mint

That was a bargain price, nm.  We lost a Mazda key a few years ago and we were quoted a price of 176 euros. We sat on the quote for a bit and then, one fine day, whilst walking on the lawn, I found the key half buried.  Washed off a couple of years' accumulation of dirt and it worked as good as new.

plan for the déconfinement is to be debated in the assembly.  We should know more of the details.  All the relevant sectors, school, commerce, testing, masks, etc will be addressed.

Missing person found.....all is well? Norman, did I have your correct number?  Er......can you hold up a thumb for yes and 2 thumbs for no or something?[:D]

OK, Wools, call made.  Mesage left on his mobile.  Hope he makes contact.

Yes, Wools, I understand.  I will look for it amongst old diaries and old PMs and do my utmost and hope he didn't change his number about the same time I changed mine when we switched to Sosh. Will be back.

I MIGHT have had it once and could possibly dig it out from somewhere.  But, with both him and me being phonephobes, neither of us has ever attempted to contact each other!

No, no news at all.  Maybe someone should go along and roll his barrel around a bit, vibrate it, breath deeply into the stopper on the side and wait for a response?

Don't know anything about le Grand Bleu, Wools. I had 10 sessions and each session was slightly different.  Yesterday, I was interested in a tv discussion on the pros and cons of the use of ventilators for covid patients. There was a hospital that avoided ventilators but the patients had labour-intensive care including periodic turning of the patients onto their front and "vibrating" the lungs by sort of shaking the patients' bodies.  My kiné did this vibration thing during some of the sessions though I didn't know what that was about at the time. When I went away for a week's walking in Ariège, he even lent me an elastic belt which had to be tightened at the base of the chest and I had to lie on one side and then the other and took breaths deep enough to move the elastic. Lots and lots of different stuff that seemed tedious and of not much use to me but, after 10 sessions and my lungs were tested, their capacity had gone up tremendously.  After that I'd never have questioned anything he did for me.  Hélas, he's retired this year and I was told that he was in his early 70s ... so he'd done his stint. 

Latest gaffe.....apparently, he has been talking about people getting the Noble prize instead of the Nobel prize, lol! When this was pointed out to him, he said that he was being sarcastic and did no one understand sarcasm?  Didn't know whether to just laugh or feel extreme pity for him!

GG, when I was researching kiné respiratoire, I read on English sites that the NHS has specialist breathing technique physios. As you live in the South East, I am sure you will find such a physio near you.  When the lockdown is over, you might like to try and find one.  Once you are shown what to do, you can do them yourself when you feel the problem getting bad.  Since last year, touch wood and all that, I have not once had to have antibiotics for my breathing.

Clearly you don't read French newspapers or  watch/listen to French news.  First day of the hunting season and the first person shot dead for that season go together like the proverbial horse and carriage.

GG, now I understand why neither of us like swimming much.  Too scared of drowning because of difficulty breathing[:)] What I have found most helpful with breathing is a course of specialist kiné respiratoire prescribed by my pneunomologue and administered by a sports specialist physio. That is also the reason why I am a bit of an exercise fanatic.  For example, on Saturday, I didn't get my daily walk on account of the weather and by the night time, I couldn't sleep because of excessive coughing and wheezing.

What about a ripe banana...ripe as in cheesy.  And cheesy as in.....well, I suppose, fromagery? Do you take anything for the hay fever?  Me, I don't do suffering if I can help it, I take a pill, summer and winter if needs be.  Otherwise spring and autumn are my worst seasons for allergies.

[quote user="woolybanana"]If you have hay fever how are you supposed to wear a mask?[/quote] Don't be such a wimp, Wooly!  I have asthma AND emphysema and I await May 11 and the masks from our mairie with some inquietude.  Anyway, you only have to wear the mask in public places so you will just have to spend less time preening yourself and strutting in public places, won't you?[I]

Me nitpicking but shouldn't that be devergondée?

Nomoss, I have sent you a PM.  Will you please read it?

