Jan 2010
Dear All
Hopefully you will find Missive 14 attached, and it’s a bumper one after the last rather short one!!
So, I’ll say no more to give you plenty of time to read the attached!!
Love
Roger
Vendee, FRANCE
rogerhiggs@hotmail.co.uk
Mes chers amis
Follow the star! ~ Missive 14
And you all thought that star following was a Christmas thing, but it’s now New Year, and after a not uneventful journey home, read on!! Once more relaxed and with time on my hands, back to a full length missive and for those of you who can’t wait “The Orgy” takes place on Page 4! I also need to do something physical, even if it’s only two finger typing, to keep warm!! We’ve returned, a day late having been snowed in at the Forest of Dean, to a smattering of snow and minus temperatures, but not quite as wintery as we left behind, from a very pleasant and busy festive season plus.
We were due to leave my parents in rural Gloucestershire on Wednesday 6th January 2010, having been to visit my Mum and Dad’s local the previous evening for a “bit of supper” and more importantly a pint of two of real English Ale, one of the very few things that I miss living in France – French beer can be very good, but .....!!! Then it snowed again, indeed snow, snow and more snow, making a trip to the pub impossible (fortunately, my Dad had a couple of bottles of Fuller’s London Pride, one of my favourites, so all was not lost!!) and the early start for an early afternoon sailing from Dover also not possible, not least because my parent’s drive is long, steep and very slippery in snowy conditions and the village roads hadn’t seen either a gritter or a snowplough! Careful studying of weather forecasts, where the advice was only to travel if absolutely necessary, further sealed our delay and with what looked like something of a window of opportunity in the middle part of the following day, we rebooked for a late afternoon crossing, hoping to leave after breakfast and arrive in Dover early enough to be put on an earlier crossing. We went to bed that night with fingers et al. crossed and were glad that the previous afternoon we had cleared the drive of snow and managed to park the already packed car at the bottom, as clear skies meant that the temperature had plummeted to minus 5 when we got up in the morning.
But, traffic was moving albeit gingerly down the village towards the main road, which I had walked down and checked the previous afternoon and found to be empty of snow and pretty well empty of traffic. So, without further fuss, we had a hasty breakfast and left quickly, promising to keep my parents posted as to progress at various stages – on the motorway, at Dover and conditions in France and quite expected to have to stop somewhere, for the night, as we made our way down the country to the Vendée.
The village was still very snowy, but fortunately as the cars the previous day had puckered up the snow, despite the plummeting temperatures of the previous night it hadn’t turned into a smooth skating rink, and before we knew it we were on the open road, the main road through to Chepstow and the motorway over the old Severn Crossing. Despite flowing freely, there were still some patches of ice, particularly on the edge of the road or where the road remained sheltered from any weak winter sunshine from the previous day and the minus 5 that we left in, paled into insignificance when just along the road the temperature dropped to minus 8.5 and we started wondering if a cosy house might have been a better option!!
But, the temperature crept back up, briefly before we hit a patch of thick fog and temperatures of minus 12 for a couple of miles passing Bath, but the rest of the M4 and M25 were reasonably uneventful, and although in many places the snow still lay in the fast lane the general lack of traffic meant that this didn’t really cause a problem. The only other problem was that the windscreen washer had stopped working and the wet road surface and salt that kept being thrown up, smeared the window and as for much of the journey we were into the sun did cause some visibility problems. Pulling of onto an icy hard shoulder, which many cars had to do, was somewhat hazardous but necessary to splash water over the window. A useful travel tip, seen on the journey – a washing up liquid bottle full of screen wash, which can be directed out of the window (AT LOW SPEED OR WHEN IN A TRAFFIC QUEUE - H & S!!) is much easier than just an ordinary bottle and less likely that the water will end up travelling up your sleeve!! Obviously, the conditions also brought out the true “British spirit” as when on one stretch of road we experienced a Traffic Officer stopping the traffic with a rolling road block, we think to allow the removal of a previous minor accident, everyone took the opportunity of being stationary to wash windscreens and people were sharing water, cloths and squeegees, when the driver of breakdown lorry that had just picked up a broken down car on the hard shoulder jumped out and went down the lines of cars pouring water onto their windscreen for them to wash off the smears. As the traffic started moving again this act of kindness meant that the breakdown lorry was courteously signalled into the carriageway – no hooting of horns, waving of fists or speeding up to stop them getting in!!
The previous day must have been worse and we were amused to see that some stranded motorist, had to pass the time of day made a large snowman on the hard shoulder of the M25, presumably when traffic had come to a standstill and there was no danger from passing cars! Our main concern at this point was that the traffic bulletins on the radio were suggesting more snow and reporting that accidents on both sides of the M20 to Dover were snarling things up and advising drivers to not travel that way if at all possible. For us it was too late, but the Dover bound carriageway was moving freely, but we were thankful not to be heading towards London where an accident had meant that the central barrier was being repaired and two lanes closed – the ensuing tailback was long as this seemed to be the busiest stretch of road we encountered on the whole journey.
Interestingly, the worst roads on the English side were when we got to Dover harbour, where little or no attempt seemed to have been made to clear anywhere, with the only road being visible where previous vehicles had helped the snow to melt – it was very much a case of following in one another’s tyre tracks and the still bitterly cold weather was too much for the French border control, who waved us through without opening their window or so much as setting eyes on our passports!! We then lined up on a snow field waiting to board an earlier ferry as we had arrived in Dover well ahead of schedule. We were a little worried as the lorries waiting to board the next Sea France sailing were all getting stuck and having to be dug out or have salt and grit put under to wheels to get a purchase. One lorry even had to be pushed out by a JCB that put its front bucket up against the back of the lorry and managed only after much wheel spinning, on the part of the JCB, to get the lorry going!! Fortunately, cars didn’t seem to be having so much trouble, so we drove on very easily, but sailing was delayed by the loading of the freight vehicles.
We had an excellent crossing, made great time and started to unload in Calais well ahead of schedule, only to be confronted by a series of fairly short, but very heavy hail storms, that due largely to the smaller volume of traffic on French roads, caused very quickly both lanes to be white over and potentially very slippery, so speeds had to be adjusted accordingly and the journey consequently became “longer!” Fortunately, the hail bounced off the windscreen and so visibility wasn’t too much of a problem and the lack of traffic, whilst not melting the hail on the road surface, did mean there was less to watch out for or indeed to try and overtake.
We had made the decision to travel back a different way, nearer to the coast, as the forecast had said temperatures inland would be colder, and by and large the journey was reasonably uneventful. But the services at Caen, where we stopped for petrol had over six inches of snow and clearing it hadn’t been a priority so led to some interesting manoeuvres, not least because in places it was hard to see where the road actually went!! Interestingly, the only snowploughs we saw were on the other side of the road!! In between the hail showers, which thankfully became fewer as we got further south, we travelled through a rather cold (minus 10 just north of Fougere) but beautiful starry night, and both had a wonderful view of the most staggering shooting star we have ever seen. It seemed to go down the road in front of us for several seconds and the front was large and clearly had flames trailing behind it. I certainly took it as an omen, directing us safely home, and wonder if our wishes were the same?
