Unless We’re Talking About Jeff Goldblum, I HATE FLIES!

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annoyances, Bugs, exercise, funny, Heat, Humor, Humour, Insects, Life, Painting, Running, Summer

 

Have you heard of a New York Second? If you haven’t it’s the shortest possible measurement of time. Standardised as the time between the lights turning green and the taxi behind you beeping its horn.

I’m only asking as I’m thinking of coming up with an even shorter measurement – possibly named a ‘Flecond’. This is the time elapsed between a person starting to paint something outdoors and a winged insect committing suicide by landing in it.

I’m beginning to suspect they believe paint is some sort of doorway to fly-nirvana with the amount that have embedded themselves in it while I’ve been decorating outdoors this week.

Still, at least if they’re embedded in my paint (perhaps waiting for the day far in the future when they can be harvested and the contents of their stomachs can be used to clone people for a Jurassic Park-style wonderland of humans?) they aren’t flying around and around my light fittings.

What is it with flies and light fittings? Does the diary of the average fly go something like this?

Day one: Born

Day two: enter a house

Day three: fly around light fitting 2 million times

Day four: fly around light fitting 3 million times

Day five: drop dead in conservatory

I’ve researched this, as I am that sad, and have found no concrete reason for why they perform this bizarre aerial dance. Some say it is because of the residual heat. I don’t know, but I do know I’ve noticed it far more since moving to France.

Maybe it’s the cheese that drives them mad?

They are also a bane when I go running. I love running when it’s cold. My perfect months are October to March time. Nice and chilly.

Then along comes summer and BAM! The temperature rises, and along with the heat come the flies. I’ve read a lot about breathing through your nose when it comes to running, people say it oxygenates the blood more. I can’t do it. Ironically when asked about whether it was better to breathe through your mouth or your nose an NFL coach famously replied: ‘Stop trying to pick the fly-shit out of the pepper and JUST BREATHE!‘

So that’s what I keep in mind when I’m running and breathing through my mouth. I try to keep it in mind as I swallow fly after fly after fly.

Yuk!

Still, I prefer to swallow them, if I have the choice, because otherwise they go down the wrong hole and I end up dry heaving in the middle of the road. Nothing quite like a sudden attempt at throwing up an inhaled fly to put you off your stride and negatively impact your run time.

So yes, in case you haven’t picked up on it yet – I HATE FLIES!

Corona Virus Lock Down – Day Three…

Tags

Corona, Environment, exercise, Family, France, French, Journalism, Law, Life, News, Relationships, Running, Virus

 

It all seemed like a joke not so long ago. Like last Friday maybe. This Corona Virus malarkey wasn’t serious really, was it? I mean sure, people were dying, but they were few and far, far away. But then it was in the UK, and Italy.

And then it was here, in France.

Then President Macron took to the air and announced that we were at war with a virus. And suddenly it was all to real, and not funny anymore. Not in the slightest.

New measures were announced to combat this threat, avoid contact with other people, wash frequently, don’t panic buy (good luck with that one!) but the main one was that we must stay in our homes unless absolutely necessary. Meaning, effectively, that we are all locked down in our own homes with our loved ones and, if we do leave the house, we need to fill out and sign a form in case a police man sees and stops us (if you don’t have your note then you face a hefty fine).

So far since the new regime has been implemented I have been out once (I mean, you can still go out in your garden, but I’m talking about a bit further afield). I went for a run yesterday for about forty minutes, running all around my town. I did of course ensure that I had my ‘permission slip’ with me: ‘Dear Mr Policeman, I am running outdoors as I need to exercise and get away from my kids otherwise I will go mad‘ was bizarrely NOT one of the possible justifications for leaving your domicile.

It was strange. So quiet.

In some respects this is no different from normal days/evenings when I run. The French are a very ‘insular’ people, and I have likened them to trap-door spiders in the past (in a loving way of course). They pop out, do their thing – be that working, shopping etc. – and then they head back indoors and effectively don’t leave until the next day. That’s why when I run I generally don’t see many people. This is a marked contrast for someone who comes from the UK, where you could go for a run through a much smaller town and see dozens and dozens of people milling around.

There are no off-licenses or late-opening corner shops, very, very few take-aways and pubs are less frequent, so I think this does have an impact on that kind of social mobility. I prefer it, if I’m being honest. The amount of drunken people rolling around English towns as a result of these alcohol-selling shops, and the other obesity-issue related to convenience food is not something I miss.

But I digress.

So I went for a run and I did see some people, but every single one of them moved out of my way as I approached. And I’m not saying I ran near them. Many times I was about four meters away (the recommended safe distance is one meter), yet still they moved.

So it’s quiet, which is not unusual. But it’s the atmosphere in the air that’s so different. There’s almost a fear. A sense of dread that you can taste.

There’s also a very real sense of horse manure and cow dung in the air too, but that’s because I run past a farmer’s field on my circuit.

I’ll report back on what it’s like indoors in another blog, as we are all still settling into this new lifestyle.

But one thing’s for sure – we are living in interesting times…