5th June 2011
Dear All
Missive 30 attached, and yes standards are slipping, nearly a week late, obviously the work ethic is fading the longer it has been!!
But in my defence, lots of visitors, including an unscheduled visit by Victoria over half term, that ended up with two days spent driving to Roscoff and back and a very time consuming garden that we still don’t officially own!! We are however, hoping to sign on the dotted line in the next week or so – fingers crossed!!
The missive is rather a “then and now” one and as such quite meaty, another reason for its late arrival, although not overly long!! I suppose it’s really two missives in one! Intrigued? Read on and all will be revealed!!
Love
Roger
rogerhiggs@hotmail.co.uk
Mes chers amis
Turning Point (The road effectively ends at our new house in Le Boutet) or “Moment décisif”
~ Missive 30
“It is quite possible that your next useful thought will hit you during a boring meeting.”
Sathnam Sanghera ~ IT DID!* See below!
We will live with the consequences of this fundamental turning point for years to come.
Joseph Samaha ~ WE HAVE AND CONTINUE TO DO SO!
“From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back.
That is the point that must be reached.” ~ IT HAS BEEN!
Franz Kafka
To square the circle, as it were, I’m turning back to the beginning, with part of this missive chronicling the bit of the “book” before the move. It’s been lurking in the background, but as the chapter in our lives, centred on La Loge, nears the end and a French house of our own becomes a reality, it has come to the fore as we think back to what started the whole adventure! Who knows perhaps it’s no coincidence that my internet “French Word of the Day” recently was toile de maitre, only another six months or so if I want it to be in time for the Christmas present rush!!
Seeds of Change ~ Chapter 1
How many times have you heard someone say “It’s not the job I went in to!”? ... and that basically was how it was for me! I was for some time a Primary Headteacher of a medium sized school on the edge of a provincial English town, in the heart of an interesting suburb which had enormous social issues (not usually associated with such an on the face of it, leafy Shire town). I was becoming increasingly disillusioned with the way that education was going in England. Increasingly, issues about an over reliance on testing, scores, rankings, targets, “P” levels, APP, Trust bubbles, ICT, Primary modern foreign language, funding and much less concern from on high about issues of equality and life chances, meant that schools such as mine; that were fully functioning and supporting the children in their care extremely well, were always in danger of falling foul of a questionable inspection regime run by OFSTED. As a teacher you know inherently that you don’t get the best from the children in your care by criticism, instilling fear and by being unfair, all things that OFSTED seem to thrive on!! – with thanks to Dorothy Law Nolte, “If children live with criticism, They learn to condemn” (obviously a cunning Government ploy to breed a new supply of OFSTED Inspectors!)
Then, as Headteacher there was the issue of various dictates arriving from “on high” requiring me to implement new directives that were either fundamentally flawed or that I vehemently disagreed with. How could I look myself in the face after telling people they had to start doing the latest fad, when I didn’t want to be involved myself and the foundation on which they were founded was at the very least sandy, if not totally non-existent! Similarly, Linda my wife and an Intensive Care nurse, had the same sort of concerns about the way the Health Service was going, snowed under with paperwork getting in the way of patient care.
Often before, very tongue in cheek, after a bad day “at the office” I would jokingly say to colleagues “If I’m not here tomorrow, I’ll be on an olive grove in the south of France!” Indeed, on one occasion I gave a talk to the local Excellence Cluster group of Headteachers, of which I was one. The talk was entitled: “What we said we would die fighting for!”, but had somewhat prophetically subtitled it “well perhaps not quite, there’s always an olive farm in the south of France!” Basically it finally did happen one Thursday in February! The particular Thursday was at the end of a particularly busy and at times unpleasant time at work – stroppy parents and paperwork gone mad, I left school to go to another *crisis meeting in Shire Hall and used my well known catchphrase “If I’m not here in the morning I’ll be on an olive grove in the south of France!”
Later that evening I returned home and continuing the theme said to Linda “What a day I’ve had AGAIN, let’s move to France!” To which she replied “OK then!,” and I didn’t give it another thought as I kissed her good night as she went off to do an ITU (or Department of Critical Care as I should call it after a major refurbishment!) night shift. However, in an idle moment later that evening whilst working on my computer, I “googled” Olive Groves for sale in the south of France, and google being google, I was taken to a site selling a farmhouse, gîte, smallholding and small campsite with associated outbuildings in the north of France – not an olive or a bronzed sunbather in site, but an amazing property at an even more amazing price! I then left Linda, rather tongue in cheek, the link to the site for when she returned the following morning after I had gone to work; (Some weeks the closest we got was a hurried wave as I drove to work in Gloucester and she drove home from work!!).
