Mazamet, October 2nd, 2018
The weather has been sublime. Warm days, cool nights, stunning skies. I’ve been making an effort to order my thoughts. Sometimes my mind feels so full it’s like sitting on the library floor with hundreds of open books around me, each on a particular page waiting for me to check something. Or for the younger people around – a browser with so many open tabs they don’t fit on the screen any more. This process has entailed a reduction to no more than a small glass of wine per day. Terribly unpleasant, I know. This reductio ad absurdum could, of course, only occur after the in-laws visited. While they were here there was much drinking and much eating. The new dining room performed beautifully. We watched a surreal film called Stormy Weather (1943) which should be obligatory viewing for everyone to understand how people of a certain group can be cast into a particular social role(s). Fascinating.
Next Sunday is farm day on the Black Mountain (Montagne Noir). Click on the image above and you’ll see Mazamet is there at the top end of the map, to the right of Castres. If you’re interested in a rustic outing and seeing how farms work, it’s an amusing excursion. Ten of the farms offer lunch menus, all cooked on the spot, with produce from the farm itself. More information here (all in French. If you don’t speak French, well that’s just too bad, isn’t it? It means your parents didn’t love you enough to educate you properly.)
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In other news you may or may not have noticed I’ve changed the name of the blog to My Mazamet. That’s part of my efforts to channel my energy into more positive, constructive endeavours. So apart from my usual rambling, I’m going to also highlight things going on around here more frequently. And continue to do it in my way, which means I’m as brutally honest in praise as I am in criticism. As I don’t accept gifts, freebies or targeted discounts, you can rest assured you’re getting a review biased only by my personal biases.
My Mazamet 
” More information here (all in French. If you don’t speak French, well that’s just too bad, isn’t it? It means your parents didn’t love you enough to educate you properly.)”
This, I assume, is what you mean by being brutally honest. 🙂
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Precisely! 😀
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I’ve just looked up the film…now to track it down so that we can watch it.
One glass of wine a day…and small at that. Good grief…
I used to like the farm visits in our area…some did lunch, others not, but it was fascinating to see modern farming in action and a great way of making contacts in that community.
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We watched the film online,so you shouldn’t have trouble finding it. It’s profoundly disturbing to think that it was mad in 43 – and that was a reflection of the state of the world.
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Given the name change, perhaps you could post some picts/history of the nearby castles?
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In the immediate area we’re talking more Cathar ruins as this was religious wars territory; but I’ll have a look 🙂
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Holy Blood Holy Grail land! That’ll do nicely.
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Positive is good. Looking forward to it.
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I keep trying even though my default state isn’t exactly *positive* 🙂
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Well, it’s hard in many cases to concur when agreement means there is, or isn’t a god depending on the view. Or tolerating bigotry…it’s hard to sort-of get along there. I’m supposed to smile and nod with the very thing I loathe—organized religion. Civility is good thou. Dios lo ve todo. Hehe
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We’ll probably still call you Pink, for short. ;o)
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You can also call me Your Excellency if you like 😀
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HAHAHAHAHAHA
– Esme Cloud
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I guess my ‘Mr. M’ still applies. .. 🙂
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Always!
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I spent two weeks in France and was surprised at how quickly I was picking up the language. It was surprising because I didn’t do very well in 7th grade Spanish class. Anyway, there’s always text translators…
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Do you speak Italian? A Latin base goes a very long way.
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A little, but my father was so busy trying to teach my mother English that teaching us children Italian became a low priority.
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September was fabulous here in Somerset (England) too. I love May and September. Good luck with ordering your thoughts; I’ve been trying to do that for over 90 years (not yours, mine).
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Do you live in Somerset, *England*? Not the Somerset near Gdansk? Or the one in the South Pacific? Fascinating! 😀
Ordering one’s thoughts doesn’t quite work, but stopping once in a while does help a little.
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Piss off ya big pink pranny! 😡
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Pranny!!! 😀 I love it 😀
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From The Troggs’ studio argument. 2 mins 48 secs.
