Category: Fiction

The past couple of weeks have soared by yet I feel I have little to show for them. A few gym sessions, a morning tea with a Tassie travel organisation and playing with the dogs.

I also really enjoyed a book I finished this past week.

The book…

I first heard of this author via Intrepid Angeleno’s post of Paris in July.

She discussed a different book by David Lebovitz but I couldn’t find that one. However I did find this book l’appart:  The delights and disasters of making my Paris home.

David Lebovitz was living in San Francisco and decides he is going to begin living in Paris. It is something he has always wanted to do. So he bites the bullet and dives straight in, buying a fixer upper apartment in the 11^th arrondissement.

He takes us with him as he goes through the bureaucracy of actually working with the realtor and all the other bureaucrats he must deal with. What a palaver to actually finish the process. All of this happens between his visits to cafes.

Then he hires the contractor Claude. He decides to treat Claude as his friend makes friends as he thinks it will make things go smoother and faster. Everyone around him says, “Don’t do that. It will backfire. The Frence treat workers much differently. You must be their boss!!! “

However he does not listen, taking the contractor to lunch, making him pastries and ice cream. The more he does for this guy the worse it becomes. Incompetency, lateness, no shows begin happening and only get worse and worse. Every time Claude arrives with het another excuse, David must turn over more checks. I can’t believe how gullible and forgiving he was. These moments are laugh out loud one minute and cringeworthy the next.

The apartment is not hooked up to the water main at the street. As he is living in this apartment block there is a rule that in order to get his water hooked up to his flat there must be a formal city meeting with all the other tenants in the apartment complex and they all must vote on whether they will allow the water main to be connected.

Lebovitz is a chef. He begins baking all kinds of goodies and passing them out to the neighbours, trying to get them all on side. None of them seem very friendly to begin with but it works. The water is finally connected.

I might add the book is filled with wonderful French recipes. Do not read these if hungry. You’ll need a large pantry.

Once the renovations are completed an inspection takes place only to reveal a completely disastrous result.

The flooring is ridiculous. The plumbing deep in the underground of Paris tunnels is creepy.

You really need to read this book to believe how horrific it is. The reader can’t help but shake their head and there is a lot of tut, tut, tutting going on looking at these pages.

I thoroughly enjoyed shopping with David and Claude especially at Ikea. It is a nightmare experience and so unbelievable. The way one gets served is so bad you want to close the book and never think of going to an Ikea. The bureaucracy is just lunatically bizarre if there is such a phrase. I mean really crazy.  I thought America and Australia had bureaucracy but they are really a walk in the park.

Well, I think this gives you the gist of the book. I really enjoyed it.

Check out my other life post of the week if you haven’t already here https://travellinpenguin.com/2024/08/11/spring-is-getting-closer/.

Until next time…

The past few days have been quite hectic.

On Wednesday we had to take our 10 yr old tabby cat, Cousin Eddie to the vet for a dental. He appeared to have a build up of tartar on his teeth so I dropped him off just after 8 am on the way to my Pilates class.

About 4 pm, Jane, the vet and a very close friend rang me up to say it wasn’t as smooth going as we expected.

Unfortunately he seems to have an undiagnosed auto-immune disorder and it causes the roots of the teeth to dissolve. He had a couple of teeth with holes in them that didn’t get noticed during his yearly examination. It was only under anesthetic they could be found. As a result he had to have both his lower incisors, those big pointy ones, pulled out as well as a molar. Jane was surprised to see there was little root support as the roots had dissolved.

She took blood samples and that was good and x-rays showed a bit of fading like darkness on the film. She referred to the spots as “casts”. So now Jane is getting her head together with a specialist vet and see if anything needs to happen with these “casts” on the x-ray.  After I pulled $2000.00 out of my pocket (tongue in cheek) I got to take him home.  Thank goodness for pet insurance.

Vets have so much new technology now a days compared to the “olden days” and it costs a lot of money and it is the pet owners who pay for it. Do not think pet insurance isn’t worth it if you don’t have it. I have used it so much over the years.

