A Parsec of Possibility: Catching Up!!!!!

Once again, I have been delinquent in blogging. I suppose the only good thing about being far away from all of you is that Sas and Sue can not hit me so hard as to bruise me deeply (which they have done in the past). Some may say I have violent friends but I like to think of them as being deeply passionate.

I was going through my pictures the other day and just thought I would share a few random ones with you before I catch you up on things.

My crazy husband......who loves the Hava Nagila song and will even sometimes dances to it. It is times like this when my heart becomes a big puddle of mush for him.

My emotional scars are still running deep. I saw this picture and it sent a shiver down my spine!

Rico (aka Angry Bird), even looks menacing in his pictures

Not many people have seen Herve with hair on his head! It is now even longer but we are going to cut it off before Jordan. My husband is gorgeous - even with long hair!

Update on Saint Laurent de Cerdans

Well, we have been gone for almost a week and I can still say that Sue and Geoff have a little piece of paradise. I wish I had had the time to walk more of their land or to see it in the summer when all the trees were leaved out.

And now that we are in Agde, I can see us coming back and just slowly touring from one end of southern France to the other. The terrain is so different and I love the relaxed feeling we have eperienced since being in France.

While with Sue and Geoff, we got to meet some of their friends and I have decided that this is the great thing about Helpxing. I love meeting new people!

One night, their friend, Namua, who runs an organic olive farm and has Helpxers as well (see here for her HelpX posting) had an equinox party. Everyone had to write down a wish/hope for ourselves for the coming year on a slip of paper. We then buried them under a new tree. Then, we had to make a wish for someone else while lighting a candle. The candles were then placed around the room and left to burn themselves out. It was a nice little ceremony - nothing strange like the sound healing in Maine.

Namua made a fabulous vegetarian feast. I ate this carrot and walnut pie with garlic mayonaise! It was sooooooo good I had seconds and now wish that I had asked her for the recipies. We met a woman named Wendy who has traveled the world for work and so has many funny stories - like living in a neighborhood in Japan which had lots of members of the Yakusa in it while teaching English. Unfortunately, she learned some Japanese from them and tried it out on her students only to find out that she was talking "gangsta" to them!

We also met a fellow Canadian, Dharma, who is originally from Vancouver but is currently dating one of Namua's sons.

One of our last evening's there, Geoff arranged for a bunch of their friends to meet in a restaurant in this tiny village, Tapis, just over the border in Spain. He figures the only inhabitants are the family that run the restaurant and general store in the village. Obviously, people must come from far and wide to dine here because the restaurant can easily seat 250 people but there is only about 5 houses in the village.

We met Ollie, an Englishman, who is currently living in and repairing an old farm house for another person. He was there with his daughter Lucy, who was visiting him from Edinburgh where she is going to school to get a horticulutural degree. They were incredibly outgoing and funny. Ollie had lots of stories as he has worn many hats in his life.

Fido and Kristine were there with their two children. We had met them over coffee the first time we went to the Ceret market. Fido is big into the Chinese board game Go. Their little girls thought my Canadian accent was funny. Michel's Haitian nature came out when he and Kristine had a debate about the war in Afghanistan. This came up because a couple of days before a man had gone on a killing spree (soldiers and Jewish children) to make a statement about Palestine and Afghanistan. It got quite heated and Michel's hands were flying through the air while he was making his arguments.

At some point during the debate, Kristine asked to see Michel's palm and the debate came to an abrupt halt as she started to give him a "sort-of" palm reading. Susan got in on it as well because Kristine found a pentagram on Michel's palm which as apparently "very interesting" but neither she nor Susan could say why it was interesting. I think I prefer to think of it as the Star of David rather than a pentagram - less negative connotations.

Anyway, at some point, the topic of the "Six Degrees of Separation" came up on conversation and it turns out that one of the guests is the great grand-daughter of Erwin Rommel (famous general in the Nazi party during WWII), a friend of Susan's, Sally (who we met when she and Susan came to pick us up from the train station when we arrived), has a friend who has worked with Kate Bush, and then I pointed out that I was only 2 degrees separated from the Beatles because David (alpaca farm) had worked in a guitar factory when he was very young and had met the Beatles (and others but I can't remember who) when they came to check out some equipment that the factory (can't remember the name of the factory but I think it started with a V) was giving them to use on their famous North American tour (the first one) (David is really old - tee hee tee hee - sorry David!)

I think Geoff is having a good time at dinner with everyone.
That is Lucy to his left and then Karen.

Anyway, it was a fabulous night and too boot, we ate wild boar that had been killed by some local hunters - how very French!!!!

I do have to apologize to Susan and Geoff as I was constantly calling them Angela and David. I don't know why but there it is. Even now, when I think about our time with them, my mind says Angela and David and then automatically corrects itself. I am going to blame it on either the dementia that runs in the Wallace family.........or my peri-menopause.

Speaking of, there is a great comic that does a bit on menopause and how one of the signs is that you forget the names of things. I am soooooooo going through menopause!!!!

Anyway, that is about all that happened while we were in Saint-Laurent. For your viewing pleasure, what follows is a photo/video montage:

Pets all over the world are the same - hard working but man, do they enjoy their "siesta".

Lola (black), Jez (brown),
Rizler (white, blank and brown)
and the Terrorist (cat that thinks she is a dog)

The little village of Saint Laurent de Cerdans is lovely. Come on a walk with us:

Tilt your head to your left.
Huge town map on the side of a building.

Tilt your head to your right.
More than 150 steps from the bottom to the top!
My cardio is way better than when we left Calgary!
I didn't actually walk these steps (we went via road).

Tilt your head to your right.
I love old European streets!

The little piece of paradise where we went to work:

Catalan - home of the espadrille shoe!!!!

We found this vicious, highly poisonious friend in our bedroom!
Ok, it's not vicious or poisonous - just dead!!!!

Michel stripes the bark from pine to build a raised bed!

Carnival in Ceret

Strange French custom, during carnival, kids run around
spraying each other with shaving cream!!

First float in the parade - don't know who Casimir is.

I should not have to tell anyone who this is.

Are you look'n at me!!!
Are you look'n at me!!!
(think Scarface)

Not part of the parade - just a partyer (sp?).

Spidey, you are not looking too good!!
Your face is kinda sliding off!!

Back on the Farm......and other places.......completely random.

This is the River Mugla that divides Spain from France.
I am standing in the middle of the bridge that spans it.
I am technically in Spanish and French air space at the same time.