Week 37 (11–17 September 2023)

Half a year of weeknotes! I'm liking them so far—they're a good way to keep some sort of track of what's going on week after week, and to give my dad reading material (coucou papa).

Maybe not an épisode cévenol

This week C is back from Switzerland. F is still on holiday so I'm still on garden-watering, cat-feeding, mail-getting, bread-ordering and wasp-nest-busting duty. There's been less garden-watering needed because it's finally been properly raining. At time of writing (Monday 18) we're actually in the middle of a legit rainstorm, the biggest since we arrived here in January. Is this what locals call an épisode cévenol? We're told that these come with intense flooding and the odd casualties at campgrounds, so maybe that's not quite as strong. Apparently they're not as common as they used to be.

Unintended smirks

So last week I wrote that I'd had some sort of ear infection. Well this week it turned into a form of partial paralysis called Bell's palsy. Basically I can't move the left side of my face—great. The upside is that it isn't painful (besides the headache), and that it should be going away in a few weeks. In the meantime it just makes it really hard to speak, eat, drink, and anything else that your face does (a lot, turns out). I constantly pour coffee on myself when I drink, can't close my left eye properly so it gets very dry, and my smiles look like weird smirks. I can still climb (sent my 5th purple route since our gym reopened!), if I'm willing to put up with B imitating my facial expressions. Generally would like this gone asap thanks!

Watching

We started a new TV show: Tokyo Vice. It's from last year and I'd heard good things about it (forgot where), and when I noticed that Michael Mann—who made Heat that I watched last week—directed the first episode, I decided to give it a go. We're only a couple of episodes in but it's pretty good so far!

Reading

Finished two audiobooks that I started last week:

C and I also stumbled upon a tiny secondhand bookstore in Largentière, with mostly very old 1€ books. I got two books: Camus' classic L'étranger (1942) that I've been meaning to re-read, and Laurent Binet's newer HHhH (2010) that I'd heard of somewhere and that I've already started reading.

Listening

Oh a new section!