Walking to the Doctor..Flowers…..Husband stuck in JFK…..Day of Solitude

English: Martin Clunes filming Doc Martin in 2007 taken by Richard Hall. Cropped from :Image:Doc_martin_in_2007.jpg (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Walking to the doctor,  Flowers in bloom, – husband stuck in JFK –   a day of solitude

Calanques Marseille Cassis 3 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have been sick since my last guest left.  Nothing serious, just your usual UTI which is a real pain.  I have been drinking cranberry crap powder in water for 2 weeks now.  So, it was time to see a doctor today.   I walked.  This is the second time I’ve been sick and have walked to a doctor.  Never in my life have I walked to a doctor in the United States.  I’ve been taken there, or I’ve driven there.  It’s a very odd sensation, but not a bad one, even though you’re hurting and you don’t really want to be walking, it’s what you do here.  Oh, I have a car, but it’s so convoluted to park in this tiny port town, it’s much easier to just walk it.   It’s all down hill towards his office anyway, it’s only coming back that it’s a cardiovascular workout.  Walking to the doctor is almost zen like .  You’re not walking to a store to get dinner for the night, you’re not walking to go shopping at some Marche where it’s stimulating, you’re not walking to go hiking, you’re not walking to do something fun, you’re walking to your doctor and it makes one sort of zone out. Maybe it was the fever.

Now my doc, is no DOC MARTIN, but I have to say, he is a trip.

His office plaque says “9:30AM – 12:00″  So I am there at 9:30.  I wait outside in the sun on a big fat curb.  I wait.  And I wait.   Many cars and cycles past me by.   Then at 10:30, I see a guy on a motercycle, goggles, helmet, looking at me, me looking at him.  He parks in the spot where my doctor usually parks his little fiat.  I’m thinking………”hmmmmm, could this be my doctor?”  I wait.  If it is, I’ll let him get in, and get settled before I barge in with all my complaints.  Upon entering, he greets me in the most effective french manner (he’s guilty about something) and I proceed with caution and tell him my problem.  He thinks…….then he apologizes for his late appearance ….that ….”I was……” and I cut him off, because I want to say, “yeah, yeah, I know, you were boinking your girlfriend” but I held back……..

Anyway, he explained what I needed to do and I thanked him,  shook his hand, noticed the cigarette lighter on his desk (he’s still smoking), and paid him ( 22 euros of which I get it back) and headed to the Lab.

Anyway So,  things are good………lab was next walk……..results on Wednesday.

Iris’ are blooming outside my french doors.  But “French doors” is  the wrong expression for these doors in France.  They’re just paned doors.  I’ll have to find the exact wording.

It’s lovely outside now.  Absolutely gorgeous. My 33 sq meters is much bigger with my “French “ doors open – and I can hear the traffic moving up the steep hill on their way back to Marseille and environs.  Everyone has had a good day in the sun today.  It was a little windy and sunny and lovely and about 73 degrees.    The Les Cigales campers (that’s a camp ground near the house we’re in) – traipse up to this steep hill to their road campers  or tents, or whatever and sometimes I go up the hill just to see how many actually go into that campground.  It’s hard to believe that all the people who walk past the high wall facing my doors are in Les Cigales.

I’m sure a good number of them are staying at (very expensive ) cottages, rooms, around here as well.   This must be a great investment opportunity for those that bought their houses here back in the 60’s or 70’s or even way before.   The property values are – well – un-real.  Let’s say, in the neighborhood of 2,750 euros per square meter.  That would make our “toilet room” about 10,000 euros (without the painted walls and spanish tile floor – or the plumbing fixtures.)   Eeeek.

I say all this because I appreciate my 33 sq meter apartment even though I almost had a heart attack when I saw it.   I thought I could NEVER do it.   Not that my place in Saint Louis is so large, it’s not, but it’s atleast it’s 6 times the size = not including the basement.   Now, that we’ve been in here for 8 months, it’s really not so bad.  You don’t bring a lot of stuff back in, and if you do, you take stuff out.    I like that.

My husband is stuck in JFK airport.

JFK Airport, Terminal 1 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

For two days now.  He’s on a pass, (ofcourse) to get back to his work here, but everything was full not just going to Paris, but going anywhere in all of Europe.  At one point I thought I could get him to Helsinki Finland on FINNAIR, and from there to Paris and then the TGV home to Marseille.  But that turned out to be a false hope.  JFK airport workers said they hadn’t seen it so backed up in a long time.  True, the French are at the end of their (other) long spring vacance what with like 3 different holidays in France this month and basically they wait to the last minute to go home.  They have to work on Monday so they come home on Sunday.  I love it.    OBVIOUSLY not many are standby passengers.   So, David has now spent some time with our friends in New York, as they gave him a place to stay and took good care of him and told him how to get to Philadelphia on the train.   He will now try to get out of their sometime this week, hopefully,   He’ll be flying our own airline, instead of Air France, the one we had hoped would work since ours was totally full.    I have been glued to the computer so much trying to find flights for him and talking to my friend Rich who knows the system backwards, that the computer is smoking hot.   I mean really  – I see how it could start a fire.

I took a break today from all the searching and research and plopped myself on the plage (beach) reading a book, after my visit to my doctor and the lab.
Making it up the hill was a feat, but I did it.  And now, I am so looking forward to hearing from my husband – and hope something good will happen to get him home.  We’re looking at LISBON right now.  Isn’t that a HOOT?   Getting to Paris (then Marseille) through LISBON.  Wow.  I don’t even know what airlines fly from Lisbon to Paris, or Lisbon to Marseille.

More research.   

Editor’s note: Husband made it back on Tuesday.   What an experience.   LIfe is good.