want a chewing gum?

Well, that's great, but only if you didn't throw me an empty chewing gum paper....

Yes, it's the end of German occupation in France after the second world war. The dates are different depending on the region and here in cote d'azur, it's around 24th August. You'd see this kind of parades pretty much everywhere in France.

I didn't see the person(woman) who did this, but I'd appreciate whoever got on the jeep with a right attitude.  They might have been a hero at THAT time, but you are nobody!

Do you get headaches with frozen drink?

Frozen drinks give me headaches... around my temples. Does this occur to anyone?

Thought this is quite normal in Japan, but apparently my hubby and mom in law don't get it.

REALLY HOT HERE.....................................

Ideal for funny gift from France - les coucougnettes du vert galant

My hubby got a packet of this 'coucougnettes du vert galant' when we had a short outings to a beautiful village called 'Gourdon'.  We've found this by chance, but my hubby and my mother in law were laughing, as they saw the package title.  It means the balls of Henri IV (Vert Galant = Henri IV).  This is about the Henry IV who is perhaps famous for wearing a pair of green tights and apparently had 54 mistresses and 24 children!

It's got an almond in the centre and chocolate and almond cream with rasberries and a touch of armagnac. I'm sure the name attracts many customers.....
I've checked the maker's website, and ohh lala, there're some more interestings names like Les Tétons de La Reine Margot, Les Prunes de Monsieur,Les Galipettes etc..(Sorry, please check the meaning by yourselves)... I think they have pretty good sense of humour.

Phishing - beware

I've applied a job over the local website targeted to English community and I seem to get caught by a doggy phishing.

I discovered it because the website I checked prior to the application was somewhat removed....


That is the risk you'd have to take when you applied a job via communities like this though there are genuin adverts too.  But I'd suggest to be extra careful when using the local community website.


The offer was indeed, too good to be true....gutted

London's burning

We had a nice long weekend in a lake and came back last night only to discover that London's burning! What the heck is going on in this world?.... this is not an organised protest, they're the bunch on youths only to destroy the local businesses.  Nothing could change by the violence.

Cine Tuesday by Orange

Recently, French Orange has just launched the CineDay! - Every Tuesday, buy 1 and get 1 free offer.

This is how it works, if your mobile network is by orange, you send a SMS saying 'cine' to 20000 and you'll receive a code straight away- you need this code to present at the ticket booth at your local cinema.  There's same offer in England and Lucy, my then flatmate and I used to have a cinema night sometimes which was a great idea.

So I went to see Harry Potter last Tuesday with this. It's great, as we are cinema lovers, we can go whenever there's a new film.  - In France, the new film tends to start from Wednesday, so if you want to see the latest film with this Orange cineday, you'd have to wait for a week - but it's better than nothing!

And also, 3D glasses is not part of the deal, so you have to pay for it.


To find out whether your local cinema is partnering the orange deal, you can go to their website.

3 months of not aaaam

updating my blog..

Think keeping a blog is like keeping a diary.  On a day to day life, there are so many things happening but if you missed out that moment, your memory and freshness of the feeling is drifted away.

I should be more displined myself, yes indeed. 

How I have been doing the past three months. Helped France - Japan association's activities which related to charity. I also took on a training course on the French accounting held by the pole emploi - it's a free training and at the end of the course, you'll get a lump sum of the allowance which, I believe, separate to your enemployement benefit. Since my benefit runs out early February, that would be really helpful.

As for the registration of the pole emploi, once you finish your training, they'd assume you get a job, so it automatically exclude from the membership, so be aware.... you need to re-register yourself. 

The training went well, I already had a basic knowledge of accounting, so it was easy, I thought that French accounting can be surprisingly logical - though there are many exceptions.

I also did 2 weeks of internship at a local bookstore - although there were hardly much things for accounting but loads of paper works that's been neglected for years. I was quite pleased with my sorting skills - it's nice to feel useful.

Most of May and June were spent on the courses and internship - in July, the weather's not been so hot that I caught nasty cold. I should be more focus and keep on trying for what I would like to do in life.