Returning home that evening I was hardly through the door when Linda said “Let’s buy it!” and there was that certain something in her voice that said – and I’m not joking!! I’d like to say that we made the offer, bought the house and winged our way over The English Channel or La Manche as we had to get used to calling it!, but life is rarely that simple. There then started the next chapter (Yes the book’s already underway and if you hadn’t guessed it already it’s called – “It happened one Thursday in February!!”) of sleepless nights, long conversations about “what if” and “are we mad” as well as the difficult task of broaching the subject with Daniel and Victoria, Linda’s sister and my parents. However, after a couple of weeks of sleepless nights, when going to bed after another of the now regular long session discussing the future or trawling the internet for likely properties, whilst cleaning my teeth- a brainwave! Let’s rent out our house, resurrect the granny flat at the back as a UK base and go live the dream and not end up sitting in our chairs at ninety thinking what if..., but rather sitting in the French sunshine sipping a good glass of wine, resting from the long walk earlier in the day and contemplating the lighting of the barbecue!! Indeed, as I later said to a group of friends hopefully having been released from the stresses and strains of an increasingly frustrating job, I would find little time at all for sitting in my chair at ninety!!!
Much of the missed sleep over the following days, apart from the reoccurring thought of “Are we mad!?!” was down to the need to talk to our families, brooch the possible move with them and hope that their reactions spurred us on rather than making us feel guilty to the extent of jeopardizing the whole exciting but possibly crazy venture. There was also the need to make sure that we talked to people in the right order, wherever possible face to face and word didn’t get out before we could talk to some people. Our children were obviously the first who needed to know and as they are both very different people we got very different reactions; our daughter was excited at the prospect of holidays with us in France and long lazy gatherings with her friends, our son was slightly more reticent – we could go and “Bon Voyage!” but he was less keen about Max the dog leaving!! With them told and sworn to secrecy, we then had to wait some days before being able to get over to my parents and break the news.
It was about this time, that during half term, my brother and his family were holidaying on the Gower and invited us over for a day. Unfortunately, due to Linda’s work commitments we weren’t able to go and see my parents until the Wednesday evening and then the next day we were due to go up to York, so I decided to go over on the Sunday, sworn to secrecy and spend a lovely day desperate to “spill the beans.” As it was close to my birthday, they gave me a present – rather ironically they gave me a lovely large cage to barbecue fish in and it was somewhat tongue in cheek I thanked them and said how useful it would be – frantic to add; “When we move to France!” Despite being asked to stay over, I left after dinner, on the pretext of having a busy day the following day, but more concerned that if I had stayed and the wine had flowed freely, the secret just might have slipped out!
Wednesday came around eventually and with a certain amount of trepidation we went to see my parents, feeling that without their blessing the whole venture might well have been called off!! Having had dinner and fortified by a glass or two of wine, sitting in the lounge we broached the subject, with a slightly blunt “We’re thinking of moving to France!” My Dad’s reaction was pragmatic, “That’s great!” and my Mum burst into tears, before endorsing my Dad’s reaction. It was then time to phone my brother who’s reaction was “Go for it, life isn’t a rehearsal!” and I was able to tell him about the particular usefulness of his recent present! We then talked late into the night with my parents about practicalities and ended up with their whole-hearted blessing – well, we were only about to do what they may well have done 20 odd years ago, if our children hadn’t arrived!!
Over the next few days, we told Linda’s family who’s reaction was almost, we are not surprised we’ve been waiting for it!!, committee members of an organisation I was vice chairman of, various friends and other family members and finally, in the first round the staff at my school, who were also sworn to secrecy until such time as I announced it officially, but the ball had started to roll and we decided the more people we were able to tell, the less likely we were to see sense and opt for the “path most trod” rather than for adventures new. Amazingly, it was to be some time in the future before we could make it common knowledge; plans dragging and not really going to plan, but despite this and with us being very open with our wide circle of friends and acquaintances, the cat stayed firmly in the bag until it was time to tell the children at school and their parents, but that’s jumping the gun slightly, at least until a later chapter!
Amusingly, people’s reactions varied greatly from surprise, you’ve taken a long time to do it, envy and tears, but all were positive and excited for us and we remained the only people, who on a bad day thought we had gone totally “stark raving bonkers!” Writing this a couple of years later, I’m glad to say that we were the ones who got it wrong, on those “bad days” that is!!
Interestingly, having finally made the decision to go, I started a “Journey or Voyage of Confirmation,” not least trying to convince myself I was doing the right thing and each time I went to a meeting or on a course to hope that something would be said that would make me have at least a small pang, along the lines of “Oh, what a shame I won’t be around for that!” Sadly, rarely did this happen, instead as I drove back to school or home, with something of a sinking feeling and the cry of “Help get me out of here!” simply intensified, until the next time I saw the children in school – they did cause a few pangs!
In the end it was all becoming a little like the “happy clown – sad clown” routine, happy when juggling the balls and keeping them all up in the air, but sad when some of the balls fell from my grip and all the more sad because those balls that I had started to drop, were the ones that I believed passionately were the most important, it simply felt that the writing was on the wall. So, basically as I said, it happened one Thursday in February (7th February 2008 to be precise!) and the rest ....?, well its history, particularly as it’s now being written down and in Chapter 3 you’ll see that telling the family wasn’t the hardest part!!
The House!
Not really anything new to report, as we still haven’t signed on the dotted line, as the Notaire (Solicitor) who is a “one-woman” band has just gone off to have a baby, so with no-one to take over we have to wait for her to return, hopefully in the next week or two!!
