June 2024

 

Every once in a while, I have to pinch myself. Over the years, I have met some pretty incredible people. Little old us has had dinner with a supreme court justice. (Details which I was asked not to reveal and haven't and won't) We have also been fed by a neighbor chef who is renouned in our wider area of the Riviera. 

Then, most recently, a friend who happens to be a priest, who speaks at least 4 languages has celebrated mass with the Pope. (Father Maroun is in blue in the pic above) Michel, a retired French two-star army general, is on the right. His wife Soizik is to Janice's left.

A 'little' chocolate egg our neighbor and friend, Christian, made for a city function

Rubbing elbows with and picking these kind of people's brains is a pretty amazing experience, reminding me that whatever I might think I have accomplished pales compared to these folks.

Ta Da!

Daughter Kami in a photo shoot promoting the Rampart streetcar which started running again. Its been closed for slmost 5 years since the Hard Rock Hotel collapse in New Orleans.

France 2.0

I recently read a ditty in the Economist magazine that was bang on, so I have recopied it here.

"Want to get anything done in Europe?  Avoid May. The month kicks off with workers day, which is celebrated by not working. The end of the second world war on the continent (May 8th) warrants another day off. The Christian festivals of Orthodox Easter, Ascention and Pentecost result in yet more long weekends. All this time off can have a paradoxical effect. The French government had planned a big conference on promoting the 4-day work week but then realized that Wednesday and Thursday were 'jour ferrier' (days off) Which were supplemented by most people with a 'pont' (bridge day) on Friday. The confab was postponed. Only in France would it be a struggle to get people to attend a meeting on working less."

It's a wrap.

Once again, the season is over, and we have moved over the pond. If my math is right, this is our 60th such trip from one home to another since my retirement in 2004 and it is just as exciting as ever. As is our habit, we left things better than we found them, with more to look forward to upon our return. So far, our health is good, and we haven't run out of money so I guess we will just carry on.

We made a massive amount of progress on our pool project this season but did not get it all done. The previous story would explain why. As always, Janice was ready to hang the curtains before we build the wall. In this case it was getting some plants going, in some massive pots before the pool was finished.

Pots. Go big or go home.

Just another 125 more feet to go.

Little ducklings taking sailing lessons in our bay.

We're backkkkk!

Once again, we left by emptying whatever was left in the fridge, got on the plane, got off and went to get everything to fill the fridge here. We do this 3 times a year, so it is safe to say not much gets a chance to get too old.

We have since gone through our arrival ritual. That is getting the water system up and running, putting all outdoor furniture in place, removing all tarps covering the BBQ, Tecumseth, the chimney, launching the flower boat full of flowers, outdoor plantings and, needless to say uncovering and launching our two boats and the jet ski.

Whew.

This year was different though. Every year can have a challenge or two when we arrive. This year we had 5. Toughest year opening in the past 20 years. First, the composting toilet did not work. This does not make for a happy household. Then, the motor on the small runabout boat did not start, making us temporarily marooned. Sounds sexy, but it is not really. The dishwasher was on the fritz and the washing machine leaked like a sieve all over the floor. No hot water, temporarily. I expected Janice wanting to return to France at any minute.

Little by little we resolved each issue and the place started to look better day by day, but it took a full two weeks.  Soon, we will forget all about it and get back to living the dream.

Meanwhile, in the not all that important news dept., few people would think of me as much of a greeny environmentalist. Over the years, we have had deer run all over the island, muskrat, beavers swim nearby and threaten our trees. Then, a few days ago, I found this...

What the....? Last time I saw this was in our garden in France where wild boar would dig things up. But here? Then the full picture was revealed. Mama, a full 12" across had just laid her eggs, so we must now stay away from the area until we leave in October when they will hatch. It is the price we pay for living in a turtle preserve. I pay the taxes, she moves in. Typical woman.

Look, I would love to write more but it's 5 o'clock. Time for our daily boat ride and cocktails on the water. Gotta go.

                                            Oh boy...

The post office had to recall all of its

 famous politician commemorative

 stamps. Seems that people just 

couldn’t figure out what side they 

should spit on.

May, 2024

 

So, where are we?

Here

Swimming weather here, 

snowcapped mountains in the distance

Meanwhile, we had important company. Like our aunt Monique who flew in from Ottawa. (For the geographically challenged, that's in Canada, north of the US, and south of the North Pole) for weeklong visit.

 

Monique and Janice at the entrance to Saint-Paul de Vence. Note the welcoming committee to the right of the photo

Inside the medieval walls

Officially, it is called 'Les Plages the Salin'

 but we call it 'Beer on the beach'    

Shop located inside a cave

 

Then, undeterred, we had friends Tom and his wife Renee fly in from California to spend a week with us also.  If only we could get the kids here.

