Reading Stormlight Archives, by (Mistborn author) Brandon Sanderson, now (only) halfway, despite finishing the first two books, The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance! with 1264 pages of Oathbringer to go. The second volume is the best so far, except for the final pages that (alas!) announce a very different perspective for the next book. Keeping up with the Wheel of Time tradition (!), the storyline gets much longer and fragmented than necessary with second, third, and fourth level characters that are mostly proxy for infodumps. And repeated descriptions of banquets and meals. The devising of the local universe is interesting in its geography and climatology (with some aspects reminding me of Damasio’s Horde du Contrevent), while the cosmogony is (overly?) complex, but the overgrown role of a very few characters (another common feature in the fantasy literature) is annoying.
Collected the last chrosnes (Chinese artichokes) from my garden and panned them straight away, cleaning the spot for potatoes and tomatoes (and another attempt at growing chili peppers). Kept making roasted almond (before tariffs hit!, as they are already getting harder to find), cashew, peanut, and black sesame butters, more whey buckwheat and chickpea galettes (with a new twist to produce thinner crêpes, if not yet dosas), finding by sheer coïncidence that they qualify as Auvergne (Central France) bourriols!, and non-stop radish salads (picado de rabano) from a recipe I brought back from New York. Did not have much of a culinary experience while visiting Avignon for a weekend, even though the main reason was to recover our 2000 Twingo that our daughter had used during her 18m internship in Marseilles’ hospitals, since she is heading back to the French West Indies for the next internship. Exploring the papal city and especially the papal palace (for the first time) was most pleasant, since they remain unscathed by wars and revolutions since their construction (besides the historical upgrades and downgrades along the centuries). The drive back to Paris in this 25yo car was smooth enough, except for the crash that happened just ahead of us, due to a recklessly fast and tailgating car that ended up hitting another car. Everyone ended up safe, fortunately.
Watched the third season of The Wheel of Time, with some highs (in the Aiel waste and The Three Rivers) and many lows, like the demise of characters who had remained alive and central in the books. The role of the Forsaken is quite reduced when compared with these books. And the costumes are often ridiculous (witness Elaida’s dress!).
For the May-8-plus-Ascension extended French bank holiday, we went “down” to 
The plans to visit Van Gogh’s Arles and the pretty island of Porquerolle then lead to hours being wasted in traffic jams as traffic regulation is inexistent in these über-touristy places, despite limited access and parking facilities. Methinks they should take example on places like Lake Louise where a capped number of cars is permitted access every day and shuttles bus the other visitors there, with an obvious positive impact of the maximum volume. 
Another issue I have with Porquerolle is… the huge number of both bikes and nikers! Indeed, while the island is blissfully car-free and cris-Xed by paths, a whole industry of bike rentals has taken over the landing area and as a result these paths are full of speeding e-bikes driven by neophytes, quite annoyingly and somewhat dangerously. Fortunately, enough of the paths remain off-access to bikes, if often more strenuous (although my 