In the meantime, we continue to trawl the DIY, furniture and Depot Ventes (second-hand) shops for the things we need, and are very grateful to have a cave de chauffage (boiler room) the size of a small warehouse and so well able to cope with the storage and also act as a workshop. Having bought the kitchen sink early on, returned recently from England with a trailer packed very full with paint (MUCH cheaper and better quality in the UK) and sundry items, and ticked most things off the list, we just now need the upstairs bathroom washbasin, a simple second staircase and floor coverings (ceramic tiles downstairs and laminate upstairs) and then, when the act de vente (final purchase) goes through, we’ll be ready to move our allegiances from the garden to the inside of the house, whilst working around the electrician / plumber, who following a lengthy process of getting devis or estimates we think we have finally identified, albeit at considerably greater cost than in the UK!!
The Garden!
Whilst mentioning the garden, we’ve reached a turning point in the garden, we have got to that stage when it is no longer a demolition site, but is now a building site, with some new fencing replacing the fortress style fencing that is all but now removed with something altogether more friendly and welcoming starting to take its place!
The seventy plus “person hours” of gardening reported in the last missive have now swollen by a further 100 or so hours to 178 hours plus, the bank at the top of the garden that resembled a tip has started to be tidied and large reinforced concrete slabs that were being used to floor some of the numerous chicken sheds, have been recycled and used to shore up the slope, the base for the caravan has been liberally filled up with hard core dug and broken up from elsewhere in the garden and two cubic metres of gravel transported and barrowed onto it from Fontenay, 4 round trips of 25 miles in one day.
We must also have made what must be getting on for 40 trips (full car and trailer) to the local tip with scrap metal, old wood, bottles and brambles – to the point that we are almost on first name terms with one of the tip operatives – he sees us coming, doesn’t need to ask where we are from for the tally chart, ticks us off, comes over to shake hands and pass the time and day before cheerily helping us off load!
Gravel incidentally, brings out the perverse nature of the French. Go to shop and ask the price for gravillon and you will be met by blank stares, until they suddenly say “Ah gravier!” Being a quick learner at the next shop you ask for gravier, to encounter more blank stares until the cloud lifts and they say “Ah gravillon!!” Both words are actually perfectly acceptable, but you can guarantee that whichever you chose to use, the other person you are speaking to will use the other word!! Interestingly having got the best price in town for the required gravel, or should that be small stones!, we went for the first load and the bunker had it marked up as gravillon, but when we went to pay the price list in the office called it gravier! Sometimes you just don’t seem to be able to win!! Even Michel, the farmer’s son, when he enquired what we had been doing and was told we had humped 2 ton of gravillon the previous day, looked puzzled until he realised I had meant to say gravier!!!!
But, all this activity in the garden has had a down sign, not only the fact that we return exhausted at night and struggle to make tea and crawl to bed, but the resident snake seems finally to have given up and moved on, into the next quietest place in the hamlet – our empty and at present un-worked on house (or at least the barn attached to it) going in through a hole in the wall some three metres off the ground – they’re good climbers! Let’s hope it is as quick on the uptake when we finally start work on the house and it moves on to pastures new quickly – we’ll have to remember to make frequent visits to the garden in between painting, tiling, flooring etc. to remind said serpent that the garden is no longer a sleepy haven! But for more “ssssss ..... slippery serpent stories” look below!!
But as for the French, my spoken language as opposed to the locals, also seems to have reached a turning point during the last couple of months, whilst busy doing the jungle bashing in our new garden! During the time in the garden I have had to converse with the locals, either the older couple who will be our neighbours or passing walkers, some on the way to Santiago and staying the night in the next door gîte, and ended up speaking more French in this time than in the preceding couple of years! We have even had a steady stream of locals, word having gone around about the “mad Anglais” who go out and jungle bash / demolish chicken sheds / saw wood / hump gravel and more, often in the midday sun, or even in the afternoon sun, which in these ‘ere parts is hotter than the midday sun!! They arrive on the pretext of looking at the communal oven that adjoins our plot, stand and look at the transformation and compliment us on our hard work and leave wishing us “bon courage!!” In the meantime, I’m exploring the best way to bring you some photos of “garden developments.” Basically, it’s a case of watch time space!!
Frog vs Rosbeef
A little while ago, but needs saying and before I receive howls of protest, I quote from “Allez Stade” the La Rochelle rugby club supporter’s paper! La Rochelle played Gloucester, at the back end of last year, in the Aviva Cup at La Rochelle one weekend and in Gloucester the following weekend. We went to the game at La Rochelle, only about an hour from where we are living but went early, it was an evening kick off, and found the town painted Cherry and White and ended up in a rather bizarre situation in an Irish Bar surrounded with Gloucester folk, with strong Glawster” accents, with the only Frenchman in site behind the bar!! The match, which Gloucester won well, was played in great spirit, the French being very welcoming and sporting – we spent the match at one end with the brother of one of the La Rochelle players, who because we were English cheered on the Cherry and Whites throughout, although his brother was on the bench where he remained, it might have been a different story, for reasons of family harmony, had his brother come on to play! It was a bitterly cold night, but helped by the mulled wine (don’t expect that’s served at Kingsholm!!) and the wonderful bonhomie which lasted throughout the match, the French supporters all wanting to shake hands with the visitors and graciously in defeat saying “Bon Match” we’ll see you next week!!