Visiting the remains of the Roman city of Glanum

 

        Visiting the medieval town of  St Paul De Vence

 Filling 5-liter poly bags with premium wine from a 3000 gallon stainless tank behind the wall. This allows us to get $16. wine for $3. a bottle by bottling it ourselves. In France, wineries are only allowed to sell so many bottles with their label on it. The rest must be sold in bulk.

Filling the bottles the old school way

See it in motion here

Corking the wine bottles 

Restocking our cellar 

Project update

OK, so another month has flown by and we are moving forward. Sort of. Will we be swimming before we leave? Not on your life. This is France after all, where patience is a virtue and "Inshallah" (Arabic for 'when God is willing') is the order of the day. All drop dead cast in concrete contractual deadlines are mere suggestions.

Still, we are moving forward, albeit slowly. We are progressing in plumbing, electrical, pool finishing and grading work. The only guy who shows up every day without fail to work is me. I am currently stuccoing nearly 200 feet of exterior property wall, 6 feet tall. I will do the interior wall when we return in March. Meanwhile, I am wiring landscaping lights. I can hardly wait to get deployed again for a change of pace and get back with my type A personality strike team.

April, 2024

 

Visiting the village of Mougins. Do you see the resemblance between Pablo Picasso and I?

No, I don't mean the wrinkly skin, I mean the brilliance :)

He passed there.

What we love about our season here

Strolling through a medieval village a few miles from our home

Feeling slightly kinky?

This restaurant might be for you.

(Le Petit Fouet)

"The little whip"

The project 

(The latest news)

OK, so we got the pool shot.
This is projected concrete on the 'submerged beach'

Are we getting ahead of ourselves? 

Not quite ready to slip on a swimsuit.

Here you see the outer wall going up

I had a little spare time so Janice had me build a firepit off of a small patio facing the pool.

Meanwhile, we had boaters hangout 

in the bay below our terrace

We never turn down an invitation to dine with friends or to take a day off. We invited friends Soizik (don't look at me, I didn't come up with that name!) husband Michael and father Barh, our parish priests to join us for lunch.

    

March 2024

 

We were picking up a few odds and ends to start landscaping our new property addition. This looked nice but at $27,000 it was out of our league. Besides, it wouldn't fit on the roof rack.

This is a great shot of our beach below our garden. Our place is literally just on the right side of the frame in this picture. Full disclosure: It is not actually a picture but a picture of a wallposter in our little town as you can see below. The buoys are for the water taxis to shuttle you to the restaurant once you anchor your boat (yacht) further out.

On an adjacent wall in town, is a wallposter of our headland and other beaches we can walk to. Our place is marked by the little black arrow on the top right. As our son would so eloquently remark "This place does not suck".

We have new neighbors who recently moved into our 'wider' neighborhood. George Clooney and his family. They join the likes of Brigitte Bardot, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt (They recently sold their vineyard), Johnny Depp, Bono, Elton John, Tina Turner (until her passing) Kate Moss and on and on and on. Even Sylvester Stallone likes to sail here in the bay of St Tropez.

How I spend my days

Landscaping

And cooking

The project

It would be a stretch to say they are going at it like gangbusters. Patience may be a virtue, but I have never been accused of being virtuous. They got off to a great start, then disappeared for several weeks, only to return and get going again. They built a large part of the first of 3 walls that will enclose the property but had to leave sizable openings in it to allow heavy equipment in and concrete deliveries to be made.

The small patio where I will build a fire pit overlooking the pool below.

The beginning of the pool outlines that will have a projected concrete layer sprayed on it.

They are well aware of our drop dead "we are leaving' date and that any work that is not completed will come to a full stop (as well as payments) until our return in 8 months. They are motivated to meet the deadline.

Meanwhile..

For the past several years we have been happy to offer our villa for a week stay to a charitable group called Sarah's Guest House near our island in New York State. It is kind of a Ronald McDonalds house for grownups for family staying nearby with family in the hospital for catastrophic injuries or surgeries. Each year, they have an auction fundraiser with the usual restaurant meals donations, golf rounds and fruit baskets being auctioned off to raise money. 

The villa is a biggie, and it raised several thousand dollars for them. Shortly before we left California this year, we became aware of another group called 'Captive Hearts'. They deal with women who have been victimized with domestic violence, sexual or drug issues. They take them in, offering shelter, counseling, and work skills. Pretty basic stuff. We offered the villa for a week for their yearly auction, and they got a top bid of $9,500. WOW! We wish we could rent it for that. 

The second bid was for $9000. Hmmm, then I got an idea...

What if we offered the winner $500 back to match the second bidder so they would be identical. Then we offered them a week's stay also. No one would feel slighted and we could double the donation to Captive Hearts. Everyone agreed as it was for a charity that they were supporting in the first place, and the total take was $18,000. Nice!!!

And finally...

