Concluding Days in Paradise for 2023

Concluding Days in Paradise for 2023

The Israel-Palestine war began on Saturday the 7th of October. For the first day, only Al Jazeera was reporting it. We all had coffees at the marché and then the Rixies departed. The Mighty Storz and margaritas were in the evening. Rosie, still not feeling well, retired first. Richard collapsed next and went to bed. Nancy and I had a lovely conversation.

The next day Richard and I went to our neighbours, Anne-Marie and Peter, for coffee, and on Monday we got Rosie and Nancy on the train in Les Arcs. Marie-Laure met them in Paris and put them on a taxi to their hotel at the Charles De Gaulle Airport. Richard & I went back to Les Arcs at the end of the day to fetch Wendy’s sister Gay and her cousin Faroll. The next day we went to Bellevue, and the gals insisted on treating us to dinner. At the Wednesday market, Atticus joined us for coffee, and we saw Fedrich, Marius, Lorna and Liliane. Later, Faroll and I swam in the lake where we enjoyed a picnic lunch and then continued on to the Temple of Apollo before having coffees and pêche melba in Moustiers. We rushed back from there, but Amanda had had an emergency client and had to cancel the interview. Gay and Faroll’s taxi arrived the following day at 05:00 to take them to the Nice airport. We did not see them off.

Thursday evening’s cinema at Penny’s was The Lost City – just the three of us and for all of us the second time, but Penny enjoyed it a bit more when viewing it with us.

Our next social moment was a pasta dinner chez nous for Lilian, Pâris, Lorna, Fedrich, Marius, Penny, Joanne, Atticus and Yvonne – starting with Veuve Clicquot. Liliane brought an apple crumble for dessert, Fedrich and Pâris had gone to a game, got drunk, and never showed. Nor did Yvonne. But for the rest, we good and pleasant time, and Marius now about one year old is simply darling.

The world’s religions module I am teaching online for the Cherry Hill Seminary has been progressing well. One student dropped out before we even began, but the remaining five have been a pleasure. Reading-wise, I have begun André Aciman’s Homo Irrealis. Strange, interesting, Proustian perhaps, and I cannot recall who recommended it. I have prepared my talk for David’s Nephilim Conference, and it may be recorded tomorrow for this coming Saturday. I have also done a proposal for Bron’s Dark Green Religion Conference next April in Mainz. Richard & I also have seen Marie Jacob, our most wonderful podiatrist.

A second cinema night at Penny’s was Golda with an excellent Helen Mirren as Israel’s first female prime minister. Penny’s great-nephew Josh was visiting, and Jessica also joined us. The film was particularly strange in the light of the current Gaza-Israel war and the undeniable sympathies that the movie engendered concerning the Yom Kippur War in 1973.Two days later, Penny drove us to a delightful luncheon at Susie and Patrick’s in Montfort. Four days afterwards, Penny drove of us to Les Arcs for our trains to Amsterdam. We have now left Marseilles where it is still sunny and gorgeous in the Midi as I am writing this. Marie-Laure should be meeting us at the Gare de Lyon and accompanying us to the Gare du Nord. And yesterday I saw Rix on Al Jazeera when they showed a short clip of the summer solstice Druids at Stonehenge.

So, despite the horrors elsewhere in the world and my upset and/or anger with America, Russia, Israel and Iran above all – though no less with Hamas as understandable as this last is and with my agreement with António Guterres, our life in the Provence this last month as well as since March has been as perfectly copacetic as anything could have been. New adventures or at least experiences now await for the next four months, but I express my gratitude to the deities of providence that have allowed the happiness I have been so privileged to have savoured in my present advanced stage of life.