It happened one Thursday in February

Missive 36 ~ The times they are a changing!!

2012-01-24T23:51:00.007+01:00

January 24^th 2012

Dear All

Happy New Year and all the best for 2012

Attached is the latest and alas last missive, in the present format! Open it up and all will be revealed, and the changes alluded to in the last couple of emails explained.

Love

Roger

rogerhiggs@hotmail.co.uk

Mes chers amis

“The times they are a changing!!” ~ Missive 36

Bob Dylan

“We see the brightness of a new page where everything yet can happen.”
Rainer Maria Rilke - Book of Hours

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

“For last year's words belong to last year's language and next year's words await another voice.”

T S Eliot (1888-1965)

As Bob Dylan so succinctly puts it, the times they are a changing, and Roger’s monthly missive as you know it and have come to love or loath it, has run its course. But for the flurry of comments in your Christmas cards, and many thanks for those – the cards and the comments! – suggest that my hints in the covering letter of Missive 34, which was so long it probably tried the patience of even my most ardent readers!, mentioning that changes were afoot, stirred some people to make comments along the lines of “We’re enjoying the missives – keep them coming!”

Which, of course puts me in something of a dilemma, as the story that started about four years ago, incidentally on a Thursday in February, has naturally come to an end, and as one of our neighbours said earlier this evening at our Christmas soiree, yes I know this is the January issue, but I’m ahead of myself and the vin chaud has flowed well!!, “do you now feel settled in your new house,” to which we both responded “yes” – so the search has concluded and we’ve arrived at the end, with somewhere to hang the cheese safe and hopefully soon a French apple tree for the Moon Gazing Hare to sit under! And, in a way that’s the dilemma in a nutshell, do you get more of “we painted a wall yellow today”, or “we have finished reroofing the garage” (well ¾ before rain stopped play and Christmas arrived!) which after a bit could be rather repetitive, or do you get more of my “creative urges” that have been increasingly creeping in to the later missives, much to the chagrin of “her indoors” who against the norm, seems to admit to understanding me less the longer we are married, as well as frequently telling me I am becoming madder as time goes by!! Interestingly, as one who has perhaps strived over the years since leaving the “shy and retiring” phase behind, to be at great pains not to be classed as “normal”, whatever that may be, it is indeed music to my ears!

Hey, but this is all in danger of becoming rather maudlin, and after a very pleasant evening, admittedly the numbers rather reduced by the previous night’s storm; we were expecting about 19 people but many had spent a tiring day repairing the damage from the fierce winds and lashing rain of last night, and others were sadly struck down by seasonal ailments, such as one of our other neighbours who gave her apologies and said she was “cronky!” This meant we had only 4 (our immediate neighbours), but on the positive side meant we had lots to eat and drink!! We also had a most enjoyable three hours of craic and Christmas songs, in our recently finished lounge (with tiled floor, magnolia walls, painted wooden ceiling ...... – see what I mean!!), despite the original invitation being for an hour or so of Christmas songs outside under our outside lantern – the inclement weather put pay to that and we moved inside. For the record, the craic was exclusively in French, our English friends unable to come and the songs in a mixture of English and French with almost a bit of patois thrown in!!

But back to the maudlin, and using the computer’s thesaurus for another word, I’m amused to read an alternative word “sentimental,” with the rider “especially because affected by alcohol!!!” Which in true “creative urge” fashion links superbly with an obituary I have just been reading, on the BBC News Website, for Christopher Hitchens, maverick polemical (yes, I had to look that one up too – it means passionate arguementalist or critic – I’ve warmed to the man already but sadly he’s no longer with us!) journalist. One paragraph says: Wherever he was, he wrote and argued, smoked and drank prodigiously. Writing in Vanity Fair in 2003, he described his daily intake of alcohol as being enough "to kill or stun the average mule", noting that many great writers "did some of their finest work when blotto". So it might be the alcohol talking, although mulling the wine I’m told does do away with the alcohol, but there was also a bottle of Stroud Brewery “Budding” and the whisky came out as a digestif, much to the amusement of our guests, as in France its drunk copiously as an apertitif!! But, finally, I’m there after some 165,000 words, (top of the list of Lee Masterson’s Approximate Guideline for story lengths: Epics and Sequels – Over 110,000 words) – This is to be the last missive!!!

Well, now hearing the collective cries of anguish or celebratory cheers, that’s not actually true, instead there is to be a two for one special offer, with a new improved product!! Instead of one blog there is going to be two!! One will contain the “diary-like” entries, although hopefully not quite as mundane as watching paint dry, a bit of creativity and polemic comment might appear, for as you know I’m always on the lookout for new words and direction, but the second will hopefully satisfy my creative urge, with the two blogs giving people a choice – the mundane day to day, or the flights of fancy of an aging original, imaginative, inspired, artistic, inventive, resourceful, ingenious, innovative, productive (don’t you just love the on-line thesaurus!!) misunderstood madman!!! But then I’m reminded of a Salvador Dali quote “The only difference between me and a madman is that I'm not mad.” I rest my case!!

Suffice to say that the latter part of the last paragraph, gives you a small glimpse into what to expect in the other blog – name pending, but I’ll tell you in due course. In fact since I wrote this it has not only been christened but also launched under the title of Roger’s Creative Urge,” as I’ve creatively said “It does what it says on the tin!” That leaves me with one final dilemma, how to keep happy those people who for three years have approached the end of each month, with a heightened sense of expectancy and waited with baited breath for the next email missive or blog entry notification. I’m aware that that may only be one or two of you, but I feel I owe it to my adoring public not to let them down, so “Je vous propose...”

So as you don’t forget us, I will send you each a relatively short email, linking you to the two blogs and updating you on what the month’s offerings are. I will also attach up to two or three of the “articles” that have appeared during the month, a sort of mini-missive if you like, for the busy ones amongst you who understandably don’t have the time to trawl through what have become increasingly lengthy missives – then if the spirit takes you or something catches your eye, and time permits, you can go to the blog for the rest!

Interestingly, I have also had some people think that the hints from previous missives herald some major announcement, such as a move to Outer Mongolian or a new career in Brain Surgery! But, as you see nothing so drastic, just some minor changes to allow me to write and be creative as and when I want, rather than have a frantic rush to meet the 12 midnight deadline on the last day of the month, making sure that “her indoors” has time to proof read the material, or should that be edit!, before it wings its way to you through the ether! Although, I’m now to get a degree of editorial freedom, at least with “Roger’s Creative Urge”, she still wants to vet anything about her – and I’m always so complimentary and loving!!

And, as before if you would rather not receive said emails (and I promise I won’t be offended!) or would like someone else to receive them, just email me and let me know and I’ll do the necessary.

So from now on (here also are the links!):

http://ithappenedonethursdayinfebruary.blogspot.com

will continue to give you updates on our life in France, and be known as “It happened!” for short. And:

http://rogerscreativeurge.blogspot.com

which as I said above does, or in this case contains, what it says on the "tin!" and be known as “the Urge!” for short.

Or as the introduction to the second blog post says:

“Since my first “serious” dip into the written word (there was a trial run a couple of years before, really a glorified “Summer Diary”), a slim volume written in September 1995 for my Mum’s 70^th Birthday, entitled “Home for a Week” chronicling our family adventures on St Agnes, part of the Isles of Scilly archipelago, which also contained a number of poems and watercolour illustrations, I have “published” about 14 works, if you include the “It Happened One Thursday in February” missives and blogspot. Only three of these have been properly published; “Moonlit Guruji Travels”, “To Provence and Beyond” and “Feeding Fifty”, the rest printed and spiral bound by my own fair hand. Interestingly, the first blog post on this site “Memories” comes from the “trial run!”

Posts on this blog “Roger’s Creative Urge” will draw on some previously “published” works as well as new material and parts of what I call “works in progress.” This post is from one of the latter about an adventure made to Brazil by myself, my wife and my daughter, to celebrate our 25^th Wedding Anniversary, my wife’s 50^th Birthday and daughter’s 21^st Birthday – quite an auspicious year, as well as the last big holiday before our French Adventure, chronicled at great length in my other blog mentioned above. It will hopefully one day form part of a volume to be known as “Travels with a Mafia Boss, an Amazonian Indian and a KGB Officer”, but the chapter of that name will have to wait for another time – first things first, and first we had to go .............”

As a quick aside to this last point, the title of the Brazil Book could cause a flurry of activity, as my blogspot stats tell me I have quite a following in Russia, as well as visitors from countries as diverse as the USA (the largest number of views), the Netherlands, Slovenia, Iran and Chile, to name a few!!

So, what will become of some of the regular sections? ......

The House and the Garden! Will be covered by “articles” on the original blog.

Quilleham, Hammquille or Bouhenri This section will appear as clandestine “urges!” happen!

“Ici devant nous!” or “Clever Words” making a return Quite possibly in “It happened one Thursday in February” but who knows – really a case of where and when it fits in and possibly in a different guise!

My original “thought!” Could end up anywhere if I continue to have them!

But, just in case you thought you were getting away too lightly in this the last missive as you have come to know and love them, a final fling as it were!!

The House!

Well, really the garage and more importantly the tegula with a “tile” to tell! These tiles, or tegulae, are part of our house in the Vendée, and may well have been for up to three hundred years! At the moment I’m hoping we have enough, or can acquire some more to be able to complete the reroofing of the garage and barn!! Tiles like this, the same shape and colour, have been used since Roman times, the tapering shape apparently traditionally formed by shaping the flat clay over a thigh, but more of this later! But, it’s amazing that our house has a roof that would have been instantly recognised by someone 2000 years ago, but not sure what they would have made of the lavatorium (toilet) and sudatorium (shower) and other internal fittings!!

I’m sure that in Roman times the shaping of these tiles would have fallen to the woman, so to combat the boredom of removing the old tiles from the roof, I started to give the very different sizes and shapes different names, with due respect to Edward Berryman, who wrote the poem Cotswold Tiles later set to music by Johnny Coppin, immortalising the variety of names given to different sized Cotswold stone tiles, from which the refrain goes:

Long Day, Short Day, Moreday and Muffity,

           Lye-byes and Bottomers, each a name receives:
           Wivett, Beck, and Cussomes, Cutting, Third and Bachelor
           Smallest under roof-ledge, largest over eaves.

Here are my names, which I think in most cases are self-explanatory, but pictures can be supplied if needed!!

Lizzie Longstocking ~ thin and long

Big Bertha ~ broad, heavy but not that long

Leggie Linda ~ long and average width

Plain Jane ~ plain, quite small modern replicas
Ridged Rita ~ similar to Plain Janes but ridged underneath

Knobbly Nora ~ long and fairly thin but a knobbly knee at the end

Short Sharon ~ like a Big Bertha but lighter

American Broad ~ broad, long and brash
Boudicca ~ heavy and immense

I’m sure each of these tiles must have “A tile to tell”, so watch this space for future creative urges, which you may have gathered by now coincidentally reflects the title of my new blog: “Roger’s Creative Urge!” Well, I’ve got to do something to relieve the monotony and take my mind of the drop below!

I’m too handsome for direct.gov. uk (or the Passport Office)!

It’s really along the lines of that song by Right Said Fred, “I’m too sexy for my shirt!” but, I’m certainly not that bigheaded, despite the difficulty I have at times walking down the High Street in Stroud and forever having my bottom pinched – yes Brian you know who you are!!

Some of you will be aware that our recent trip to Angleterre, for the festive season, ran on a bit and to update those in the know and inform those of you who aren’t I’ll elaborate. Well, my passport was coming up for renewal in the summer and as Foreign Office advice is not to travel if you have less than six months of your passport to run and also legally needing to carry it all the times in France, as photo ID, we decided I would renew it when back in England for Christmas. Research on the internet suggested that a two to three week stay in the UK should be enough for the renewal and old passport to be sent and returned before travelling back, except at busy times such as the run up to the summer, when everyone suddenly realising that having booked their “run to the sun” they need a passport or their existing one is about to expire. So, with three clear weeks, admittedly with Christmas and New Year slightly in the way, it seemed a reasonably shot and if we missed the target we would have to change our return ferry booking.

We arrived at Daniel’s in Stroud on the Tuesday before Christmas, well in fact in the early hours of Wednesday, Daniel had fortunately been asked to collect a form from the Post Office prior to our arrival. I carefully read the notes on filling in the form for renewing your passport, filled in the three very brief sections and signed the declaration and attached two photos, which seemed to meet all the multitude of requirements and didn’t need signing by someone in authority, as a true likeness to me, as I looked remarkably similar to the previous picture from ten years previously – obviously the last three years have been kind to me and repaired the drawn and haggard features that being a Headteacher had firmly etched onto my visage! Then, bright and early the next morning, or later that morning for the pedantic amongst you!, we were at the main post office in Stroud, ready to catch the first post, which amazingly at 9.30 a.m. had already gone and was also the last post of the day!! Next day delivery, at modest expense, was called for, but as the form really was very straight forward for a simple renewal, we declined the offer of an official P.O. check, at great expense, to check we had signed within the allotted space et al! Secure in the knowledge that the passport would arrive next day, have two clear days to be processed, with a further three days the following week and a further week to be in on the safe side, Linda went to the dentist, we did some last minute Christmas shopping and went to meet up with friends for a coffee and a chat.

The Passport Office provide a email based tracking service, so I was able to confirm it had duly arrived and was being processed, and dismissed the ominous rider that current turnaround times were in excess of three weeks as nothing more than a standard blanket statement.

Christmas came and went, as did the New Year and still the tracking told me I was in the process of being processed – makes you sound a bit like a can of peas!! Then came the bombshell, I was no longer being processed but with a little less than a week to go before departure, my photo had been rejected and a letter was being set to me with stickers that needed to be attached to the envelope containing the new photos, to ensure they arrived on the right desk to speed processing, which could start again on receipt of the new photographs. Well, at this point we were still at my parents and not due to go to Stroud until a couple of days later, on Saturday, when we could pick up the stickers from our house, return the photos and wait for the new passport. First, I phoned the helpdesk and explained I was away from home, needed to travel as soon as possible, and was there any way I could return the photos without the stickers. As the answer to this was a no, they might end up going anywhere and taking a while to surface (instils confidence in our great British government!) we then rebooked the ferry for a week later, giving us time to pick up the stickers on Saturday, get the photos back in the post and give the Passport Office a further week to do its best! The helpline did however, reassure me that the photos were the last thing to be checked so everything else must have been alright, and I wouldn’t get any further delay.

Saturday came but the letter wasn’t there, so we ended up having to wait until Monday, fortunately our tenants were in on Monday so we didn’t have to wait for the evening, before despatching the photos in the box outside the sorting office with multiple and frequent collections throughout the day! All eventualities covered but about a week before our new sailing, once more the waiting and tracking started, and amazingly by the Thursday I had been processed and dispatched and needed to allow up to four to five days not including Sunday for courier delivery, which on the face of it was potentially two days too little! But, someone was on our side as the passport arrived on the Monday in time for us to get the rebooked night crossing from Portsmouth later that evening – drama over or so we thought! Suffice to say that about an hour out from Le Havre, the ship’s power went off and just emergency lighting took over and after a while the Captain announced that although we were safe, something he was at pains to reiterate several times, it being just a few days after the terrible cruise liner tragedy in the Mediterranean, we were drifting whilst the engineers tried to rectify the power problem that had caused the engine to stop!! Repairs were not immediately forthcoming so we ended up dropping anchor and arriving some two and a half hours late but safe.

Oh, and I nearly forgot, why did the passport photo not meet the statutory requirements? I’d like you to believe that the passport office just couldn’t believe I was so handsome, until they’d had a further photo to prove it, but in reality it was because my head was too big!! You can imagine what ‘er indoors made of that, but maybe, that was just their excuse! What had perhaps made us come unstuck was that we had used a French photo booth, with no idiot guide to where to put your head, eyes etc!!

Just to wind up, the new passport is a new generation digital version, with improved security features that interestingly seem to nigh on obliterate the small headed picture of me, but apparently modern technology can bring up a full sided, large headed version of my digital photo simply by inserting it into a computer gadget and then they can see me in all my splendour – warts and all!!! As happens, I also got my old passport back, with various corners cut off to show it had terminated, but on flicking through it, I was amazed at all the stamps and visa it included: New York City, Malta, India, Brazil and Argentina, and each of those places have had stories to tell, some already “published” others waiting for the “Urge” to grab me!!

Oh! and, a final “Original Thought” or two!!:

A good friend once said to me “Life’s too short for stuffing mushrooms!” But, “I’d rather cook an omelette or even stuff mushrooms than cook the books!” For those in the know think LMS et al!!

“Intercourse is more rife in France than in England!” Social intercourse that is – bonjours et ca va’s and multiple kisses for everyone vs snatched ‘ellos, alrights and curt nods, if you’re lucky or know the person extremely well!! Kissing does however present something of a problem, not only who to kiss but how many and which cheek to start on. I usually go for two starting on the recipient’s right cheek, but occasionally sense that it should have been three. Four it seems is reserved for family members or very good friends, unless with them French Kissing is the order of the day, and any more seems to be for Parisians – hiss, spit ...... as they do in these parts at the mention of anyone from Paris!!

Perhaps the thought above, reflects a different attitude to family life in France, where the in-laws are called “belle-famille!”

**********************************************

I’ll monitor how things go and may make changes over time, and in the meantime would welcome any suggestions, preferably polite!, as to what improvements / changes people would like to see or general comments on the new format. Or ...... indeed it would be good just to hear from you and catch up on your news and “bookings” are being taken for 2012 and you don’t need to bring a paintbrush – honest!!! Unless of course you are feeling creative and want to capture the tranquillity of our new hamlet in a painting!!

With Kind regards, Best Wishes and Love, at the end of an era!!!!!!!

Roger and Linda

And, to follow ...... Watch this space! – you didn’t think you had got away with it that lightly!

Missive 35 ~ The Forgotten Chapter!!

2011-12-30T21:52:00.003+01:00

30 December 2012

rogerhiggs@hotmail.co.uk

Mes chers amis

The Forgotten Chapter!! ~ Missive 35

“The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time.”
Friedrich Nietzsche

“Forgetfulness is a form of freedom.”
Khalil Gibran

Amongst lots more, this missive includes:

The Forgotten Chapter! ~ Chapter 6

As Khalil Gibran says above, “Forgetfulness is a form of freedom.” Well, it’s hard to imagine how I forgot what happened next, but I will be fairly brief in this chapter as it could become slightly repetitive and could well be subtitled; Boxes, Food, Boxes, Food and more bl..dy Boxes and Food. But, as I’m writing this I’m free to do as I choose!

After the incredibly busy and as you heard in the last chapter tearful, end of term, a thorough and intense sorting out of my office and a fairly relaxing Christmas. There came the final handing over of the school keys and the actual end of an era; played out in rather like an old black and white cold war spy movie as I left the deserted and without children rather desolate building, locked the door that clucked shut behind us, walked across the bleak windswept, deserted, leaf strewn playground and got into my car and drove out of the gate, parking outside to clang the gate shut and to lock the large padlock, before handing over the package (keys) and solemnly driving off (and yes there was another tear in the eye at the finality of no longer being in charge!), into the cold grey winter dusk!! O.K! I admit this is a slightly fanciful reworking of part of the last chapter, but it does help to set the scene!

Then, there was the annual New Year bash and second Christmas in York with Linda’s family, before returning home for the start of, no I was going to say term, but suddenly beginnings and ends of term have lost their significance and no more will I be irritated by the “Back to School” displays that appear in all the shops (yes, and it also happens in France where Rentrée is emblazoned everywhere!!!) during the week before term ends for the summer hols!! And, now we’re back to the end of the last chapter, with snow on the ground, waking up just as whistles would be blowing, or bells ringing, in school playgrounds the length and breadth of the country, and getting ready for a peaceful lunch with my Mum and Dad.

However, the more astute amongst you will have noticed that, with thought of shrill whistles and clanging bells ringing in my ears, I did mention that it would have been good to have turned over and gone back to sleep, as I had been “sorting and packing until two o’clock in the morning!?!” Now that’s your first hint about boxes! Yes, work had finished only to be replaced by a relentless and time-limited occupation – sorting out and packing up our life from the last twenty odd years or so, as although we had only moved into The Parrot House some 14 years previously, we only moved from down the road and at a very busy time of our lives, so everything had been picked up and moved with precious little time for sorting! So, to empty most of the house, put as little into paid storage as possible, whilst still storing some things at our Bath Road house; in the attic, the annexe and the garage and undertake a complete declutter, indeed carry out an “extreme makeover” in time for potential new tenants at the beginning of February, involved lots and lots of boxes, as well as trips to: the tip, charity shops and recycling banks (clothes, shoes, and books etc) and as the boxes mounted and the newspaper for packing dwindled, we even found ourselves raiding the paper banks and bringing recycling back into the house!! It’s only when you have to do it that you realise just how much stuff you accumulate over the years, and by the end of the process we had vowed never to buy any more stationary, clothes, shoes, crockery or kitchen utensils, unless replacing something that had worn out – we have actually failed on probably all those fronts, but have been very careful and selective – honestly!!