After about 7 hours of travelling since leaving Calais, the time it would normally take to get home, we came off the periphique (ring road) at Nantes onto the homeward stretch and in front of the car a large shadow crossed the road, materialising into the most enormous sangier or wild boar, which proceeded quite nimbly to climb the bank on the side of the road and disappear into the night, a wondrous sight and a first for both of us, but we were both pleased we hadn’t been a little earlier, as it was a big creature and had we hit it, it would have caused a lot of damage to the car!!
The final cross country section from St Hermine, about 10 kilometres, was slightly interesting as it had obviously snowed and the snow had melted from where the sun had shone on it but not from where it had remained in shadow, so icy patches was the order of the last weary miles. Finally, at two thirty in the morning, 8 ½ hours from Calais, we pulled into the very wintery drive of our house, the temperature registered minus 5, exactly the same as we had left Gloucestershire in, the previous morning, so the first job was to get the heating turned up!! Surprisingly, it wasn’t then straight to bed, needing first to unwind a little; unpack the car, have a coffee, open the pile of mail including many Christmas cards that had arrived after we had left for England, before finally going to bed – the bedroom now having warmed up a little. Needless to say we didn’t rise too early the next morning!!
Black dots on a world map!
I have been really lucky in life to have been able to travel to many of the four corners of the globe, sometimes in interesting conditions as above, although there are plenty of unexplored corners that remain on the to do list, lottery win permitting!! If like Victoria, I were to get a world map and stick black dots onto all the places I’ve visited it would be really quite impressive, but I’m 54 next birthday, and Victoria’s map is truly impressive for one so young and is shortly to have China added!! This will be the culmination of her TEFL course and she is going to teach English to Chinese children for six months prior to hopefully starting her Teacher Training in England. And, when it comes to “continent count”, Victoria won’t count the fact that in the olden days of BOAC (The forerunner of BA for those of you under a certain age) my brother and I several times came down for refuelling on the African continent en route to Singapore, and had to leave the aircraft, so is one up on me at the moment!! She only has Australia / Oceania and Antarctica to go and one of these is nearly in the pipeline! She might indeed already be saving to expand her travels into space, on second thoughts as prices stand this probably isn’t compatible with being a teacher!!
Even in my lifetime, oh josh I’ve used that rather hackneyed expression, the world has certainly become a smaller place and people, I’m sure fuelled by the incredible documentaries that we now see about exotic places and species – Palin through to Attenborough, people want to have their own experiences and travel has become cheaper and easier, albeit often carbon heavy, although this has in turn led to the growth of ethical travel and offsetting ones carbon footprint.
It’s therefore something of a surprise, although not that uncommon to still find people in England who have never visited London, or even the odd Forester who is happy to visit Gloucester, the County Town but Cheltenham, whoa, that’s another matter!! Which, just goes to reinforce just how lucky I have been!
Oh! Did I take my clothes off!!
Occasionally of late and more frequently at one time, I would bump into people who said: “I’m sure I know you – yes I’ve seen one of your assemblies!” I would then ask them if during the assembly I had kept my clothes on or not and dependant on their reaction to this, I would have some idea as to which assembly they had seen or not. Let me explain! From when I became Deputy Head and had a responsibility (oh gosh is that what it was!!) to do more than the odd class assembly, I decided that religious assemblies could be done by someone else and mine would deal, sometimes in a roundabout and slapstick way with moral issues. They began to involve dressing up, audience (child or adult) participation and led to the weekly use of a catchphrase that caught on and is still remembered today – “Do you mind if I change!” Contrary to popular belief, this rarely although occasionally involved a sex change, but if the story involved a variety of animal characters or a dashing prince (not I hasten to add too difficult to achieve! “Oh yes it was! Oh no it wasn’t!” springs to mind but that’s another story or should that be pantomime – which who knows may not be “Behind me!!”), it was better to dress the part and more convincing not to be there in smart trousers and collar and tie!
Well, moving on to greater things and becoming Head at Uplands led to further assemblies at this school and “guest” appearances elsewhere for Book Weeks or charity events such as Children in Need. One such “regular” booking was at a school across the valley at the top of the hill from Uplands, where the then Headteacher, who found relaxing into the role none too easy, kept surprisingly inviting me back!! The stories started with a return to the old catchphrase “Do you mind if I change” which brought back memories for one member of staff who remembered it first time around and involved such zany antics as refusing to tell a story until I had had a cup of tea and breakfast, as I had rushed out of the house that morning, and then preceding to make them on a camping stove in the school hall. The smell of bacon although wonderful was nothing compared to the look on the faces of the staff sitting around the hall!! There were then several more years of visits with lots of audience participation, culminating, I thought, in a whole staff pantomime, unrehearsed and indeed sprung on the staff as a complete surprise, something I did in a number of different schools over the years – often having to come up with cunning plans to maintain the element of surprise! The children loved it, so I think secretly did the staff although they would never admit it! So, I was moving out of Stroud to the big city, Gloucester, and thought that the pantomime was to be the last at this particular school. The Head duly thanked me, said that she didn’t know how I could follow that and thinking it was my last performance I rather glibly said “Oh, it will have to be The Emperor’s New Clothes” and thought nothing more of it.
Imagine then my surprise, nay horror, when I returned from a meeting some months later to be told that said Head had phoned and would I phone them back as they had a favour to ask!! Before they answered the phone I had a strange foreboding, and I was right to have had it as I was duly asked back to do another Book Week story. No mention was made of any emperor’s or indeed their new clothes, but I had a nagging feeling that it hadn’t been forgotten and to let my audience down would have been unforgiveable!! So, the story about a piece of wood was hatched, to keep the element of surprise and make them think I’d forgotten my throwaway quip! The story was basically all about a piece of wood that was cut off a larger piece of wood that held up the shower curtain in my bathroom. Not perhaps a scintillating story line, but educational as it told the story of the piece of wood from seed to sapling to tree to fence post to shower, and ended up with me minus most of my clothes in the shower singing “I’m singing in the rain!”, just when the telephone rang! Wrapped in a large towel, unfortunately not very well “fastened” towel I left the shower to answer the phone and conveniently lost the towel and was left with very red cheeks – well it was close to Red Nose Day!! A hasty jump back behind the shower curtain spared too many blushes and a fun time was had by all!?! And furthermore the ending was fairly similar to The Emperor’s New Clothes,” so honour had been maintained.
As I was shortly to leave my first Headship at Uplands and go to Gloucester, and it still being close to Red Nose Day I decided to do a repeat performance as part of my farewell!! I now have a lovely folder with “accolades” from all of the children, most of which make mention of how they remember when I took off ALL my clothes in assembly. For the record, it may have seemed like it as the red underpants were fairly scanty and the final scene very very brief – barely (sorry!!) time to focus the eye!! But, as my mother pointed out, as she was looking through my leaving gifts, I would need to be careful who I showed the folder to, particularly if I wanted to work again!!
So two showings down and the following Red Nose Day, I just couldn’t resist a repeat performance for my new school. If the staff didn’t think I was mad before they certainly did afterwards and were also mighty glad that the story didn’t require audience participation!!
Was I then amused or alarmed to read recently in the education pages (yes I know it’s sad, but on the other hand it keeps me informed and reminds me of what I’m not missing – how often reports raise a wry smile and a silent “I told you so!!”) about a disciplinary case heard by the General Teaching Council, where a supply teacher, who it seemed had some discipline problems in one of his classes decided to restore order by doing a striptease, removing I hasten to add just the layers on his top half!! Not sure of the psychology behind this, but after a parental complaint, he was reprimanded and told he had made a severe error of judgement!! But, interestingly not one parent from any of the schools that experienced the “red nose” or should that be “red cheek” assembly seemed at all fazed, although some of the staff certainly were!!, but then I guess my “striptease” down to a pair of scanty red underpants was done in the name of “art” well at least charity, certainly not for maintaining discipline!! In fact it caused a good degree of disorder!!