Unfortunately, on the return leg, the following Saturday Gloucester weren’t so fortunate and went down to the visitors despite the Kingsholm advantage – let’s hope the “Glawster” fans were as gracious in defeat as the La Rochelle supporters had been the previous week? However, listening to the commentary on BBC Radio Gloucestershire and surprised by the scoreline, I was even more surprised when the commentator uttered the following line about play in a maul where one of Gloucester players was “gobbled up by the French hooker!!” – perhaps I’ll leave it there!! I’ll only add that despite this unexpected win at Kingsholm, the La Rochelle team haven’t had a particularly good season and have dropped to a different league for next season!
“Ici devant nous!”
We’ve taken on a Herculean task, not least with the garden – the house is still to come – but nobody told us it necessitated wrestling with snakes!! But, with apologies to those of you who experience Ophidiophobia, or perhaps more obviously understandable – snakephobia – I’m afraid that this year they are everywhere, and some we have seen have been whoppers!!
We had seen a couple of harmless grass-snakes in the garden and several more as road traffic accident victims, but two scary, slippery, serpent stories stick out strikingly! When we were showing a friend from Stroud around the plot, Linda became aware of a strange hissing and turned to be surprised by a Western Whip snake (Non-venomous but might bite if cornered or handled!) in close proximity and rather than it slithering quietly away it was rearing up defensively. Linda let out the increasingly familiar “Oh my God, it’s a snake!”, and slightly closer examination revealed that the snake had tried to go through some small hole chicken wire, was then probably disturbed by Linda and turned back on itself through another hole and seemed to be well and truly stuck, a warning stick thrown nearby to frighten it off, doing nothing more than making it rear up hissing aggressively once more. As we hadn’t yet looked at the house, we decided to leave it alone, go around the house and return to check if it had managed to free itself!
Sadly it was still there, stuck solid, agitated but also seeming to be tiring. Humanitarianism, took over from the initial fear, and although having no intention to go in with snake noose and gloves as our visiting friend suggested and would no doubt have carried out if I provided suitable things, it was a case of “Plan B!” This entailed a long, no let’s be honest, very long stout bamboo pole, which has since become known as my snake stick. Then, from a “safe” distance and behind a metal sheet conveniently set into the ground, with pounding heart I proceeded to enable the snake to escape, although my fairly hard attempts to break the wire were somewhat misconstrued by the snake that kept biting at the end of the stick and indeed wrapped some of its remaining body tightly around the stick and was reluctant to let it go!! Eventually, the final piece of wire went and the exhausted snake, possibly still with one band around it slithered fortunately slowly away, rather than going on the attack and slithering quickly towards me!! So, should you be around these parts and corner a Western Whip Snake complete with a band of chicken wire around it, tell it you know me and you’ll be fine – hopefully!!! Similarly, I hope it’s read the story of the lion with a thorn in its foot, should I meet it again!!!
Not to be outdone, a couple of days later Linda went to our present cave to get something out, opened the door and walked in to be surprised by something falling off the top of the door. It landed on her shoulder, and fortunately fell down onto the floor and as Linda screamed “Oh my God” repeatedly, for a brief moment they looked at each other, before the snake got over the shock and slipped under the freezer. I went reluctantly to her rescue, getting there too late as the snake had vanished into the cave, with plenty of places amongst the wine / beer bottles and other assorted items to go to ground. Attempts to flush it out quickly led to nothing, so for several days we left the door ajar, hoping it would make a dash for freedom and went very gingerly into the cave, with a big stick, when we needed something. Hopefully, it is now long gone, but there are mice in the cave – a ready supply of food, and although they are a nuisance, I think I prefer them to snakes!! We still make a lot of noise when entering, push the door open before going through and approach dark corners carefully and armed with the stick – just in case!!!
Now we just need to persuade the one that’s moved into the barn, that there are better places to live and for the time being, despite the very warm weather, wellies seem a good choice in footwear if venturing in there!!
My original “thought!”
Is it all getting to us I ask myself? Linda has named one of the many geckos scurrying around the walls – Stumpy – on account of it having lost half its tail!!.
Me? When I’m preparing food, the chopping board has started talking too me!! The other day when I was cutting cabbage the board was crying out for “lapin!!” But, I suppose the only other conversation is with Linda and she’s busy talking to Stumpy!!
Kind regards, Best Wishes and Love, Roger and Linda
And, next time? Slightly depends on whether we officially have the key and the cleaning, painting, tiling .... has started and whether I have the energy to put pen to paper, or indeed fingers to keyboard!
This may not work for everyone, but a little something to be going on with, particularly for those who saw our jungle in the raw state, or who indeed intrepidly ventured into it “hatchet” in hand!!
Stitching together a panorama has made this a little small, but the technical amongst may be able to enlarge it to see it better.
