Christmas Missive December 2012



 

Dear All

Just finished the Christmas cards and both commented on how for the first time for several years there were no deletions, nobody no longer with us, no empty chairs as it were.  But, it’s not the time to be maudlin, ‘tis once again the season to be jolly.  So having a couple of days ago donned the red suit and doled out the presents to the assembled children of the parish – Ho! Ho! Ho!, and here we go again!  ...... This time last year we were in our new house and most of the rooms were habitable, except the downstairs en suite bathroom, which we have subsequently discovered used to be a two horse stable, with our bedroom above part of the hayloft!  Our return to France after last Christmas was delayed a little as the UK Passport Office didn’t like my new photo (couldn’t believe how good looking I was!) and wanted something to play down the stunning looks, although Linda thinks it was the use of a French photo booth!!  But, we were straight back to the stable renovation, in readiness for our first visitors at Easter, (it will have been a record breaking 33 this year!) as well as trying in vain a lot of the time, to get back to work on the barn / summer kitchen roofs. Winter in the Vendée was wet for much of the time and for several weeks for once colder than back in the UK, with a couple of snowy periods, one that went on for some time with unprecedented cold temperatures – for one week the frozen snow meant we weren’t able to get the car out of the hamlet and the bread van and post couldn’t get in.  Thank goodness for the freezer, but more of that later!

Once the septic tank company had caught up after the inclement weather, they got around to us and for a few days the peace and tranquillity was once again shattered as they drilled out the solid rock in front of the house for a large 3000l tank and a modern micro-station that much to the consternation of the neighbours doesn’t require a sand bed filter.  We had to get the salesman to convince them it was indeed cutting edge technology rather than us pulling a fast one!!  And as such technology doesn’t come cheap; it doesn’t get the use that it might, as we can’t afford the food necessary to feed such a system!!!!  But, joking aside, we were able to get the garden dug over and due to the previous incumbents (the chickens) not having the use of modern facilities, the soil is amazingly fertile and we grew lots of fresh produce and filled the freezers, which sadly failed in the wet weather that the Vendée had whilst we were in the UK in October – fortunately, friends found them defrosted before they started to rot and were able to re-freeze the ruined stuff for us to sort out on our return – oh c’est la vie as they say in these parts!!

Our October visit to the UK, also ended up extended as my Dad had to have a major op, from which he has made a good recovery, and will hopefully be back driving again and able to take my Mum for her two daily shopping fix!  But, this ended up our only trip away this year, the caravan languishing unused in the garden.  But we are hopefully going to remedy this next year with an Easter trip to Biarritz being planned, as well as more “Pet Shop” duty in York as most of Linda’s sister’s family go to Africa on safari in February.      

Briefly, the rest of the family:  Daniel and Lisa who are joining us for Christmas in France this year, which will be the first time they have seen our new house.  They remain very busy, Lisa working long hours in Cheltenham as well as continuing to run the local St. John Badger set and Daniel working during term time as a cover supervisor in a Gloucester secondary school and working school holidays at a local leisure centre.  He is also very busy with St John running the local Adult Division and increasing his Child Protection role.  We were able to help them with block paving their drive when we visited in October, which will help with parking which is a problematic in their busy road.

Victoria and Dermot are still in Plymouth, Victoria’s job being made permanent.  She has been working very hard a s a new teacher getting to grips with all that entails , as well as taking on the role of Duke of Edinburgh Scheme co-ordinator  They also bought a house in the middle of the year – a real bargain, dint of needing a vast amount of work doing on it.  But they have both been working very hard on the renovations and it is really taking shape and will be a lovely large house (previously two flats over four floors!) when they have finished, at least they have managed to get the heating in time for the colder weather.  Fortunately, Dermot’s submarine is in for a refit so he has had a lot of time for DIY!!  All her work, and perhaps the expense of becoming a house owner, well at least a mortgage payer, slightly curtailed her wanderlust this year, only managed the Isles of Scilly, France and Switzerland, but is already looking to next year – so far; Austria (partly with work), France/Spain, Holland (with school) and somewhere tba in the summer!!

Well, once again Joyeuse Fêtes as they say in France.  Remember, this is but a brief Family Christmas Missive for more “what we’re doing” visit the blog http://ithappenedonethursdayinfebruary.blogspot.com , or for a more esoteric offerings try the new blog: http://rogerscreativeurge.blogspot.com !! 

Love from



Roger and Linda

 

Nature in all its fury!

Quel monde formidable or loosely translated ~

What a wonderful world!

It’s certainly a wonderful, albeit at times formidable, world and the elements can often seem unstoppable as demonstrated recently, when our peaceful village roared to the sound of the normally gently flowing burbling brook turning into a raging torrent after in excess of 24 hours of very heavy showers and more prolonged rain.  Funnily enough almost 12 months to the day since we last saw this, although I think it happened more recently, when we were away in England.

