Euronews in the news again

My now former workplace has been making the headlines again.

This time it is an exclusive by Le Monde, a Hungarian publication called Direkt36 and a Portuguese paper Espresso

The headline in Le Monde says that Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban was behind the purchase of Euronews by Portuguese investment firm AlPac.

It is well-known that AlPac’s boss Pedro Vargas’ father used to work for Viktor Orban. But not these allegations that his party helped to fund the takeover two years ago.

Euronews has denied that any shareholder has any influence on its editorial agenda.

On a trouvé une nouvelle maison à louer

On Thursday we went to see the next house on the list. It was on the same road as the last one but a bit nearer Aix.

It was a very nice house, in need of a little TLC. But we really hit it off with the landlord who said he would love to rent it to us and that he wasn’t interested in our dossier which was very helpful.

There is a small pool
Le salon

Because of France’s love of la paperasse most landlords insist on a lot of paperwork before they even consider you as a candidate.

We did go and see one more house in Aix which was very nice but not in the nicest location.

Lovely interior

So we agreed to take the house in Venelles we went for a coffee in the picturesque town square to celebrate.

Our new local

House-hunting in the south of France

Once again it was off to the south to look at some potential new homes – and this time we were actually going to go inside some of them.

First stop was a flat inside a converted chateau.

It looked nice from the outside

It was in Lançon-Provence. It looked nice from the outside and the views were amazing.

The last had great views

But once inside it was a different story. There had been a leak so part of the flat was being redecorated but the rest of it was pretty shabby. It was a no.

Work was being done
A bit of an odd layout

Next up was a lovely house in Le Puy Sainte Reparade.

A gorgeous-looking house
It was in lovely condition

It was definitely a contender. We had two more to see the next day.

Iris est née

Just before we arrived in Aix-en-Provence to look at some houses to rent, Hanna gave birth to Iris.

There were a few last minute complications so Iris was born by caesarean section on 9 April.

We arrived the next day so took the chance to pop round and see our latest petite niece.

Elle est adorable 🥰

She is absolutely adorable.

Cheese and Chaplin

While in Switzerland we went to visit a couple of interesting places.

Gruyeres – the home of the cheese – is a very beautiful hill-top village where there is a lot of fondue on the menus.

A beautiful little village

We ate a cheese-based lunch and then bought some cheese and some clotted cream.

Famous for its cheese

We then visited Vevey – on Lake Geneva – and the home of Nestlé.

It was also home to Charlie Chaplin in the last years of his life so Charlot is everywhere.

Charlot

And there was also this:

Apparently the eight metres of stainless steel reflect the serenity of Lake Geneva.

The 27th wedding anniversary is marked by sculpture so it seemed fitting.

Especially this one – les amoureux.