APRIL 2011 - SPRING AT LAST

It occurs to me that I have not blogged you for some time. My excuse for this has been quite simple – I have been in hospital having bits chopped off me. The last time this happened; I got a new knee in a French hospital – I had always heard of the efficiency of French surgery – well, speak as you find – I was not impressed. The French staff made no attempt not to display obvious contempt for my impoverished attempts at speaking French – worse was to come: a week after the op my stitches were taken out and the following day I suffered a “rotule” of the knee cap (in other words it slipped) and if you want to suffer extreme pain (and who does), let your knee cap “rotule” a bit and you will be sorry (very).
Fair play to the French, they mended the bloody thing, but that was 2 years since and it is still not fully right yet. So, when the other knee went on the blink, I decided to give the Gallic Orthopods a miss and caught the ferry from Cherbourg to the Lister hospital (Lwr Sloan Street). The Lister came very highly recommended for the carving ability of Mr Lavalle, which I am very happy to endorse – a very neat piece of carving, even my (very) French GP has said that it is “tres joli”.
“Spring is Sprung” and that’s official. In France Spring comes on March 30th and you better believe it. “I wonder where the boidies is?” They say “de boids is on the wing, but that’s absoid, because de wings are on the boid”. Remember that.
Spring in Normandy reminds me of Spring in Cornwall – roadside banks full of Daffodils and great clotes of Primroses – gardens full of songbirds, flights of the water birds coming in from the sea-side to the marshes.
We are only a couple of miles from Utah Beach. In fact our little town was the first place freed after D Day. If you watch the movie: (again) “The Longest Day” you will see a shot of John Wayne leaning on a road-isle town sign. It is a neat little cruciform town (pop: 2,600) and you can be out of it and into deep rurality in 10 minutes.