Well, strictly speaking, in a physical sense I am still in France and not at my desk at home where most of my thinking gets done. Goodness knows I haven’t done a whole lot of anything cerebral for the past few weeks. But now that I am in Paris and no longer in rural France where the internet is still a thing of the future, I have access to internet without having to sit in a bar or stinky cafe. Wading through the hundreds of emails that accumulated during my ‘off grid’ time, I was relieved and slightly bored to read that nothing of great import took place while I was not looking. Clean Olympics, clean Paras, no belated uncovering of dirty business in London of any kind (not yet, anyway;  the Cornet Obelensky scandal of 2008 Hong Kong didn’t swim to the surface for nearly a year and the case was not resolved until a full year after that).  Not that I’m hoping for any retroactive revelations of wrongdoing in London. I would never wish that outcome on an event that came off as the most splendid equestrian sporting event I have ever witnessed.

Also not in the news is Welly World. A few ill winds seem to have blown in over the summer, but none that resulted in the whole place being swept out to sea by a hurricane. I know there have been new conversations and new agitations, and I’ll do my best to get up to speed on the stuff that doesn’t get in the Palm Beach Post (which isn’t much, it seems). I may even nip down for a pre-Christmas visit to the Wonderful World of Welly this year.

A week from now all this doing of nothing in the living language school that is France will be quickly fading into a happy little corner of my memory, and I’m sure I’ll have trolled my way through the news of the past month to find something to rant about. I can’t imagine that anyone missed it, but if any of you failed to catch Stephen Colbert’s two part dressage lesson from Michael Barisone, here links to both parts, which are equally hilarious (and excruciating if you are a friend of Michael’s). I wasn’t able to watch them in England because the Colbert Report is blocked there – but here in France and with decent bandwidth I finally got to see the two short pieces, which are absolute screamers in my opinion. Lest you be offended by them, keep in mind that my perspective really is  that there is nothing healthier than a good laugh at yourself, and at the things you cherish upon pedestals.

Part 1 – I hope it was just in the editing that Stephen gave the appearance of cutting Michael off every time he attempted to answer a question

Part 2 – you can’t tell me Colbert hasn’t sat on a pony at least once in his life, or at least a mechanical bull. He stuck that spook like the best of us

Finally, I would like to extend a hearty thank you to my secret guest Brit Blogger, who I believe did a fine job of entertaining you at least for part of my absence from the horsey universe.

TTY next week