The third week of June has always been “Birthday Week” as both Dominic and Sophie celebrate their birthdays. This year they also share a (rather unique) graduation experience, given the combination of the French system and COVID-19.

I saved up and will tell you a bit about all 3 special days in today’s post.

Death & Taxes… so they say.

Well… we didn’t experience death this weak, but we did stare down French income tax filing.

First though, a look back to…

Several weeks ago, when all of you in North America were posting pics & messages about the amazing mothers in your lives, I wasn’t not posting on purpose… here in France, Mothers Day is tomorrow.

It’s always a bit of a challenge for us to keep things straight. While Fathers Day is the same date in Canada, Belgium and France, Mothers Day is not – Leaving us, each year, trying to remember which holiday is on which date in which country.

Spoiler alert: It usually leads to a Google search, just to be sure!

There’s a whole lotta ugly in the world right now and I was going to include some of my thoughts, but it got a bit more involved than I wanted to share on Pentecost weekend (our first weekend back in church). I’ll share the other when it’s percolated a bit more.

As the sun raises over Châtellerault city hall on yet another Saturday morning, my mug of hot chocolate is throwing off steam and the blinds are still closed here in the living room. They’re mechanical blinds that go up at the flick of a switch, albeit rather noisily – so I’ll wait until I hear more stirring in the house before raising them.

I did hear the rooster crow when I opened the shutters in the kitchen, but I can’t hear him from here and even the dog is not stirring in his kennel yet – he spends nights there.

Let’s settle in for a few minutes together & I’ll tell you about the week…

* Today’s post brought to you by my mobile data *

There’s an expression in French… « soupe au lait ». It is used to describe someone (or something) that’s unpredictable, who can change moods quickly, someone of whom you want to be a bit wary. The quick explanation is that soup is hot and milk is cold… opposites… extremes.

If that expression comes to mind, it’s because Liz used it the other day to describe the weather the past few days… unpredictable. In the same day, we can have sun, showers, ominous clouds, blue sky, light breezes and heavy winds. Make no mistake, we’re well into Spring, but there are days…. It seems that our worlds, these days, is very much “soupe au lait”.

If I could draw on a somewhat related expression (about “extremes”) for the purposes of today’s post, it’d be “pleasure and pain”, for there’s been a bit of both over the past few weeks. Let’s start with the pain and work our way to the pleasure…