Old hair dryers

Well my office smells of old hair dryers, my flip-flops are feeling unloved and I want to kill the plumbing in my room!!! So let me tell you about my weekend.

First let me explain about the hair dryer comment. The office this morning was a freezer when I walked in. Nathalie (who arrived about five minutes after) went straight to the radiator and switched it on. And of course they haven't been used since last winter and have a lovely layer of dust over them- this started burning with a lovely smell as the heat increased!! nice!

Saturday I pottered for most of the morning- tidying up, reading and munching crepe :) And as I had nothing better to do I thought I'd go to the cinema to see Mr and Mrs smith in english. So off I went and bought my ticket. I then started to get very confused because there appeared to be a film going on and it was time for my film to start. So I went towards the door to check "No no madame your film isn't until 18:45" I was told". hmmm but I had it down for 17:15!! So what had happened? I of course had gone and read next weeks time and then when I bought the ticket hadn't bothered to translate the time I was told (I just assumed that the guy said what I was expecting). OK so I had an hour and a half to kill. I had spotted on an earlier visit that there was a macdonalds not too far away and I figured that I could waste a bit of time over a pack of chips. However I found a nice big hypermarhet and accompanying shopping centre as well. So I ditched the idea of fries and mooched in Claire and Mim (french clothes shop) and various other places. I'm really glad that I found it actually, but the extra walking took it's toll on my feet. I can only walk so far in flip-flops before they start ripping up my feet. So I took 'em off, popped them in my bag and wandered around barefoot. I had on a long par of trousers so I doubt anyone noticed, but I never realised before just how cold the floor by chiller cabinets gets!! lol.

The film was fab- much better in english and I left very happy ready to go home and give my feet a really good scrubbing!!

Sunday morning was the second performance of the choir- and it went without a hitch :)

Sunday afternoon there was a bit of a picnic at church. A few people brought sandwiches and such things to eat together- very nice.

The evening was the best bit of the day though. I was reminded of two things the first was how much fun stupid games are and the second was just how exhausting allergic reactions are. I have been allergic to cats for many years and know the progressions very well.

1. Go to house with cat in it
   
2. Start sneezing
   
3. feel eyes getting itchy
   
4. eye starts to feel sore and puffy (though it never looks puffy in the mirror)
   
5. tight chest- mild difficulty breathing
   
6. itchy neck
   
7. more severe difficulty breathing becoming a full asthma attack.
   

It is very rare for it to get as bad as no 7 as if I know I'm going to a 'cat house' I take antihistamine and my inhaler. But here's the thing- I didn't know before hand. I'm not sure why it got so bad so quickly (normally even if I stroke the cat I have an hour or so before I get really bad) but I was ready to go home in half an hour. Lucky Jamel (who's house we were at) had some kind of allergy medicine and so I was OK after a bit. It was a bit scary having no idea what I was taking but hey- it worked!

But even with that my breathing didn't entirely easy up and so by the end of the evening I was exhausted. Also the very excitable game we played can't have helped. It's a bit like the animal game (for those that have played that) but with a hand clap and numbers. It's relatively easy and great fun. We all got very noisy and had a hoot. There are some photos from the evening on the caen youth page.

The final explanation for my opening comment is that when I finally got home (at about midnight) the plumbing was being SOOOOO loud. It is a bit noisy at the best of times but this was 'keeping me awake' kind of noisy. I was not impressed. I had to sit a read till it finished! Oh well I took advantage of works flexible hours this morning to snatch an extra hour in bed this morning :)