There’s an orgy in our bedroom (And, what’s worse the Swiss gendarmes were involved!)
When we first moved into La Loge, in those far off sunny April days, we would most days be able to have our lunch outside on our gravel terrace, even if the evenings were still a little chilly unless we ate early. Whilst luncheoning we noticed that the walls were alive with small lizards, enjoying the sunshine, but nervously darting away should you get to close and often engaged in what could only be decribed as “rough play,” but as they seemed to enjoy it and kept coming back for more could have been altogether more carnal, after all it was spring! Then, enjoying a similar pastime were quite simply thousands of small (half centimetre or so) black and red beetles who maybe weren’t joined in holy matrimony, but were certainly joined and remained so for some time!! I use the word “enjoying” but I guess we’ll never know, and for one of the creatures, it could be less than enjoyable as the procedure involves a good degree of walking around, and for one of them it’s backwards!!
As the summer turned to autumn, both the lizards and beetles dwindled and only occasionally, on particularly warm days would they be in evidence, until the colder weather made them disappear completely, to return we were sure next spring.
Well, all through the late spring, summer and early autumn, the great weather meant that we didn’t open the shutters to our bedroom, but kept the window wide open for ventilation – you know it’s the old thick stone wall theory, cool in summer and warm in winter, but this year getting it warm first on some of the colder days has proved something of a problem!!
It was really only after our return from visiting England, late October / early November, that we found that the window needed to stay shut during the day and be opened a little at night for ventilation and even that stopped in the depths of winter, as having had an exceptionally hot and dry extended summer, the winter has proved to be “pay back” time – exceptionally cold, frosty with thick ice on the ponds and a smattering of snow on the fields! But at least we will have seen the Vendée in all its many guises, some that we prefer to others.
But back to our return in early November, with the nights closing in and the window often stayed shut. But, whilst unpacking I found that the bedroom light didn’t give me enough light to be able to see into the wardrobe and put things away properly, so as the sun was shining outside I decided to open the window and throw back the shutters and flood the room with some winter sunshine and give it a bit of an airing. Imagine then my surprise to find each of the areas adjacent to the shutter hinges tightly packed with a writhing mass of a hundred or more of these small black and red beetles seemingly all having thrown their keys into the middle of the room, but not waited to see who picked their’s. Quite simply, there were in fact four orgies, one by each of the hinges – perhaps it was darker there and they would be less likely to be recognised by their friends- going on, and it was only because I didn’t want them all deciding to come into the bedroom that I picked up the nearby fly swat, and feeling something of a spoil sport, carefully ushered them off the shutter and onto the ground below. I hope no-one thought I was going to swat them!, no rather I hoped that they could regroup and continue their fun out of sight of my innocent and pure eyes!! But, they weren’t having it, they over the next few days – what staying power! – kept regrouping each time I brushed them away, back on the shutter hinges!!! In the end, I had to learn to live with it, adapt to my new environment and live and let live!! Oh!! I nearly forgot the Swiss gendarmes, quite simply I’ve been told they’re always up for a good party ........!! No seriously, the black and red beetles are known as Swiss gendarme beetles, I guess their marking do look a bit like a uniform – but perhaps let’s not go there!!
Some more French bureaucracy!
We thought we had cracked the caravan registration back in September, having been on line, completed a lengthy dossier of all the required items – registration document, photos showing position of lights, dimensions, certificates of conformity for anything that needed it (gas appliances, electrical systems etc. etc.) as well as a certificate from Bailey Caravans, conveniently in French as well as English, saying that the whole caravan was constructed to current EEC standards, only to have it returned, when the inspector returned from his six week holiday, with a checklist of required items, of which about five things were missing!!
The offending items were then dealt with and we returned to the DRIRE Office with the now enlarged and weighty dossier, happy that we would be able to make an appointment to have everything that we had certificated checked to make sure it was certifiable!! (€85), to then get another certificate to take to the licensing office to be issued with a final certificate to say that the caravan meets EEC Regulations (€54). I should mention that in France, unlike England where caravans aren’t registered, caravans and large trailers are subject to an MOT type procedure, where you have to do all the paperwork for someone else to sign, at great expense!! Unfortunately, and we should have realised that it wasn’t going to be that easy, the check list that we had previously been given was in fact a form to fill in, with 20 tick boxes, relating to all the information that was already in the dossier! So we, somewhat despondently returned home, spent a considerable time deciphering the form which was in technical French with no translation, and is very repetitious in places. One of the “questions” used the word “direction,” for which Yahoo Translate conveniently came up with 22 different meanings – but unfortunately none of them fitted and made sense!! The form was then completed and we made some further amendments, to clarify several of the points and included a covering letter to explain one or two or the items – such as the fact that the Certificate of Conformity actually certified that the caravan met the necessary standards in ALL areas and posted this off before we returned to England at the end of October.
Imagine then our surprise to return and find the dossier had once more been returned, and whether it was because the inspector took offense at what I thought was a polite and helpful covering letter, or simply that nothing in /France is easy, the inspector was now asking for twice as many points of clarification as in his initial letter! With Christmas looming the process has rather ground to a halt, and I’m slightly worried to send it back again, in case even more points of clarification appear!!
Even my computer is seems to be finding French bureaucracy laughable – that’s if you don’t start crying and tear out what little hair you have left first!! On the day of the last bit of form filling, the “French Word of the Day” on my internet home page was “divertissement” meaning entertainment – Ha, Ha, very funny!!
I’ll keep you posted on developments, but before you ask it’s perfectly legal to tow an English caravan around France with an English registered car, but illegal to tow an English caravan, without its own French registration number – different to the car! – with a French registered car. So we will still have to work out how to get the caravan to the testing station once the paperwork is all in order, without breaking the law!! This saga could run and run and rival that of Phonezilla and France Telecom, although ......... as I write this we are waiting for a France Telecom Engineer to come and sort out our internet connection that was down when we returned from Christmas!!!
“Clever Words”
• Captain Webb of Channel swimming fame: “Nothing great is easy.”
• Chinese proverb: “Every dawn signs a new contract with existence.”
• Russian proverb (seen in The Porterhouse pub, Dublin): The church is near, but the path is icy. The pub is far, but I’ll walk carefully!” If you get a chance sample the Porterhouse stout, it certainly gives Guinness a run for its money, and is well worth a careful walk!! The Porterhouse brewery had (2007) a couple or more pubs in Dublin, one in Bray just outside the city, but accessible by city buses and one in Covent Garden, London.
• Salvador Dali: “The problem of the youth of today is that one is no longer part of it.”
• Erma Bombeck: “A child needs your love most when he deserves it least.”
• Nelson Mandela: “Vision without action is merely dreaming. Action without vision is just passing the time of day. But combine vision and action – you can change the world.” He certainly did!
My original “thought!”
I used to have a handle on life, it broke! But now I’ve mended it!!