Dear All
Missive 30 attached, and yes standards are slipping, nearly a week late, obviously the work ethic is fading the longer it has been!!
But in my defence, lots of visitors, including an unscheduled visit by Victoria over half term, that ended up with two days spent driving to Roscoff and back and a very time consuming garden that we still don’t officially own!! We are however, hoping to sign on the dotted line in the next week or so – fingers crossed!!
The missive is rather a “then and now” one and as such quite meaty, another reason for its late arrival, although not overly long!! I suppose it’s really two missives in one! Intrigued? Read on and all will be revealed!!
Love
Roger
rogerhiggs@hotmail.co.uk
Mes chers amis
Turning Point (The road effectively ends at our new house in Le Boutet) or “Moment décisif”
~ Missive 30
“It is quite possible that your next useful thought will hit you during a boring meeting.”
Sathnam Sanghera ~ IT DID!* See below!
We will live with the consequences of this fundamental turning point for years to come.
Joseph Samaha ~ WE HAVE AND CONTINUE TO DO SO!
“From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back.
That is the point that must be reached.” ~ IT HAS BEEN!
Franz Kafka
To square the circle, as it were, I’m turning back to the beginning, with part of this missive chronicling the bit of the “book” before the move. It’s been lurking in the background, but as the chapter in our lives, centred on La Loge, nears the end and a French house of our own becomes a reality, it has come to the fore as we think back to what started the whole adventure! Who knows perhaps it’s no coincidence that my internet “French Word of the Day” recently was toile de maitre, only another six months or so if I want it to be in time for the Christmas present rush!!
Seeds of Change ~ Chapter 1
How many times have you heard someone say “It’s not the job I went in to!”? ... and that basically was how it was for me! I was for some time a Primary Headteacher of a medium sized school on the edge of a provincial English town, in the heart of an interesting suburb which had enormous social issues (not usually associated with such an on the face of it, leafy Shire town). I was becoming increasingly disillusioned with the way that education was going in England. Increasingly, issues about an over reliance on testing, scores, rankings, targets, “P” levels, APP, Trust bubbles, ICT, Primary modern foreign language, funding and much less concern from on high about issues of equality and life chances, meant that schools such as mine; that were fully functioning and supporting the children in their care extremely well, were always in danger of falling foul of a questionable inspection regime run by OFSTED. As a teacher you know inherently that you don’t get the best from the children in your care by criticism, instilling fear and by being unfair, all things that OFSTED seem to thrive on!! – with thanks to Dorothy Law Nolte, “If children live with criticism, They learn to condemn” (obviously a cunning Government ploy to breed a new supply of OFSTED Inspectors!)
Then, as Headteacher there was the issue of various dictates arriving from “on high” requiring me to implement new directives that were either fundamentally flawed or that I vehemently disagreed with. How could I look myself in the face after telling people they had to start doing the latest fad, when I didn’t want to be involved myself and the foundation on which they were founded was at the very least sandy, if not totally non-existent! Similarly, Linda my wife and an Intensive Care nurse, had the same sort of concerns about the way the Health Service was going, snowed under with paperwork getting in the way of patient care.
Often before, very tongue in cheek, after a bad day “at the office” I would jokingly say to colleagues “If I’m not here tomorrow, I’ll be on an olive grove in the south of France!” Indeed, on one occasion I gave a talk to the local Excellence Cluster group of Headteachers, of which I was one. The talk was entitled: “What we said we would die fighting for!”, but had somewhat prophetically subtitled it “well perhaps not quite, there’s always an olive farm in the south of France!” Basically it finally did happen one Thursday in February! The particular Thursday was at the end of a particularly busy and at times unpleasant time at work – stroppy parents and paperwork gone mad, I left school to go to another *crisis meeting in Shire Hall and used my well known catchphrase “If I’m not here in the morning I’ll be on an olive grove in the south of France!”
Later that evening I returned home and continuing the theme said to Linda “What a day I’ve had AGAIN, let’s move to France!” To which she replied “OK then!,” and I didn’t give it another thought as I kissed her good night as she went off to do an ITU (or Department of Critical Care as I should call it after a major refurbishment!) night shift. However, in an idle moment later that evening whilst working on my computer, I “googled” Olive Groves for sale in the south of France, and google being google, I was taken to a site selling a farmhouse, gîte, smallholding and small campsite with associated outbuildings in the north of France – not an olive or a bronzed sunbather in site, but an amazing property at an even more amazing price! I then left Linda, rather tongue in cheek, the link to the site for when she returned the following morning after I had gone to work; (Some weeks the closest we got was a hurried wave as I drove to work in Gloucester and she drove home from work!!).
