A small room inside a bay window. A single bed, a table and chair, and a sink. I could manage something larger, with more conveniences, but I could never match the view.

I awake to the latest on that serial melodrama known as the French election and an update on our own provincial election (tomorrow), with the centrist Greens "surging," according to their haughty leader.

Following that -- floods. Not just in the Okanagan or the Fraser Canyon, where Cache Creek's fire chief was swept away last week, but in civilizations like Montreal.

"Après nous, le déluge," said Madame de Pompadour to her lover Louis XV, who, in keeping with the spirit of de Pompadour's declaration, revised it to "Après moi..."