 The Wildcat gets an overdue flower today, but so does Marianne's mum in challenging times.
For Catherine, I've plucked a poinsettia from Initial Impressions, a floral embroidery webshop in Colorado Springs. Its message would sit well on the canapé, just as some rather beautiful north African embroidered cushions she brought back adorn my own.
 As to the Wildcat, but still I'd take her for a virtual stroll on the moors in Yorkshire, county where my parents have long since settled in a move north for the autumn of life.
Here, the purple heather was just coming into bloom in a 10-mile, early August walk from Robin Hood's Bay to the "ghost town" of Ravenscar, says our gifted guide, Don Burluraux. I hope he will pardon me for the copyright breach with a detail from one of the many photos that make up his superb North York Moors site.
I would like to say that the Kid has in the past enjoyed being wrenched out of the house by her Gran in York for the kind of exercise and brain refreshment Don recommends. It's only recently, however, that she has acquired any taste for such activity (provided the walkman goes with her) and this year, of course, crossing the Channel was struck right off the agenda.
A brief trip to Versailles on Sunday was the furthest I've been able to go from Paris since May, but once this spell in limbo is over, I reckon the kind of air Don breathes would do both Wildcat and me a power of good...
The Wildcat was in angry mood yesterday. Were she not still performing her duties incognito, I would almost blog a clue as to the identity of the person primarily responsible for making aspects of her life a misery. The feller's a disgrace to our shared profession and the kind of bully who alternately undermines and cajoles. It's of little consolation to the Wildcat to know that the guy is rather widely considered to be a shit when she has to put up with him on an almost daily basis.
What I can do, love, is tell you from even all this distance that you're doing a fine job! How do I know? There are dozens of pieces of your work scattered across the WWW, far more than you'd imagine. All will come out, one of these years...
Augustine's alter ego thinks this log has become in part the draft of the unwritten novel. Baudier, the local literary lion, knows better. But he is a novelist, finally making good progress now on his latest, so he says at the Canteen.
I've still not finished 'L'odeur des casernes,' where some passages are such a firework display of experiment in novel forms of writing that I prefer to read chapters as the mood takes me, but not backwards as I once told André I thought I'd have to. He still prefers pen and paper to any thought of a word-processor, which sends a shudder down his spine.
I last saw him on Sunday wielding a pen like a dagger to slash out passages in 'Libération' fustigating the current bunch of buffoons in power for their "capital errors" (Fr., till 'Libé' shifts it to the paying archives) in failing to act in time to prevent the "hecatomb" of the heatwave.
Those black crosses whose appearance in some apartment buildings round here multiplied after I mentioned them. Last Friday, the government published its first provisional, official toll: 11,435 heatwave-related deaths nationwide.
Baudier was also in wrathful mood. And nothing to do with Mars and the stars.
zzz
It alarms me, slightly, that yesterday I was on about l'Astrologue, though I have owned this remarkable piece of software for a while now and find it intriguing. I'm nearly ready for an hour or so with the I Ching, which as the Loyal 3 ¾ well know by now, is my own preferred means of opening my mind to a look at the State of Things.
Not to mince words, I was decidedly on a downer by the time I went to see Yang this afternoon for a thorough assessment of the Condition. After all, that I've been laid off work by it for nearly four months now, with very little real prospect of being able to resume on Monday when the latest "arrêt de travail" expires.
This, with the reluctant acknowledgement that the Wildcat is right and "the summer's over, Nick," has got to me at last, since I've always loathed winter as it is and certainly don't want to embark on the next one with neither diagnosis nor proper treatment.
The doctor, excellent though he is, and I are both grasping at straws now ahead of my meeting with the specialist in three days. Echography, fibroscopy, colonoscopy: we've done the lot. I've lost count of the number of a whole range of blood tests and have another one coming up. Neither of us believe it's the thyroid gland, but we might as well look. I've cut down radically on the cigarettes, there's no booze and I've tried every diet variation I can imagine. All the African disease possibilities have been explored -- and ruled out. And all that remains is hospitalisation for that much closer look at the small intestine we envisage.
So right now, I remain routinely tired and I've got a bout of the blues as well as the other symptoms already described in revolting detail.
Hence, I'm only blogging a little until my mood improves and I get my sense of humour back. This place is not going to turn into a whine site. But at least that's off my chest.
zzz
Getting back to Baudier's blues, an occasional, uninvited accompaniment to his ire at whatever the outrage of the day might be, Sam has a good remedy for those.
The devil has secret recipes.
This I discovered in Sam's absence when something looking absolutely delicious came out of the kitchen and got plonked in front of André, who swiftly cheered up.
So yesterday, I told Sam that whatever he had devised for Baudier would do me very nicely.
"Ah," he said. "Might you mean the soufflé aux abricots?"
It was absolutely delicious, an icy concoction of apricots, almonds and I know not what, with no resemblance to a soufflé but the shape, and lashings of hot chocolate sauce.
And it did for me very nicely. I'd better not describe what happened within about 20 minutes, though I did tell Yang. I was, after all, at one long stage banned from eating apricots altogether.
But sometimes it's worth taking the punishment for the pleasure of the transgression.
Sam said that this and one or two other delights weren't on the menu because they were still "experiments".
If that one was anything to go by, next time I take somebody to the Canteen I won't ask about the "plat du jour". I'll ask after the experiment of the week.
By the way, Wildcat: you cheered me up a bit tonight. Thank you.
11:37:22 PM link 
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