The evidence is that as lockdown stretches seemingly endlessly in front of us, more and more people are ignoring government guidelines and coming out of their homes and taking up activities both leisure and working. After all, lockdown only can only function when it is accepted by the public.

This isn't the article that I read but it contains some of the arguments that were put forward. [url]https://www.lefigaro.fr/politique/des-presidents-de-region-reclament-un-deconfinement-regionalise-20200422[/url] France is too big and diverse a country to have a one-size-fits-all approach.  I am concerned about the poverty in some of the countryside getting worse if all economic activity, even those that can be safely practised, ceases altogether for a long period. As one of the those in the article said, Paris n'est pas la France!  Too much centralisation can be as bad as too little.  Some of these arguments are also going on within the US.

Just been for my time-restricted walk.  Accompanied by OH today so I was walking at his pace.  We made reasonable progress but, by the time we got home we HAD exceeded our hour.  I usually walk alone and stick to the hour but not always the distance![:$] Now I didn't get the idea of a déconfinement régionalisé all on my own.  If you read today's Figaro, you will see that some heads of départements have been calling for this to be considered. Given that at some point, they are going to have to trial a relaxation of lockdown, it seems as good a way as any to do trial runs in the least affected areas, don't you think? As for the question of masks, did anyone hear Edouard Philippe's statement last Sunday?  He it was talking about masks being distributed from the 11 May.  Indeed, we have had an info sheet from our mairie saying that masks will be available to all of us.  Then he talked about schools, businesses, etc.  As the question and answer session lasted over 2 hours, I can't claim to have listened to all of it. I did hear though that a partial déconfinement might be possible, that they were going to look at all aspects and that masks will be one way of permitting this wonderful word déconfinement to be possible.

There is an article in Figaro today about the commonsense of a déconfinement régionalisé.  I don't know how it will work in practice but this does sound immensely attractive to me personally. For example, in the Dordogne, we have had a total of 6 deaths, and only 5 in the Correze so I do find it completely frustrating that we do not get a sensible (maybe even small) relaxation for these départements. Admittedly, I am just chaffing at the bit to be able to walk and exercise a bit more.  I have yet to meet more than a tiny handful of people in the last 5 weeks during my daily walks.  One of these was my next door neighbour (seen at a distance only once) and we barely exchanged a bonjour.  In normal times, we walk to the gym together twice a week and walk with others in our village a couple of times a month. Last time I looked, Mulhouse is hundreds of kilometres away and it does irk me to have to follow the same confinement rules. In our rural heartlands, people's income and choice of activities (professional and social) are necessarily much less than that of those in large, busy towns.  Can't we, just for once, have some small advantage over people who live in Tours?  Yes ALBF, my turn to rag you after the years of insults I have receive from you![:D] As they say, "Des départements, souvent raillées pour leur manque d'activité, vivent mieux la crise sanitaires qu'ailleurs"[:D]    

"my experience is that the hunters are usually well organised and have safety marshals out to prevent accidents." Don't know about that.  There are not many years when the first day of the hunting season do provide news of people shot dead. As for the casual way in which some of the hunters swing their firearms about, it's positively frightening[:'(]

And so you have, Norman, not to mention press stories about your mayor.

whatever the correct French expression is! May 11 can't come soon enough for me.  No more attestations, no more limit of only 1 km....yippee!  On that day, I am going to drive to a location at least half an hour away and walk 10 km minimum! My birthday is soon after that date but alas no restos yet (sorry, my poor Norman, you will have to stick with the traiteur a bit longer). BUT, I am going to prepare a yummy picnic and make one of my favourite cakes (coffee and walnut, extra large size) and go with OH to a deserted airfield near Angouleme, come sunshine or rain. What are you going to do to mark the occasion?[:D]

You have a good point, Hoddy. I have also read about labs and drug manufacturers offering testing kits to the government but apparently all their communications have remained unanswered[:'(]

Norman says There are also all those words that are plural in English but singular in French:jeans, trousers, pants etc.. Scissors! Also Marseilles and Lyons