Kind regards, Best Wishes and Love, Roger, Linda and Max
(Brrrr.......!! Wouf, wouf, with the cold weather I’ve been keeping my head down and trying to only go out if need’s must. But they’ve got this New Year keep fit thing and keep dragging me out for walks. Actually, once I’m out I quite enjoy it, but had a bit of a shock when I went to drink from the lake and it had turned into a skating rink!!)
And maybe to come next time? “Ici, la et partout!” “Cattle herding” and “The Hunt is Up”
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
My glass half full or half empty! - Missive 13
31st December 2009
Dear All
Hopefully you will find Missive 13 attached, which really says it all! One of my shorter covering letters!
Love
Roger
Mes chers amis
My glass half full or half empty!
It’s usually the same old story when thinking about who is an optimist / positive person and who isn’t based on the saying above, or is it? If you see your glass as half empty, going down, you’re seen as being more negative than someone who sees their glass as half full – going up!! But, let me throw something else into the equation, after our own thinker, Victoria, started thinking or was that drinking!! It is really all dependant on whether the glass is being filled up or drunk!! – Think on!! Maybe, or maybe not this will set the scene of this the last missive for 2009! But, be it positive or negative, one thing is for sure if this is going to wing its way through cyberspace before Big Ben brings the first decade of the millennium to a close (amazing the bacon sandwiches and champagne on Rodborough Common, quite literally surrounded by the biggest and longest firework display I have ever experienced, was ten years ago!!), it’s going to be fairly short!! Also, due to constraints of time and energy – Christmas can be very sapping!, “More bureaucracy!” will have to wait until next time.
Wild Gourmet
When we first announced our intention to move to France for the “good life” and how we would have to grow our own food to survive it was something of a joke, now we’re not so sure!! But, going along with this, for my last birthday Daniel and Lisa gave me a wonderful book called “The Wild Gourmet” based on a previous Channel 4 documentary where Guy Grieve and Tommi Miers hunted and foraged their way across the UK for a year. Then for Father’s Day Victoria and Dermot gave me a National Trust book called Wild Food!
Then, as the garden blossomed and home grown fruit and vegetables became plentiful, so nature’s bounty also became plentiful and what better than to reach for the two books mentioned above and suddenly the glut of initially hedgerow cherries, elderflowers, plums and wild strawberries, followed by hedgerow elderberries, pears and apples, chestnuts, walnuts, hazelnuts, crab-apples blackberries, mint, chives and more started to develop into tasty morsels, with the possibility of more to come – sloe gin, hawthorn leaf salad, nettle soup and as I write this a bowl of strange looking medlars are picked and being naturally “bletted” or rotted ready to make into some delicacy!!
This has led on to “one of my projects” as Linda is prone to call them. I am now on the way to producing a personal “Wild Food Map,” highlighting the best hedgerows, verges, trees or woodland around La Loge, so as to be ready for each season as they arrive next year, so visitors for 2010 beware, who knows what special flavouring may be part of your meals! But, rest assured despite an overwhelming number of the most diverse fungi, a French identification guide and the possibility of taking samples into the local pharmacy to be told if they are edible or deadly poisonous, and in some cases it’s a thin dividing line!, we haven’t been brave enough!! So any fungi we serve up have been bought from the market or the supermarket.
But, who knows in time I might become like the bizarre sight I saw recently, when going for a walk in the nearby woods! A battered white van, so beloved of rural Frenchmen, pulled up and out got two fairly bulky Frenchmen, the youngest with a shaven head and both looking as though they would be more at home gracing the rugby fields of Perpignan or Stade de France. They then went around the back of the van opened the door and each took out a small wicker basket and walked off together into the woods! I’m sure in England their fungus foray would have caused a good degree of ribbing from their friends in the pub that night, but as the season continued this became a common sight as all Frenchmen, and it’s always the men, seem to have the knowledge fuelled by the passion for tasty food to identify at least a few “safe eats!”
Indeed, on one rather damp autumnal day, full of drizzle and mist, we finally managed our daily walk and met Michel the farmer, who asked if we were going to look for “champignons,” to which we replied that we were simply taking the air, but hoping that he might prove to be a mushroom expert, able to reliably identify the bountiful crop growing all around. We told him we were not confident enough to risk collecting the mushrooms and asked if he was an expert, to which he replied a definite “non” and said he only knew about four that could safely be eaten, but was obviously not confident enough to pass on this wisdom!
And now, in the height of the French hunting season, let’s hope that one day we return to the house and find a couple of partridges (not sure if they come in braces!) or better still a haunch of venison propped up outside the door – that really would be the “icing on the cake” as it were or should that be the food on the plate!
Toi Moi
Graffiti is uncommon, at least in rural France, but in one of our local towns on the side of a house that sticks out in front of you as you drive through is simply written, in large red letters, the two words “Toi Moi!” (You, Me) I can’t help but feel that this is altogether more refined and romantic than “Wayne 4 Stacy!” Also, this graffiti has possibly considerably longer shelf life as if allegiance changes and Wayne swops Stacy for Emma, it doesn’t require a repainting job!!
Keith Floyd and Eddie Izzard
A surprising and contrasting combination perhaps, but both made the front page of a national newspaper on a recent visit we made to England for my Mum and Dad’s 60th Wedding Anniversary. But, despite being very different they both made the news for incredible achievements, one in their chosen field, the other for a something far removed from what they are normally do. Sadly, in the case of Keith Floyd the headline was brought about by his somewhat untimely death, shortly after he had enjoyed a fine dining experience with a close friend and having just announced that he hadn’t felt this good for a long time. Rather a wry irony that shortly afterwards he were to die, but it did cause a huge outpouring of tributes from people across the culinary world, showing what a massive contribution this oft much maligned TV chef had actually made.
He was the first celebrity chef to take his kitchen outside into the open and to travel the world making succulent dishes inspired by the people and places he met along the way. The list of current celebrity chefs who said how much they owed Keith Floyd, be it directly or having worked with him is really impressive. Let them speak for themselves: Anthony Worral Thompson said of him: "I think all of us modern TV chefs owe a living to him. He kind of spawned us all." Marco Pierre White, told BBC radio Floyd "inspired a nation". Pierre White also said, "The thing which is very sad is a little piece of Britain today died which will never be replaced. He was a beautiful man, his ability to inspire people to cook just with his words and the way he did things was extraordinary. If you look at TV chefs today they don't have his magic. It's a very, very, very sad day for my industry and secondly for a nation." And, there were many more where these came from.
But what about Eddie Izzard, 47, best known as a stand up comedian, but also an accomplished actor? He has also learnt French to be able to take his comedy routine to France, and be successful at it – who said the French don’t have a sense of humour! Well on the day after that “a little piece of Britain died,” and reported on the same front page of the newspaper, Eddie Izzard, a transvestite comedian “prone to put on weight and never having run more than five miles before,” must have inspired and humbled the whole of the nation, as he completed a seven week “marathon” in aid of Sport Aid, running 43 marathons in 51 days, (at least 27 miles daily and a total of 1,166 miles). Of his achievement he said; “I don’t think what I did was amazing. Anyone can do it.” That, I think is both an understatement and debatable!! His epic achievement earned him a Special Award in this year’s Sport’s Personality of the Year.
Love or hate the work of these two great men, it’s impossible to belittle the achievements that they have both made, one leaving a lasting legacy the other with new and greater heights to scale. It’s the likes of Izzard and Floyd, and their eccentricities, which make the world a better and more interesting and fun place in which to live.
