Do You Smoke After Entrée Course?

The French smoke. The most accepted figure appears to be that 38% smoke compared to about 24% in the UK.  On Saturday night I was at the Resto St. Savinien for their latin/salsa/paella dinner. The musicians were tres special but disappointingly didn't do CDs or i-tune links. They are trying to catch up and catch on - they really are. Somehow here, the applause and bonhomie of the folks at tables is enough. A day is a day. It is lived, and the butt end trodden into the cracks of the cobbles. The other thing at the table was - well - smoke. We were seated on la terrasse, but covered by a gazebo. A lovely waitress asked if we minded if a few other clients smoked. To be frank, I cared not. The ambience of something not quite right with the drains, strong coffee and the throat catch of French fag is (for me) La France. That smoky Serge Gainsbourg voice somehow is Romance.(Check him out here) Gilles - being French and a muscular cyclist/patio layer was less keen. I patted his tough old thigh and he let me breathe in my pavement café, Sorbonne and early tragic death of poet fantasy. Just so long as I don't live it out OK! I'm not a bloody artist after all.

What a lovely word FECUNDITY is. We don't use it enough. Try working it in to your daily vocab. It sprung to mind today as I immersed myself in domestique subservience and abasement by making jam for my man. Who knows what the feminoids would do to me if they invaded. Nature has studded budded and spudded. The ripe bursting fruits are picked and the cycle of abundance pauses on the fulcrum between fullness and decay. Well, bref - forget the poetry and just say jam. A while later will come the pickles. In French supermarkets there are big displays of jam making sugar. I gave my man some confiture de mirabelles to try. His pleasure was like having a best seller - well, maybe not quite that....but it'll do while I'm waiting.

A train track runs across the bottom of the road. I'm sure that there are regulations about the sounding of hooters as you approach the crossing. I think all the old guys kinda shrug and just plough on in silence. The newbie blasts his klaxon at each town crossing.OK - we all know you now...we won't cross in front of you we promise. Just SHUT UP!

Emma thinx: Make jam. Preserve the future.