So, with me working relentlessly at the sorting and the packing (10 in the morning until 2 the following morning most days, with very little time off for good behaviour!) and Linda helping as much as she could, with a very busy last month at work – I don’t think ever before had she worked so many shifts in such a short space in time!, we just managed to finish everything including the cleaning of the house, by the end of the first week in February. This left just enough time to spend a few days with my Mum and Dad, before setting off on our adventure, despite being nearly thwarted by heavy snow and overwhelming kindness!! The latter is the first clue as to the Food mention in the suggested subtitle above!

Before the food course, looking back at my diary brings a somewhat incredulous smile to the face as I look back at January 2009, with the first entry being “Today started the first day of the rest of my life” and for a few days there are quotes about time and travel, but that was before we returned from York and most of the days after that mention Boxes, although amazingly we did by the end of January, manage to redecorate the dining room, put the furniture into storage, show a few prospective tenants around (although it was to be six months before anyone actually moved in!) and Linda managed to work ten nights, and I joked that I seemed to be working night and day and it all revolved around boxes.

But, we did have to eat (The Food Course!) and the freezer came in very handy, as it was reasonably stocked to avoid too many shopping trips as we emptied it. Then, there came the overwhelming kindness, as people realised that our departure was imminent and thinking that once we were gone that was it, never to be seen again (how wrong they were, we keep turning up like the proverbial bad pennies!!), and the invites to go out for dinner flooded in. In the end, during our last two and a half weeks in Stroud we went out no fewer than eight times and six of these were in the last nine days, four on consecutive days! And, on at least one occasion we went out early and then Linda went on to work! So, not only were we well fed, so full some days that we had to go home afterwards and pack some more boxes to let the food settle before bed (as well as being in danger of running out of time), humbled by people’s kindness, but we also ended up with rather more left in the freezer than expected and ended up making up food parcels for just about anyone we saw, and ate very well when we final left, having slept the last night on the floor as the bed and everything else had gone, and went to stay at my parents for a few days of farewell, my brother and his family even managing a flying visit.

Then, all of a sudden it was a one way ticket to France with a very laden car and caravan, and the beginning of the rest of the adventure and indeed the first missive, so the rest has already been said! But funnily enough writing this now three years down the line, it’s quite funny as we possibly see more of some of our family and friends, at least in terms of quality time, than we did before because now we’re not rushing and trying to fit everything into the space left after work, eating and sleeping! The “voyage dans l'inconnu” or “voyage into the unknown,” had started in earnest, and its back to Missive one for the beginning! Leaving much behind, including a group of Year 6’s who would in due course make their own voyages into the unknown, and whilst, for a while worrying about the agonies that some of them would face during SATS (Standardised Assessment Tests) Week, relief I wouldn’t be around to witness this and an element of relief that there was a growing groundswell of feeling against this testing regime, with further worries about what might replace them, such feelings lingered for a while. I was also reminded of one of my many moral issues over education and it’s overreliance on testing, whilst feeling that it doesn’t follow that a “Level 5” child is better than one who scores “Level 4,” as it is really more complex than that and much depends on where they came from in the first place! However, OFSTED (Office for Standards in Education would have us believe a “Level 5” school is better than a “Level 4” school, simplistic maybe but so often it simply came down to scores without looking underneath the figures and here I don’t just mean progress, I’m thinking emotional baggage and the like, and before emotions start to run too high, I guess I should point out that it is my intention never again to mention OFSTED, unless of course they make inane statements along the lines of “All teachers should power dress” – the gist of a recent proclamation, so it might be a difficult intention or resolution to keep!!! Or as one anonymous person put it: Many people look forward to the New Year for a new start on old habits!” So I best not make any promises!

The House!

Well, since the last missive it has been largely roofing for me and shutters for Linda with a little demolition, window frame making, hole filling, ceiling cleaning, floor tiling and pipe boxing (the sejour, or lounge, is all but finished) and a list of other minor jobs that all go towards the whole. We are now estimating, perhaps not counting those little finishing off / cosmetic jobs in the “finished rooms” that we have probably finished 75% of the inside of the house and in 3 – 6 months the bulk will be finished with the next year or two snagging, finishing off and cosmetic bits!!

So work continues apace, although I’m writing this now in the UK resting and enjoying the festive season. But, the longer we are in residence in our new French abode the more we are having to use French, this time to real people instead of the neighbouring Charolais cattle near the previous house, all our new immediate neighbours are French people who don’t speak English, and our nearest neighbours over the “road” have lots of visitors many of whom stop to chat before knocking on their door. Some of these visitors have also called to see us, one definitely parking in our bit rather than on the neighbour’s; on the couple of occasions he has called. The first time we were sitting outside having just finished our dinner, one balmy late summer evening, and he pulled in purposefully by our gate and strode into the courtyard, proffered his hand and proceeded to lend us an electronic Universal Translator to help us with our French. He had been visiting the neighbours a few days previously, we’d had a conversation and struggled for a word and he’d thought of the translator, fished it out when he got home and brought it

There was also the ex-mayor and his wife who called over the road, found they were not in and seeing us at work on the garage roof came over interested to see what we were doing and ended up having a conducted tour of the outside work, then the house and stopped for a coffee, whilst telling us about their family. Again, all the conversation was in French, but showing we understand and can speak a little French, they then speak far too quickly and if we puzzled over something, in true “Englishman abroad” fashion they shouted it a bit louder!!

Just prior to this, at the annual meeting of the leisure committee, we had met the same gentleman who remembered not recognising us at the local DIY shop some weeks before. I had walked passed him and said hello, and although he replied it was obvious he didn’t recognise me, but on turning the corner and seeing Linda our faces fell into place and he quickly came back into my aisle and shook hands and made amends! This evening he wasn’t going to be caught out and came straight over to talk to us and indeed reminded us of the day he hadn’t recognised us. He then talked about how we had moved to our new house and how quiet our hamlet was, to which I replied, much to their amusement, that at the moment it was even quieter as our neighbours opposite were away. I didn’t add that as the neighbours are both a little deaf they have the habit of shouting at one another and indeed do have the occasional exchange of “angry” words!! But, subsequently we found out he is madam’s cousin so I’m sure knows just how they are! He added still laughing, that if they were away we must be the guardians of the hamlet, similarly knowing that as matriarchs of the hamlet our neighbours miss nothing and have a certain guardianship of the area!

These kindly neighbours also recently arranged an apéro (early evening drinks and nibbles) for all the hamlet to welcome us, although it went on fairly late and we were very grateful we had prepared our evening meal before we went, as it was almost bedtime when we had eaten our dinner. A great evening was had by all, again in French, and perhaps more of this another time. However, it was a little disconcerting that whenever those that knew him mentioned the previous owner of our house, they referred to him as “spéciaux” and we were in danger of thinking he would be a hard act to follow, until we realised that in fact they were saying special needs!! The fact that every time he was mentioned the sentence was accompanied by a gesture of the first finger pointing at their temple and drawing little circles, should have been enough of a clue as to the gentleman’s state of mind. There were certainly signs of madness in some of the things that he had done in the house!

The New Year will see the work continue, hopefully the garage roof finished off and the downstairs bedroom / en-suite started and finished in time for our first visitors of the year and the new fosse septique (septic tank) is due to go in in mid-February, weather and rock permitting – then hopefully the odd unpleasant whiffs will disappear in time for the summer!

In the village of Hammquille ...... Le homme avec le pinceau

A nearby holiday cottage is being put to bed for the winter, and perhaps rather surprisingly has just had a new coat of paint, just in time for the ravages of winter to set to work. It might, I felt, have been better to wait for the spring and refresh the paintwork then, but I guess we’re doing the same and painting our shutters, the only difference being that ours had already been ravaged by time and without Linda sanding them down, raking out some bits of rotten wood, applying wood hardener and wood filler, before the lengthy process of an undercoat and three top coats to one side, before turning them over and starting all over again!, there may not have been any shutters there to paint after another winter. That and the need to stamp our mark and make the outside reflect all the hard work inside!

So, enough of us and back to the holiday cottage and enter a local peintre et décorateur, yes you’ve got it the man with the paintbrush!! Well, from the first day he arrived to the last time I saw him he appeared to have a thin and seemingly rather soggy cigarette permanently stuck to his bottom lip, but never appearing to produce any smoke, and also seemed to spend much of his time going backwards and forwards to somewhere, perhaps his house, unit or indeed another job. He would arrive early enough, make contact with the owners for the latest lowdown, not it seems instructions about what needed doing next, but rather catching up on all the gossip, a very French phenomena and one that I found myself thinking about the other day. Do they, the workmen and artisans, factor into their working day “Social Intercourse Time,” the acronym for which you might notice is “SIT!” Not all this time is spent sitting, often it is standing next to the car, conversing in very loud voices, which as the French have a habit of “starting” work very early, can be a little annoying if you’re having a lie in!!, but there are times to be seated, but more of those later. My musings also wondered if “devis” (quotes) allow for this time, particularly if they are being worked out at an hourly rate! Then, I thought about our own artisans who, in really quite a short time rewired and replumbed our new house, and stopped only fairly briefly for lunch and didn’t once have a tea break, just a swig on the move, of water or coke, when the weather was particularly hot. The difference I decided was that these artisans were working for a large company, didn’t work Monday mornings and did a standard 35 hour week, those working for themselves work longer hours but perhaps have “SIT” factored in as well as having 2 hour lunch breaks!

The surprising thing about this particular artisan with his paintbrush, cigarette and frequent trips to fetch things, was that he actually got lots of work done despite appearances to the contrary and quickly the shutters and window and door frames were repainted, a similar but rather brighter green which when only half done didn’t seem as pleasant a colour as before, but once finished was pleasant enough and will tone down in time. But back to “SIT” and fairly quickly the artisan was enticed into the cave (cellar) of our neighbour for a midday drink or two, so hopefully the work done in the afternoon was as carefully done as that in the morning!! Maybe the cigarette was never lit because of the paint fumes, or could it have been the alcohol fumes!!

So although starting early and finishing late, there was included each day a good degree of “me” time, even despite the fact he was a self employed person. Therefore, it was a little surprising to see him turn up on Bank Holiday Monday, but it quickly became apparent that, true to form, he had left something behind and had come to collect it, but was taking some time contacting the neighbours, as they were out and about in the enormous garden. Having finally tracked down monsieur, the first thing they did was to retreat to the cave for a Bank Holiday drink, so I was never sure if it was a forgotten paintbrush or responding to a friendly “If ever you’re passing call in for a drink!” Maybe it was the gîte shutters being painted that spurred Linda on to do ours, but then the neighbours started looking at theirs, but if it becomes a case of “keeping up with the Jones” as far as gardens go it’s going to be difficult – theirs is immaculate!

“Ici devant nous!”

Our outlook has changed, a row of some twenty or thirty very tall poplar trees, that marched boldly down the banks of the Riviere Sauvegere (Sauvegere Stream), upstream from our house, and heavily hung by huge and numerous gigantic spheres of mistletoe – which doesn’t have the same significance as in the UK, have been cut down. It could have easily been a case of mobilising the troops and chaining ourselves to the trees to protect them from unscrupulous chainsaw welding lumberjacks, but in reality the trees were coming to the end of their lives and could easily have been blown down in the next significant gale, which coincidentally came only a couple of weeks after they were felled.

We found out that some of the trees were owned by a nearby chateau owner, a Frenchman who works in the City of London but spends quite a lot of time in France or his other property in Greece and who, knowing the trees needed felling was watching timber prices and they had gone up to an acceptable price. Amazingly we were told the timber was destined for Italy, when asked if it was for the furniture industry, the owner laughed and said no it was rubbish wood that would probably be turned into camembert boxes – I couldn’t quite work out the economy of this!!, but the man from the City is obviously a shrewd businessman and certainly wasn’t doing it as a health and safety exercise to stop the trees falling on someone!

Fortunately, although our outlook has changed considerably, there are sufficient other trees for it not look too stark and we will probably find we get a longer evening of sunshine, particularly in the summer, although the sun has been conspicuous in its absence over the last month! But, there’s another issue here of course, without all that mistletoe the kissing will stop, and at the Christmas period as well, that we’re blaming on that most romantic of cultures, the Italians!

My original “thought!”

It’s happening by stealth and default! One of the good things about living as we do in France, is that routine has gone out of the window with no things on set days, or to be precise, as Linda has now started French conversational lessons on Thursday afternoon, we swim on Friday and put out the rubbish on a Sunday night routine is well spread out, by choice or quite minimal in its demands!

But, due to stealth and default, it is beginning to change! Having moved from the middle of nowhere, to a sleepy hamlet there are now at least people around, at present with us seven full time residents, which makes it worthwhile for travelling trades people to call, most fortunately at a reasonable hour, so if we are about we can buy bread or mussels (summer time only). However, a different Bread Van calls on a Monday morning and a Milk Van (raw milk scooped straight from the churn) on a Tuesday morning and both come earlier than I am sometimes up, so I’m trying to make sure I am up and just a glimmer of a routine is slipping in or emerging! In fact, I must stop writing here for a moment as it is Tuesday morning and I can hear the peep of the Milk Van, announcing its arrival!

Kind regards, Best Wishes and Love,

Roger and Linda

and ... A Happy and Prosperous New Year to everyone

And, next time, in Missive 36 ~ The times they are a changing........

Christmas Missive 2011

2011-12-07T00:23:00.002+01:00

Roger and Linda Higgs

FRANCE

Christmas Missive December 2011

Dear All

Amazingly, it’s that time of year again and as always no apologies about the “round robin” nature of this missive, it’s like the paint tin – it does what it says a communication at Christmas to tell you what we’ve been doing – without it you might not get to know!! Sadly, we had hoped that this year would be free from bereavements, but at the very end of last year Linda’s Auntie Eileen died quite suddenly and another good warden friend also sadly died.

But, I guess the really big news for us this year, is that we have finally bought a house (above, view of hamlet below), dint of the house in York being sold and me becoming a pensioner!! Early, I hasten to add with a useful lump sum attached! Since signing the initial documents for the house back in March and being given permission, by the vendors, to start work on the garden – a veritable jungle with a multitude of chicken and rabbit sheds, constructed with wire netting, concrete slabs, corrugated tin, rolls of wire (some barbed), staples, bent nails – a cross really between a Heath Robinson construction and Fort Knox and certainly not designed to come down. After about 10 weeks of solid work on the garden, sometimes in temperatures of over 30˚ and with the odd large snake for company, and a little time off for good behaviour, we completed on the deal at the end of June. We then spent the next couple of months having the electrics and plumbing renewed by local artisans, whilst we proceeded to make as much of it habitable as possible. We then moved in at the end of August, somewhat wistfully leaving La Loge behind – we had had a great 2 ½ years there. Since moving with the odd day off and a holiday in the UK, we have continued with what is probably a 2 year restoration programme on house / outbuildings / garden 350 sq m and as often happens in France another large plot of land (1000 sq m) about a kilometre (about 0.6 miles) from the house, next to an enormous flooded quarry and a small beautifully tended vineyard, unfortunately our plot is a long and narrow jungle, untended for many years! So we’ve had a very busy year and learnt a variety of DIY and hard-labour skills we didn’t know before as well as finding various muscles that we didn’t know existed – it seems that every job uses a different set of muscles and just when you hone one lot you change jobs!!

We have also had three visits back to the UK, on one occasion flying in for a party, as one does! Well, actually we were also meeting the latest addition to the family – Maisy, Philip (Linda’s nephew) and Cheryl’s new daughter. We managed three weeks away in the caravan in February, going south to Biarritz, Lourdes and Perpignan (from where we got to visit Salvador Dali’s amazing house at Portlligat just over the border into Spain) to chase the sun and had amazing early spring weather. Then there have been the usual visitors, including my Mum and Dad who came back with us from the UK on two occasions and then flew back to the UK afterwards, most of which came after we had started the purchasing process, so were able to see the house at least from the outside and some of the more recent ones have been set to work!! My Mum and Dad supervised!! And, “Le Tour” de France came very close and caused much excitement and was over in barely the turn of a bicycle wheel!!

Briefly, the rest of the family: Daniel and Lisa joined us last Christmas in France for a brief first visit and continue to live in Stroud and lead very busy lives with work and St John Ambulance – Daniel is now the Unit Leader for Stroud Division and Lisa runs the Badgers (Cub Scout age!). Daniel is now trying to get on a Teacher Training course next year, as when all said and done, he is, without the planning and marking, already doing a very similar job.

Victoria and Dermot are still in Plymouth, he has just had an extension for a year on his current submarine and Victoria very successfully completed her Teacher Training, getting “head hunted” for a job at the school she was doing her final placement in. The job is going really well, and she is sorting out the Geography Department (something the Head of Geography wanted her to do!!) and working with an Assistant Head who used to teach at her secondary school, Archway, in Stroud who knows many of our friends from Stroud – isn’t it a small world!!! She also, has got involved with D. of E. and various Outdoor Activities. They’re off at the end of term, with Tyler, to Disneyworld L.A. for Christmas, having visited us back in the summer. Victoria’s wanderlust continues, she also managed to visit Iceland on a Teacher’s visit and their trip list for next year is looking quite impressive!!

Well, Joyeuse Fêtes as they say in France, cuts out the Christmas and New Year greetings and quite simply means Happy Holidays! As before this is a brief Family Christmas Missive for “more” visit the blog http://ithappenedonethursdayinfebruary.blogspot.com/ and find out about the changes that are happening.

Love from

Roger and Linda

Missive 34 ~ Reality, the end of the beginning!!

2011-11-29T23:50:00.004+01:00

29^th November 2011

Dear All

Sorry, but attached is the longest missive to date - Missive 34, please don’t be put off by the size, as it’s in easy sections!!

Basically, there are things that needed saying and with changes afoot after the next couple of missives (watch this space!), I need to get it in now!

However at 7794 words, the website I’ve just been looking at will tell you it just nudges over the 7500 word upper limit for a short story, thus making it the length of a very short novelette the upper limit of which is 20000!!!

Love

Roger

rogerhiggs@hotmail.co.uk

Mes chers amis

Reality, the end of the beginning!! ~ Missive 34

“Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.”

John Lennon

“One person’s craziness is another person’s reality.”

Tim Burton

“Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.”
Søren Kierkegaard

It's short sighted not to view the education of a future generation of Americans

as a priority for all Americans.
Mel Martinez

This missive includes the end of the beginning, if that’s not a contradiction of terms, but in this case the last chapter from the first section before we set off on our “voyage dans l'inconnu” or “voyage into the unknown.” But as you’ll see in the section below “Not PC for FC!” we’re a long way along the voyage now!

However, as the last quote doesn’t seem to fit in, and apologies it’s from across the pond but equally apt, I should explain. As many of you will know, Gloucestershire County Council in their wisdom; well with narrow minded, short sighted, money grabbing, ill thought through, short term, intentions if not indeed rank stupidity with a total disregard for the wonderful work that has been done before and could have been successfully and memorably continued for generations to come, have closed The Wilderness and Plump Hill Outdoor Education Centres. Sorry it’s a bit of a rant but once these places go they won’t return, like public libraries, and the crux of it is the world will be a worst place without them.

This missive is therefore dedicated to this tragic loss, although there does remain a glimmer of hope that the Friends of the Wilderness Centre (www.friendsofthewildernesscentre.org) may stop the disaster. But in dedication to this wonderful place, I reproduce below part of the dedication and introduction of another project I am working on, that for me, brings back the magic of this amazing place, that has over the years given countless children incredible experiences, that may well be lost to generations to come – shame on the present County Council and let’s hope that the perpetrators are soon left wandering in the political wilderness.

To Gino

for

listening and ...

asking the question

You may wonder who Gino is, and hopefully if he were to read this now; firstly he would recognise himself and remember the occasion and secondly, as he’ll now be grown up, he’ll forgive the slight deception, but read on and “All will be revealed” as they say!!

“On the second evening, (of our storytelling residential at The Wilderness) there were more stories to tell and we were asked if we would like to use the Anglo Saxon house, where we could light a fire and try to keep warm – I forgot to mention that the trip was during a particularly cold and frosty February, with night time temperatures plummeting well below freezing. But, the thought of sitting in an Anglo Saxon house, warmed at least on the front, with the flames of the fire casting eerie shadows amongst the rafters was too good an opportunity to miss, at least for a short while, before returning for a warming cup of cocoa and bed!