Tupperware
You escape to France leaving behind things like Fish and Chips, litter and cupboards full of Tupperware only to find at the local Foire de Marrons, Chestnut Fayre, amongst all the local produce, traditional crafts and brocante, that there’s a Tupperware lady with a table bulging with all the usual range of utensils and containers in this year’s must have colours and shapes – so that’s why people, including Linda, have cupboards full of unused Tupperware, unused and so last year!!!
We’ve also discovered an enterprising English family, who discovered a niche for a mobile fish and chip van – “The Vendée Chippie” – which for a few days each week travels around some local bars who have agreed to provide the tables and the bar! We have tried it once, in the cause of research!, and how civilised, fish and chips in paper sitting in the sun lit garden of a local bar drinking Guinness and they were the best fish and chips we have had for many a year – perhaps there are some English things that we miss, not only the beer!!
We had hoped to surprise the family on Family Weekend, when tradition dictates that on the Friday evening we all arrive and then send someone out for Fish and Chips! We were going to wait for everyone to arrive and pop down the road for something traditional, the hope being that our visitors would be waiting for something traditionally French and then surprise them with English Fish and Chips!! The plan was almost set when the frier remembered that he wasn’t going to be there on said evening, as he was holidaying in England, no doubt checking up on the opposition!!
“Clever Words”
• Many of you will know about my opinion of Delia Smith, and may remember my quip about her recent MBE, was it awarded for being patriotic or patronising!! Well, for Christmas my Mum and Dad bought me a book by Michael Booth, called “Doing without Delia, Tales of Triumph and Disaster in a French Kitchen” in which he says “But for me a good French market is Disneyland, the Louvre, a Caribbean beach and a bungee jump all wrapped up in one: pleasure, art, relaxation and stimulation.” But, please don’t tell Ms Smith otherwise she might do a “Delia’s French Fancies” special – Mon Dieu ~ non, non, non!!!
• “There are two types of teacher: the kind that fill you with so much quail shot you can’t move, and the kind that just gives you a little prod behind and you jump to the skies.” Robert Frost 1874 – 1963
• “Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.” Dalai Lama
• “When you have a dream, you’ve got to grab it and never let it go.” Carol Burnett
Today’s heartfelt thought:
“Happy New Year to All My Readers . May the New Year bring you Peace, Health and Happiness!”
or
Bonne Année à tous mes lecteurs. Que la nouvelle année vous apporte Paix, Santé, et Bonheur!
Kind regards, Best Wishes and Love,
Roger, Linda and Max
(Roger’s writing this from the frozen wastes of England, with temperatures hovering around zero all day and plummeting at night and frozen snow on the bare pads is no fun!! Particularly as I’m told back home the temperature is a pleasant 15° and there are tractors waiting to be chased!!)
And maybe to come next time?
“Black dots on a world map!”
“Cattle herding” and
“There’s an orgy in our bedroom!”
That last one will keep you guessing and waiting with baited breath for Missive 14!!
Dear All
Hopefully you will find Missive 13 attached, which really says it all! One of my shorter covering letters!
Love
Roger
Mes chers amis
My glass half full or half empty!
It’s usually the same old story when thinking about who is an optimist / positive person and who isn’t based on the saying above, or is it? If you see your glass as half empty, going down, you’re seen as being more negative than someone who sees their glass as half full – going up!! But, let me throw something else into the equation, after our own thinker, Victoria, started thinking or was that drinking!! It is really all dependant on whether the glass is being filled up or drunk!! – Think on!! Maybe, or maybe not this will set the scene of this the last missive for 2009! But, be it positive or negative, one thing is for sure if this is going to wing its way through cyberspace before Big Ben brings the first decade of the millennium to a close (amazing the bacon sandwiches and champagne on Rodborough Common, quite literally surrounded by the biggest and longest firework display I have ever experienced, was ten years ago!!), it’s going to be fairly short!! Also, due to constraints of time and energy – Christmas can be very sapping!, “More bureaucracy!” will have to wait until next time.
Wild Gourmet
When we first announced our intention to move to France for the “good life” and how we would have to grow our own food to survive it was something of a joke, now we’re not so sure!! But, going along with this, for my last birthday Daniel and Lisa gave me a wonderful book called “The Wild Gourmet” based on a previous Channel 4 documentary where Guy Grieve and Tommi Miers hunted and foraged their way across the UK for a year. Then for Father’s Day Victoria and Dermot gave me a National Trust book called Wild Food!
Then, as the garden blossomed and home grown fruit and vegetables became plentiful, so nature’s bounty also became plentiful and what better than to reach for the two books mentioned above and suddenly the glut of initially hedgerow cherries, elderflowers, plums and wild strawberries, followed by hedgerow elderberries, pears and apples, chestnuts, walnuts, hazelnuts, crab-apples blackberries, mint, chives and more started to develop into tasty morsels, with the possibility of more to come – sloe gin, hawthorn leaf salad, nettle soup and as I write this a bowl of strange looking medlars are picked and being naturally “bletted” or rotted ready to make into some delicacy!!
This has led on to “one of my projects” as Linda is prone to call them. I am now on the way to producing a personal “Wild Food Map,” highlighting the best hedgerows, verges, trees or woodland around La Loge, so as to be ready for each season as they arrive next year, so visitors for 2010 beware, who knows what special flavouring may be part of your meals! But, rest assured despite an overwhelming number of the most diverse fungi, a French identification guide and the possibility of taking samples into the local pharmacy to be told if they are edible or deadly poisonous, and in some cases it’s a thin dividing line!, we haven’t been brave enough!! So any fungi we serve up have been bought from the market or the supermarket.
But, who knows in time I might become like the bizarre sight I saw recently, when going for a walk in the nearby woods! A battered white van, so beloved of rural Frenchmen, pulled up and out got two fairly bulky Frenchmen, the youngest with a shaven head and both looking as though they would be more at home gracing the rugby fields of Perpignan or Stade de France. They then went around the back of the van opened the door and each took out a small wicker basket and walked off together into the woods! I’m sure in England their fungus foray would have caused a good degree of ribbing from their friends in the pub that night, but as the season continued this became a common sight as all Frenchmen, and it’s always the men, seem to have the knowledge fuelled by the passion for tasty food to identify at least a few “safe eats!”
Indeed, on one rather damp autumnal day, full of drizzle and mist, we finally managed our daily walk and met Michel the farmer, who asked if we were going to look for “champignons,” to which we replied that we were simply taking the air, but hoping that he might prove to be a mushroom expert, able to reliably identify the bountiful crop growing all around. We told him we were not confident enough to risk collecting the mushrooms and asked if he was an expert, to which he replied a definite “non” and said he only knew about four that could safely be eaten, but was obviously not confident enough to pass on this wisdom!
And now, in the height of the French hunting season, let’s hope that one day we return to the house and find a couple of partridges (not sure if they come in braces!) or better still a haunch of venison propped up outside the door – that really would be the “icing on the cake” as it were or should that be the food on the plate!
Toi Moi
Graffiti is uncommon, at least in rural France, but in one of our local towns on the side of a house that sticks out in front of you as you drive through is simply written, in large red letters, the two words “Toi Moi!” (You, Me) I can’t help but feel that this is altogether more refined and romantic than “Wayne 4 Stacy!” Also, this graffiti has possibly considerably longer shelf life as if allegiance changes and Wayne swops Stacy for Emma, it doesn’t require a repainting job!!