Cruciate ligaments x 4 or 5 with dogs. Neighbour putting down rat poison and all 5 of our pets were poisoned though cured after weeks of treatment. Snake bite to one of our cats resulted in overnighting in emergency vet office and a week in hospital only to pass away at the end.

Pancreatitis in a dog. The list goes on and on and pet insurance covered so much of it. You just never know what is going to crop up.

We are having to feed Eddie little balls of mince for a week or tuna straight from the can as regular cat food will get stuck in his wounds and stitches. The stitches will dissolve. He can’t have dry food yet either because of the sore molar. So we stand in the kitchen rolling small balls of mince, tuna and chicken pieces, the size of marbles, maybe smaller and he gobbles them down. We laugh that with all there is happening in the world we stand in the kitchen and roll mince balls.

Meanwhile our other cat Grizzy has to eat in a bedroom as he has all the food Eddie can’t have yet. Back to the vet the end of this week for his checkup.

 I managed to get to the gym three times last week which really felt good. I also had a lovely coffee with a new friend I’ve made through Fullers book groups. I really enjoy this woman’s company and we met up for a coffee and had the best chat. We have so much in common and she likes cafes and books as much as I do. Another Fullers book shop benefit. 

My trainer and I went out too after my session. We were working on balance and both of us ended up in fits of laughter on the floor. Who would think an almost 75 yr old would roll around on the floor laughing.

So all in all it has been a pretty good couple of weeks. This coming week looks to be busy so stay tuned for the next post.

Let me know how your week is looking so far. I really enjoy hearing from everyone and look forward to seeing what you are posting up this week too.

I am posting a book review of an enjoyable French book in a moment so look out for that.

See you there…https://travellinpenguin.com/2024/08/11/a-little-bit-of-paris-but-not-the-olympics/

………. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.  Dr Seuss

 Who doesn’t love Dr. Seuss.

I had a lovely surprise this week. In fact, it was more than lovely.  If you look at last week’s post you’ll see I talked about going to the book launch at Fullers book shop of The Lost Province on Tasmania/s West Coast by Lou Rae.

I admired the historical book so much but at such a high price I didn’t buy it although I know it will be very collectable before long.  Tasmanian history has always been a sought after genre. It flies out the door.

Monday morning I got a phone call from Ellen at Fullers book shop.  She asked me if I knew Lisa Hill. I said, I certainly do. She is a fellow blogger friend who I’ve corresponded with for several years now but never met.

You can find her very knowledgeable book reviews posts here. (ANZ Lit Lovers Lit Blog)

 Ellen then told me, “Well, Lisa has left you a present here and if you come by you can pick it up.” I had no idea what it could be. Then I thought, Well she’s seen my post about the Penguin book Lolly Willows falling into the bathtub and getting ruined and she probably picked up another copy.  So off I went to the gym for my pilates class (that almost killed me) then on to Fullers.

 Ellen handed me an enormous package, beautifully wrapped. The paper was gorgeous.  I opened it then and there and I was overwhelmed when I stared at The Lost Province book. It is so beautiful.

It is full of history of this wonderful state’s west coast. The mines, the lumbering, the trains. It has such interesting topics and photographs. I especially love the old photos of early Tasmania. Life would have been so incredibly hard back then. For men and women. Women’s stories are included in the book as the author said they are not represented enough.

I cannot thank Lisa enough to think of me so much as to send this book. I might add it is also signed by the author. Thank you so much Lisa. I can never repay you. Unless you get down to Tasmania and I’ll owe you a lunch or two. And several coffees and a guided tour through Fullers, haha.

Last week was also the week Kamala Harris came on board and although I don’t do politics on this page, especially American politics, I cannot begin to tell you how my spirits have soared watching her speeches during the week. I have been glued to You Tube. I really must give it a rest this coming week.

I have a few things coming up this week that I am looking forward to with friends so I will stop this long ramble and finish up. I am just so fortunate to have amazing people in my life. Have a good week folks.