Returning home that evening I was hardly through the door when Linda said “Let’s buy it!” and there was that certain something in her voice that said – and I’m not joking!! I’d like to say that we made the offer, bought the house and winged our way over The English Channel or La Manche as we had to get used to calling it!, but life is rarely that simple. There then started the next chapter (Yes the book’s already underway and if you hadn’t guessed it already it’s called – “It happened one Thursday in February!!”) of sleepless nights, long conversations about “what if” and “are we mad” as well as the difficult task of broaching the subject with Daniel and Victoria, Linda’s sister and my parents. However, after a couple of weeks of sleepless nights, when going to bed after another of the now regular long session discussing the future or trawling the internet for likely properties, whilst cleaning my teeth- a brainwave! Let’s rent out our house, resurrect the granny flat at the back as a UK base and go live the dream and not end up sitting in our chairs at ninety thinking what if..., but rather sitting in the French sunshine sipping a good glass of wine, resting from the long walk earlier in the day and contemplating the lighting of the barbecue!! Indeed, as I later said to a group of friends hopefully having been released from the stresses and strains of an increasingly frustrating job, I would find little time at all for sitting in my chair at ninety!!!
Much of the missed sleep over the following days, apart from the reoccurring thought of “Are we mad!?!” was down to the need to talk to our families, brooch the possible move with them and hope that their reactions spurred us on rather than making us feel guilty to the extent of jeopardizing the whole exciting but possibly crazy venture. There was also the need to make sure that we talked to people in the right order, wherever possible face to face and word didn’t get out before we could talk to some people. Our children were obviously the first who needed to know and as they are both very different people we got very different reactions; our daughter was excited at the prospect of holidays with us in France and long lazy gatherings with her friends, our son was slightly more reticent – we could go and “Bon Voyage!” but he was less keen about Max the dog leaving!! With them told and sworn to secrecy, we then had to wait some days before being able to get over to my parents and break the news.
It was about this time, that during half term, my brother and his family were holidaying on the Gower and invited us over for a day. Unfortunately, due to Linda’s work commitments we weren’t able to go and see my parents until the Wednesday evening and then the next day we were due to go up to York, so I decided to go over on the Sunday, sworn to secrecy and spend a lovely day desperate to “spill the beans.” As it was close to my birthday, they gave me a present – rather ironically they gave me a lovely large cage to barbecue fish in and it was somewhat tongue in cheek I thanked them and said how useful it would be – frantic to add; “When we move to France!” Despite being asked to stay over, I left after dinner, on the pretext of having a busy day the following day, but more concerned that if I had stayed and the wine had flowed freely, the secret just might have slipped out!
Wednesday came around eventually and with a certain amount of trepidation we went to see my parents, feeling that without their blessing the whole venture might well have been called off!! Having had dinner and fortified by a glass or two of wine, sitting in the lounge we broached the subject, with a slightly blunt “We’re thinking of moving to France!” My Dad’s reaction was pragmatic, “That’s great!” and my Mum burst into tears, before endorsing my Dad’s reaction. It was then time to phone my brother who’s reaction was “Go for it, life isn’t a rehearsal!” and I was able to tell him about the particular usefulness of his recent present! We then talked late into the night with my parents about practicalities and ended up with their whole-hearted blessing – well, we were only about to do what they may well have done 20 odd years ago, if our children hadn’t arrived!!
Over the next few days, we told Linda’s family who’s reaction was almost, we are not surprised we’ve been waiting for it!!, committee members of an organisation I was vice chairman of, various friends and other family members and finally, in the first round the staff at my school, who were also sworn to secrecy until such time as I announced it officially, but the ball had started to roll and we decided the more people we were able to tell, the less likely we were to see sense and opt for the “path most trod” rather than for adventures new. Amazingly, it was to be some time in the future before we could make it common knowledge; plans dragging and not really going to plan, but despite this and with us being very open with our wide circle of friends and acquaintances, the cat stayed firmly in the bag until it was time to tell the children at school and their parents, but that’s jumping the gun slightly, at least until a later chapter!
Amusingly, people’s reactions varied greatly from surprise, you’ve taken a long time to do it, envy and tears, but all were positive and excited for us and we remained the only people, who on a bad day thought we had gone totally “stark raving bonkers!” Writing this a couple of years later, I’m glad to say that we were the ones who got it wrong, on those “bad days” that is!!
Interestingly, having finally made the decision to go, I started a “Journey or Voyage of Confirmation,” not least trying to convince myself I was doing the right thing and each time I went to a meeting or on a course to hope that something would be said that would make me have at least a small pang, along the lines of “Oh, what a shame I won’t be around for that!” Sadly, rarely did this happen, instead as I drove back to school or home, with something of a sinking feeling and the cry of “Help get me out of here!” simply intensified, until the next time I saw the children in school – they did cause a few pangs!
In the end it was all becoming a little like the “happy clown – sad clown” routine, happy when juggling the balls and keeping them all up in the air, but sad when some of the balls fell from my grip and all the more sad because those balls that I had started to drop, were the ones that I believed passionately were the most important, it simply felt that the writing was on the wall. So, basically as I said, it happened one Thursday in February (7th February 2008 to be precise!) and the rest ....?, well its history, particularly as it’s now being written down and in Chapter 3 you’ll see that telling the family wasn’t the hardest part!!
The House!
Not really anything new to report, as we still haven’t signed on the dotted line, as the Notaire (Solicitor) who is a “one-woman” band has just gone off to have a baby, so with no-one to take over we have to wait for her to return, hopefully in the next week or two!!