Keith Floyd and Eddie Izzard
A surprising and contrasting combination perhaps, but both made the front page of a national newspaper on a recent visit we made to England for my Mum and Dad’s 60th Wedding Anniversary. But, despite being very different they both made the news for incredible achievements, one in their chosen field, the other for a something far removed from what they are normally do. Sadly, in the case of Keith Floyd the headline was brought about by his somewhat untimely death, shortly after he had enjoyed a fine dining experience with a close friend and having just announced that he hadn’t felt this good for a long time. Rather a wry irony that shortly afterwards he were to die, but it did cause a huge outpouring of tributes from people across the culinary world, showing what a massive contribution this oft much maligned TV chef had actually made.
He was the first celebrity chef to take his kitchen outside into the open and to travel the world making succulent dishes inspired by the people and places he met along the way. The list of current celebrity chefs who said how much they owed Keith Floyd, be it directly or having worked with him is really impressive. Let them speak for themselves: Anthony Worral Thompson said of him: "I think all of us modern TV chefs owe a living to him. He kind of spawned us all." Marco Pierre White, told BBC radio Floyd "inspired a nation". Pierre White also said, "The thing which is very sad is a little piece of Britain today died which will never be replaced. He was a beautiful man, his ability to inspire people to cook just with his words and the way he did things was extraordinary. If you look at TV chefs today they don't have his magic. It's a very, very, very sad day for my industry and secondly for a nation." And, there were many more where these came from.
But what about Eddie Izzard, 47, best known as a stand up comedian, but also an accomplished actor? He has also learnt French to be able to take his comedy routine to France, and be successful at it – who said the French don’t have a sense of humour! Well on the day after that “a little piece of Britain died,” and reported on the same front page of the newspaper, Eddie Izzard, a transvestite comedian “prone to put on weight and never having run more than five miles before,” must have inspired and humbled the whole of the nation, as he completed a seven week “marathon” in aid of Sport Aid, running 43 marathons in 51 days, (at least 27 miles daily and a total of 1,166 miles). Of his achievement he said; “I don’t think what I did was amazing. Anyone can do it.” That, I think is both an understatement and debatable!! His epic achievement earned him a Special Award in this year’s Sport’s Personality of the Year.
Love or hate the work of these two great men, it’s impossible to belittle the achievements that they have both made, one leaving a lasting legacy the other with new and greater heights to scale. It’s the likes of Izzard and Floyd, and their eccentricities, which make the world a better and more interesting and fun place in which to live.
Tupperware
You escape to France leaving behind things like Fish and Chips, litter and cupboards full of Tupperware only to find at the local Foire de Marrons, Chestnut Fayre, amongst all the local produce, traditional crafts and brocante, that there’s a Tupperware lady with a table bulging with all the usual range of utensils and containers in this year’s must have colours and shapes – so that’s why people, including Linda, have cupboards full of unused Tupperware, unused and so last year!!!
We’ve also discovered an enterprising English family, who discovered a niche for a mobile fish and chip van – “The Vendée Chippie” – which for a few days each week travels around some local bars who have agreed to provide the tables and the bar! We have tried it once, in the cause of research!, and how civilised, fish and chips in paper sitting in the sun lit garden of a local bar drinking Guinness and they were the best fish and chips we have had for many a year – perhaps there are some English things that we miss, not only the beer!!
We had hoped to surprise the family on Family Weekend, when tradition dictates that on the Friday evening we all arrive and then send someone out for Fish and Chips! We were going to wait for everyone to arrive and pop down the road for something traditional, the hope being that our visitors would be waiting for something traditionally French and then surprise them with English Fish and Chips!! The plan was almost set when the frier remembered that he wasn’t going to be there on said evening, as he was holidaying in England, no doubt checking up on the opposition!!
“Clever Words”
• Many of you will know about my opinion of Delia Smith, and may remember my quip about her recent MBE, was it awarded for being patriotic or patronising!! Well, for Christmas my Mum and Dad bought me a book by Michael Booth, called “Doing without Delia, Tales of Triumph and Disaster in a French Kitchen” in which he says “But for me a good French market is Disneyland, the Louvre, a Caribbean beach and a bungee jump all wrapped up in one: pleasure, art, relaxation and stimulation.” But, please don’t tell Ms Smith otherwise she might do a “Delia’s French Fancies” special – Mon Dieu ~ non, non, non!!!
• “There are two types of teacher: the kind that fill you with so much quail shot you can’t move, and the kind that just gives you a little prod behind and you jump to the skies.” Robert Frost 1874 – 1963
• “Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.” Dalai Lama
• “When you have a dream, you’ve got to grab it and never let it go.” Carol Burnett
Today’s heartfelt thought:
“Happy New Year to All My Readers . May the New Year bring you Peace, Health and Happiness!”
or
Bonne Année à tous mes lecteurs. Que la nouvelle année vous apporte Paix, Santé, et Bonheur!
Kind regards, Best Wishes and Love,
Roger, Linda and Max
(Roger’s writing this from the frozen wastes of England, with temperatures hovering around zero all day and plummeting at night and frozen snow on the bare pads is no fun!! Particularly as I’m told back home the temperature is a pleasant 15° and there are tractors waiting to be chased!!)
And maybe to come next time?
“Black dots on a world map!”
“Cattle herding” and
“There’s an orgy in our bedroom!”
That last one will keep you guessing and waiting with baited breath for Missive 14!!
Friday, December 18, 2009
Christmas Missive 2009
Dear All
A very early writing of Christmas Missive 2009!!
Well it doesn’t seem a year ago since we wrote to you all and dropped the bombshell, that we were moving to France! Well, as you can see from the change of address below, it’s happened although not quite as planned or expected!
But, the long and short of it is that after leaving our respective jobs, and both given a great send off as we were sort of retiring, although not sure if we really have!?! We spent January packing up the house, putting stuff in storage and getting ready to rent our house (which ended up taking until July, we then “holidayed” in the south of France for most of February, and finally arrived in the Vendée in early March. We found TO RENT, La Loge Grimouard, a very isolated 300 year old farm worker’s cottage(s) with a very overgrown but now tamed garden which has produced, and continues to do so, vast quantities of fruit and veg, and we also have a chateau in the garden! The chateau’s owner spends most of his time in Spain, leaving us free reign over the 12 acre estate, complete with woods for walking and exploring, lakes for fishing, and a C16th Wolf Pit!
So now after six and a bit months and nearly 30 visitors later, all wanting to find out where we have landed, we are well into what is seeming to be a one or two year sabbatical, wondering what to do next!! Although, we have both been pleased to leave the bureaucracy of our jobs behind, we do miss particularly the people we worked with and may yet return and spend time between England and France whilst pursuing a career change, albeit possibly part-time. But as the house in York has still to be sold we are a little in limbo, so watch this space and check out the blog for further developments!! But as the blog is about our exploits, a quick update on what else is happening in the family:
Just after we left the UK, Daniel and Lisa became Engaged, although Daniel had come around before we left and given us a sneak preview of the ring, but the old romantic wanted to formally get engaged on Valentine’s day!! Now he is a householder he has discovered what DIY is and whereas previously I would ask him to fetch me a screwdriver, whilst stuck in a precarious position up a ladder, and in reply get “Whot’s one of those,” or “hang on there’s only 35 mins of the match left!,” he and Lisa have been really busy, fitting a new kitchen (then unfitting it when they had a leak!!), boarding out the loft, putting up a new shed and generally doing lots of householder type things! Both also remain very active in St John Ambulance, doing training, running courses and carrying out duties. This as well as working full-time, Lisa for a marketing company in Cheltenham and Daniel as a Cover Supervisor at Severn Vale School in Gloucester, as well as spending his holidays working at Bentham Leisure Centre, where he worked previously. Despite all this, and with a good degree of parental nagging (as he is about to reach a quarter century and would then be too old!!) he has finally managed to successfully finish his Gold Duke of Edinburgh Award. So that means I’m (Roger) the only one in the family without ~ but I’m thinking about starting an award scheme for the over 50’s!!
