Christmas Missive 2010

Happy Christmas and a Great New Year or Joyeux Noël et bonne année, as they say in these parts!!

Dear All

Once more an early Christmas Missive for 2010!!

Well as for our move to France, we’re still here, don’t let the English stamps confuse you, we planned ahead purchased them during our last UK trip and a friend travelling back to the UK has posted them for us and saved us some money along the way!! Yes we’re still in France, still renting La Loge and not much further on, but I do officially become an early pensioner in February, so who knows!! This is a brief Family Christmas Missive for “more” visit the blog http://ithappenedonethursdayinfebruary.blogspot.com/

It has been a bit of a year of ups and downs, the downs to start with; both Linda and I lost an Aunt (Linda’s Auntie Phyllis and my Aunt Marg) as well as a couple of dear good friends and as many of you will know, Max our faithful brown hound went to the kennel in the sky, even now some months later we still almost expect him to be there – certainly when the French Bread is on the table. Also, the house in York was sold then wasn’t and remains unsold– hence the limbo we are in regarding long term plans. Also, on our main visit to the UK in the summer the car had to have some expensive major work done – thank goodness for a mechanic in the family!!

As for the ups, we have once again welcomed many of you to our wonderful part of the Vendée, where although this year the sun didn’t shine quite as much, the ponds did all dry up and the veg needed lots of water, and shorts and tee-shirts were the order of most days. Hopefully, the visitors will continue next year and maybe once again see some new faces! Perhaps the funniest visitors were some friends from Stroud, who unannounced popped in for a cup of tea!! They were en route from the Dordogne to Brittany where their daughter lives!! It was great to see them and luckily they caught us in – it is however best to let us know you’re coming, and it’s a good place to break your journey if travelling up or down France – about 35 miles inland from La Rochelle. We have also made some good English friends and so have a slightly greater social life, but although slowly learning the lingo and making sure we go to as many local events as possible, socialising with the French is more difficult, but has gone past the commenting solely on the weather stage – although living in a rural crop growing area it is a common topic of conversation amongst the French, not only an English phenomena!!

We also had a fantastic time getting to know our absentee landlord who spends the summer here and the rest of the year in Spain. Linda became his IT technician and I became his official photographer and we have very many happy memories of a truly gracious gentleman and eccentric – you’ll find much more about him on the blog, suffice to say here, he now signs his emails “Madame, la coqueluche du village!” Yes – “Madame!!” the rest meaning the rage / darling / favourite (take your pick!) of the village!!

Now for the family news: Linda as well as various work around the house and in the garden, walks in the countryside, weekly trips to the swimming pool and shops, has continued to fill the store cupboard with tasty jams and preserves and gone into furniture restoration and upholstery in quite a big way – it’s amazing how with a lot of elbow grease, and not a little huffing and puffing, some of our more jaded pieces of furniture have been rejuvenated!!

Daniel and Lisa continue to make improvements to their house (with a bit of help from his father!!) and by Christmas will both have newer cars, Lisa because her old one needed replacing, Daniel because some bright spark recently ran into the back of him and wrote his car off, fortunately he was alright – sods law though he had just spent a lot of money on it sorting out the brakes. They both remain very active in St John Ambulance, Lisa running the Stroud Badgers and Daniel the adult division as well as being involved in the Child Protection Team, and doing duties and training courses, he is now qualified to be an Ambulance Attendant and next step is to be able to drive the ambulance with “blues and twos” as they say!! Daniel has just been up to St James Palace to receive his Gold Duke of Edinburgh Award from the man himself, usually now the awards are made by Edward who is taking over from his father.

Victoria meanwhile, has done her 6 month stint in China, had a great time not only teaching English to children and youngsters, but also making the most of her time off to see lots of China, sometimes alone and sometimes with new found friends. Unfortunately, Dermot found he was unable to travel to China, due to his job, so they ended up meeting in Singapore / Malaya for a few days. They had a great time, including Gin Slings and a meal in Raffles Hotel (following in her father’s footsteps, but I was too young for the gin so made do with a coke and the family too poor for a meal so had to make do with a stall quite literally on the side of the road at Bedo Corner!). She also seems to have had two or three cars this year, after a false start with the first that had to go back – long story!!, but now has a small runabout to get her to college / placements. She was thrown straight into her Teaching Course on her return from China, with hardly time for her feet to touch the ground, but it is all going very well and we keep getting excited Skype calls – as a friend said the other day (she is also a retired teacher!): “She is so enthusiastic about her teaching. I think we could all suddenly see ourselves 40 years ago when we were just beginning.” Another recent excited call was to say she had just heard that she, through St John, had been awarded a “Sovereign’s Award,” one of only ten awarded annually, the excitement only tempered a little as she found out that it was Princess Anne again (She has met her on several occasions!!) and not the Queen herself making the presentation.

Linda and I have not returned to the UK so much this year, but have managed to fathom out the French Tax system, and beaten the bureaucracy and managed to register the caravan in France, allowing us a couple of short breaks to Saumur by the river and Royan by the sea. Plans are now afoot to look for some better weather early next year and head south for three weeks or so. As for me I continue with my cooking, writing, photography and have taken up sculpture!! Reviews to date range from “Well it’s interesting” to “C..p!!” Then there’s the garden, walking etc. etc. As I’ve said before “I just don’t know where the time goes!!”

Lots of love

Roger and Linda