Gino’s Night

At the appointed hour, well wrapped up against the piercing cold, we took our torches and ventured out into the night. The moon was full, and being still low in the sky seemed magnified and cast an almost warming light, had it not been so perishingly cold! The sky was completely clear of clouds, but as the moon was yet to reach its brightest, there were quite a multitude of stars twinkling in the cold night air, just visible through our own clouds caused by the animated party breathing out and chattering excitedly.

The route took us through a dark piece of woodland, down a short track, which had the ground not been turned to iron by the deep frost, would have been quite muddy, through a wooden gate and onto the field in which the wooden house had been built and now, despite the dark, stood out sharply in the moonlight as well as being silhouetted by the distant lights of Gloucester town. The true majesty of the scene unveiled itself as we crossed the field; as the moon hung low in the sky above the silvery line of the far off river, etched along its length by the moonlight, which underneath the moon turned the river into a golden pathway – who needed an Anglo Saxon house, with the flames of the fire causing shadows to dance magically around the rafters, surely the scene before us was inspiration enough, but it was mighty cold and the thought of at least a little warmth from the promised fire was too much to resist and had us fumbling, with the all too modern key to unlock the heavy wooden door.

Inside, was some respite from the cold, as it at least stops a gentle breeze, that you almost didn’t realise was there until being sheltered from it made you realise that icy fingers were no longer creeping into any tiny chink in your cold weather armour! The Centre staff had left a fire made up in the central hearth, ready for a match to hopefully make it spring into life, the paper ignite the kindling and kindling catch the bigger sticks and logs from which the warmth would, with a bit of luck, emanate. Despite my cynicism, quite quickly we had a reasonable blaze and even a little warmth, or was it simply that the mind being a powerful thing, equates flames with heat!! Sorry more cynicism, but actually the springing of the fire to life, magically transformed the interior of the house we now sat in and I for one was transported back in time!! Having not been in the house before it was interesting to use the firelight and torches to look around and discover what seemed to be a very faithful reproduction of an Anglo Saxon dwelling, complete with; primitive furniture, cooking pots and utensils and a sleeping platform above where no doubt the families animals would have slept, perhaps adding a little warmth as well as an odour or two!! Now animals of a different kind inhabited the space and most of them seemed to appreciate at least something of the magic of the place – certainly a stark contrast to warm cosy homes that seemed a million miles, as well as nearly a thousand years away, but in reality, which almost seemed to have been suspended, were only a few miles and less than an hour over the river!

Some of magic rubbed of and having viewed our surrounding, one or two stories from our visit’s work were shared, the atmosphere of the place adding a certain something to even the humblest of offering and the flickering flames helping to add expression and animation to the plainest of faces. A good time was being had by all , and then the bubble burst, when some bright spark, one of the animals (sorry children) not something from the fire, found a small piece of raw wool lying abandoned from the weaving that a previous group visiting the house had done, and wondered if it would burn!! You might think that said miscreant was Gino, but not so! He might similarly know who he is and at this particular point was far from popular, as we discovered that wool does indeed burn and produces the most foul smelling thick acrid smoke that despite efforts to remove it from the fire or at least remove the choking smoke, by opening the door, proved unsuccessful and we were forced to abandon the relative warmth of the house and sit instead on the logs outside, bathed now in brighter but no warmer moonlight taking in once again the splendour of the crystal clear and sparkling night hoping that given a short time the air in the house might clear enough for us to return. As it was taking its time and indeed so awful was the stench that an early return seemed unlikely; so enjoying the spinning of a good yard myself and certainly inspired by the location, I quietly asked the assembled crowd who had now almost stopped haranguing the wool burner, whether they would like me to tell a story, to which there was general agreement, as my assembly stories usually met with approval.

Having made the offer, I had to think quickly; a story I already knew sprang to mind, but there was a danger that I may have told it them before and so interest might be lost or the story wouldn’t reflect the splendour of our surrounding (would “How the leopard got its spots” or “Three Billy Goats Gruff” work sitting outside on a freezing cold February night?) or should it be a new one, premiered on this night inspired by the surroundings. Due to the storytelling theme for the visit, it really had to be the latter, so I launched into a story at the time with no idea where the journey would take me, and in nautical terms, well I had launched into the story, sailing very close to the wind!

To buy myself a little time to think, I started to tell the children about the previous Anglo Saxon inhabitants of the house, made up names and talked about how they lived a simple life, that was until a handsome prince happened by and became transfixed by the beauty of daughter of the house and in an instance vowed to marry her – you know the sort of thing, and had by now the children not become huddled and enthralled, it might there and then ended happily ever after. But no, there needed to be more and the daughter, bolshie by nature, was having none of this being taken out of simple, poor life to live in some posh guys jewel encrusted palace, with servants at her beck and call! Well, it called for a journey, a quest, to incur various hardships and danger to bring back some small token, to prove to the beautiful peasant girl that he truly loved her and it wasn’t just some short-lived whim!!

The story wove its way through many a traditional storyline, the journey involving the meeting of various people who bestowed various gifts on the Prince, not immediately useful, but surprisingly useful when later he faced some adversary and needed a quick fix, again I’m sure you know the sort of thing – a phial of liquid smashed to the ground that becomes a raging torrent of water washing away everything and certainly any pursuer, far far away.

The upshot was that he did prove his love and after a sumptuous, but rather truncated wedding ceremony, the couple did live happily ever after. Why, I hear you ask did the prince stint on the wedding celebrations? Well, suddenly that nip in the air I mentioned earlier found its way through a chink and I suddenly realised that the log I was sitting on had mysteriously turned to ice – but that’s another story. The children, including a couple who had been lulled off to sleep, were although still thoroughly engrossed and proving to totally belie the description of the class as “a lively bunch!” were in fact beginning to turn blue and in desperate need of a warming cup of cocoa and a cosy bed. A quick look at my watch told me that the journey we had just been on together had gone on for the best part of an hour – not surprising that I couldn’t feel my feet, and other parts of my anatomy as we cajoled the weary children back to the Centre, reality and warmth!

You might be forgiven for thinking that the piercing cold had numbed the children into submission and had it not been for a conversation I had with one of the children who had sat very close to me, mesmerised by the intricacies of the story, as we made our way back across the field, trying to force some life back into our frozen limbs, I might have thought the same:

The conversation went something like this:

“Mister ‘iggs?”

“Yes Gino?”

“How did you remember all that long story?”

I was just about to say “Well actually I made the whole thing up as I went along!” when, in the moonlight I saw Gino’s face looking up at me, and just managed to stop myself from spoiling the moment and with just a touch of deception said:

“Years of practice Gino!”

To which he replied, with a certain amount of wonderment:

“Oh!”

Now you know and at the time he was none the wiser!! And once again, sorry Gino!

February 2010

I also have a lot to thank them for, as without overcoming my worried, nay fears, about enclosed spaces and heights, whilst caving and abseiling with The Wilderness Centre – really a combination of great friendly encouraging instructors and feeling that I couldn’t ask the children to do something I wasn’t prepared to do myself has meant that I could, albeit with the odd nightmare, clear out and put new insulation in our tiny loft space, as graphically portrayed in an earlier missive and now I’m spending lots of time up a ladder and up on the roof, but more of that later!!

Reality! ~ Chapter 5

The last chapter, Winding Down, you may remember didn’t quite get to the end. There was one final afternoon to get through before it really was “reality” and whatever emotions that might bring!

Traditionally, the end of the Christmas Term was an afternoon of festive fun, with carols, Christmas songs and poems and readings, to which parents and friends were invited and was another thing to organise on my “to do” list. The staff were always great, at this incredibly busy time, at getting the children to practise the songs, but I traditionally sorted out the programme, readers, seating etc etc. But this year it had been more difficult, not so much because of everything else that was going on, but it was really difficult to pin everyone down to what they were doing, what songs were being offered and the like, so I could draw up the programme – but with a little badgering I just managed to get it together at the eleventh hour, and so we were all in the hall – the children, the staff and a good number of parents and friends, everything was organised and I started my final event, playing a not particularly seasonal song , a poem called “The Roads Go Down” by Gloucestershire poet Frank Mansell and set to music by Johnny Coppin an amazing singer-songwriter from Gloucestershire. Why this song, well it was the song I had first played in a Moat Primary School assembly, when I had amalgamated (with a great deal of help from a very dedicated, hard working and focussed bunch of people) the previous two schools – infant and junior and I admit there was a catch in my voice as I explained the reason for playing it, but the show was on the road and I pulled myself together.

But why this particular song, well perhaps the first verse will explain, as I was moving from a Headship up in the Stroud valleys to one in the big county town!?:

The roads go down to Gloucester town

And Severn seeks the sea;

But what road leads where I’d be gone,

What river flows to thee?

Rather apt at the time I felt and now seven and a half years later, with other roads about to be travelled, a necessary albeit difficult choice as the memories flooded back with the melody, but I had my programme or running order and all I had to do was announce each item and sit back and enjoy! As the last notes of the song faded, I rose to my feet and started to announce the first item, only to be somewhat forcibly interrupted by my Deputy Head, Ann, saying that actually that wasn’t what was going to happen and for once I had to sit down, listen and only speak at the right time. Having worked with her for so long she knew me so well, and for once it seemed appropriate, as it would be the first and last time, to roll over like a pussy cat and do as I was told, albeit somewhat difficult!!

I was then shown to a chair, no ordinary chair I hasten to add, but a beautifully carved Eisteddfod chair a family heirloom from Ann’s house and I sat back and enjoyed, marvelled and squirmed a little as there followed a series of presentations including such items as a French beret, a string of onions and a French Flag amongst others, and then speeches, songs, a rap which I had to join in and poems, all hugely enjoyable, somewhat emotional and certainly very memorable as I sit here writing this amazingly about three years down the line. But it wasn’t all over then, as for the finale, the lights dimmed and a DVD started, called simply “Roger Higgs and Moat School” consisting of a slide show of the highlights of my time at Moat, including many of the varied events that everyone threw themselves into with rarely a second thought, other than perhaps “Oh no! It’s another of his hair brained ideas!” But credit to the wonderful team they joined in with gusto, even when as documented in the last chapter, we quite literally ended up sliding down the hill behind the school, which had by a torrential rainstorm been turned into a series of mudslides. At that point there were muttering of never again, but I kind of figured out that in time we would do it again and we did several times but thankfully never in quite such atrocious conditions. The photos were accompanied by the haunting melody of a French song, which I have since discovered is called Je viens du sud (I come from the south) sung by Chimène Badi.

I was now totally relaxed, enjoying the memories and marvelling at how much had happened over the years, lulled by the haunting melody, which after some time faded as a final picture of smiling me on the final of our whole school walks “Up the Hill” filled the scene and also faded with the dying last chords and a moment of silence, which seemed interminable, was broken first by applause and then for me by the realisation that this was actually it, the end and I now was expected to say something and although a rare event I was rendered emotionally speechless!! Perhaps the next few moments are best summed up by quoting my letter of thanks I sent everyone at the beginning of the next term, the relevant paragraph is fairly obvious:

Dear All

Happy New Year to you all and I hope that you had a good and healthy Christmas and have returned to school raring to go and full of energy! Without putting too fine a point on it, I realised as I got up on Monday, to a white world, that the whistle would just be being blown!! However, although tempted (I had been sorting and packing until gone two o’clock in the morning!?!) I didn’t turn over and go back to sleep!

It was something of a strange day and I found myself looking at my watch, at various times and thinking about you all, and thinking how sitting down at the table for lunch with my Mum and Dad was certainly more peaceful than the dining hall!!

However, the purpose of this letter is not to gloat (!), but rather to pass on my heartfelt thanks for the wonderful send off I was given at the end of last term. Thank you all; children, staff, governors, parents and friends for your kind words, cards and gifts that I received, and I really look forward to choosing a suitable bench for some sunny patio in France, where I can relax whilst tending the barbecue, supping a fine wine and having time to watch the sunset and find interesting shapes in the clouds..... yes I know I’m not gloating, but it’s worth milking for one last time!! Also, as I said at the time, hopefully many of you (perhaps not all at once unless you bring your own tents!) will find a chance to come and sit beside me and share the bottle!!

You also managed a first, after several previous emotionally charged departures from other schools. As the lights came on at the end of the fantastic “Mr Higgs and Moat School” DVD and it became obvious that proceedings had come to an end and it was now my turn (finally, I did wait my turn, apologies Ann for not waiting my turn at the other times!! – I must be hell to work with!!!!!), for the first time I wasn’t able to hold it together and as the child on the front row correctly observed “Mr Higgs you’re crying!” – it’s amazing how strong the string of onions were, even with their peel still on!! Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings! I blame it on catching sight of Michaela sobbing on the back row and realising that she wasn’t the only one!! At times like that it’s rather humbling to realise the love and affection that people feel for you, and you begin to think, “What have I done!” And although certainly at the moment “Je regret rien!” the feeling of love and affection is certainly reciprocated, and I have left with very many fond and happy memories of my time at Moat, that I will take with me into the next phase, indeed adventure, in my life.

So a final heartfelt, Au revoir, and many thanks to all of you for being such a big part of these memories and all the very best for the future, both personally and for the ongoing success of Moat Primary School and hopefully, I’ll be remembered for being a small part of this?

This was written just after the next term started and I wasn’t part of it a really strange feeling, but although on that last afternoon in many ways it was all over and funnily enough, often the end of the Christmas Term felt like that, Christmas was over and done with, the tree came down and then when you got home and got over all the excitement, you had to start all over again at home. But this time it was sort of final!

That said, school hadn’t finished and because of all that had been happening I hadn’t been able to sort out my office and leave it ready for my successor, who thankfully, despite the relatively short notice I had been able to give, had been appointed and was due to meet me just before the new year, to go through the final handover and relinquish the keys as well as the responsibility! And although having got over the excitement of the end of term and a family Christmas needed to happen, I did spend much of the next week and the week between Christmas and the New Year in school, surrounded by quietness and memories, but with little time to reminisce, as it’s amazing what you amass during nearly eight years as Headteacher of a primary school, particularly one like me who liked to be involved in as many projects and activities, for the benefit of the children, as possible.

Finally, after what seemed like an interminable ten days or so of sorting, packing, throwing away and generally tidying up, I got to the day of handing over the keys and leaving the premises for the last time as Headteacher, responsible for the day to day smooth running of a vibrant and fun-filled place of learning and gosh it was hard – reality hit me as I drove out of the gates, not needing to stop and lock up and as I drove home, and I can’t deny with a tear or two in my eye, there was also a lifting of a weight and a tremendous feeling of both; “What have I done” and “What adventures lie ahead!” Then, I realise as I write this that before that adventure starts, there’s a whole forgotten chapter that you’ll have to wait until next time for!!

But, one of the things I had to do before setting off on that journey into the unknown, was to thank very many people for the amazing send off we received from so many people. The letter I sent to school is reproduced above but I’ll finish, maybe somewhat wistfully, with a couple of extracts from other letters that I sent, as Chapter 6 developed and reality set in!

To the Gloucester Headteacher group:

......since our decision in February to relocate and become FPF (Free from Papers and Forms or French Peasant Farmers: not sure if the two go together but at least the wine will be cheaper when the forms need filling in!!), I have often driven to meetings or courses thinking that it would be good to come away thinking that I would miss whatever we had been discussing, whilst sitting in the shade of a French apple tree with time to watch the sun set and marvel at it’s colours without worrying about Section 3 of the SEF! Sadly, this happened very infrequently, but the rebirth of the Excellence Cluster into The GSP, is one of the things that seems to me an exciting, useful and sensible development in otherwise bleak times, not least as there is a truth behind the saying: “strength in numbers!”

Many of you will know my real worries about where Education in England is going and concerns about a system that is over reliant on testing and scores and less concerned about real people and issues of equality and life chances. So in the end I have become rather like the sad clown in a circus, unable to keep up all the juggling balls at once, and those that I have started to drop are the ones that I believe are the most important. Therefore, for those of you who remember my presentation to the Excellence Cluster entitled:

<><>

"What we said we would die fighting for –

well perhaps not quite, there's always an olive farm in the south of

France

!!"

led by Roger Higgs

in many ways sadly, the “olive farm” won. The heart? (Should be a pink heart above the title but it won't load!!!!) Susan being creative as the presentation took place on Valentine’s Day!!

And to The Gastrell’s Ramblers, initially a school group, but then a group of very good friends who for many years I organised an annual caravan / camping weekend:

...... I never have been one for farewells and as a child when visiting friends and relations, when the time came to say good-bye, I would often hide or sneak out into the car, just wanting to be whisked away. Unfortunately, that probably meant then and certainly now that important things were left unsaid, so here goes …………….

...... Thanks for the fantastic caricature and kind messages in the card, it will certainly find pride of place somewhere in a French farmhouse in the not too distant future, and a very special thanks to Andy for the fantastic Eiffel Tower vase which will similarly grace our new abode and both bring lots of memories flooding back each time we pass them. It also didn’t go unnoticed that there was such a great turnout of people this year and that Kate, Denise and Martyn abandoned their families to freeze in a Welsh field with us for one last time!!!

...... Once again, a really heartfelt thanks for the gifts, they will be treasured in our new French home, as we get the need to live abroad out of our system and hope to share our dream with any friends who want to make the journey. So as they say, it’s not Good-bye but Au Revoir (rather apt in this case!!) and ……. thanks for the memories!

P.S: I’ve just, three years on, tracked down the lyrics of the song on the DVD mentioned above – Je viens du sud. I wonder if the producer of the DVD knew what the words meant, or if simply, as it does, the haunting melody fitted in so well? But here’s an extract:

I have somewhere in the heart

Of melancholy,

The desire to reset the time

The clocks in my life.

A path in the mountains

When I need water,

A garden in the countryside

For my days off.

A stone house .....

How very apt, there’s also a bit in the song about “A very old lady in black, Illuminated for me” whichdoes so remind me of the two ugly sisters in the pantomime that the staff sprung on me as told in the last chapter, you know who you were!!!!!!!!

The House!

You may remember the “answers on a postcard” quiz about the name of our new house, well they haven’t exactly flooded in, indeed the only sensible suggestion (I’ve made several others such as Maison Corset – look up Henri Boutet, an artist who lived close by to our own little hamlet, on Wikipedia and you might think it’s not such a silly suggestion – just not sure what the neighbours might think!!), but I think that this evening’s research into French song lyrics, might just have sorted it!

We have finally found our own Maison pierre, but then in the cold light of day the next morning I realised that actually at least three of the other houses in the hamlet also show the stone from which they are made, so it’s back to the drawing board!

There is also the strong possibility that this is going to be the longest missive to date so I’ll be brief about the house, the bulk of the work consisting of the roof outside, although the shutters continue to change colour (to date 5 down 3 to go!), the insulation (first layer) is in the loft some coat hooks have gone up together with a freshly painted free standing rack we picked up from a nearby house clearance, the workshop is tidier and the pipes are boxed in in the lounge.

But as I said, with the weather largely set fair and for much of the month unseasonably warm, work outside has been the order of the day. The roof and all the rafters that are coming out in the hidden courtyard have been finished and the walls largely capped to protect the top and look like the roof is still there. Then the garage roof has been stripped of tiles, several rafters and roof boards replaced, the top has been beetle treated and the tiles have started to go on today. Unfortunately, the bit I’m working on at the moment is very public, particularly as regards any visitors to our neighbour’s cave, which in reality seems to be a steady stream and so earlier today there I was up the ladder cementing on the first row of tiles in the long process of reroofing the garage. Along comes my neighbour with two of his cronies, heading towards the cave for a verre (ou deux) de l’amitié, but first they start to inspect my handiwork, particularly commenting on the one tile that wasn’t really in line!

I explained that there was a problem underneath with one of the rafters and this was graciously accepted. I then asked the three of them if what I had done so far was OK, as it was the first attempt at roofing. One of the friends, who spoke a little English, inspected the work closely, uummed and aarred a bit before saying: “It’s OK, not brilliant, but it will be better the second time!” and I was left wondering if this was a little bit of French wisdom or a veiled insult. I’m still not sure, but I was subsequently asked to join them, although the “pinching of the throat” sign I initially misread as being a comment that the fact that the lovingly grown FC whiskers had been severely trimmed, partly to avoid recognition should I bump into one of the children of this parish, but also for comfort as after a while long beard locks get a little irritating, for me at least!