Victoria meanwhile, continues to live life at breakneck speed, and has this year successfully completed a Masters in “International Relations,” and is waiting for her dissertation, which involved a return visit to Swaziland for research, to be marked before finding out her final grade and having her graduation in December. Her dissertation on the: “Political Economy of AIDS OVC (Orphans and Vulnerable Children) in Swaziland,”can be accessed on:
http://politicaleconomyofaidsovc.blogspot.com/
and although I might be biased, is well worth a read!! She has also this year officially moved in with Dermot, and started to tick off things from their 5 year plan, which involves work, Dermot has just been promoted, so will have to stay in the Navy a bit longer, Victoria is doing various jobs (mentoring, silver service waitressing and soon hopefully tutoring) as well as undertaking an intensive TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) course, before going to teach in China for six months on March 1st 2010. Then it’s hopefully, off to Teacher Training College ...... teaching job, Dermot out of the Navy, new house and somewhere towards the end of the “masterplan” maybe bells might be heard ringing!! They’ve also bought a new car, visited us in France (Dermot once and Victoria twice), met up in Dubai in a five star hotel when D’s submarine docked there and Victoria has continued her St John activities and Volunteering in Plymouth (VIP) work, which saw her being awarded the “Outstanding Contribution to Volunteering 2009 Award” and helping to achieve the “Best New Project” Award in VIP (Rural Branch Line Project ~ where they tidied up and improved a number of local rural railway stations) at the Higher Education Volunteering Awards in Manchester.
And Max, like all of us is getting older, but despite a weak back leg he soldiers on and on a cool day will do a 3+ mile walk, he loves having us around all the time and has taken to French life and particularly French bread, like a duck to water!!
rogerhiggs@hotmail.co.uk
La Loge, Vendee
So, as you can see we’re all keeping busy (us; gardening, preserving, freezing, entertaining and enjoying!! – for more see the blog!!) Fancy a visit, give us a ring!!
Happy Christmas and a Great New Year or Joyeux Noël et une bonne année nouvelle, as they say in these parts!!
Lots of love
Roger and Linda
A very early writing of Christmas Missive 2009!!
Well it doesn’t seem a year ago since we wrote to you all and dropped the bombshell, that we were moving to France! Well, as you can see from the change of address below, it’s happened although not quite as planned or expected!
But, the long and short of it is that after leaving our respective jobs, and both given a great send off as we were sort of retiring, although not sure if we really have!?! We spent January packing up the house, putting stuff in storage and getting ready to rent our house (which ended up taking until July, we then “holidayed” in the south of France for most of February, and finally arrived in the Vendée in early March. We found TO RENT, La Loge Grimouard, a very isolated 300 year old farm worker’s cottage(s) with a very overgrown but now tamed garden which has produced, and continues to do so, vast quantities of fruit and veg, and we also have a chateau in the garden! The chateau’s owner spends most of his time in Spain, leaving us free reign over the 12 acre estate, complete with woods for walking and exploring, lakes for fishing, and a C16th Wolf Pit!
So now after six and a bit months and nearly 30 visitors later, all wanting to find out where we have landed, we are well into what is seeming to be a one or two year sabbatical, wondering what to do next!! Although, we have both been pleased to leave the bureaucracy of our jobs behind, we do miss particularly the people we worked with and may yet return and spend time between England and France whilst pursuing a career change, albeit possibly part-time. But as the house in York has still to be sold we are a little in limbo, so watch this space and check out the blog for further developments!! But as the blog is about our exploits, a quick update on what else is happening in the family:
Just after we left the UK, Daniel and Lisa became Engaged, although Daniel had come around before we left and given us a sneak preview of the ring, but the old romantic wanted to formally get engaged on Valentine’s day!! Now he is a householder he has discovered what DIY is and whereas previously I would ask him to fetch me a screwdriver, whilst stuck in a precarious position up a ladder, and in reply get “Whot’s one of those,” or “hang on there’s only 35 mins of the match left!,” he and Lisa have been really busy, fitting a new kitchen (then unfitting it when they had a leak!!), boarding out the loft, putting up a new shed and generally doing lots of householder type things! Both also remain very active in St John Ambulance, doing training, running courses and carrying out duties. This as well as working full-time, Lisa for a marketing company in Cheltenham and Daniel as a Cover Supervisor at Severn Vale School in Gloucester, as well as spending his holidays working at Bentham Leisure Centre, where he worked previously. Despite all this, and with a good degree of parental nagging (as he is about to reach a quarter century and would then be too old!!) he has finally managed to successfully finish his Gold Duke of Edinburgh Award. So that means I’m (Roger) the only one in the family without ~ but I’m thinking about starting an award scheme for the over 50’s!!
Victoria meanwhile, continues to live life at breakneck speed, and has this year successfully completed a Masters in “International Relations,” and is waiting for her dissertation, which involved a return visit to Swaziland for research, to be marked before finding out her final grade and having her graduation in December. Her dissertation on the: “Political Economy of AIDS OVC (Orphans and Vulnerable Children) in Swaziland,”can be accessed on:
http://politicaleconomyofaidsovc.blogspot.com/
and although I might be biased, is well worth a read!! She has also this year officially moved in with Dermot, and started to tick off things from their 5 year plan, which involves work, Dermot has just been promoted, so will have to stay in the Navy a bit longer, Victoria is doing various jobs (mentoring, silver service waitressing and soon hopefully tutoring) as well as undertaking an intensive TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) course, before going to teach in China for six months on March 1st 2010. Then it’s hopefully, off to Teacher Training College ...... teaching job, Dermot out of the Navy, new house and somewhere towards the end of the “masterplan” maybe bells might be heard ringing!! They’ve also bought a new car, visited us in France (Dermot once and Victoria twice), met up in Dubai in a five star hotel when D’s submarine docked there and Victoria has continued her St John activities and Volunteering in Plymouth (VIP) work, which saw her being awarded the “Outstanding Contribution to Volunteering 2009 Award” and helping to achieve the “Best New Project” Award in VIP (Rural Branch Line Project ~ where they tidied up and improved a number of local rural railway stations) at the Higher Education Volunteering Awards in Manchester.
And Max, like all of us is getting older, but despite a weak back leg he soldiers on and on a cool day will do a 3+ mile walk, he loves having us around all the time and has taken to French life and particularly French bread, like a duck to water!!
rogerhiggs@hotmail.co.uk
La Loge, Vendee
So, as you can see we’re all keeping busy (us; gardening, preserving, freezing, entertaining and enjoying!! – for more see the blog!!) Fancy a visit, give us a ring!!
Happy Christmas and a Great New Year or Joyeux Noël et une bonne année nouvelle, as they say in these parts!!
