June 2025 Update

We did our pre-solstice 9-day nefastus from the 5th to the 15th and are about to do the 9-day post-solstice nefastus from the first of July. Before the nefastus regime, with Gin and Catherine, we did the lake tour, and they took us at another point to the crêperie for a dinner. They left the next day; Robin & Theadora arrived a few hours later, but Richard & I had been invited to Joanne’s for her birthday celebration dinner with Yvonne. A couple of days later we attended the inauguration of the extension for the Dino Fox Museum with Joanne and Kathleen.

When we were heading to the train station to fetch Amy and Lucia, Amy phoned to say that their flight had been delayed and they had missed their train from Nice. They then arrived the next day, and Robin picked them up from the station. That evening we phoned Jimmy in Amsterdam. My goddaughter is shy and retiring but actually more engaging than her mother appears to perceive. Lucia knows definitely what she wants to do and will not be deflected from it. We did another lake tour with our New Zealand visitors and that night ended up having dinner at the Provençal with them, Robin & Thea and with Penny joining

us. The next morning Ryan took Amy and Lucia to Nice. That evening Theadora prepared a Romanian roasted pepper dinner for us.

The next day we had tea at our neighbours, Anne-Marie & Peter’s. They introduced us to Dutch neighbours further down our street, Paul & Diana. That evening with Jessica, Wendy and Barbara at Penny’s we watched Ben Afflick in The Accountant. I enjoyed it – especially the ending. On the 12th, we had a Zoom with Rosie, Coral, Nancy and Anna. After this, we met Liliane, Lorna Lee, Marius, Alice, etc. for coffee before watching the street show in town performed by a gal with whom Lorna had gone to drama school. Richard & I had tacos in

town afterwards.

On the 13th, Israel attacked Iran. That evening we had dinner with Penny at Solea and met her friend Dennis. As we were leaving, Guillaume Goisc remembered himself to us. We listened to some of the Bounas music afterwards on the place. There we saw Lorna, Marius, Pâris and Liliane. On the 17th, Sara from Rhode Island arrived. The next evening, Yvonne joined Sara, Robin, Theadora, Richard & me at the Calalou for margaritas. Robin & Theadora returned to Paris the next day & that evening for film night at Penny’s it was Stanley Tucci’s Big Night. It was reminiscent to a degree of Babette’s Feast, but I did not care for Tucci’s character. The following morning, Sara, Richard and I greeted the rising solstice sun from the pool at 06:55. That evening the three of us indulged with negroni and the vaporiser.

The solstice itself the next day was at 04:42, and Richard & I both got up at that very moment to pee. That evening, Penny took Sara and us to Helena & Peter’s for the Herman Krikhaar Foundation’s vernissage of Atsuo Hukuda and Shuhei Fukuda’s ‘Echoes of Light: Whose are those colors?’. We served the gals G&Ts once back home. On the 22nd which was the following day, Trump manoeuvred the American attack on Iran. That evening Penny fetched us for Pierre & Catherine’s solstice party. The ritual that I had been asked to lead went well enough, and many complemented & thanked us after. Penny & Mona read French summer solstice poems, Sara invoked the four directions and did a poem of her own, & Richard sang his Homeric Hymn to the Earth Goddess. Champagne it was along with Susie, Robin, Sue, Julie their daughter and my translator, Tom & Sara, Jessica and Janette. Richard had brought some of his own spirits and virtually could not walk afterwards. It was a struggle to get him into the bed.

Ryan took Sara to Nice on the 24th. Since then, we have had margaritas at the Calalou with Yvonne. And with Wendy, Macia & Phil, we watched Little Miss Sunshine. Just as enjoyable as the first time. We have also found Guillaume’s jewellery shop in Villecroze. Jon from New Orleans has phoned. And Joanne popped by with her granddaughters Olivia and Sophia to say hello.

For my reading, I finished Naomi Klein’s Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World. I have also read Old Norse Mythology – Comparative Perspectives (2017). In this, I particularly enjoyed the chapter on idolatry and Terry Gunnell’s on the Vanir. I have now started Andrew Holleran’s The Beauty of Men (1996).

The health has not been what we would wish for the most part. The aches and pains, stiffness and soreness plague us both – especially for Richard. This last I find increasingly worrying. He has trouble moving and walking. And his neck has been continually sore since his dental treatment in London. He has developed a morning black spot in one eye for which we went to Ophthamax to learn that he has begun macular degeneration. We return to the ophthalmologist on the 8th of July – the same day for Richard’s blood test a week before his thoracic scan. And I have learned that with our move from Amsterdam, our Dutch health insurance has been cancelled. It has so far been an ongoing nightmare of attempting toprocure the French carte vitale which requires recently issued birth certificates, notarized requests, a special form from The Netherlands, etc., etc. and this along with car insurances, internet repairs, non-functioning bank access, wills, missing PoAs and endlessly more.

To say as a result that I am depressed is an understatement. At least the cold and rain we had through the beginning of the month has transformed into a sweltering heat wave. 33C (92F) as I write. The piscine is heavenly. And the garden is looking good. We are feasting on courgettes.