Perhaps, however, the drink invitation was by way of commiseration for the tiling, but after a couple of glasses of rosé and a rather one sided conversation about muscles, injuries and mushrooms amongst other things, when I later emerged from the subterranean drinking den the ups and downs of the tiling did seem to have levelled out a bit!!! Although, carrying the tiles and the bucket of cement up the ladder, well it was still only 4.30 p.m!, seemed more difficult, as the ladder seemed to have more steps and at least one of the other visitors had gone back to work driving a tractors and handling a chainsaw – how do they do it without lots of drink related accidents!!

Quilleham, Hammquille or Bouhenri

A few missives ago (26 ~ Friends Along the Way to be precise, my avid reader, usually the first to respond and indeed my “French Mistress” replied rather out of character in English! The opening line of her email said: “Lovely to read your 'Clochemerle courrier'! Such fun to hear of all the garlic dripping chins, apéritifs, kissing (4 times in Brittany!), la chasse etc etc. Wonderful stuff.” To which I quite quickly replied:“I'm definitely a urinophile, as there's never one when you need it, although at least for the men in France it doesn't seem to matter!!! Also, by an amazing coincidence the ones next to our Mairie are going to get a face lift this year!!!

It appears that there is a large part of the population that will know exactly what I’m talking about and perhaps an equally large number who will be completely in the dark. I’ve also got to admit that I was one of those who as you read this will have a blank look on your face – I hadn’t a clue what she was talking about!! But, thanks to the wonders of modern science a quick typing into the search engine of the word Clochemerle and a whole new world opened up! For all the details type it in yourself, but in a nutshell Clochemerle is a 1934 French satirical novel by Gabriel Chevallier. It is set in a French village in Beaujolais inspired by Vaux-en-Beaujolais and deals with the ramifications over plans to install a new urinal in the village square. It subsequently became a 1972 BBC television serial with Ray Galton and Alan Simpson adapting the text. Filmed on location in France, it starred Cyril Cusack, Wendy Hiller, Kenneth Griffith, Roy Dotrice, Cyd Hayman, Micheline Presle, Bernard Bresslaw, Hugh Griffith, Nigel Green, Madeline Smith and Wolfe Morris with narration by Peter Ustinov and on all accounts ended up with something of a cult following. Now where was I in 1972, because it totally passed me by!!

Well, once the cat was out of the bag as it were and it became known that the fictitious Clochemerle was indeed based on a real place, Vaux-en-Beaujolais, I’m sure that initially all hell must have broken out in the village for real, those wanting to remain an anonymous French village in a popular wine growing region and those wanting to cash in on the success of the story. If you go on the website for the village it seems that the latter won the day, although what fighting there was in the streets I can’t tell you.

But, at this stage to avoid the glare of publicity and indeed any nastiness, for reasons of missive confidentiality our little hamlet is to adopt a “nom de plume,” or to be more exact 3!! Yes, that’s right if you come across one of the three names in the title of this section, in a future missive you will know where the action takes place!! The first two are a play on our “hammeau tranquille” or quiet hamlet and the other a play on the name of a famous artist who lived not a million miles away in the eighteen hundreds! Also, any likeness of any character to a living person will be purely accidental and involve a good degree of imagination, and all names will be changed to protect the identity of the person who is not the likeness of any living person, or something like that!!!

However, due to limited space “Le homme avec le pinceau” promised at the end of the last missive will simply have to wait his turn. I am also slightly worried that the “pissoir planté” mentioned in the last missive and not only named as such by my “French Mistress”, who for reasons of confidentiality will in future be referred to as “Madame Fifi” or simply “Fifi”!!!!, but was also called a “novel” idea by her and may well split the inhabitants of Quilleham down the middle and end up as a long running saga ~ perhaps there’s even a book in this or would that be plagiarism!?!

Suffice to say at this stage that hopefully confidentiality will be maintained and a quick on my computer search engines for the three names, throws up “no results containing your search term” for the first two names and only a few sites for someone called Bouhenry for the other, so hopefully the stage is set!!

“Ici devant nous!” Two blokes (any prudes amongst you might like to jump to the next section!!! – this is a public decency announcement!)

You may have detected that over the last few missives the original idea for this section has, to say the least, been somewhat overlooked. But what the hell, it’s going to be again!! Here I am reproducing, very loosely translated, a conversation “overheard” between two local gentlemen, who were certainly here before us and I suppose each to their own!!

Whilst working on the roof the other day, in our quiet hamlet of Hammquille(!), a car pulled up outside and Bloke 1 gets out and greets Bloke 2. Bloke 2 then peers into the car and the following exchange loosely takes place:

Bloke 2: “Cor! She’s a bit of alright then, where did you pick her up!”

Bloke 1: “Yeah, something of a cracker isn’t she!”

Bloke 2: “Wouldn’t mind a bit of her!”

Bloke 1: “I’ve got it on a plate like!”

Bloke 2: “Whor! Bit of oil and a sweat on, like the sound of that!”

Bloke 1: “Yeah and a bit of sausage, know what I mean!!”

Closer examination would have shown you that in the car was a magnificent white headed (the two blokes were quite elderly!), in the peak of condition champignon, or mushroom to you and me!! And ... the sausage mentioned a nice bit of boudin noir or black pudding!!!

And, before you all get on your high horses and flood me with complaints, I have never been too good with tenses, but I do know “she” should have been “he” – le champignon – but a bit of poetic licence makes it sort of ring better, amazing what a little bit of gender realignment can do!!

My original “thought!” Not PC for FC or PN

This should have been called “Sexy Santa” but for my younger readers it may have spoilt the seasonal fun of a strange bearded fellow, dressed in red coming down the chimney bearing gifts! Hence FC or PN as he’s known in these parts and if I’m rumbled by my younger readers use the excuse given some 21 years ago, when one of Victoria’s playgroup friends rumbled me, but fortunately kept it quiet until that evening when he said to his father “I know who FC was today, it was Roger!” His quick thinking father, also a Headteacher, simply said “Well it’s like this son, sometimes at this time of the year FC is so busy he has to get some kindly soul to help him out!!” He never said anything to me, but that evening Victoria told me all about how frightened she had been of FC and how she wouldn’t go up to him for her present!!!

But back to now! Feeling something of a turncoat having for many years filled the role for “Fifi” who organised a seasonal fayre each year and enlisted my services and then I moved to France and despite being told by Linda not to volunteer for anything when we went to the AGM of the village leisure group, she sort of pushed me forward to take on the role from a rather small, skinny and beardless predecessor!! Double standards I call it, don’t volunteer and then volunteer someone else. But it was done, I’d agreed and then the palpitations started. What would the assembled children think about the fact that last year he could speak fluent French and this year he couldn’t! Deciding that maybe the fact that I looked more the part, I wasn’t sure how to take the comments about how I wouldn’t have to wrap the suit around me several times like my predecessor, might have made the children overlook the language barrier!!

But, to be sure, I decided to enlist the help of Madame Fifi and emailed her, somewhat tongue in cheek, to ask if she would be my elf! She however missed the tongue bit and was most apologetic that she couldn’t fly out to help, the next morning she was organising her own seasonal bash complete with the man in red!! She did however give me some good advice, the best of which was to “remain mysterious!” as well as some simple key questions, remembering to use tu not vous so as not to come over as “distant, cold and unfriendly!”, some hope more likely bumbling, terrified but at least smiling!!

Avoiding sleepless nights by hard work on the roof meaning I was simply too exhausted to be sleepless, said evening arrived and as arranged I arrived just after the “spectacle,” (this year a magic show) had started at 8.30 in the evening! Yes, even the tiny tots were still up watching the show and waiting for my appearance! I was able to slope into the back of the room, in mufti a scarf covering the beard and a hat the sticky out ears, watch some of the show and then the plan was that I could go to the little salle and change ready for my grand entry!! So in plenty of time I escaped to the kitchen, not least because the hat and scarf were causing me to overheat, to find the little room to change in. In the kitchen were three ladies from the committee overseeing the refreshments, amongst them one known to wear tight black leather trousers and high heeled boots and who is often late for meetings, not uncommon in France but I’m sure in this case for the enjoyment of making an entry!! You see we’re not the sleepy little village that you’d all imagined and unfortunately I’ve got into the habit of calling this young lady (well actually she has a 16 year old daughter, who like mother like daughter could be seen flirting with FC later on in the evening!!) Miss Whiplash – sorry I tried to translate this into French for reasons of moral sensibility, but Whiplash Mlle didn’t help much!!

Anyway to cut a very long story, not particularly short!, I asked where the room was to change in and other than the meter cupboard, that I could just get into and not close the door, they had no idea and said it would have to be quite literally “the smallest room” and they didn’t think there was a lock on the door and every likelihood that one of the children could be caught short and I could end up being caught out!

In the end there was nothing for it but to change in the kitchen, so using sign language to get the ladies to avert their eyes, off came the jeans to be replaced by the red almost tights like FC trousers, and when they turned back, I’m sure you’ll know which of the three ladies, with a slow intake of breath, and a somewhat seductive voice said “Oh! sexy Santa!” Now I wouldn’t swear to it but I don’t think it was the tight fitting red trousers but the sneaky peek as I removed my jeans that did it and then she rushed off to get her camera and started to take multiple pictures of me in all sorts of positions or should that be locations!! Now, no-one could accuse me of being a prude, but finally we’ve arrive at today’s thought - is it PC to peek at Santa in his boxers?, particularly as I was worried enough about the language difficulties without having to worry about my modesty!! Suffice to say it was never like that with Mme Fifi!!

Oh and how did it go? I remained mysterious and despite the incident in the kitchen, composed, managed just to climb over the language barrier, ho ho ho in the right places and distribute all the presents and ended up due to another language barrier, in this case the chair of the committee’s limited English, being booked to appear again “LAST” year!! It’s the magic of Christmas, and I think that’s the first time I’ve used the “C” word and it therefore seems just about appropriate, with December looming and this being probably the last missive before the big day to wish all my readers a “Joyeuse Fêtes” a cover all for have a good Christmas, New Year and anything else happening thereabouts – literally “Happy Holidays!”

Kind regards, Best Wishes and Love,

Roger and Linda

And, next time, in Missive 35 ~ The Forgotten Chapter and further adventures of .........,

Missive 33 The Move!! ~ From hovel to habitable in 45 days!

2011-11-06T00:19:00.008+01:00

5^th November 2011

(just, as it’s ten past midnight!!, and a Happy Anniversary to my Mum and Dad!)
Dear All

Attached is an absolutely bumper Missive 33, don’t be put off by the size, as in terms of words it’s about average, but there are lots of pictures, as I’ve been promising for some time!!

Because of all the pictures the file is too long to attach as a word document to this email, so I have done it as a pdf file, and will therefore need opening as such. Be patient, as it might take a while, a but let me know if for any reason you can’t open it and I’ll try to think of something else.

Failing that you could always try viewing it on the blog, where it should appear in due course, although last time when I had photos included, it took me a while to work out how to get it to load.

Fingers crossed!

Love

Roger

rogerhiggs@hotmail.co.uk

Mes chers amis

The Move! ~ From hovel to habitable in 45 days!! ~ Missive 33

“Look at life through the windshield, not the rear-view mirror

Byrd Baggett

“If you don't scale the mountain, you can't view the plain

Chinese Proverb

“A goodbye isn't painful unless you're never going to say hello again.”
Author Unknown

“Every goodbye is the birth of a memory.”

Dutch Proverb

Four quotes this time, and maybe I should explain! The first two seemed apt in regard to moving on and looking forward, particularly in view of mammoth undertaking that we have taken on! Isn’t it strange, we used to read all those books about people who had “escaped and followed their dreams” and whilst at times feeling quite envious, we couldn’t help but feel that they were rather mad – little did we know that one day we would be following them up the mountain! But it’s already worth it for the view!

The other two quotes were from a selection I sent to Monsieur from the chateau, once we had found the house and were shortly to move on. I wanted to tell him personally, as last summer a true friendship had blossomed and although he knew our long term intentions, it seemed polite and “aristocratic” to be up front and not simply fade away into the night like a rogue, vagabond or scoundrel – you may remember Monsieur’s love of words and classification of people into “Aristocrats or rogues et al!” – fortunately, Linda and I were elevated to the ranks of the aristocracy! That said, we have a wealth of memories of a very happy two years plus, spent in the little house at the end of the drive, and as M. said in his reply to my email: “First of all, I congratulate you to stay in Saint Laurent de la Salle for ever! I shall have, in that case, the pleasure to see you ...for ever! If you had chosen a house in the moon, the song would
have been different!” (sic), so we’ll be saying hello again!

As for France Telecom, I ranted and raved enough last time! But, just a quickie to update you! As you have no doubt picked up we are now on-line and fully functioning with a new telephone number (up above if you missed the update!). Then a few days ago I got a letter from France Telecom and as I carried it into the house I had high expectations that it might be a grovelling apology for on-going and long-term incompetency, but, surprise surprise it was a bill for said incompetency – they wanted to charge us about 170€ for a technician who came out to put THEIR mistake right and who said there would be no charge! Another phone call from Linda, who was told that she should pay it and they would reimburse it over the next three or four bills, and she told them, much to their amazement, that she was only paying those parts of the bill that we did owe and that was that!! I hesitate to say it, but hopefully that won’t result in us being cut off – aaaaaaaaaargh!!!!! I do hope there won’t be anything to report next time!!

Winding Down! ~ Chapter 4

This has ended up as a very incongruous title for this chapter and this part of the story, as how I could have imagined for one minute that leaving a job such as mine at any time, let alone at Christmas, could allow any degree of “winding down” now quite eludes me!! I guess in an ideal world, I would have given in my notice, and spent the next few months with my office door shut, tying up loose ends, before a sedate period of handing over the reins to my successor, over a few weeks where we either overlapped or at the very least had a good few days to go through all the things that being a Headteacher involves! But even writing this now nearly three years down the line, elicits the response of “Get Real!” it just doesn’t happen like that in a busy and cash strapped environment of a primary school, where the “product” being turned out are 200 odd children all with a variety of complex needs, “manufactured” by a dedicated team of teachers and support staff, who also have their own variety of needs, of differing levels of complexity and although the production line wouldn’t instantly grind to a halt were the “MD” to shut his office door and ignore what was going on outside, I like to think that I had my uses!! What I’m really trying to say is that, despite the attempt by various “powers that be” to inflict business / manufacturing practices onto schools, they don’t as a rule fit very easily into an ever changing, vibrant environment, where from one day to the next the “product” keeps changing and never ceases to amaze you with what they do, be it good or bad!! You arrive each day on the “factory floor” not knowing what will have happened and where you might end up as the day finishes, however carefully planned you are!

Shutting the door and winding down, just wasn’t an option, as not only were there the day to day activities to carry out, be they mundane things like; playground duty, dinner duty, staff meetings, parents’ evenings, meetings with outside agencies, the list is endless, or the unexpected like; a blocked toilet (yes, without a full time caretaker such things often fall to the Headteacher), an upset child or one having a bad day, a member of staff taken ill or with a family crisis – again a never-ending list, and as I’ve said many a time never a dull day, but also Christmas doesn’t go by unnoticed in a Primary School!!

This meant there were all the usual things and as always a long list: Christmas Fayre, Christmas Production (for which I was the lighting engineer – yet another thing on the job description!), Children’s Christmas Dinner (Washer up and construction of the most outlandish hat!), Service at St Katharine’s Church (Readings and Order of Service), Nativity in the woods (cameraman and general helper as you can’t beat a day in the woods, despite a hundred and one things to do in the office!), Christmas Parties, Christmas Disco (hotdog purchaser and cook!), so all in all normally an extra busy time for all!

But, although I didn’t expect people to particularly make a razzmatazz about my departure, those of you who know me well, will know that I wasn’t going to go quietly!! For some time I had been thinking about what I should do for my swansong and had been mulling around and jotting down a number of ideas, which with “the end” in sight needed to be planned fairly quickly before I was picked up in the Christmas rush and rushed headlong into departure before I was good and ready. So it was at one of our weekly SMALT meetings (Senior Management and Learning Team – someone on high had miraculously decided that schools were places of learning, so in due deference to the powers that be we decided to rechristen our SMT!!), that I broached the subject of my fading away gracefully without a fuss! I told my management team that I had a few ideas and they said that they had also been thinking of one or two ideas, so to be polite I let them go first. They suggested a weekend Staff Walk and Lunch for me to organise. A whole school Christmas Walk up Robinswood Hill that overlooks the back of the school and they thought it would be great if I did some French cooking with some of the children!! I then produced my list which was almost exactly the same except for the last item where I replaced some with all of the children, but more of that in a bit. I had obviously been at Moat School too long and it was time to move on, as the staff knew exactly what I was thinking!!

So a few more things for the list, and briefly a great staff walk took place and it was really touching that virtually everyone turned up despite the day being a little cold and damp, and I think a good time was had by all. The whole school walk was as always great fun and not as wet as the most memorable of these, when as we were all picnicking on the far side of Robinswood Hill a few drops of rain fell and I was heard to say “rain what rain?, what a fuss about nothing!” Then within twenty minutes or so, just long enough for us to get to the top of the hill, we had the heaviest downpour I have ever experienced in the UK, of true tropical monsoon proportions, and we were quite literally washed off the top of the hill slipping and sliding all the way back to school, with at least one member of staff careering into a nettle patch and no-one arriving back at school with anything dry – fortunately, despite the weather it was summer and not too cold, and despite the staff swearing never to go walking with me again (as well as swearing at me quietly under their breaths!!), it was the walk everyone always remembered and fondly talked about, and there were several more!!

Then there was the French food! Rather that cooking up a few croissants or the odd French Fancy, I had decided to invite all the children and staff to a three course French meal, in Restaurant Perroquet that was to be set up in one of the classrooms that had recently been fitted out with a cooking area and quite a lot of cooking utensils. As you may imagine, a fairly standard English classroom would be hard pushed to accommodate 200 odd people for dinner, so I had decided that each of the school’s four teams and associated staff would be invited to four separate dinners with upwards of 45 people at each. The menu was planned (see below) and a captive workforce enlisted – the children and some of the staff! - who under my supervision were to prepare the food that they then sat down to eat instead of school dinners. Basically, a great time was had by all and as each meal came and went the chef’s outfit’s became more and more outlandish and by the end as the children shouted “Yes Chef” to my barked orders, which in the heat of the moment and the kitchen I had to remember not to do my Gordon Ramsey impersonation, they were looking at me in my trendy multi-coloured hippy trousers, loud shirt and red pirate headscarf, someone once said I wasn’t your average Headteacher and I can’t think why!!

Le Restaurant Perroquet ~ Chambre Twyver

(The Parrot Restaurant ~ Twyver Room)

(pour 40 personne)

(for 40 people)

**********

Omelette fine herbes

(Fine herb omelette)

**********

Tranche de rôtir fillet de porc avec cassoulet lentille

(Sliced roast pork fillet with lentil casserole)

**********

Tarte pomme avec crème fraîche

(Apple Tart with crème fraîche)

**********

“vin” rouge et “vin” blanc

(red and white “wine”)

**********

Tuesday 11^th November 2008 ~ Maple Team

Wednesday 19^th November 2008 ~ Oak Team

Tuesday 25^th November 2008 ~ Ash Team

Thursday 27^th November 2008 ~ Thorn Team

Salut et merci beaucoup!

At Christmas we always had a Staff Evening out and this had been duly arranged at a local hotel. It was on a particularly miserable night, but we more than made up for it inside and pleasant things were said about me, but I was prepared, not with a box of tissues, although it was a close run thing at times!, no I had written an action poem, the first surprise, featuring everyone there, complete with props and dressing up items, the expression on the waitress’s face was priceless and we all went home happy, but with the end in sight!

Then, there was the next surprise, although not totally unexpected when during one of the assemblies in the last week, I did one of my near legendary pantomimes, well the staff and I did a pantomime, but they hadn’t been told before and simply got given a script, a bag containing a costume and the rest was left to chance. As always, in true panto fashion, I was the leading lady (and contrary to popular believe these pantomimes were virtually the only time I dressed up in women’s clothing!!) and usually got “married” at the end to the Headteacher when I was deputy and the deputy when I was head – Oh yes I did!!

The next surprise was for me as the very next day, the staff held their own surprise panto and yes I was the panto dame and the butt of all the jokes as well as receiving not one but several custard pies towards the end, they must have known there wasn’t time for disciplinary procedures before I was due to leave the country. But, the tables were well and truly reversed and they had even managed to secretly practise their parts, it wasn’t until afterwards that I understood the significance of so many shouts of “He’s behind you!” as I wandered around the school on mundane matters such as checking the temperature of the water in the children’s washrooms – not as you may think to prevent them scalding themselves, Health and Safety insisted I put up a sign in the staff washrooms saying “Caution, Hot Water may be HOT!!” but not in the children’s!! No it was to check the temperatures were within the desired range to stop the build up of legionella, the bug that causes legionellosis! Did I mention that on the job description!