In the meantime, we continue to trawl the DIY, furniture and Depot Ventes (second-hand) shops for the things we need, and are very grateful to have a cave de chauffage (boiler room) the size of a small warehouse and so well able to cope with the storage and also act as a workshop. Having bought the kitchen sink early on, returned recently from England with a trailer packed very full with paint (MUCH cheaper and better quality in the UK) and sundry items, and ticked most things off the list, we just now need the upstairs bathroom washbasin, a simple second staircase and floor coverings (ceramic tiles downstairs and laminate upstairs) and then, when the act de vente (final purchase) goes through, we’ll be ready to move our allegiances from the garden to the inside of the house, whilst working around the electrician / plumber, who following a lengthy process of getting devis or estimates we think we have finally identified, albeit at considerably greater cost than in the UK!!
The Garden!
Whilst mentioning the garden, we’ve reached a turning point in the garden, we have got to that stage when it is no longer a demolition site, but is now a building site, with some new fencing replacing the fortress style fencing that is all but now removed with something altogether more friendly and welcoming starting to take its place!
The seventy plus “person hours” of gardening reported in the last missive have now swollen by a further 100 or so hours to 178 hours plus, the bank at the top of the garden that resembled a tip has started to be tidied and large reinforced concrete slabs that were being used to floor some of the numerous chicken sheds, have been recycled and used to shore up the slope, the base for the caravan has been liberally filled up with hard core dug and broken up from elsewhere in the garden and two cubic metres of gravel transported and barrowed onto it from Fontenay, 4 round trips of 25 miles in one day.
We must also have made what must be getting on for 40 trips (full car and trailer) to the local tip with scrap metal, old wood, bottles and brambles – to the point that we are almost on first name terms with one of the tip operatives – he sees us coming, doesn’t need to ask where we are from for the tally chart, ticks us off, comes over to shake hands and pass the time and day before cheerily helping us off load!
Gravel incidentally, brings out the perverse nature of the French. Go to shop and ask the price for gravillon and you will be met by blank stares, until they suddenly say “Ah gravier!” Being a quick learner at the next shop you ask for gravier, to encounter more blank stares until the cloud lifts and they say “Ah gravillon!!” Both words are actually perfectly acceptable, but you can guarantee that whichever you chose to use, the other person you are speaking to will use the other word!! Interestingly having got the best price in town for the required gravel, or should that be small stones!, we went for the first load and the bunker had it marked up as gravillon, but when we went to pay the price list in the office called it gravier! Sometimes you just don’t seem to be able to win!! Even Michel, the farmer’s son, when he enquired what we had been doing and was told we had humped 2 ton of gravillon the previous day, looked puzzled until he realised I had meant to say gravier!!!!
But, all this activity in the garden has had a down sign, not only the fact that we return exhausted at night and struggle to make tea and crawl to bed, but the resident snake seems finally to have given up and moved on, into the next quietest place in the hamlet – our empty and at present un-worked on house (or at least the barn attached to it) going in through a hole in the wall some three metres off the ground – they’re good climbers! Let’s hope it is as quick on the uptake when we finally start work on the house and it moves on to pastures new quickly – we’ll have to remember to make frequent visits to the garden in between painting, tiling, flooring etc. to remind said serpent that the garden is no longer a sleepy haven! But for more “ssssss ..... slippery serpent stories” look below!!
But as for the French, my spoken language as opposed to the locals, also seems to have reached a turning point during the last couple of months, whilst busy doing the jungle bashing in our new garden! During the time in the garden I have had to converse with the locals, either the older couple who will be our neighbours or passing walkers, some on the way to Santiago and staying the night in the next door gîte, and ended up speaking more French in this time than in the preceding couple of years! We have even had a steady stream of locals, word having gone around about the “mad Anglais” who go out and jungle bash / demolish chicken sheds / saw wood / hump gravel and more, often in the midday sun, or even in the afternoon sun, which in these ‘ere parts is hotter than the midday sun!! They arrive on the pretext of looking at the communal oven that adjoins our plot, stand and look at the transformation and compliment us on our hard work and leave wishing us “bon courage!!” In the meantime, I’m exploring the best way to bring you some photos of “garden developments.” Basically, it’s a case of watch time space!!
Frog vs Rosbeef
A little while ago, but needs saying and before I receive howls of protest, I quote from “Allez Stade” the La Rochelle rugby club supporter’s paper! La Rochelle played Gloucester, at the back end of last year, in the Aviva Cup at La Rochelle one weekend and in Gloucester the following weekend. We went to the game at La Rochelle, only about an hour from where we are living but went early, it was an evening kick off, and found the town painted Cherry and White and ended up in a rather bizarre situation in an Irish Bar surrounded with Gloucester folk, with strong Glawster” accents, with the only Frenchman in site behind the bar!! The match, which Gloucester won well, was played in great spirit, the French being very welcoming and sporting – we spent the match at one end with the brother of one of the La Rochelle players, who because we were English cheered on the Cherry and Whites throughout, although his brother was on the bench where he remained, it might have been a different story, for reasons of family harmony, had his brother come on to play! It was a bitterly cold night, but helped by the mulled wine (don’t expect that’s served at Kingsholm!!) and the wonderful bonhomie which lasted throughout the match, the French supporters all wanting to shake hands with the visitors and graciously in defeat saying “Bon Match” we’ll see you next week!!
