l'hiver fait chaud maintenant, c'est bon!

Yesterday, we went to the land of the German family with the shop here in Cluny.  Really lovely place with a small lake that has recently thawed due to unseasonably warm weather here.  It was fifteen degrees celsius here today and we turned off the heat for the day, though it's back on now and promising to cool in a few days I hear.  Tomorrow we will go to the country again with Hagai and Annabelle's family.  They live in a little hameau (hamlet) near to here.  We are lucky for these opportunities to see the country, as we do not have a car of our own.  Nice people driving us to see their lovely places on these warm days in January.  Lots of plans in the works for us.  I'm working on planning a trip to Paris with a couple friends, and my aunt Mary has invited us to visit her for Easter which will be great fun, and probably a bit of a shock what with all the English spoken in Great Britain.  Kathrin and Boz will be here in a few short weeks and we are all going to Switzerland together for Fasnacht!  That should be spectacular, and even before that we're trying to get on board with Les Enfant D' Abord, the home-schoolers group here to go to the meeting in the Volsch, snowy mountains of France because the meeting in Germany was cancelled.  Meanwhile we are trying to work out exactly when we intend to go to Baddeck in June -July sometime to spend some time on the beach with Jesse, Mel, and Kira.  Sofie has made it clear that we are to be at Ton Fun in Amsterdam on May 21st, and Anja is planning on being in California on October 30th.  They have decided it is important to get in on the decisions concerning, 'Where?'  And find that they usually get what they want on certain days of the year atleast.  Meanwhile we have mainly been here in Cluny with small trips to doctors, and skating.  Anja has been mostly un-well, but she's a trooper.  The doctors have concluded, and we have finally come to terms with the fact that she never completely got over the Babesia which apparently keeps the lyme , Bartonella treatments from being completely successful.  Though they have clearly helped some, she is ill and in pain much of the time lately.  She hasn't taken any antibiotics since mid- October, but soon will start taking Mepron and Zithromax.  I am very impatient to be done with this.  Meanwhile, the gift in it all is spending so much time together, and perhaps learning patience as well.  She also got glasses but hardly needs them.  Her prescription is -.5 in both eyes.  She is slightly near sighted.  Some people say use the glasses, some say don't.  We will let her decide if they are useful or not, I guess.  They are cute anyway and she enjoyed picking them out.  Even got a second pair of sunglasses for one Euro.  Our ordinateur is broken so I am blogging downstairs on Caroline and Toms'.  They went away for a week, and have been very patient and generous with us using their computer even when they are here.   I don't know what happened to the computer, but it is truly a mess.  We are trying to sort it out as well as ordering a new one.  We no longer live in our whole large apartment as we are avoiding the area with flaking lead paint.  I'm sure Boz and Kathrin will find their quarters lovely and spacious.  If you are healthy and over six, lead dust is really not a concern.  Caleb and I occasionally go sit together in the adult lounge we call it.  No children allowed.  The girls miss their room a little but it seems like too much work to re-paint it all for the limited amount of time we will be here.  They are taking care of two lovely guinea pigs for the rest of their time in France though.  We have been feeding these guinea pigs almost entirely fruits and vegetables and we find that they drink a lot less water on their natural diet of vegetation, compared to our guineas who we gave a lot of the store bought food.  Probably much healthier to eat more of the veggies.  It's easier feeding them scraps when they live in your kitchen / dining room /living room / kid's room.  We still occasionally wonder why we have so much stuff and what we're going to do with it all, but you know it can't be that much if we have it all in two rooms now.  The children collect stuff on a regular basis.  Today for example they were planning Fluffy's birthday, which is tomorrow in case any of you forgot.  Fluffy is a peluche (stuffed animal), a rabbit to be more specific.  So we had to go to the store, Friday being allowance day as luck would have it, they were able to indulge Fluffy sufficiently.  They had a one euro sale so Fluffy is going to receive beaucoup cadeaux dumain pour elle anniversaire et il sera surment un hereaux un.  I'm counting on noone who reads this blog being able to correct my errors, assuming Caroline is too busy with work, for instance I really don't know if birthdays are masculine or feminine, or if it depends on the gender of the person /peluche born / fabricated.  In any case, I hope you all enjoy the day as much as I know we will.  

Bonne Annee!

Back to the ole diary... We're having a great New Year so far. Made some new friends and we're planning a trip to the black forest of Germany, by Freiburg with them. They are homeschoolers and the mother actually works for my old pre-school, Clonlara in Ann Arbor, translating homeschooling programs for German and French families here. They have three young girls between eight and twelve and then a couple grown girls as well. I learned a lot of interesting facts from her. She said the music of the sixties and seventies was all dubbed in France. I began singing a Beatles song and she said that was something we had in common. I of course thought that was something everyone had in common, but then learned everyone but the French, and of course there are probably others out there who somehow missed the Beatles. They do say there are some sauvage folk yet. Sauvage simply means wild in l' francais. Would be interesting to hear the francais version of Jimi Hendrix or Janis Joplin, or may be not. Now they have piped in Christmas music in Onglais throughout the town for the season. We can all breathe a sigh of relief, we won't find ourselves tapping to the tune of, "Santa Bay-Bee" as we walk to and from the market place today. These sweet German girls are going to loan Anja and Sofie a guinea pig so they have someone furry to cuddle while they are here. The girls are very excited. Going to see, "Le Renard et L' Enfant" today. Went skating in Macon yesterday for the last time. The ice will be gone on the sixth. Our friends who have everything also have a small pond that might be skateable though I doubt it, though it is up higher, and a pony we have yet to meet as we have only played in town thus far. There is an extra bounce in Anja's step since our first visit with them. Also learned home-schooling is illegal in Germany though the people tend to have more alternative idealogies and alternative schools than the French where home-schooling is legal. Home birth is shocking to the French also. Whereas in Germany Naturopathic Physicians are as popular as massage therapists in Sebastopol according to this couple though that could be an exaggeration as he is a Naturopath and has since retired from that profession as it is not a business according to him. If you do it well, you have no patients, and then you are only seeing people who seek medical care as a hobby which is not very rewarding. Nice to make more connections here and learn more interesting cultural differences and likenesses. Small World!