With the end of term virtually upon us, there were few other surprises, except on the last afternoon, but you’ll have to wait for that one until next time. That said, although I knew about the after school tea party, my deputy feeling she should invite me in case I went off somewhere else and left everyone eating the cakes, drinking the tea and talking amongst themselves, some of the visitors who came were a surprise and at times like that you start to think about what you will shortly be leaving behind and wondering if you’ve done the right thing. This was particularly evident when I gave the speech I had prepared earlier, in French as well as in English, not knowing that the school’s peripatetic French teacher would be there – from the cringes on her face, it was apparent that my French had some way to go!!

So much for winding down, but the end was looming rather frighteningly and rapidly, and then there was the last formal communication to parents and I quote:

And finally ~ Au revoir from Mr. Higgs

Dear All

As my final day at Moat looms it’s becoming harder and is not helped when; walking down the corridor the other day, one of the children whispers to me “I’m sad that you’re leaving!” and others say things like you will send us a postcard or come in and tell us how you’re getting on! And, now my final Newsletter to you all.

The last nearly eight years have been an incredible journey, starting with two schools and ending up with one, that I am very proud to have been associated with. Sometimes this journey seems to have gone by with breakneck speed until I reflect on all that has happened during that time, none of which could have happened without working alongside an amazing group of colleagues, who have an energy and drive (all for the well-being of your children) that never ceases to amaze me. These colleagues have also been great fun to work with and through their untiring support; my job has been made very easy!

Then, there are the children who I will miss the most; their genuine warmth and good nature have made getting up and coming to school in the morning so worthwhile. Thank you to all of them for also helping to make my time at Moat so memorable!

Also, thank you, for all your support and friendship over the years, and I look forward to receiving news from Moat, Matson and Robinswood and beyond as the children move through the school and become equipped for the wider world and hopefully a great future.

And …… finally, my reply to the whisper in the corridor …… “I’m also very sad to be leaving, but also excited about the adventures that lie ahead,” also whispered and somewhat wistfully, and yes I’ll certainly let you know how we’re getting on!

Love and best wishes, as well as a Happy Christmas

Roger M. Higgs

The House!

For this section it is where to start as well as where to finish, as this part alone could quite easily make the basis for several average sized missives! Well as the title of this missive confirms, we went from a hovel with unsafe electrical installations and basic, very ancient and filthy plumbing to being able to live in the house, albeit without a shower or a kitchen sink and using a temporary “camp kitchen” set up in the cave, which in this instance isn’t underground but on the ground floor behind the kitchen, for the first week or two! Washing up necessitated using an “outside” tap in the workshop and boiling a kettle, and friends came to our rescue in matters of personal hygiene, I think they got a whiff when we invited them around for a coffee for them to see the progress we had made on the house! In fact we were already using their Wi-Fi and telephone to badger France Telecom and keep in touch with the outside world, so a glass of wine or two and a shower were logical extras to be offered by this first rate “Cyber Cafe!!!”

Unfortunately, due to it being August and France largely shutting down for “vacance,” when we returned from York in mid August expecting the electrical and plumbing work to have been finished, we had a bit of a surprise, but once the project manager returned from his holiday and a few days later and realised that nobody was chasing things up in his absence, experience telling us that this is not uncommon! But, he was furious and pulled out all the stops to get the final tidying up and hole filling finished so we could fit the sink, shower and second, downstairs toilet. However, all in all we were very pleased with the work done by the electricians and plumbers, although initially they moved in a little like a demolition squad, knocking large holes in our very thick walls and giving the general structure of the house a thorough working over! For the first few days of the 45 (from officially getting the key) our efforts to do anything consistently were rather thwarted by having to work around the artisans, but we soon established a routine, finding out which bits of our house we could work on so as to be out of the workmen’s way, whilst giving them strict instructions to tell us to “ALLEZ, ALLEZ” should we be in their way, after all without water and electricity we would have been kyboshed as regards a move at the end of August. As it happened, with the limitations mentioned above , we moved in a couple of days before the end of the month, allowing us to clean through the emptied La Loge, for a few days, before cracking on again with the new abode. That bit was really rather frustrating, as we had moved and needed to concentrate on moving forwards, but also needed to leave the old house in a suitable state to have our deposit returned, handy for buying a few more tins of paint, rolls of insulation or the like!!

Now, having been in 65 days of which we have spent 3 in Paris enjoying fantastic late summer sunshine, 15 in the UK much of it in the same sunshine and have had visitors for 26 days (thank you Anne and Steve and Maggie and Bryan for forgetting that holidays are meant for relaxing!) leaving only 21 days in our new house on our own working!! Indeed, Saturday evening was the first time it had just been the two of us for dinner for nearly 8 weeks, but it’s great to see people and it helps to keep us sane and showing people around also helps to remind us of all we have done, much of it not always apparent; fitting lights, the plumbing under sinks and showers, the toilets, a bit of beading here or there, a replaced pane of glass, filling or sealing cracks etc. etc. etc. etc. and some more – much of it very time consuming particularly when it was jobs we have never undertaken before! I guess you are beginning to get the picture, which makes me think that perhaps the best way to let you know how things are coming on is to show you, as words fail me!, so there follows some before and after pictures, which at least tell a part of the story, what they don’t seem to show, looking at them again, is the dirt and squalor of the before pictures after 5 years of non-habitation and a good few years before that of existing rather than living!!

The Cave, note the wine racks went in rather quickly and in the foreground is work in progress!


The kitchen, yellow and blue, loosely based on Monet’s dining room at Giverney!

The “French Room” We inherited the armoire in the first picture with the house, it was too big to get out of the room so now, with a good degree of huffing and puffing, it is now to the left of this photo!



The Study with Linda hard at work on the right, probably checking the France Telecom bill! Also from where this and future missives will be transmitted, via cyberspace, to you France Telecom permitting!

Our bedroom with fan strategically placed for those hot balmy nights, but the heater is about to go in should the weather turn cold!

The upstairs bathroom created out of a sort of loft space at the end of upstairs, there is also a new WC and washbasin in the cubicle on the left of the first picture.

The downstairs loo, and yes it is a urinal in the first picture now replaced with a washbasin, but carefully removed for posterity – it’s going to have a plant in it in our new hidden courtyard!

From these I think you get the idea, however finally ... the view from our “new” roof garden, above our hidden courtyard garden, with the roof of the next door gîte in the foreground. The Secret Garden was one of my favourite books as a child, that and the Arthur Ransome Swallows and Amazons Series, all about adventures and creating dens – a bit like history repeating itself!!:


But, there is rather a lot to do before we can sit and enjoy the view!!

One day this will be our hidden walled courtyard, complete with outside urinal!! You may just be able to spot it, waiting to go up, by the post under the ladder!

So, as you will see we have made some progress with, as you see above lots still to do, but with a view like that above it’s worth waiting for!!

Not wanting to start a new section, a quick update on The Garden: the compost bin, water butt and washing line are all in and being used, Linda has done quite a bit of planting and the final corner that hasn’t been cleared has been trimmed up considerably so we can see where we are. But the most important news is that the caravan is in the garden, on the hard standing that we constructed for it. It was a bit of a struggle and may never come out again, but it meant we were completely out of La Loge and the caravan is not causing a nuisance for the new tenant that seems to have moved in! The fun will start in the spring when we try to get it out again!!

Oh la la!

Someone nearby has caught both my eye and more importantly my imagination, and this person for reasons of confidentiality will assume a false name and carry the caveat, that events and persons herein mentioned are fictitious and any resemblance to living individuals is purely coincidental!!

So starts the story, or should that be secret tryst, of Enrique, as hot-blooded a Frenchman as you might find anywhere between Biarritz and Lille, or indeed Brest and Nice and I use the last two places quite intentionally because he certainly knows a nice one when he sees one!! They do say that it is often the quiet one’s that you should watch, but there’s nothing quiet about Enrique, not least because he is slightly deaf and consequently plays the love songs of Charles Aznavour at a volume that would deafen most people and indeed stroll passed his house and even with the window’s tightly shut, your ears might be assailed, if not assaulted, by such gems as “Avant de t'aimer” or “Before I loved you”!!!

Avant de t'aimer, je croyais que les femmes étaient des églises
Comme aux quatre coins de Venise et qu'on pouvait les visiter
Avant de t'aimer, je disais qu'elles n'étaient que gourmandise
Comme le sont les friandises et qu'on pouvait les partager

Which roughly translates as:

Before I loved you, I thought that women were churches
Like you find at the four corners of Venice, and that you could visit them
Before I loved you, I said that they were nothing but sweets
Like bonbons, and that you could share them

I hear you say “They don’t write them like that anymore!” to which I also hear you respond: “Thank Goodness!!” Interestingly, ideas of love and even friendship seem to have moved on in modern day France, and in the book I’m reading at the moment – “An Englishman in Paris L’éducation continentale” by Michael Sadler, which is described by HRH Prince Charles as “Wonderfully amusing”, has a very amusing chapter in which friendship between men and women in France is discussed. Amongst other pieces, some of which might not be suitable for the sensibilities or moral scruples of my readership, suggests that; “... friendship between a man and a woman is only possible after penetration” and this discussion takes place at a dinner party at which the author is, at this early stage in the book, a relative stranger! But, I digress!!

This does give you the idea that Enrique could be an old romantic or maybe simply too hard of hearing to be able to make out the lyrics, let alone the sentiments, perhaps he just likes the melody!! However, he is also rather racy and prone to over revving - the engine of his car that is, again I suspect a byproduct of his deafness, but making it very noticeable when he passes and alerting you to his comings and goings

Hot blooded he may be, but seemingly alone, that is until his revving engine alerted us to his departure, but despite being in all day wasn’t heard again that day, despite the fact that his shutters remained open and there wasn’t a light to be seen. I could only conclude that he hadn’t sneaked back undetected, come back in a taxi either the worst for wear or having had a mishap / breakdown in the car, but that the absence was not planned, and perhaps due more to a fertile imagination than anything else the result of his luck being in and friendship consummated!! Unfortunately, it seemed as though it were to be short lived, as early the next morning the revving engine and grinding gears could be heard traversing the valley and back to his own abode and more importantly his own lonely bed.

Several days went by and I could only assume that love and indeed friendship hadn’t blossomed and he could once again be heard playing his collection of Charlie’s love songs, perhaps, although my ability to translate quickly made it impossible to tell, particularly those of unrequited love. On the contrary, there I may be wrong, as only a few days later, with the car working overtime, he left the valley obviously on a promise of friendship as the shutters were carefully closed and too date, several days later the valley hasn’t reverberated to the sounds of Enrique, be it racing combustion engine or rapidly turning black plastic disc! I do however think that on his return, the song may have gone up a little in tempo or at least sentiment!!

L'amour c'est comme un jour:

Le soleil brille à pleins feux, Mais je ne vois que tes yeux
La blancheur de ton corps nu, Devant mes mains éperdues
Viens, ne laisse pas s’enfuir, Les matins brodés d’amour
Viens, ne laisse pas mourir, Les printemps, nos plaisirs

Or more or less precisely: Love is like a day:

The sun shines full of fire, But I just see your eyes
The whiteness of your naked body, In front of my passionate hands
Come, don't let run away, The mornings embroidered of love
Come, don't let die, The spring, our pleasures

And who said romance was dead!!! I’ve finished the book mentioned above and wonder if Enrique finally went the full course whilst explaining the rules of cricket to his new mate, or should that be batting partner, the author of the book did!! Watch this space!!

La réponse est Troene, or The answer is Troene!

But I hear you all collectively say – Quelle est la question or What is the question? Well, those of you who have visited us over the last few months may remember and indeed become embroiled in earnest discussion both about the colour of the green shutters of the gîte opposite our new house and/or what colour our own shutters will be when we get around to it!

Well, the long and short of it was that I was all for a calming countryside green and Linda wanted an altogether out of place marine style blue, you can tell I’m biased!! I’ve got to say I rather dug my foot in, being as we are in the heart of the French countryside and would have been the first to put my oar in had we been remotely anywhere near the sea, as I felt strongly that marine blue was for a pretty white cottage next to the sea! At times emotions ran high as we searched the colour charts for something on which we could agree, and that would truly reflect the rural nature of our new house!! These searches were largely in vane as Linda was to be found in the blue aisle and I was in the green and it seemed that never the twain would meet and the existing cream shutters would go quietly shabby chic!!

But, those of you who know me well will vouch for the fact that I’m a reasonable fellow and as Linda pointed out cream hardly makes a statement, and so for reasons of marital bliss, I happened to point out a greyey-blue wooden house nearby and started the ball rolling with a that’s not a bad colour. At least it started the conversation as at that point we were sitting next to each other in the car and not in different aisles of one of the numerous DIY shops that we currently frequent on rather a regular basis!! At this point, remember the nuptial harmony, the fact that I felt it wasn’t a bad colour for the side of a sleek sail boat was immaterial, the seed was set for a move away from blue to grey-blue to ......

Then it happened, we were approaching a roundabout it took all my driving skills to avoid a collision with a Toyota Yaris that was coming around the roundabout, as we both “to a person” pointed at it excitiedly and said that’s the colour – agreement at last. So it was that a decision was made and we settled for grey-blue, well I did, Linda settled for blue-grey, so near harmony was established and it at least meant we were in the same aisle when looking at the colour charts and we, after much soul searching and many visits narrowed it down to a paint at Mr Bricolage, erroneously called “bleu petrole” despite being clearly on the grey side of the petrol spectrum, but maybe the “paint name executive” lived near the sea and had a penchant for blue or was simply grey phobic!

All this could have been academic, as painting the shutters was low on the list of priorities, until two things happened almost simultaneously; first the fenêtre de la cuisine (kitchen window), the only downstairs shutters, were in danger of falling apart which meant we had to purchase some new ones in bare wood, but that alone was not enough to send us to the paint department of Mr Bricolage. It was more the second event that had us hastening to the paint tins, as visitors last week, good friends Maggie and Bryan from Stroud, desperate to help with the house preparations noticed that the window surrounds that had been painted a very light greyey-blue were not only flaking but also in places in need of a bit of repair and restoration. The filler and mortar were duly mixed and the smart new flake and hole free surrounds were simply crying out for a nice new coat of paint. So armed with a large flake or two of the existing colour off we went to match that and to buy the wrongly labelled “blue petrole” paint.

If there is a “saviour” for those people about to purchase large quantities of paint, they came to our rescue at this point, as the only tins available were 500ml at 15€ a throw, a rather strange expression as at that price we certainly wouldn’t be throwing it around!! But, for a little over 40€ we could, had they had any in stock, have purchased 2.5 litres a huge saving I’m sure even the most mathematically challenged of you would agree! So we decided to wait and go on to the next shop, primarily to try and match the paint for the surrounds, as Mr B had nothing suitable, as well as purchasing the odd other few items that would keep us busy over the next few days, and our nearest enormous Brico Depot, a French version of B & Q Depot and with the same owners, seemed a good bet. For reasons of nostalgia we decided to repeat the previous several attempts to find a suitable colour for the shutters, we had been to so many places looking we had lost the plot and kept looking in the same places, and then it happened again that seminal moment when we both looked, saw, internalised and agreed and for good measure it was around 40€ for FIVE litres and mixed to order!!! It was just a case of checking that it wasn’t sold in 5 litre tins and 40€ PER LITRE a trick that is not uncommon in French DIY shops. But no, it was indeed a bargain and duly mixed and in the chariot (trolley) before you could say ... oh the colour, well that’s the answer – Troene, a sort of statement making greyey-blue, or bluey-grey if you’re asking Linda!! I’ve just looked up the Toyota website and discovered the colour we both really wanted is “magnetic grey metallic” – c’est la vie!

Before I forget, we also found an exact match for the window and door surrounds, again one to be mixed and with another typical French quirk barely much more for ten litres than five and it’s now looking very smart on the downstairs of the front of our house, the upstairs being in much better condition and matching perfectly, and waiting for the Troene shutters to finish the statement. Oh, and the colour: 718460 RC 198 gris d’angou 8 100% facade pilolite, but being a reasonable man I’d say it was nearer to pale egg shell blue than grey!!

Just thought that perhaps I should look up Troene in the French dictionary and I must say was just a little surprised to find it means privet, now ...... who was it that wanted green!!!

“Ici devant nous!”

Yesterday was T-Day for us in France, or for my English readers R or T-Day, T in French for toit or tuiles or roof and tiles for the monolinguists amongst you, and my spell check would have me believe I have just “invented” a new word which I believe to be self explanatory!

Yes, with the two months for viewing and objections, well and truly elapsed since we put out the planning notice and the last of this year’s visitors left to return to the UK, we couldn’t put off the roof renovations – to the dependancies (outbuildings) any longer as we want to have then finished for the first visitors of next year. But, on looking back to previous missives, I fear I have jumped the gun slightly here. The roof over the house, cave and workshop is sound and fairly recent, but wrapped around one side and part of the front of the house is a barn, animal byre and a garage with stout stone walls but suspect roof. In a moment of divine inspiration I solved the problem, at least in principle, of only having a small and rather public courtyard in front of the house and rather close to our neighbour’s bedroom window over the road. So potentially a problem on those long balmy evenings, as the neighbours go to bed early, rise early and seem never to stop during the waking hours, making the public nature of the existing courtyard a further problem should we ever get the time for a leisurely cup of tea or indeed time to sit in the sunshine and read a book!

We decided that we would, and we being the operative word, as house renovation comes quite expensive and the more we can do ourselves the better, even if it is things we have never tried before – it’s amazing what time, money (or lack of it) and a bit of ingenuity can do, take off the roof and replace it only on the barn and garage, leaving the byre open to the sky whilst retaining the walls. We were to create our own hidden courtyard or secret garden behind the garage, which in turn is to be turned into a summer kitchen and covered terrace for when the sun is too hot or the endless hot days have built into a thundery evening and it is too wet to eat outside but too sultry to eat in! Sorted!

Well not quite, not only is there the little problem of; removing the tiles, saving the best and using the old broken ones as infill for the very uneven floor, sorting out any rotten timbers, tiling the top of the courtyard wall and then reroofing the barn and garage area, there was also the problem of obtaining the proper and correct permissions to allow such work to be carried out. Extensive research by Linda identified the project as “minor works” needing a form to be obtained from the Mayor and for this to be filled in, returned to the Mayor for approval by the local council, which assuming it was granted then requires the above mentioned planning notice to be displayed for two months before work commences and to stay in place until the work has been completed. The permission lasts for two years before needing renewal, but for reasons stated above we were keen to get started. Then once completed a further form has to be completed to let the Mayor know the work is finished and allow the Council to inspect if they so wish!

We got the form without too much trouble and due to the minor nature of the work (although at the moment it doesn’t feel all that minor!!) it was a relatively easy form to fill in, but interestingly needed to be accompanied by photographs of the affected area as well as photographs of the finished work, before both permission was granted and the work commenced!!! A tall order you might think and one that relies solely on retrospective planning applications, but not so, web research had solved the problem – submit two sets of the same photographs and on the second by use of a hi-tech drawing system, namely a black pen, draw on the area to be affected by the works. And, it worked!!! In a relatively short space of time we had a full copy of our application returned, liberally stamped and signed by the Mayor giving us permission to go ahead.

Hence T-Day, the start of the work, but why is this section entitled “Here before us!”? Well, obviously the planning procedure was here before us and like much of French bureaucracy seems to have undergone over the years a process of complification (another new word!) rather than simplification. No, it’s been a long winded way of arriving at it but it’s the tiles that were here before us, and with a long and distinguished history to boot! Most of the tiles on our dependancies are of a Roman design that has changed very little over the centuries and although some are more modern replacements; replacing those that had become damaged over the years. But, many are the original handmade tiles that would have been on the roof when it was first constructed and indeed it is these very old tiles that seem to have weathered better that their modern replacements. The tiles in question are those that are a bit like half a cone with the point cut off and are laid alternatively curved up or down, making a heavy and effective weather tight roof. Traditionally these tile were, as I said before, manmade with a rectangle of clay rolled into a shallow mould and then the distinctive tapering curve created by the tile maker bending them over their thigh, and from the many hundred we have removed over the last two days I can tell you that the tile makers of yesteryear, who were here long before us had some very funny shaped thighs!!

My original “thought!”

I’m a little worried, first there was An Englishman in Paris, the book mentioned above, with a torrid sex scene featuring the rules of cricket!! Then the very next book I select, Tuscany for Beginners, Love and War in a Hot Climate by Imogen Edwards-Jones, starts off with a further torrid sex scene between the main character’s husband and best friend and next door neighbour (one and the same person I hasten to add!). But actually, in both cases the books will be more memorable for the recipes and food depicted – maybe I should be worried!!