The pictures, before and after, speak for themselves:

“Our” stream

 

 

 

                                         click to play the video

Our garden

 

 

 

click to play the video

The Ford

 

As you can see we couldn’t get across the bridge or wade through the ford to take the picture the other side!

On the way back from taking some pictures we met our neighbour who wanted to know if Linda had had a good time in England, and had she gone from St Malo on the ferry, he then added, with that twinkle he has in his eyes, particularly just after lunch!, that if it continues to rain for much longer we could take a boat to England from the bottom of the garden!!

 

Why The Vendée

We are often asked the above question, and although it was in some ways “luck” there is a long version of the story that I’m sure many of you have already heard, if not ask us next time you see us!

But, for the moment suffice to say that The Vendée reputedly has as many days sunshine as Mediterranean coast of France and has nowhere near as many Brits as the Dordogne, which has at least one English language newspaper and it is not uncommon for UK cars to outnumber French ones in the local supermarket!

Linda left me on Friday, no no, not permanently or indeed due to anything I said, she went to England, Plymouth to be precise for a girlie weekend with Victoria and various other girlie members of the family!!  So I have been left busy doing various and seemingly not ending DIY projects, feeding myself (although friends down the road must think I’m neglecting myself and wasting away as they have invited me to eat with them on two of the evenings!), a bit of walking, keeping the home fires burning as we’re having a cold snap and I even figured out the washing machine as I was running out of warm socks due to the cold spell!!  In addition to this I’ve been busy on the computer with emails, blogs and even editing the website of the Association of Countryside Volunteers, for which I am the Vice Chair and Editor – all in all a thoroughly modern man, so much so that I was quite horrified when I joined a group of French walkers at the weekend and the end a wall was used as a make shift table for refreshments – biscuits washed down with wine for the men and orange juice for the women and it wasn’t that all the women had drawn the short straw and were driving, no it’s just the way it is hereabouts!!  Can’t help feeling it was a good thing Linda was away, she’d have rocked the boat, if not grabbed the wine bottle!!  But equality in France, the country of Liberté, égalité, fraternité, is another story, to which one day I may carefully return!

I mentioned emails above and one of them was a request, for a reference, for an ex-colleague, they even track me down in deepest rural France, the wonders of technology!  It appears that I’m no longer an institution (thank the lord!!) and for “reasons of compliance” a hard copy of the reference must be posted and an emailed version is not acceptable!!  The form duly printed and filled in and I find that the envelope marked England blue , was empty – it’s the envelope of stamps for sending to England and they’re blue in case you’re wondering, so I needed to go the local village for stamps and the post box.  Interestingly, if the envelope had contained a stamp, I could have stuck it on the letter when I had finished the form, popped downstairs around the back of the house and put it in our post box (an actual box!) remembering to flick over the red tab to alert the postie that there was a letter TO COLLECT – what a brilliant service and one we only recently discovered, thought it was only for older people who couldn’t get out and about very easily.  I’ve not tried it yet but apparently you can, if you haven’t got a stamp, leave money with the letter and the postie will do the rest, bringing back the change the next day if necessary!!!  The fact that it was a blue stamp I needed not a red one for post within France, I thought it best not to risk it!

Arriving in the local village, I visited the Mairie, the Mayor’s office, not because I wanted to chat local politics or the like, but because at the back in a small room is a small bureau of La Poste, with all the normal services including banking.  This is France’s response to the mounting cost of running rural Post Office branches, they don’t shut them they downsize them and put them into municipal buildings – what an inspired and eminently sensible solution!  Having entered the building I found there was someone in the bureau and one person waiting outside; the French take confidentiality and privacy very seriously and it might I suppose be banking matters being discussed, therefore queuing customers are requested to wait in the corridor with seating provided.

I “Bonjoured” the gentleman who was waiting and moved down the queue.  We were then joined by a lady who we both “Bonjoured madam” as she took her place in the queue, the customer in the office obviously had a lot of business to cover!  A man then entered and started to ask the lady, in fast French, something about the village hall, and as she seemed as confused as I was trying to keep up, the man at the front of the queue said “Oh! You’re English” to her, to which I responded that by quite a coincidence so was I, as was the man!  Three English people in a row, the lady deciding it must be because Christmas is looming and we were all posting early for Christmas, the French don’t really do Christmas cards!!  Then, when the door opened and another lady joined us it seemed almost natural to greet her in English as well, and you’ve guessed it, it was now four in a row – what did I say about the Dordogne!!  I often wonder when such a coincidence occurs what the odds of it happening would be, but it would take a better mathematician that me to work it out, I’ll just stand in awe!  