I like to end each month with a little humor. This month is different. I want to end with a You Tube link to a video showing an event that occurred during a wedding. It is the most moving thing I have ever seen at a wedding. It was a surprise to not only the bride and groom but to most people in attendance. It is worth a look below.

 

February 2024

 

Wrapping up projects in California

After plugging a leak in the hot tub, new steps were in the making.

Next was...

The kitchen window: out with the old...

In with the new

OK, so we got the must do's done and we were ready to leave for France...

Then, it happened. 

I was minding my own business, taking a relaxing in a 2 person Jacuzzi tub in our master bathroom, working out the kinks in some sore muscles, when I noticed water on the floor. Hmmm.... no water had splashed over the tub but wait! ...There was water on the floor of the bedroom also....and in the laundry room on the other side of the wall!!! What the $*&^#@ was going on??? I could not determine the source of the leak but Houston,.. we have a problem!!!

        

We were 5 days away from catching our flight to France, renting clients arriving in a few weeks and me having time to deal with this like I have a hole in my head. Still, we decide that clearly this project that we had planned for next year (removing the Jacuzzi tub and turning the area into a walk-in shower) was now an EMERGENCY and had to be pushed up to NOW!

So, with 5 days to 'we are outa-here', we tore out the tub and gutted the bathroom area and prepared it for a total remodel. Janice was in 7th heaven. Then, when we left,  the final touches were in the hands of our friend and former renter Johnny, who is a tile guy by profession to wrap it up. The irony is that we will not see the finished product until our return in 8 months.

       The start of a relaxing season in France

 

This is the property we finally bought next door to ours. No, not terribly large but it does add a 3rd ocean front lot to our property. Just big enough to add a pool and a phenomenal increase in value to what we have. When we are pushing up daisies, the kids will thank us. Besides, while it is hardly the point, most villas here have a pool and not having one is not just a downgrade of sorts but puts you in the Jed Clampet category.

How we started

And so it begins...

The next step was to dig a hole big emough to put a house in. As of this writing, this is as far as we gotten.

A mere 12 hours after our arrival, the grading got started after 12 trees had been cut and the stumps removed prior to our arrival. Next came the rock wall and the pool location traced, and the hole dug.

                

Moving a tiny pot

 The Abbey of Le Barroux 

The monastery of Le Barroux is a taditionalist Benedictine abbey located about 3 hours away from us. We first stumbled on it several years ago quite by accident and we were so impressed that this was the 3rd time we have returned. To hear the monks sing in Gregorian Latin chant is like listening to the angels. It is incredibly moving. The first time we entered the chapel the black robed, hooded monks walked in and sat in the dark church.See the Epistle https://starfireproductions.blogspot.com/2019/06/june-2019.html 

It was so eerie. At first, I thought we might have stumbled on some kind of demonic offering. Could they be getting ready for a ritualistic sacrifice? Offering a virgin to the gods?

            

No, these monks live, eat, work for the sole purpose to pray and worship. They get up for first prayer at 3:15 a.m. and meet 7 times during the day until bedtime at 8 p.m. to pray. They are self supporting with the sale of bread that they bake, and olive oil from the olive trees that they grow and press, but are solely focused on the next prayer time. They make the Muslims look like amateurs. It is for us, for all of us, that they pray.

Now, some unrelated stuff

A view of the snowcapped French Alps from our terrace today.

A French baguette. The absolute best bread in the world. I could eat these all day long. Well, actually, I do. The price ain't bad either.

The infernal subject of taxes

As long as we are on that, we might as well talk about that other unavoidable one. Death. I was reminded the other day that by the actuarial tables, I have about a year and a half to live. Really? I am not amused. Do I look like I am dying? We had better hurry to get this pool finished so I get at least one swim in. I may have to bump off some younger guys to get the averages up. I sure hope the grim reaper does his work alphabeticaly or that at the very least, he got the memo that I am bullet proof.

Every year at this time, I spend at least 3 days working on preparing our taxes. (I am now on my 4th) It is at least as bad as going to the dentist. The fact that I have to deal with 3 homes in 3 countries on two continents doesn't make matters easier. I know that you feel my pain, but seriously, I know this is our own doing, but I have to whine to someone! I say that I must prepare our taxes because our accountant takes all the numbers I provide and fills out the forms. Way above my pay grade... I had a friend who would hand his accountant a shoe box full of receipts and let him figure it out. I can now see why.

Last year's tax forms came in to over 100 pages. They call it 'tax simplification'. And I am just a little guy who is all but broke. We recently had a tax lawyer look at what we were doing and he marveled at how much of our laughably paltry income we manage to shelter (legally) and our ability to write off with our rentals (legally). He immediately spotted just how allergic we are to paying taxes (legally). Did I mention that I what I do is aggressive as all get out but legal? I rest well knowing that, if need be, I am prepared to face an audit at any time. Over the years, I have been audited only twice and came out smelling like a rose each time. I think they have just given up on me.

Yet another public education success!