Kind regards, Best Wishes and Love,

Roger and Linda

And, next time, in Missive 34 ~ Further adventures of Hameau Tranquille ~ Le homme

avec le pinceau and, Chapter 5 – “Reality!!”

Missive 32 ~ Every bit of me aches!!

2011-09-29T20:23:00.000+02:00

29^th September 2011

Dear All

Yes it’s me – I’m back!!! Attached is Missive 32, beating the Christmas missive by a few weeks!!

But it’s a bumper one, making up for lost time, so I’ll say no more!!

Love

Roger

rogerhiggs@hotmail.co.uk

Mes chers amis

Every bit of me aches!! ~ Missive 32

“To accomplish great things we must not only act, but also dream, not only plan, but also believe.”

Anatole France

“They can conquer who believe they can.”

Virgil

“When life’s problems seem overwhelming, look around and see what other people are

coping with: You may consider yourself fortunate.”

Ann Landers

But despite this last quote ....... France Telecom – aaaaaaaaaargh!!!!! It had to happen, once the house was ours Linda arranged for the water board to come and reconnect the water – success, the electricity board to put in a new meter despite the then existence wiring being positively unsafe!! – success! Then came France Telecom, only an hour late to put in a new line, ready to be connected once we move, and despite two of the most surly individuals, who refused to talk to Linda, as she was a woman and barely talked to me as I’m English, with much huffing and puffing and sharp intakes of breath they renewed the line – coming into the house in the same place and following the same tortuous route to the box, despite us asking if it could be put somewhere easier! But it was tidily done, after they seemed to have left without a word, returning and coming back in without so much as a by your leave, to finish off and be forced to talk to me – they needed my signature, but surprisingly for France they didn’t want the money! Then off they sped, well after the customary cigarette, two ignorant technicians, one in a transit type van, the other in a small cherry picker to no doubt delight the next customer with the wit and gay repartee!! – SUCCESS!!

But, on our return back to La Loge, for our customary short lunch break – FAILURE!! We were without internet and therefore without telephone, email or Skype – effectively cut off from the outside world. Yes, no doubt you’ve guessed, the line had been transferred a month early to our new house and you would be right, but remember this is France Telecom and therefore this is not the end of the story!

Linda, on the mobile and at the end of the drive, in order to be able to get a signal waited for a slot with the customary canned music, only to be told that yes they had made a mistake, they were very sorry and all would be put right ...... in 7 to 10 days time! Well, Linda mildly exploded and said that as it was their fault surely it should be done quicker than that, to which came the standard answer “Sorry, but it is out of our control, but we’ll mark it as urgent!” Yes, we’ve heard that before! Well, being charitable creatures or indeed knowing there was absolutely nothing we could do, we waited and kind friends came to our rescue, allowing us to use their broadband connection, and providing a great “Internet Cafe” experience complete with wine and nibbles! After 7 days, on the promise of marking it as urgent Linda phoned once more, to the amazement of the Help Desk, as somehow the request hadn’t been forwarded to the technicians, but it would of course be rectified immediately, well in 7 to 10 days!! This time the explosion was less mild, and received the standard answer “Sorry, but is it out of our control ......!” which barely had Linda staying in control, but as before our hands are tied and there is absolutely nothing we can do!

But, joy of joys within about 4 days the red light on the “live box” had turned green and once more we were in touch with the outside world. But, to make sure we had covered all eventualities, Linda phoned them once more to give the statutory three weeks notice of a change of address and to make sure the line was changed on the day we moved! There followed another interesting conversation, where Linda was told that the line had already been transferred, to which she had to patiently reply that it had indeed, but by mistake had subsequently reverted to our old address, but would need to be moved again, once we moved. Then, “Yes Madam, that’s all fine but you have already told us!!” If you didn’t laugh you’d cry!

With more than a little trepidation, moving day came and went and despite the live box being plugged in and all correctly set up, the red light continued to flash and stoically refused to turn green!! Once more unto the phone and dear friends, this time we took the wine and as the plumbing and electrical work hadn’t gone entirely smoothly and we had moved without a shower being connected the Internet Cafe was now offering showers as well as light refreshments! The excuse this time was that there was a technical problem with the light and “Thank you Madam for your understanding and patience!” Bit like red rag to a bull, as Linda retorted that she didn’t understand, her patience had run its course and that as far as she could see the technical problem was nothing more than incompetence! The customer service person, took slight offence at this and said that if he said there was a technical problem then that was what it was and certainly not incompetence!

Linda, then asked them to explain what the technical problem was, to which they said, well the line was already transferred to our new address, admittedly erroneously, had on our request been transferred back and as it was now going back to our new address this was a technical problem – Linda: “I rest my case ...... gross incompetence on France Telecom’s part!! The customer service person really had to concede that one and cheerily said it would all be sorted ...... in a couple of days time, but when pressed admitted it could be up to a week!!, but would go through marked as urgent!! A real case of déjà vue! Not surprisingly we didn’t wait the full week before phoning again; to be told that there was a fault on the line and they were doing all they could to resolve it, but now didn’t know how long it would take, and thank you for your understanding. The explosion was now high on the Richter scale, but as we now know to our cost (although there have promised to refund our money for the three weeks out of the last four we have be incommunicado) there is nothing they can do and our hands are well and truly tied!!

A couple more days passed and still no cheery green light and us increasingly seeing red, not only the flashing light on the live box, and another phone call, Linda determined not to come off the phone until something was sorted, or to visit the Orange Shop in Fontenay and refuse to leave until it was sorted or to tell them we were changing provider – which in France is something of a hollow threat as all the providers have to have a France Telecom line!! Over an hour later, when she had been shunted from pillar to post, told umpteen people what the problem was, finally an alert customer service person realised that for all this time, the engineers had been trying to sort out a supposed problem on the line of our old house, not our new one – it was one of those “green light” moments, but let’s not get hasty as the live box is still flashing red, and a technician was available between 8.00 a.m. and 1.00 p.m. on Monday (it was now Friday) if we would like them to call! Jumping at this, Linda got through to the technicians who confirmed the slot was available, but France Telecom nearly had the last laugh, as before the technician could be booked, they would need to change the address for the work, which they couldn’t do – Linda would need to recall Customer Services, change the address, then call the technicians back to check the slot was still available and book it. So as the irritating music kept Linda on hold, she had visions of the last Monday slot slipping away and being told the next available slot would be in 7 to 10 days! But no!, they are booked tomorrow to sort it out, so perhaps don’t hold your breath, as on current form tomorrow may never come, or indeed be the middle of next week – yes you’ve guessed it – 7 to 10 days!!!

At this point in true soap fashion I have decided to write two endings to keep my readers in suspense, and you’ll have to wait and see which ending is the right one!! First, tomorrow comes and on the dot of 8 in the morning the technician arrives in his little dark coloured Peugeot with the distinctive orange squares on the front doors, he then cheerfully accepts a cup of coffee, and sorts the problem as the kettle boils and whilst the coffee brews we dance gleefully around the green light, in touch once more with the outside world. Or, 8 o’clock arrives and the technician doesn’t, then 9, then 10 and yes before you know it it’s 12 and lunchtime – those not familiar with French ways won’t realise that lunchtime is sacrosanct and nothing happens between 12 and 2, so we wait expectantly at 2.30 to allow the technician time to clear away his pack up; all three courses complete with wine and coffee, all neatly packed into a large ice box, fold his napkin and put away the table, chair, tablecloth, candelabra, vase of flowers and camp cooker for the coffee (they certainly know how to picnic in style in France and I’ve seen all the above except perhaps the candelabra and flowers, and it was a couple of road workers, not hell bent on eating, getting back to work and finishing early, but realising that eating should be a pleasure and an important part of the day!). Then before we know it, it is 3.30 and although the technician works until 6 in the evening, the day is rapidly looming but at 5, just in case, we decide to phone from a friends to check the “huit à huit” customer helpline only to find that the helpline has now mysteriously changed to “9 ‘til 5” and so they have gone home for the day, the technician doesn’t put in an eleventh hour appearance and once more we are left feeling frustrated, helpless and cut off from the outside world!

Needless to say, the second ending was the reality and now we must once again wait and see what the storm clouds bring and as the complaint line sends you an email asking for your comments, which is time activated and seems to always have run out before you receive it!! You can imagine the statisticians rubbing their hands with glee and saying “Another quarter with no complaints, we must be doing very well!!” Well, over dinner I decided that maybe, as France Telecom is a national company, an email to the top – President Sarkozy, might not go amiss, after all EDF managed to sort the electricity change over with no problem as did SAUR with the water, so why does France Telecom always get it wrong, and before you jump to the conclusion that it’s something to do with being English, ask a French person what they think of them and be prepared to learn one or two new words that you might not find in the dictionary!! If nothing else it would make us feel better, but I’ve forgotten the internet isn’t working so no email either! So, it’s back to reality; same time, same place tomorrow for the next episode!

It’s a few days later and there has been some progress, Monday didn’t happen because, despite Linda spending an hour on the phone, no not ours as it wasn’t connected, changing our address with every conceivable department, they sent the engineer to our old house! So, when the next day Linda phoned once more, initially they were cross with her, as the engineer had arrived to find no-one there!! But, realising it was their entire mistake, they pulled out all the stops and promised an engineer at 10 o’clock on Friday – yes four days later. And, in order to try and cut a very long story short, he came, he puzzled, he tested, he went away to sort it out and returned saying there had been a big problem, but not that it would take 7 to 10 days to remedy, no – it was sorted, the light was green and he said there would be no charge, as it was their fault- just as well as I wouldn’t have been responsible for Linda’s actions had they tried to charge us!! We were once more in touch with the outside world, well ......... at least we had the internet, the telephone, being on an automated system would take up to 24 hours to be activated, but at least the problem with the line – those two surly engineers from some weeks previously had only done half a job and finding nowhere to plug in the new line, hadn’t bothered to follow it up, was now sorted!! But, just to cover himself he said if the telephone wasn’t on in 36 hours to ring again!! How many times had we been told to ring someone, despite not having a phone!!

No phone by Monday morning so Linda was a bit surprised to be told it wasn’t surprising as it was an internet phone and it could take up to 48 hours and pointed out that it was already over 60 hours. It was perhaps at this time they decided to call in the “expert technician,” much to our surprise as we thought they were all experts!! It was arranged that he would call Linda at our friend’s house between 3 and 4 this afternoon and he did, and he also lived up to expectations and was an expert, and has seemed to identify the problem (after all this time nobody seemed to realise our package was internet and internet phone!!), agreed we should never have had all the problems we have had and said it would be sorted – in the next couple of days!! Linda said we were going on holiday so would worry about whether it was sorted , so he has promised to phone or text next Monday (yes I know that’s 6 days away and probably after this missive has winged its way to you) – so watch this space, or rather listen for the dulcet ring of the phone!! Monday the phone did ring, the mobile whilst we were en route to Dunkerque, to tell us all was now well and we would have internet and a phone on our return. But – we’re not convinced!!

So, partly because of this and for reasons below explaining the title, this missive will wing its way to you a couple of months late!! Also, some of Missive 32 will be a little out of date, some written before the move, some since! So if you feel chronologically challenged, join the club!!

Thank you Jamie! ~ Chapter 3

Having finally put my Governors out of their misery and told them what they already knew, but this time formally and in writing, although pressing the button to send the email had been hard, I had when the chair read out my email and the trembling had stopped been saved quite literally by the bell, as a late comer rang the door bell and I was able to escape for a moment or two to let them in, before returning to read the governors a letter that I had written to go out to the parents the following day, still somewhat amazed that no-one had already got wind of our plans through the bush telegraph / grapevine, call it what you will, as we hadn’t been exactly secretive amongst our nearest and dearest and others a bit further away! I also requested that I would like to tell the children in assembly the following day, before they left with the letter – I felt I kind of owed it to them, as well as needing to explain. There followed a rather bizarre sequence of events with two of the governors, both with ecclesiastical backgrounds having previously both suggested they would pray for me, one that the dream could become a reality, the other, incidentally the chair, was going to pray that things didn’t work out and I’d have to stay – very Christian I felt!! In the stunned silence that followed, to lighten the mood I passed the Chair a note saying “Pray harder” to which she replied out loud, not in note form “Bollocks!” much to the surprise of the lady from Shire Hall, who had been asked to attend to start the not inconsiderable process of finding my successor, in what ended up as rather a short time. The rest of the governors were used to her!

This led to another sleepless night; just how do you tell a group of 4 to 11 year olds, who you are really very fond of and who hopefully, at least in most cases!, felt the same about me, that you are leaving them, almost in the lurch and no you don’t know who will be replacing you! In many ways this was the bit that I had been dreading the most but felt I owed it to the children to tell them personally. I spent a long time looking for a suitable story to lead into the final bomb shell and get the message across to the children. This wasn’t normally a problem, but proved very difficult in the circumstances, so decided to do what came easiest to me and “make up” my own story. But, having always enjoyed a good yarn and perhaps, as a Head, at my happiest telling stories in assembly or round the camp fire on residential visits, the children being at that age when you largely have their rapt attention, and only occasionally have to bellow, purely as part of the unravelling story you understand, even if a few decibels louder that absolutely necessary, to wake up the few that you have lost along the way! What was needed was a good story, one which I was very familiar with and elements of which the children would also have heard before.

So it was, that the next morning I came to be telling my life story, in the abstract, not naming names, but under the guise of someone who had been fortunate to be able to participate in one of their passions and to have been able to travel a lot in their life, but hopefully dropping in sufficient clues for the children to guess who I was talking about. So as quite often was the case in my assemblies there was an element of autobiography about both myself and my family several of which on this occasion had featured in previous assemblies – the deep snow I literally disappeared into when only 4 in Germany, the amazing snow encountered a couple of years previously in New York, the Amazonian Rain Forest and recent Brazilian adventure, world music and food and general love of travel, but always coming back, although dreaming about living somewhere else and experiencing another culture!!, and hopefully things would fall into place for me to neatly slip the bombshell in at the end and beat a hasty retreat for a strong cup of coffee and a box of tissues, had I managed to avoid needing them earlier!!

I got to the end of the story, and needed to go on to the next chapter, so in true teacher fashion, I asked the children who the story had been about. Hands quickly shot up, the ploy seemed to have worked, and the time had arrived, so I chose a child near the front, who rather threw me by saying “Jamie Oliver” – I guess it was the mention of food! But, the respite was short lived as the second answer was spot on – “Mr Higgs” and suddenly it dawned on the assembled children that not only was it me, but the next chapter involved me leaving and moving away. The stunned silence, that seemed interminable, could have ended at least for me in tears, but fortunately the ice was broken by a practical and down to earth question, for Jamie on the back row “Who’s the new head going to be!!” Thank you Jamie, although seemingly dismissed in a moment, it brought things back to earth with a bump and the difficult bit was over, at least for the “Where was I going?”, Why was I going?, When was I going?”, How long was I going for?” ......

When in response to this last question I said maybe 5 to 10 years or maybe permanently, Abi’s hand urgently shot up and needed to ask her question quickly – “Is Mrs Higgs going too!?!” – at which several other hands shot up and I was able to say yes she was and pre-empting the next question, yes Max the dog was coming too! Not surprisingly, as he featured a lot in assemblies, lots of relieved hands went down. We were then able to talk about Max’s new Dog Passport, before talking about Daniel and Victoria, son and daughter, and how as they were now grown up and with their own lives they wouldn’t move with us, but would hopefully visit often.

So the deed was, I thought, successfully done, until as the youngest children started to file out of the hall and most of them wished me a hearty good-bye, instead of the normal one or two who always did so! It became apparent that at least the youngest children thought I was off that day and wouldn’t be there in the morning!! Fortunately, their teachers were able to put them right!! However, a couple of days later, perhaps when the shock of me still being there had sunk in, one little Year 1 child rushed up to me in the playground all agitated and saying “Mr. Higgs, Mr Higgs, Mr Higgs, you’ll never guess what!?” To which I responded, no I doubted if I would ever guess what, to which she informed me: “You’re leaving after Christmas!” – Mission accomplished!

As time went by, there were other rather touching incidents, such as having told the children to try out their French on me and give me some much needed practice, Rhianne would always greet me with Bonjour whenever she saw me and Amali told me his mother was sad I was leaving and that he had cried the night before!! Another child ran across the playground one day shouting to me “Mr Higgs, Mr Higgs you’re an arsehole!” Fortunately, when I asked him to repeat what he had said, before admonishing him and explaining that probably wasn’t the best way to address your Headteacher, I realised he had actually said “Mr Higgs, Mr Higgs, you’re awesome!” Altogether a different sentiment!! However, one of the children’s mother’s informed one of the members of staff that her friend, another mother would be sad I was leaving “as she had the ‘hots’ for me!!”, perhaps a lucky escape!!

To the parents I wrote:

Dear Parents

Some of you will know about my love of travel and particularly my affinity with France. For a number of years Linda, my wife and I, have dreamed about going to live in France but until recently this has remained only a dream, but recent circumstances have meant that this is something that we can now, somewhat out of the blue, pursue.

It is therefore with a mixture of sadness, excitement and trepidation, that I inform you that I will be leaving Moat School at Christmas and heading over the English Channel or La Manche (which means The Sleeve) as I will have to get used to calling it because the French don’t like it being The English Channel!

I will take with me many happy memories of Moat School, Matson and Robinswood and the people I have come into contact with, not least the children who I will miss enormously. I did take the liberty of telling the children my news, in assembly this morning, as I felt it necessary to tell them personally.

Please, rest assured that I will be continuing to work hard on behalf of your children, between now and Christmas, and that the Governors are already working hard to appoint my successor and will keep you all fully informed as time goes by.

In the meantime, please excuse me if the French lessons have the desired effect and in an idle moment I greet you in French, better still if you speak French yourself why not try me out – I need all the help I can get!!

Best wishes and kind regards

The House!

For reasons of space and time, this section is going to be curtailed, but there will be lots more in the next missive, suffice to say at this stage we are living in the place, we have the kitchen more or less finished, and the lounge usable, but still needing the floor tiles to be done and some pipes to be boxed in. The cave is also finished with a little still to do in the workshop and there is a downstairs toilet and washbasin. Upstairs the bedrooms and study are all but finished and we have a toilet washbasin and shower. But, for those that have seen it, there remains much still to do – but as we said in the beginning, it’s a long term project. But, as I write this we are visiting Linda’s family in York having had our first visitors, from York, in the new house (they were set to work, but by request!!), we then went with them to Paris for a few days of glorious sunshine and miles of walking, but a pleasant change from DIY!! We then brought our visitors back to York and are having what we feel to be a well-deserved rest, whilst planning what we need to do next!!

But, out of order and written before the last paragraph, whilst it is fresh in my mind, and the nose is still running the eyes stinging and watering and the throat sore let me tell you about today’s jobs. Whilst Linda was glossing the door surrounds and finishing off the upstairs painting, I finally went into the loft to “sort it out!” Initially, when we had seen the house it wasn’t possible to look into the loft, as when the roof had been replaced and new tongue and groove wooden ceilings put up, they hadn’t left a loft hole. But, as it is a legal requirement in France and as the electrician would require access for the wiring one of the first jobs was to create a loft hole. It was also necessary to see what the situation was regarding both insulation and the general state of the roof from the inside. Having broken through a few days earlier, and tentatively poked my head into the very small void – you never know in France what you might find in the loft!, I had been pleasantly surprised that the roof looked as good from the inside as the outside and when it had been replaced new timbers had been put in as necessary and the loft insulation, although not up to the recommended depth was there and initially didn’t look too bad!

Unfortunately, further inspection showed the small loft to be full of rubbish from the new roof, the insulation very thin and old in the far end and evidence of rife rodent activity. In the end there was nothing for it but a clear out of the old, then as a precaution bug spraying of the timbers ready for new insulation before the winter. Hence the runny nose, stinging and watering eyes and the sore throat, as I have started what promises to be a job of several days in a very confined space, getting through gaps in the rafters that were really not designed for me to fit through!! I have been coming out hyperventilating from a job that is a cross between caving (the confined space, throughout the loft I am unable to sit upright anywhere) and coal mining with the dust from the old roof and decaying insulation, helped by the rodents who thankfully seem to have fled, leaving their dead behind them!! The curtain like spider’s webs and their enormous occupants just added a “hell-like” quality to the job, and I’m sure if I hadn’t been so tired the stuff of nightmares, particularly as day after day I’ll be returning to my own little “Hole of Calcutta” for some time to come, and being completely covered head to toe, with a face mask and using a head torch to see, just adds to the discomfort!!

