I hope you are all well and keeping toasty warm if in the Northern Hemisphere, and cool if in the Southern. We of course are in FULL SNOW MODE here in the UK, though a severe shortage in the Tamar Valley thus far has left us feeling a bit left out of the party, but we are assured it will be rectified today. We have had plenty of minus temperatures, wind and ice though, and set off for any walk as if we are running some sort of bank heist. We also thank the gods of Outdoor Clothing that we have a daughter in South Island New Zealand who sends us garments well-suited to Antarctica.
A walk out yesterday resulted in some really special finds at one of our local running-water places...
It was almost like the ammil (where everything is enamelled in ice) in miniature...
And a little bit of film over on Instagram here.
I hope you are managing to stay free of pestilence too. We have had our share of that one and done a bulk buy of balsam tissues, paracetamol and Vick to see us through, so there has been a lot of bed-bound or fire-side reading going on here and how pleased I am that I had already developed an addiction...
And I never saw this addiction coming on that's for sure.
The Maigret books by Georges Simenon, who'd have thought it, but Penguin are republishing these, a new one each month, and sent me a couple ages ago which I had ignored until recently In amongst everything else I now have a Maigret in progress at all times, and though I am reading out of sequential order, picking up whichever book I have to hand, I am slowly starting to get to know the man.
Memories of the old TV series are sketchy at best, and when Bookhound and I tried to hum the theme tune you may remember that we kept drifting into the Harry Lime theme and had to check it out on you tube. Here it is again...
Thus far I have the composite picture of a bulky man who fills a small room...
Tiny tables don't have enough room for his legs...
Maigret smokes a pipe and ponders at the same time, thinking laterally and a great deal
He has a bit of a temper which he loses rarely..
'...he could suddenly fly off into a temper as violent as it was short-lived, and that afterwards he would be the first to regret...'
He is doggedly determined...
Madame Maigret and he are a devoted childless couple. He remarkably (for a detective) thoughtful and considerate towards her, she devoted to providing a home, food and companionship for him.
'They never spoke much when they were together. And in the looks they exchanged today, for example there was nostalgia and recognition...why demand the rest of the world stays the same while we get older?
It was that, more or less, that they said to each other by batting their eyelids - that, and also, 'thank you.'
Meanwhile Inspector Maigret Enjoys Himself.
The Inspector is on an enforced holiday which he and Madame have decided to spend at home in Paris. They will walk the city and visit their old haunts; eat at their favourite restaurants and sit in their favourite cafes. Effectively Maigret becomes a member of the public for a while, and when a body is found in a cupboard in a doctor's surgery, and it turns out to be the wife of the doctor both of whom are supposedly on holiday in the south of France, Maigret can't resist being interested.
Except he has to be interested as a member of the public not as a police inspector and that's tough. I imagined the frustration akin to being a nurse and not being allowed to look at patient records.
No mobile phones, only the newspapers and cafe terrace rumour and gossip to inform but it all adds to the sleuthing fun for our dear Inspector who is not above a bit of mischief-making of his own, with some anonymous calls to the press and the police suggesting fruitful lines of enquiry as he sees them.
In the end, 'it is always the clever ones that get caught' and this case is no exception.
Loving the Maigret.
Over to you for snow (or heatwave) and pestilence (or lack of) reports, and please do declare any devotion to or memories about dear Inspector Maigret.
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