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That’s distilled wonderfulness! I listened to the whole thing 🙂
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The Troggs brushing up on the universal adjective. . 😉
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The farm food tours would be right up my alley!
Mon français peut enfin être utile.
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You’re almost in Canada aren’t you? Do never use your French there?
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If traveling to Quebec, French would be helpful. It’s on the list, but generally I want to fly south 😎
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You French, you think you have all the best wine, cheese, desserts… Oh, wait, you do don’t you. My bad. Carry on.
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Having lived in a handful of countries I can say, hand on heart, we have very, very good stuff here 😀 Not least of which is me!
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(Made me smile!)
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Have you lost any weight yet, Pinky? Sorry, that was a response to the ‘one glass of wine’ bit. Hopefully that will make you feel sexy and young and a whole lot happier. Not that I have a problem with body image. Gah…
Btw, it’s been so much fun seeing you on Twitter. -hugs-
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I turns out my body is ridiculously stubborn. I dieted before the summer and lost almost no weight, and I ate tons during the summer and gained almost no weight
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lmao – I think that makes you insanely lucky! Anyway, I’m sure you’ll be healthier. 🙂
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did you have to say this to me even if you are trying to be brutally honest? 🙂
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You’ll always have smoke signals! 😀
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We have upgraded to banana fibre for data
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Sweet! I like the change. I don’t know if not speaking French is any better than having taken six years of it in school and remembering as little as I do. I can read it better than I speak it for sure. But I give myself some slack because a) I spent years in Maine with Acadian Canadian neighbors. Acadian French and Parisian French are like two separate languages. So there’s that, 34 years down the drain – HA!! And b) I just never really used it outside of the classroom.
You do know Europeans are far more savvy with multiple languages than Americans will probably ever be. Culture is not high on the list for most Americans, unfortunately. Nor can most Americans afford to take the six week vacation that Europeans used to take, not sure how or if things have changed in that regard.
Also so many countries can be visited relatively close to one another; each with it’s own languages and customs and dialects. So cool. Enjoy your new endeavor. 😬🌹🤗
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And thanks to Siri, I can also look ignorant. That’s its. Not it’s!
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My parents only loved me enough to get me to Parlez-vous francais? Je ne comprend pas. Fortunately, I made friends with a French teacher, and he recommended a grammar and a dictionary. I studied alone, and we read Balzac together for pronunciation.
Toward the beginning of Eyeless in Gaza, Aldous Huxley compares the memory to having a madman in your head, surrounded by photographs of your life. He grabs them at random and shoves them into your attention. Your opening image reminded me of that. It’s a fantastic book, but I haven’t read it in a long time. It’s hard to find.
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I’ve seen the film, my father had me watch an absolute ton of them from the moment I was able to focus – it seems in retrospect – and I’m very happy he did so now as there are such treasures as this to be found and not very many people bother with the older ones, sadly.
You’ll always be Mr Pink to me. ‘Pinky’ always makes me think of ‘Pinky and the Brain’ and I am 100% sure you wouldn’t want to be him, you’d want to be, and would be the brains of the outfit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinky_and_the_Brain
– Esme Cloud
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Why did I miss this post in my email?
Meaning: Hide behind the couch ‘cos here comes Pink!
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WordPress does the strangest things. These tech companies put themselves on a wheel of constantly “improving” to justify the jobs of tech people – and most of the time all they’re doing is moving sideways and causing hassle in the process. Like clockwork, once a month I see someone having problems with wordpress functions
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Talking of changes on wordpress, have you seen what the next change to the editor is going to be?
It’s like each year the developers think the users are getting dumber and dumber and it is annoying
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I still use the old/old wp admin post editor. It’s fascinating to watch. The tech industry took a page from the fashion industry (which convinces people they need new things four times a year) and put the process on steroids. When I think of the emails I used 20 years ago to the one I use now, most of the advances (except for file size reduction) were completely useless nonsense.
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