The Garden!

Quite simply all we have done is add rather a lot of rubble to the growing pile that’s there waiting to be used to level the new sitting area, which I feel seems a long way off – sitting that is, the sitting area being merely a distant dream!! But, it is surprising just how much rubble has accumulated from the few bits we have knocked out of the house – although another session with the electrician jackhammer and one slip and the whole house could have been reduced to a dusty heap of rubble!! It’s a mighty powerful tool, as well as vibrating fiercely and being incredibly noisy, which could explain why after turning in early I couldn’t keep still, initially driving Linda out of bed to read in the lounge and then on her return me swapping places and having a cup of tea (which often helps on the rare occasions I can’t sleep) and ending up starting to write bits of this missive in the wee small hours “waiting for the sun to rise!” Sounds like a song title, but tomorrow is nearly a day off, once we’ve fitted the new water heater to the wall, ready for wiring in and the plumbers to connect, we’re off out – but as we told the electricians earlier “Pas de vacance, nous visitez BricoDepot” for the next batch of work – tiles for the kitchen and bathroom walls and some of the floor tiles for downstairs – oh no! more kneeling!!

La Tour arrivée à la weekend!

It arrived and was gone almost in the blink of an eye and to date no-one in the UK spotted my large flag pole sporting two English flags fortunately sandwiching a French tricolour, as the place we had chosen to watch the “caravan” and tour proper go by was also where most of our French neighbours – present and future had also chosen to go!

We had spent the morning working in the house, after waving off two weekend house guests, doing the Vendée start of this year’s Tour; a university friend of our daughter Victoria and a young hitch-hiker, who having just left school, decided that there was no better way to spend the first part of his summer holiday than hitching around Le Tour. We have just had an email from the latter, Simon, after his return home, having it seems successfully followed Le Tour, and now we are awaiting the detailed account of his exploits!

We however, having over just finally got the key for our new house, needed to work in the house at least for part of the day, stripping out antiquated heating and plumbing systems ready for the artisans to start work the following week, so rather than travelling to see the start and maybe the finish of Day One, the route looping around the Vendée, making the start and finish within easy reach of each other as the riders powered their way along the windy Vendée back roads, we choose a spot very close to our new house, somewhat in the middle of nowhere!!

We had packed a picnic, so having finished work for the morning we set off on the short journey to find the nearby crossroads, to have our lunch and be ready for the arrival first of the caravan – the huge convoy of trade floats that precede La Tour proper and who throw out all sorts of goodies to the spectators they pass!! We had already decided that if when we arrived there were no other spectators, we would drive to the next village and find some crowds, as we figured it would be better to watch the spectacle in the company of others. But, we need not have worried as when we got within about a kilometre of our chosen vantage point and despite being in the middle of nowhere, there was hardly a parking space to be found, so squeezing in on the side off the narrow road we took out our folding chairs and picnic and hastily started our lunch, slightly worried that there was a steady flow of people towards the nearby crossroads heralded the imminent arrival of the “caravan.” However, to finish our picnic quickly proved somewhat difficult as everyone who walked passed us wished us a “bon appetit” to which we had to respond and at times have a short conversation!

But, we need not have worried as we arrived in plenty of time, even with time to greet and meet the many folk we knew from the village who all warmly greeted us like long lost friends, but were a little bemused as I got out a 4 metre fishing rod and tied onto it a French tricoloure sandwiched between a couple of red crosses of St George. The latter surprisingly caused a degree of confusion, as the English flag wasn’t recognised.

The crossroad we had chosen was closed to traffic by two small metal traffic barriers manned by two gendarmes, who paced up and down keeping an eye on the rapidly enlarging throng, all good natured, enjoying the sunshine and having a jolly good day out, complete with their own refreshments, but all on their best behaviour and obeying, without complaint, the odd instruction issued by the heavily outnumbered policemen!

After a long wait in the sweltering sunshine and a number of false alarms, the “caravan” finally swung into view and battle commenced, as the speeding publicity vehicles passed and threw out a variety of goodies and little old ladies elbowed everyone out of the way to grab the hats, sweets, newspapers, biscuits, packets of coffee etc etc that were either flung to the watching crowds or dropped in front of them depending on their weight. Certainly it proved to be something of not only a free for all, but also a matter of great pride to amass as large a haul as possible, irrespective of who you trod on along the way – rather reminiscent of the policies of a certain “Iron Lady!” Maybe it was just that they don’t get out much and the razzamatazz of the occasion was getting to them. That apart the “caravan” was quite spectacular and floats and publicity vehicles continued to pass for the best part of an hour, many at quite scary speeds as they passed within touching distance of the spectators who were held back by nothing more than a wagging finger, a short whistle blow or just a stern look from one of the two gendarmes, who also tried largely ineffectually to slow down some of the more speedy “caravan” participants.

Sometime after the dust had settled from the last of the publicity vehicle and after a false alarm when a line of helicopters flew passed, the expectant crowd thinking that Le Tour proper had arrived and excitement grew then died down again, before the first group of cyclists were spotted coming around the corner at the end of straight, and in a quite frightening flurry of activity the leading group complete with back up cars completely covered in spare bikes and wheels, and the accompanying motorcycle camera bikes, with photographers and camera men hanging precariously off the back, Le Tour came and went in the blink of an eye, with only a few stragglers following shortly afterwards, including one injured rider holding on to the medics car and being pulled along at great speed whilst a medic hung out of the window treating his wounded leg. Indeed, there was barely time to take a few photos and wave the pole of flags before it was all over, but we did get a special toot on the horn of the Team Sky car, the only British team in this year’s event and with Bradley Wiggins in their ranks, when they spotted the English flags.

A lot of waiting for a short burst of activity, but we were there and have seen Le Tour live, just a short distance from our new house! Something to tell the grandchildren!! We pass the crossroads quite often now and it’s back to a sleepy quiet little road, and unless you were there you wouldn’t believe how busy it was, for that short time on the first Saturday in July 2011!

“Ici devant nous!”

They certainly were, beating us by about 42 years, but we’re finally in! Not, I hesitate to add staying in our new house, despite spending most of our waking hours there – no in next door’s cave! A few weeks back, at the end of a particularly hot and wearying day our new neighbour to be appeared in the entrance to his cave, which is just opposite our small sitting area, in which we were tidying away the day’s tools and getting ready to leave for the evening and suggested I might like a beer. Gratefully, accepting I crossed to be shown into his male domain, Linda following behind not wanting to be left out. We were shown in, a ledge dusted down for us to sit on and two bottles of beer got from the fridge. It was then that Linda thought that perhaps she hadn’t actually been included in the invite, but was relieved to find that our host already had one on the go, part drunk and corked obviously his daily ration being eked out during the afternoon! He then sat on one of the benches along a large trestle that filled the middle of cave, so he could stretch out his leg, having only recently had a new knee and full mobility not yet restored, but enough to allow gardening – digging, hoeing, grass cutting, hedge cutting and using a very heavy duty rotivator!! There followed a pleasant twenty minutes or so, with a far ranging conversation about how long he had lived here, that he had always lived in St Laurent, but that his wife was from a nearby village. He even appreciated my joke that she had travelled a long way! We also talked about ourselves, our family, our previous life and a whole host of other topics – all in French, as our neighbour certainly appears to speak not one word of English – moving into civilisation, albeit rather calm and tranquil civilisation, certainly seems to be paying dividends already – nous parlez un petit peu plus Français, c’est necessaire!

We must also have passed the test, and to be invited into his domain was an honour indeed, and one that our near neighbours, Chris and Geoff, an English couple who spent several months in our neighbour’s gîte, whilst their house down the road was renovated, has only been achieved by the Jeff, the male in the partnership! Mind you I haven’t been invited in since; maybe he’s worried that Linda will tag along again!!

My original “thought!”

Bring on the sitting area, as by the time that’s put in we might have a little time to use it – by then no doubt ravished by winter storms! But, there’s always next year! Oh no, I got carried away then, there’s Roger’s retreat – to clear not to sit in!!! C’est la vie, as they say in these parts!!

Kind regards, Best Wishes and Love,

Roger and Linda

And, next time, in Missive 33 ~ Hard as it may be to believe it at the moment

this will feature: The Move ~ From hovel to habitable in 45 days!!!

Not this time from England to France but into our new abode!

And, Chapter 4 – somewhat incongruously called “Winding Down?”

Missive 31 ~ This is the week this is!!

2011-06-30T22:32:00.009+02:00

30th June 2011

Dear All

Attached is Missive 31, sneaking in just before the end of the month, which does mean I'm back on track. But, if the last few days are anything to go by, Missive 32 might be the Christmas edition!!!!

Hopefully not!

love

Roger

rogerhiggs@hotmail.co.uk

Mes chers amis

This is the week this is!! ~ Missive 31

“And in the end it’s not the years of your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”

Abraham Lincoln

“Two roads diverged in a wood and I –

I took the one travelled less and that has made all the difference.”

Robert Frost

““Come to the edge,” he said. They said: “We are afraid.”

“Come to the edge,” he said. They came. He pushed them, and they flew ......”

Guillaume Apollinaire

Somewhat anachronistic, for want of a better word, as this month’s offering has obviously been written at differing times, in fact it might well appear to jump all over the place – two years and more ago, tonight, tomorrow and the future –hopefully, it will all become crystal clear!!

Pen to paper with trembling hand as the search began ~ Chapter 2

Once the decision had been made, without going totally public, we felt we needed to tell as many of our close friends and relations as we could, not only so they didn’t find second hand, but I think also subconsciously so it would be more difficult to change our minds! I also felt it important to tell colleagues and governors at work, colleagues in the wider Gloucestershire education sphere, and in the mounting excitement anyone who would listen, but with the proviso that it was kept under wraps until actual dates had been decided, to at least give the governors a chance to begin to get their heads around finding a replacement for me. And ...... as I said in the last chapter amazingly for once the “educational bush telegraph” didn’t do its work and my imminent departure remained a secret for rather more months than I had originally intended.

The leap into the unknown had originally been planned for the end of the academic year, but as the period between leaving and becoming an early retiree depended on the sale of Linda’s parent’s house in York, the time for giving in my notice loomed rapidly, prospective buyers were conspicuous by their absence, as the country entered a deep and somewhat worrying depression. Without this security the whole plan was in danger of floundering before it even started, and maybe the dream just wasn’t meant to be!

We did however continue to surf the web and look for suitable areas and properties, which proved to be plentiful and at that time extremely good value for money the pound being still reasonably strong against the euro. So to move things on a little we made our first tentative sortie to view some possible properties, to see if the web descriptions really were accurate and you did get all it said for your money!! But as we intended to be cash buyers we needed the money in the bank before being able to commit ourselves, so we weren’t in the position to make a firm offer.

But, France is an enormous country, six times the area of the UK, so just how do you go about deciding where to live!! We thought about a stab in the dark, with a blindfold and a pin in a map, but it seemed too arbitrary and what if we had ended up with the hole in the map in the middle of the Champs Elysees, the budget certainly wasn’t going to stretch that far, and we would not be swopping the hustle, bustle and frustrations of work for the rural tranquillity and calm of the French countryside that we had witnessed on numerous holidays over the years. But these holiday destinations also didn’t help as we had a tendency to visit places all over France and even tour around with the tent or later the caravan on our two to three week summer holidays, so hadn’t fallen in love with one particular place, but rather France and its lifestyle in general.

We needed to do something to keep the momentum going, so we went back to the beginning, and the first website we had discovered, found the original farmhouse et al had gone, but that there were several other possible places in and around Mayenne, but also in the Vendée region with the same agent which we were to discover some hundred miles further south and if the books were to be believed altogether a warmer and sunnier clime! So we booked a short break, arranged with several estate agents to view properties either near Mayenne or in the Vendée, and booked hotels, the second of which we upgraded to a room with a view of the lake, as we were going to be there for our twenty fifth wedding anniversary. So, off we go crossing from Portsmouth on the evening sailing, and ending up having dinner that evening overlooking the Solent sitting outside a English pub, drinking English beer and eating fish and chips and having one of those “are we mad to be thinking about leaving all this behind” moments!! Well as it was a Brewer’s Fayre and the beer not up to much, I had a Guinness and Linda went Italian and had a lasagne!!

Now, if the scriptwriter had got it right, I would now say that on our silver wedding day we viewed the most amazing property, just as the sale of the house in York went through, made an acceptable offer and the dream started. But no, the first house we viewed had us questioning whether the web pages were in fact leading us a merry dance and simply full of fanciful “immoblier” (estate agent) speak! The first house was being sold by a rather officious and paper orientated lady, who worked from home in the middle of nowhere and had us signing al sorts of clauses to safeguard any potential sale. The house was quite pretty, but very small and a slightly oddly laid out and the attached gîte was more of a doll’s house in one of the house cupboards, with a ladder to reach upstairs. The house was in a small hamlet of mostly roofless derelict houses and one other inhabited house which also seemed to be nearly derelict, clustered around the end of a muddy track, and although the garden was a good size for our “good life” endeavours, there was a very large barn right in the middle, cutting out much of the view of the surrounding countryside, which was owned by a different member of the family (we were to discover that this is not uncommon in France and it has been know for different rooms within the same house to be owned by different family members!!) and not included now, and unlikely to be in the future, in the sale of the property. To make matters worse access to barn was over the drive of the house for sale, passing close to the back door and the garage which was striving to keep up (or maybe down!) with the other derelict houses beyond it.

As we drove away avoiding the thick farmyard slurry and water filled pot holes, we were despondent and both fearing a nasty case of “egg on our faces” on our return to England, having to tell all our friends it had all been a terrible and badly thought through mistake, and perhaps worse still having to face further years of meaningless and frustrating paperwork, the escape having resplendently failed!!

But fortunately the next day things looked up and we visited a very isolated but fantastic and very cheap beautifully converted farmhouse complete with a small but adequate gîte, which could be used as an extension to the house if needed, and a further gîte under development in the garden and a romantic ruin thrown in. The nearest neighbours lived quite close in an eight by six shed whilst doing up an old farm building at weekends. During the week they lived and worked in Paris and had a long term project to make the two storey corner of a building into a dream home!! But back to the house we were viewing, it was fantastic, renovated to a very high standard, but with bits still to do, I could quite easily have moved in then and there, and still pine for the bathroom, with an old fashioned hip bath in the middle of the room looking out through a large clear glass window over the surrounding fields, with only the odd herd of cows or farmer to view you wallowing in the bath. It ticked all my boxes, other than perhaps being rather too isolated, the nearest village some kilometres away. But, for Linda it didn’t have the same appeal, despite the immoblier having attended the same Teacher Training college as I did, and one of his School placements was at Linda’s school at a time when she was still a student there!! – too many different levels and subsequently numerous flights of stairs, clear glass in the bathroom window and a number of mind numbing low beams upstairs in the bedrooms, as well as being too isolated and we were beginning to realise, a little bit too far north to catch the better weather. But, it showed that the hunt was definitely back on and there was somewhere “a little bit of France with our name on it!!”

We then went south, on the day of our Silver Wedding, with heightened enthusiasm, although financially at this stage, this trip was only a fact finding mission. The lake view hotel room was pleasant enough, and the restaurant did a very enjoyable Vendéen set menu, but the plumbing and bathroom in general left rather a lot to be desired, we were told that the hotel was just about to undergo a major overhaul and new “salle de bain” were a top priority and we were only too happy to agree!! So, now in the Vendée, we had a couple of other properties lined up to view, but the first wasn’t until après midi, so we had a look around the area, new to us at this time and arriving at Mouilleron en Pareds, near to our rendezvous point with the immoblier, for the afternoon viewing, just as the local bar was putting out their “Menu of the Day” board, we saw this as a sign that we should get some lunch to keep us going for the afternoon. We climbed the attractive outside steps of this tiny town centre bar, ordered a couple of pressions (draught beers) and each choose the menu of the day. As we drunk our beers we conversed with the landlord, who had tired of live in the relatively nearby city of Nantes and just opened up this bar, with his partner doing the cooking. The meal was cheap, three courses and delicious, ending with what I still rate as the best crème brulée I have ever had!! What we had failed to notice was that the meal had vin complet, or wine included in the price, so after the beer and a quarter of a litre of vin rouge, we left the bar pleasantly full and somewhat under the influence!, so it was a mighty relief when we met the immoblier and she suggested that we jumped into her car (normally they like you to follow on the pretext of it being easier afterwards, but I think there is also a certain amount of perverse pleasure derived from watching you try and keep up as they negotiate the windy country roads, they know so well, at breakneck speed!!) and she took us to the viewing!

The house she took us to was rather pleasant with lots of potential, but I found myself worrying that Linda would fall in love with this house, when I had left a part of my heart at the house from the previous day, probably lying in a warm bath overlooking the peace and tranquillity of the fields and French countryside outside! Fortunately, she didn’t, although the facilities were very good, the lunchtime drinking catching up on me and necessitating a nip to the loo!, so we just had the last house to view fairly early the following morning, before having to “hot foot” it rapidly back to the ferry port, to ensure we didn’t miss the boat, as we had an unmissable fairy tale wedding, of one of my previous colleagues, to go to the following day. We once again rendezvoused with the immoblier, this time at their office, something of a rarity as with the growth in internet, many French immobliers seem to work from home, with no proper office and therefore arrange to rendezvous at some prominent locality, such as the church in the nearest village.

Arriving, at the house we were supposed to meet the vendor, in plenty of time to have a good look around, before having to rush off for the ferry. Fortunately as he had not arrived, there was a lot to see outside the house, a large four bedroomed farmhouse, standing in extensive grounds, with numerous outbuildings and fields including one barn that could easily have house two full sized tennis courts with room left over for the spectators! I should indicate at this point, it was initially our intention to “earn a living” after the move, and this property, or what we had seen of it up to then, as the owner still hadn’t arrived for the appointed rendezvous albeit over half an hour after the appointed time, and he had been told we were on a tight schedule! When he finally arrived, at the latest time we had given ourselves to get away some hour and a half late and totally unaware that the immoblier had been frantically trying to track him down, it transpired that in typical French fashion he had “gone fishing” and the time had just pasted him by, and he wasn’t in the least taken aback when we hastily shook hands to say hello, quite simply ran from room to room, shook hands to say goodbye and left, unable at that stage to say more until we got in the car and sped away both turning to each other at the same time and saying “That’s the one!” More sleepless nights followed as we thought about the house, its potential for a gîte, possibly chamber d’hôte (B & B), a small campsite, caravan storage and possibly more!, all without the wherewithal to actually buy it at that time!!

It did however mean that the next holiday required a further visit, and another viewing which we duly booked and for some weeks both still felt the same about the house, indeed with more time to look properly it had even more potential, so with the sale of the York house appearing to be imminent, we took the plunge and made a ridiculously low offer, knowing the house had been on the market for some time. Fortunately, with the benefit of hindsight the offer was turned down, as the offer was not accepted and the house in York wasn’t to sell for almost three more years so the money wouldn’t have been there anyway. Not such a gamble as although in France an offer once accepted and after a seven day cooling off period is legally binding and can incur a ten percent charge if the buyer drops out, failure to be able to secure the necessary money is just about the one exception to this rule. But again with hindsight, fate played its part and in the end it wasn’t to be and would have meant we had bought lots of potential, spent most of our expected money, although this ended up as less than expected the housing market being so flat, and needed to generate income to be able to live and do the required works. Quite simply we might have been in a chicken and egg situation of not being able to afford the work until we had generated some income from that part of the house and land that required the work!! We were sad, but really had a lucky escape and it was probably no bad thing that by the time we arrived in the Vendée to see that house had been sold. However, it took several months before we were able to drive past it and show some visitors what might have been.

Time then started to drag, we needed to make a decision about our future and uncertainties about finance made it difficult to give up our well paid jobs and set off into the unknown. The academic year ground slowly to an end, the frustrations and concerns I had about education in England didn’t lessen and Linda continued to feel the same about elements of her job, so rather like the people in Guillaume Apollinaire’s quote above, that summer we went to the edge, made the decision to jump and hoped when the time came we would fly, but it was mighty scary!!!

Therefore, it happened that I took trembling pen to paper, or in fact fingers to keyboard and to the school governors wrote:

Although I know that this letter is not going to come as any surprise, it is none the less somewhat difficult to write. It is with a great degree of sadness, tinged with excitement and trepidation; I would like to offer my resignation from the post of Headteacher at Moat Primary School, with effect from 31^st December 2008.

Leaving Moat School and the community of Matson is going to be a real wrench and I know that I am going to miss everyone an awful lot and will take with me a lot of great memories of a very busy 7 ½ years. Coming into what could have been a hornet’s nest of issues and resentment, I was able to “appoint” a truly fantastic, supportive and dedicated staff who really made my job, most of the time(!!), very easy.

