises other problems such as selling up - if all Euro Brits suddenly put their homes up for sale the market will be flooded and nobody will be buying so the prices will bomb and the houses will probably be unsellable so we'll have no dosh to buy anything in Blighty where prices are over-inflated and sky-high anyway. Disaster. But Liar Johnson and Evil Cummings probably won't want us to return because most of us are retired and we'd be an added burden on the NHS, the Social Services, the free foodbanks, council housing, funeral parlours, Alcoholics Anonymous, etc., etc.

Or..., maybe everything will be okay. We'll see.