Having finally got my stamps, said “I guess its good bye rather than au revoir” to the queue, which was fortunately still devoid of a French person, they might not have understood, I left and the boulangerie caught my eye!!  Well, Linda had talked about the chocolate brownies they had been eating!  I decided a treat was in order and asked for a La Festive, a rather chewy but incredibly tasty brownish baguette, just as the religieuse caught my eye – a patisserie that is rather wicked despite the name!  So, somewhat sadly I ordered one, sad in the same way that I sometimes find people in restaurants dining alone, and was delighted to see it was duly put into a cake box that could quite easily hold three or even four of these calorie rich treats said to resemble nuns!!  On the way home I also thought that that the neighbours wouldn’t spot my sad individual cake, thinking instead that I’d bought a welcome home cake for Linda, she’s due home tomorrow.  Rather ironically, later in the afternoon one of the friends down the road called in to invite me down to share the curry they were having, so the religieuse languishes all alone in the fridge and I’m left with a dilemma; elevenses before going to meet Linda off the train, half each for tea tomorrow or buy another one and argue about who’s going to have the fresh one!  Life can be so stressful!!!  

P.S. We shared it, well she does proof read the blog posts, but we did find something equally rich and lovely for the other half!!  religieusesreligieuses

Quel monde formidable or loosely translated ~

What a wonderful world!

(with thanks to Google translate, not that I needed it in this case! – call it a comfort blanket! -and Bob Thiele (as "George Douglas") and George David Weiss, who wrote the song Louis Armstrong made famous!)

 I’ve said on more than one occasion that it’s great to have the time to stand and stare, take photographs and generally marvel at the wonders of the natural world that are all around us and constantly changing.  Just the other day I was reading an old copy of Country Walking magazine, and in it was an article about a children’s writer and illustrator, called Jackie Morris, and I was particularly struck by two things she said.  First, she said that she never minded doing the same walk over and over again, as she always saw something new and it changed with the seasons and over time, a sentiment I’m sure most of us would agree with, with the proviso that sometimes new walks and places are equally good.  Secondly, and I was vividly reminded of this when driving Linda to the ferry very early the other morning, those that know me well will realise that early mornings don’t feature much as I’m rather prone to burn the midnight oil – indeed as I write this the minute hand is rapidly climbing towards the “witching hour!”  But, back to that early still dark morning, heading north towards St Malo as the dawn was trying to break, but the black clouds of racing storms were doing there upmost to prevent daybreak!! Jackie Morris describes how she loves walking in a particular place “at the beginning of the day, when all the colours are washing into everything.”  What a wonderful image and this was it in dramatic action, this morning, from my study window!!
 

Back in the days of the original blog, when the select few amongst you received a varied monthly blog of our exploits, my thoughts and rants and anything else that took my fancy, for some time I wrote a section called “Ici devant nous” or “Here before us,” which often chronicled the amazing flora and fauna around and about.  Well, I suppose in a way this is a return, as I intend this to continue as a “monthlyish” offering.  As always, hedging my bets, not because I’m worried about finding suitable copy, no more concerned that there will be too many amazing things going on to restrict myself to once a month!

 

As the intro has gone on a little this time, I’m going to confine myself to just one rather funny incident, which again took place just outside my study window.  A few mornings ago we had our first significant frost, and awoke to a white world.  Needing logs for the fire I went to collect some from the barn and was puzzled by what appeared to be much frantic bird activity in the leaves of the beautiful mulberry tree in our neighbours garden.  Had it been spring with a plentiful crop of tasty fruit I wouldn’t have been at all surprised, instead have checked to see if the magnificent pair of golden orioles that gorged there earlier in the year had returned.

Closer inspection brought a smile to my face, as the bird activity was actually an avalanche of the huge leaves that had been clinging on to the tree, despite most other trees having lost all their leaves.  I guess the frost was the final trigger and rather like visiting a barber for a number one, what had been a magnificent head of leaves, now lay in a thick carpet around the foot of the tree, with very little left on top!! 

However, that isn’t the end of the story, because a day or two later I was again out at the front of the house, taking the compost bin to the garden, when I heard tapping coming from the same mulberry tree.  Again instinct told me it was the wrong time of the year for a woodpecker to be at work, and anyway the tapping was rather too leisurely for any self respecting woodpecker!  Again, closer inspection bought the answer, as I said above there was very little left on top, but that which was there, either monsieur or madame le voisin (neighbour), I couldn’t see which because there was a stone outbuilding in the way, was using a very long stick to dislodge – they were obviously only going to clear up these leaves once!!  Well, as this picture shows they had very thickly carpeted the grass below, and you might spot the “lazy woodpecker” leaning against the tree if you look closely!!