Then, there are the children, who I know that I will miss immensely, and although Moat has had its fair share of challenging children, the vast majority are children who are keen to learn and a credit to themselves, their families and the school. Even those who have caused a few extra grey hairs, usually have every reason to be angry and whereas some children are amazingly resilient to their lot, we are all different and we all deal with things in different ways. All children, whether they know it or not(!!), should be thankful to attend a school where they are so obviously nurtured and lovingly cared for by such a caring staff, a point that was not lost on the last two OFSTED Inspections, but I don’t intend to start talking dirty!!

Suffice to say, as you all know, there are a number of serious concerns that I have about the way that education in this country is heading and, perhaps in the nick of time, a series of events have come together to allow me to pursue a life changing opportunity to become a “French peasant farmer,” and certainly won’t, as so many people have asked(!!), be retiring, at the very least I shall have to keep the kitchen garden growing, that’s if I want to eat!!

I had hoped to be able to give a longer period of notice and apologise for this, but although the sale of the house in York remains unachieved, it seems only fair to put a stop to the uncertainty and make the big step, quite literally into the unknown, allowing you time to seek a replacement for me, a task that I wish you all the best with and one I will help with where appropriate. Please also be assured, that I still have lots to do in the months I have left at Moat and will continue to serve the school as best I can until my departure.

I will look forward to hearing all the Moat and Matson news when, hopefully, you visit us to share a glass or two of French wine and eat our home produce whilst sitting in the Vendee sunshine!! And who knows the hair may not simply grow back but perhaps the grey hairs will fade and I’ll no longer look old enough for retirement and the few years younger than Jeni (Chair of Governors) that my birth certificate confirms!!!

Love and the very best of wishes,

The deed was done, at least it was as soon as my racing heart and trembling fingers managed to combine and find the send key on the computer keyboard. Life was about to change radically, so I had to pour myself a stiff drink – a French whisky seemed the obvious choice!!

The House!

Not wanting to tempt fate, this section wasn’t written until we well and truly had the keys in our hands and the house was ours! It’s now rather uncharacteristically early (balmy nights, all the excitement and some itchy bites having driven me out for a sunrise walk!) on the morning after the day before and we have already spent half a day in a new house; Linda stripping out some of the dangerous wiring and me removing some of the maison d’arrete (prison) like fencing around the courtyard and caging on the windows! The water has been reconnected although nearly thwarted by a 50 cents piece, not a bad debt owing to the water board, but used to seal off the supply when the house became empty. It took the water board man rather a long time to discover why turning the valve on didn’t have the desired effect, and only after he had jumped down into manhole in his rather unsuitable suede shoes and dislodged the offending coin pouring water over said shoes was the mystery solved. Fortunately, he was a jolly chap, took it all in good spirit and even sided with Linda when she asserted our parking rights with the neighbour who has admittedly had it her own way for many years, so was simply ensuring her rights. Hopefully this will be a misunderstanding and a little posturing and not be the start of a life time feud, which the French are somewhat known for!!

Since getting the date for the Act de Vente (completion) about a week ago things have been very hectic, not as though they weren’t beforehand!, but suddenly the reality that the sale was going through and was all but finished put a new dimension on things. Linda quickly and efficiently sorted out turning on the water, renewing the electricity meter, transferring the money to the Notaire prior to completion date and making an appointment to sort out house insurance, the latter two legal requirements in France before the house can become yours. Although it did transpire that the insurance requirement is only really necessary if you are taking out a mortgage, to protect the bank’s assets.

It’s now a couple of days on and we have spent some time at the house, it really is quite amazing how much rubbish can be generated for a completely empty house. It’s been a case of lots of tidying through removing the old electric wiring, stripping wallpaper with difficulty on some of the walls (after removing so many staples and drawing pins from the walls, it was a bit like being back at school moving into a new classroom where the previous incumbent had been good at the displays and nothing ever fell off even when a sudden gust of wind blew through the room, but hopeless at taking out the fixings afterwards!), taking out some dilapidated shelves and a cupboard, removing rubbish and a multitude of cable clips, stripping cladding of the old, somewhat worm ridden beams, visiting the tip, knocking out an old sink, cleaning the hearth – basically non-stop muck and activity.

But the sun has been shining, making even the darkness corner seem not too daunting, a new electricity meter is in, wired up to the existing dangerous wiring, so we are now leaving well alone until the electrician has been and made things safe, with the plumbing also booked, so by the next missive things may well have started to take shape and even some walls may have been painted. I did get creative for part of the day and started re-glaze the door into the cave, which once we get the glass tomorrow, will be one thing crossed off the construction list!! Priorities now are to cut a loft hole, so the electrician can put in the wiring and to spray all the woodwork with beetle spray!! After so long waiting, quite the little DIY couple!! Mind you I think it might not be a good idea to start counting the hours we will be putting it, it might simply serve to exhaust us even more, emotionally if not physically!!

The Garden!

It’s all but finished for now, save the bridge to get the caravan over into the garden and onto its gravel area. Sounds grand, but in reality it is just making a rather narrow garden entrance over a ditch, a little wider to make it a little easier to manoeuvre.

The last few weeks have seen the largely recycled fencing put up, a couple of flower borders dug over and edged with stones, the herb border prepared for planting, and some general tidying up of log piles and recycled fence posts etc. Then, over the last couple of days we have made some good progress at clearing out the barn attached to the house. Much of the wood stacked in there had rotted down into a rich compost – great for filling in the bank we cleared at the back of the garden, as well as providing some fire wood and a small pile of stones / rocks that will come in handy in the garden. But now, other than keeping the weeds in check, our gardening days are over for the time being, energy (what’s left of it after 250 hours gardening time!!) being transferred inside after tomorrow!

La Tour arrivée a la weekend!

There will have to be some time off for good behaviour this weekend, as La Tour de France kicks off, or I suppose that should be pedals off in the Vendée and the first stage from Île de Noirmoutier starting over a tidal causeway (let’s hope the organisers read the tide table correctly!) to Les Herbiers passes very close to La Loge and even closer to Le Boutet and our new house (The best and indeed only suggestion to date for a name is Maison Anglais, as that may well be what the locals unofficially call it, at least initially), followed the next day by a time trial at Les Essarts about 20 miles from here and then on day three leaves the Vendée coast and heads north into Brittany, with just 18 ½ stages and 3,145.5 kilometres to go approximately!!

It seems like a good excuse for a party, as it’s not every day that you get to see machines posing as human beings tearing down the nearby roads at breakneck speed with only a thin layer of lycra between some of their body and the tarmac! So we’re getting a trip up on day three, including one of Victoria’s friends from University to go and watch the spectacle, albeit briefly as the leading group rushes by, but more importantly to soak up the atmosphere and to be able to say in years to come “We were there!!” Perhaps, we should leave the car at home, pump up the bicycle tyres, don the lycra and ...... perhaps on second thoughts we’ll need the car for the coolbox and picnic hamper!!!

But, for the avid watchers amongst you, and I know there are some!, we’ll be somewhere on the first day between St Hermine and Mouilleron en Pareds waving two large St George’s Crosses (unfortunately I don’t have a Union Jack!!) on top of a large pole and a French drapeur tricolore for reasons of entente cordiale! Look out for us!!

“Ici devant nous!”

It’s very hot (nearly 11 o’clock and still 25˚) and noisy tonight! I just went outside in the gathering gloom and was nearly run over first by a large tractor and trailer coming down the avenue, lights blazing like something out of a sci-fi film. Then this was followed by a very noisy and extremely large combine harvester, barely leaving me room to duck behind the large oak tree next to our post box, as the giant cutter on the front came perilously close. It was lucky I didn’t take fright and run quickly indoors as coming closely behind this monster was a large quad bike, driven by Alain the local fauchage man, with the liquid refreshment in a large coolbox balanced on his knee. Shortly afterwards Alain returned, minus the refreshments, so it looks as though it might be noisy well into the night, and I need to make sure I’m not owl watching when they have finished, as I have a sneaky feeling that the coolbox didn’t contain orange juice!!

Let’s hope that the combine driver can still drive straight, as there was little room for error and that the noise, as well as the heat doesn’t stop us from sleeping. But a definite case of “Ici devant nous!”, but perhaps I should just move the car a bit further away from the road!! After all we need the car in the morning to go and sign for our new house, the excitement of that might also keep us awake tonight!!

My original “thought!”

OMG, this time tomorrow we will own two houses, a barn and a briar, live in another house and have a total of five gardens and a courtyard!! How mind boggling is that!!

Kind regards, Best Wishes and Love, Roger and Linda

And, next time? Colour charts, dust and bug spray, and hopefully not too many surprises, oh!

and Chapter 3 ~ Thank you Jamie, at the very least!

Missive 30 ~ Turning Point or “Moment décisif”

2011-06-05T22:27:00.004+02:00

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.

Missive 29 ~ Twinkle twinkle little bat!

2011-05-02T22:13:00.006+02:00

1st May 2011

Dear All

Missive 29 attached, and yes I know I just missed the end of the month but I think it explains itself!!

Also, sending it to coincide with the May Day Bank holiday and after all the excitement of someone or other’s wedding has died down, will give you plenty of time to read it – and it’s only shortish!!

Love

Roger

rogerhiggs@hotmail.co.uk

Shortly to be slightly further west (approx 3 km) and up a bit (1 ½ km north),
oh!, and down a bit (10 m elevation)!!!

Mes chers amis

“Twinkle, twinkle, little bat! How I wonder what you're at.” (with thanks to the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland!) ~ Missive 29

"There’s so little time and so much to do, There’s so little time for dreams to come true.
Many a ship to sail, many a magic land, Many a moonlit trail, many a road to walk hand in hand”From the song “So Little Time (So Much to Do)” on the Louis Armstrong album “Pocket Full of Dreams”.

“Gardening requires lots of water, most of it in the form of perspiration!”
Lou Erickson

“Gardening is a matter of your enthusiasm holding up until your back gets used to it!”
Author Unknown (but very wise!!)

The first quote explains the amazingly “short” length of this missive, the other two explain it further, as I sit my back sticky with sweat after another two hour workout in the garden, seeking rest and recuperation on the keypad. So this time, it’s to be a small offering with little of the wit, scintillating comments and in depth observations of human live that you have hopefully come to expect. But, as you read on you may realise that this is what you will have to get used to, as shortly we’ll be “back to work” replacing hours spent with wire cutters, sickles and sledge hammers, interspersed with numerous trips to the nearby tip, where we have become such regular customers that the “waste operative” there greets us like long lost friends and before helping us unload must shake hands and pass the time of day, with paint brushes, screwdrivers, saws, hammers and further aching backs, legs and arms!!

England!

As you may remember, we have just had a couple of weeks back in dear old blightly, managing to escape just before “the wedding,” but my plans to declare a “wedding-free zone” were thwarted, as when I returned from a couple of hours working up a sweat in the garden and with another trip to the tip, I found Linda and my Mum and Dad who have returned with us for a couple of weeks, huddled secretively around the computer, waiting to see the dress and the kiss on the balcony! All sounds a little like a BBC repeat!!

Well, we had a busy couple of weeks, including something of a busman’s holiday doing various jobs for my Mum and Dad in their house and garden. But we also managed to tie the visit in with a warden meeting I needed to attend in Broadway, a flying visit to Stroud and also caught up with most of the family, for much of the time there were between 7 and 11 people sitting down for meals, so lots of cooking, eating, drinking and missing the dishwasher!!

Then there was the visit to B and Q for the paint – paint in France being both very expensive and very poor quality, even if carrying the same brand name. The list was very long, a trailer load in fact and we were delighted to find a “three for two” offer on all paint as well as a very helpful and knowledgeable sales assistant who pointed us in the right direction for the best buys and quality, to the point of rubbishing one of B & Q’s own paint lines, recommending a different line for nearly the same price!

We went to the till with two trolleys piled high, due to the offer we had rounded up to three when with some we only needed two, well the third was free – or was it!?! Having paid for the goods and scrutinising the bill, we found we had saved £77 instead of the £113 we were expecting and off we went to Customers Services for an explanation, which was simply that it was a “mix and match” offer so you got the cheapest items free!! So, the manager was summoned, who wasn’t particularly helpful, but did agreed that if we returned the goods and made a number of separate purchases we would indeed save the expected amount, and this is what we did, fortunately not having to return into the store, but all being dealt with by the man in customer services, who by the end of it all quite understood how sensible we were to save all that extra money!!

So the journey back included a paint packed trailer with a wheelbarrow strapped on top, lashed on by a huge quantity of rope, so we were very relieved not to have to untie it all for the trailer to be inspected, and a very laden car with barely enough space for my parents – they would I’m sure have had more room on a budget airline!! But safely back the car load was added to the growing mound of “things for the new house,” thank goodness that our “cave de chauffage” (boiler house) has a floor area well in excess of a squash court!!

One day perhaps we’ll just have time in England to catch up with everyone!!

Such snatched moments will now be of the upmost importance!

One of those all too rare magical “stolen” mornings – I’m not normally up in time, but then if I always got up at this time, I guess some of the magic would dissipate anyway! Written as it flowed from the pen having returned to the warmth of the house and a welcome cuppa!

“Call me a lunatic, 7.00 a.m., quick nip to the loo and as I didn’t need to be up, back to a nice warm bed!! But then I saw the fantastic moon (it was the time of the moon being particularly close to the earth and therefore seemingly extra large!), waning but just one day off the full, dipping majestically down behind the chateau out back! Not wanting to miss the photo opportunity, it was a quick throwing on of a few clothes and off at breakneck speed, surrounded by the early twitterings of the dawn chorus, as the moon was going rapidly.

Several shots, with the camera, later and I was behind the chateau near to its large lake, when I realised that the multitude of fritillaries that were at that time bedecking the hay meadow, were clothed with a fine layer of frost, and I realised that my own clothing was painfully inadequate for the chill of this particular early morning!

But, as I came back round the chateau and headed back to the house for a warming cup of tea, with the cuckoo cuckooing and the woodpecker alternatively tapping and screeching, that I noticed that the sun was just beginning to lift clear of the distance trees and beautifully illuminating the “iconic tree” that sits on the bank of the pond at the bottom of the field opposite our house. The splendour of the morning won over the cup of tea, for half an hour or so necessitating numerous more photo shots, at which the inquisitive cows in the field the other side of the lane came over to see what was happening. Maybe it was the sense of occasion, but I had a long conversation with the cows – in French, and covering a wealth of topics including the moon, the sun, the previous cold night and how I wasn’t coming bearing gifts and how there seemed to be the promise of a great morning to follow – who said the vocabulary wasn’t improving!? Over the delayed cuppa, I mused about; the sun, the moon and the long conversation I had already had that morning and noted that for once even the rather aloof bull hung on my every word!!”

The House!

In some ways not a lot has changed, the compromis signed we are now awaiting the “act de vente” which will make the house formally ours and we can start to do things inside, as opposed to the jungle bashing you’ll read about in the next section.

However, we have begun to get artisans in to give us “devis” (quotations) for the electrical / plumbing work, which we are hoping to get started as quickly as possible after we finally officially “get the key,” although unofficially and we’re not allowed to tell anyone, we have a key to allow access for the artisans, which has proved great for showing visitors our new abode.

Those who haven’t yet seen the house have commented that the various communications have a dearth of photos of the inside of the house. Well, quite simply there’s really not much to see, it’s basically a blank canvas, albeit a rather dirty one!

We did initially think we had a few mice that had made the most of the house being empty for the last few years and moved in! It was however, rather a mystery why the piles of droppings were confined to the corners of the rooms or under little niches. Then, when we showing an electrician around the house, out from the workshop flew what initially we thought was a small bird, but closer examination revealed it to be a bat, flitting happily around the house between all the rooms as it had obviously done for the last few years. Hopefully, shutting the interconnecting doors will discourage it in the future, but at the moment we’ll hang on to the comment made by the electrician – “In France it is considered lucky to have a bat in the house!” As with many things a bit different in France than in England, where the presence of a bat, although perhaps rather exciting, could be anything but lucky, necessitating the cessation of work and the need for a professional bat survey before being able to continue work!!

Now, it’s simply a case of wanting to get in and start the cleaning and subsequent painting – as I said above the paint (specially imported from the UK) is in the cave, waiting with baited breath. But in the meantime we’ll have to work up a sweat and hope that the back gets used to it before the enthusiasm wanes ~ that’s then the garden sorted!!!

The Garden!

Seventy plus “person hours” and we’ve hacked and sweated, pushed and pulled and been scratched and stung and have finally found the garden, well, three corners of the five it contains, and the others are within striking distance!! The jungle bashing discovered what was almost like a lost world, because as well as large head high bramble patches, there were a number of ham built animal sheds and runs; ham built but fortress-like, with multiple layers of chicken wire or thicker fencing wire, knitted together with thick wire or barbed wire strands or thick rot resistant binder twine and fastened to the uprights and random cross pieces by large staples, or bend over four inch or bigger nails. Sandwiched in the layers of wire were thin concrete slabs, corrugated iron or black plastic sheeting, with the whole held down by being set into concrete that was set into the ground, and with large areas of corrugated roofing nailed on top where the animals could sleep or roost!

The whole was then surrounded by a multi-layered fence interwoven with thick black polythene, topped with at least one strand of barbed wire. We have heard that the previous inhabitant had had a long deep-seated feud with one of the other residents of the hamlet, and it was almost as if every time the warring factions had words, another layer of “defence” was added. In a similar fashion, there are a number of hastily boarded / bricked up windows in the house, including a couple of what we see as authentic and architectural features.

But, we’ll get there; we have to, to be able to get the caravan into the garden and I’ve already started to dig up one patch of bramble / nettle roots and thistles ready for some veg planting – at the very least I want to have some courgettes and potatoes! Then one day we’ll be able to sit down under the ancient spreading vine we hacked through to, that will provide dappled shade for our new sitting area – well at times like this you need imagination and the ability to dream and maybe a sense of humour!!!

¡qué un sorpresa!

What a surprise it was indeed, as we pulled up outside our house and found that Monsieur from the chateau was back from Spain and seemingly to stay as he had put out his bins. A day or so later he realised we were back, when Toutoune went missing and was obviously around at our place, he rushed around and greeted us like long lost friend, warmly shaking my hand as I tried out my newly revised Spanish greeting and kissing Linda on both cheeks, whilst saying how pleased he was we were going to stay in St Laurent for ever, so we could be friends for ever, and telling us that even once we had moved we were now his friends and could walk in the chateau grounds whenever we wanted!

The following quick five minute chat ended up as an hour and a half cup of tea, as we picked up from last summer; it was as if he hadn’t been away for any time, let alone over seven months. It promises to be a long fun-filled summer, when we are not doing house renovations!! We also couldn’t help but feel that the poor winter weather in Spain was a good excuse, when actually spending time with us before we move, might have featured in the decision to migrant north much earlier than normal

“Ici devant nous!”

Actually this time possibly not! As the “processionary pine moth caterpillars” should really live further south, but are moving northwards, but after we moved south!!

I’m sure many of you will be aware that certain hairy caterpillars contain irritant hairs, and writing this I’m reminded of a particular campsite, in southern Brittany, where we were inundated by SAS style caterpillars that abseiled in vast numbers down from the many trees. Unfortunately, once they managed to abseil between my neck and shirt collar, then became squashed between my back and the chair making for an irritating rash for a couple of days.

But the processionary caterpillars are in a league of their own and without wishing to be alarmist – potential killers!! The first sign, in spring are light coloured web-like cocoons swinging in the tree tops. These are caterpillar nests, from which the caterpillars march out, nose to tail in single file and lines of up to sixty, to feed on pine needles, leaving a pheromone trail to find the way back to the nest.

The nests damage the trees and the advice is to carefully cut them off and burn them, but even when dead they are dangerous. The caterpillars have fine hairs on their backs which contains a protein that causes severe irritation and dermatitis and can cause anaphylactic shock to both humans and animals, and if eaten by cats and dogs can kill them so quickly that there may not be time to reach a vet. The symptoms include vomiting, swelling of the tongue, staggering and breathing difficulties. If you come across them, as we did recently, best to leave them alone as they can release these dangerous hairs with the risk of subsequent poisoning!

My original “thought!”

The English call it “Wickedness,” the French “Pleasure!” ~ the jam on the morning croissant!! I’ve always said we could learn a thing or two from the French, but on the other hand their beer isn’t as good!!

Kind regards, Best Wishes and Love,

Roger and Linda

And, next time? Whatever the spade unearths as well as fighting with a large snake!!!