Unfortunately, on the return leg, the following Saturday Gloucester weren’t so fortunate and went down to the visitors despite the Kingsholm advantage – let’s hope the “Glawster” fans were as gracious in defeat as the La Rochelle supporters had been the previous week? However, listening to the commentary on BBC Radio Gloucestershire and surprised by the scoreline, I was even more surprised when the commentator uttered the following line about play in a maul where one of Gloucester players was “gobbled up by the French hooker!!” – perhaps I’ll leave it there!! I’ll only add that despite this unexpected win at Kingsholm, the La Rochelle team haven’t had a particularly good season and have dropped to a different league for next season!
“Ici devant nous!”
We’ve taken on a Herculean task, not least with the garden – the house is still to come – but nobody told us it necessitated wrestling with snakes!! But, with apologies to those of you who experience Ophidiophobia, or perhaps more obviously understandable – snakephobia – I’m afraid that this year they are everywhere, and some we have seen have been whoppers!!
We had seen a couple of harmless grass-snakes in the garden and several more as road traffic accident victims, but two scary, slippery, serpent stories stick out strikingly! When we were showing a friend from Stroud around the plot, Linda became aware of a strange hissing and turned to be surprised by a Western Whip snake (Non-venomous but might bite if cornered or handled!) in close proximity and rather than it slithering quietly away it was rearing up defensively. Linda let out the increasingly familiar “Oh my God, it’s a snake!”, and slightly closer examination revealed that the snake had tried to go through some small hole chicken wire, was then probably disturbed by Linda and turned back on itself through another hole and seemed to be well and truly stuck, a warning stick thrown nearby to frighten it off, doing nothing more than making it rear up hissing aggressively once more. As we hadn’t yet looked at the house, we decided to leave it alone, go around the house and return to check if it had managed to free itself!
Sadly it was still there, stuck solid, agitated but also seeming to be tiring. Humanitarianism, took over from the initial fear, and although having no intention to go in with snake noose and gloves as our visiting friend suggested and would no doubt have carried out if I provided suitable things, it was a case of “Plan B!” This entailed a long, no let’s be honest, very long stout bamboo pole, which has since become known as my snake stick. Then, from a “safe” distance and behind a metal sheet conveniently set into the ground, with pounding heart I proceeded to enable the snake to escape, although my fairly hard attempts to break the wire were somewhat misconstrued by the snake that kept biting at the end of the stick and indeed wrapped some of its remaining body tightly around the stick and was reluctant to let it go!! Eventually, the final piece of wire went and the exhausted snake, possibly still with one band around it slithered fortunately slowly away, rather than going on the attack and slithering quickly towards me!! So, should you be around these parts and corner a Western Whip Snake complete with a band of chicken wire around it, tell it you know me and you’ll be fine – hopefully!!! Similarly, I hope it’s read the story of the lion with a thorn in its foot, should I meet it again!!!
Not to be outdone, a couple of days later Linda went to our present cave to get something out, opened the door and walked in to be surprised by something falling off the top of the door. It landed on her shoulder, and fortunately fell down onto the floor and as Linda screamed “Oh my God” repeatedly, for a brief moment they looked at each other, before the snake got over the shock and slipped under the freezer. I went reluctantly to her rescue, getting there too late as the snake had vanished into the cave, with plenty of places amongst the wine / beer bottles and other assorted items to go to ground. Attempts to flush it out quickly led to nothing, so for several days we left the door ajar, hoping it would make a dash for freedom and went very gingerly into the cave, with a big stick, when we needed something. Hopefully, it is now long gone, but there are mice in the cave – a ready supply of food, and although they are a nuisance, I think I prefer them to snakes!! We still make a lot of noise when entering, push the door open before going through and approach dark corners carefully and armed with the stick – just in case!!!
Now we just need to persuade the one that’s moved into the barn, that there are better places to live and for the time being, despite the very warm weather, wellies seem a good choice in footwear if venturing in there!!
My original “thought!”
Is it all getting to us I ask myself? Linda has named one of the many geckos scurrying around the walls – Stumpy – on account of it having lost half its tail!!.
Me? When I’m preparing food, the chopping board has started talking too me!! The other day when I was cutting cabbage the board was crying out for “lapin!!” But, I suppose the only other conversation is with Linda and she’s busy talking to Stumpy!!
Kind regards, Best Wishes and Love, Roger and Linda
And, next time? Slightly depends on whether we officially have the key and the cleaning, painting, tiling .... has started and whether I have the energy to put pen to paper, or indeed fingers to keyboard!
This may not work for everyone, but a little something to be going on with, particularly for those who saw our jungle in the raw state, or who indeed intrepidly ventured into it “hatchet” in hand!!
Stitching together a panorama has made this a little small, but the technical amongst may be able to enlarge it to see it better.
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