Lots of love
Roger and Linda
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Je parle seulement un petit peu français, mais .......................! ~ Missive 12
23 Nov 2009
Dear All
Hopefully you will find Missive 12 attached, which does stray into the realms of heaviness in just one small part of one section, but as I’ve said before “I need to keep my mind active!!” At least that’s my excuse, and the last heavy “edition” provoked far more response than any of the others – so that must say something!!
Hopefully, Missive 13 will wing its way to you before Christmas, but we’ll see. This one is a little late as we have been back in the UK recently for the best part of three weeks and are back again on 11th December for; family wedding, Victoria’s graduation (She got a good merit overall for her MA, signed proud parent!!), Christmas and the New Year, so these might get in the way a little!
However, our 2009 Christmas missive will soon feature here on the blog!
Also, The Citizen does finally seem to have sorted out my Reader’s Blog with them. So, should you wish to see the edited highlights of my missives, type in
http://www.thisisgloucestershire.co.uk
and when you get onto the site, click “Stroud” on the toolbar and follow the link. At the moment you can’t miss it as you’ll be confronted with a picture of Linda and I inanely grinning at you!!
Love
Roger
La Loge,
rogerhiggs@hotmail.co.uk
Mes chers amis
Je parle seulement un petit peu français, mais .......................! ~ Missive 12
(I speak only a little French, but .........!)
There was a turning point on the day I sent you the last missive! On the same day I read a passage in a book called: “From here, you can’t see Paris” by an American author who moved, with his family, to live in a remote part of France and chronicle the life of the village in which he lived, and in particular the comings and goings of the local restaurant, and I went for a walk and just on the edge of La Goupillaire, our local hamlet, a lorry driver passed me, backed into a small side road and pulled out, blocking the whole road to ask instructions to somewhere.
The passage in the book made the very valid point that if living in France, it’s impossible to do it fully and properly without being able to get by with speaking French, certainly a laudable sentiment, but to some extent providing difficult as we are living in the middle of nowhere with no neighbours, save the cows that you have previously heard about and an infrequently visiting chateau owner who, likes nothing better than to practise his already excellent English, with smatterings of the other five or six languages that he is fluent in – making opportunities to speak French somewhat limited, although I do always greet the cows in French and, when I’m sure no –one is looking pass the time of day with them!!
Then, later in the day off I go for a walk, through La Goupillaire and out the other side to be confronted by the lorry driver seeking directions, shouting above the noise of the lorry’s engine and catching me unawares. So what do I do, too rapidly and without thinking I ask him: “Parlez vous anglais?,” the response to which is a hasty retreat to find someone who can speak the lingo! I then kicked myself at an opportunity lost to at least try, and for the rest of the walk, tried to work out what I could have said, settling on “Desolé, je parle seulement un petit peu francais, mais c’est possible je aidé vous,” roughly translated as “Sorry, I only speak a little French, but if possible I’ll help you.” At least then I would have tried and maybe, with the help of the large scale map I was carrying, been able to help and rewarded the fact that the driver at least thought that I looked like a native French speaker!!
So, I sort of made a pact with myself to at least have a go in future, and not to resort to the do you speak English question, that more often than not in our area, is met by a friendly but negative response of “Anglais, NON!” followed by incredulous laughter, and when all said and done, why should we expect the everyday man in the street to adopt the tongue of just a few English visitors to this area. So a few days later, when two burly gendarmes (policemen) arrive, fortunately not for us but instead looking for somewhere, despite their obvious discomfort at my excruciating French, I manage to make them understand that I have a large scale map in the house, which I fetch, all to no available as the place they are looking for is nowhere to be seen, - but at least I tried and the gendarmes thanked me warmly for my efforts!! For more “efforts” read on!
Fierté civique
Sitting in France it is easy to start knocking all things English, but on my recent visit to dear old blighty, as I went about the place and watched the news, I kept having a nagging feeling of “Where have we gone wrong in the U.K!” I then asked myself why our small commune (village) in France, population previously 350 and now we are here 352!, has; a floodlit football field with a small pavilion, a part-time Bibliotheque Communale (library), a Salle de Fêtes (parish hall), a community gîte, four large and beautifully maintained and stocked fishing lakes, a small landscaped picnic site complete with a boule pit, attractive flower bedecked name signs at each entrance to the village, well maintained roadside verges and ditches, with little or no evidence of vandalism or litter. The commune also has an Maire (Mayor) with a small purpose-built modern Mairie, set in well maintained gardens and open with secretarial cover on four half days a week, on one of which the Maire himself is in attendance. The Conseil Municipal (“Town” Council) also publishes an annual, full colour, glossy Bulletin Municipal (Parish Magazine) with colour photos on at least 20 of the twenty eight pages, the other pages often sporting full colour graphics or at the very least, as do all the pages, colourful borders!
Further examination of the above mentioned bulletin, shows that it contains the following information about the commune, which is too small to support a shop or a school, but does has the following:
• Various civic events such as; Remembrance Ceremonies (Les Cérémonies), an annual Competition "Landscape Your Town" (Concours "le Paysage de votre Commune") along the lines of “Best Kept,” and a Children’s Christmas Show (Spectacle de Noel pour les enfants).
• Birth, Marriages, Deaths and Welcome to the Village section.
• Brief notes of the monthly Council meetings and key decisions.
• Details, with great and colourful graphics, of the annual budget, which last year amounted to nearly 470 000€ or 1342€ for each inhabitant, and interestingly with Christmas looming, the previous year 2 206.62€ was spent purchasing Christmas decorations!
• A communal building scheme, where serviced building plots are up for sale.
• Practical information including the function of the Mairie, hiring of the Salle de Fêtes, opening times of the local tip (déchèterie), new kerbside recycling facilities, and much more education, religious, leisure, health and social care information, for the commune and the wider Canton (small District.) of which it is a part.
• The following Associations:
• L’association loisirs (spare-time activities such as walks, outings, bingo).
o L’association L’Art-Crée (a private creative arts company that heavily involves the local community and holds an annual Festival of Arts (dance, theatre, comedy) and helps with the children’s Christmas show.
o Les Doryphores, the local football club.
o UNC – AFN who organise the Remembrance Ceremonies.
o Club du 3ème Âge, like the U3A (University of the Third Age) in England.
o La Société de Chasse ~ The Society of Hunters.
o Syndicat Local des Exploitants Agricoles ~ Local Farmers Union.
o Patrimoine Religieux ~ Religious Heritage Group covering the whole Canton.
At this point, let me remind you as it says at the beginning of the second paragraph, we are talking here of a small village with a population of just over 350, and this level of civic activity seems to be replicated, and in the bigger villages expanded on, throughout the 12 Communes that make up our Canton, and indeed it would seem to happen the length and breadth of France. So in answer to “Where have we gone wrong in the U.K.,” I would make the following observations, and I guess this is the slightly heavy bit, but as always, I need to get it off my chest!!:
Family life, and respect for others seems strong, certainly around us in rural France; extended families spend time together and greetings remain important, be it the shake of a hand or a kiss on the cheeks (2 for friends, 3 for family and very good friends and 4 or more if you’re from Paris, which strangely the rest of France almost doesn’t seem to class as France!). Quite naturally children, young and old, will kiss their elders and indeed very noticeable is that when groups of young adults meet, hands are shook and even kisses are, in traditional French manner, exchanged between males. The different generations seem generally at ease with one another.
Our village employs what I guess in England would be a roadman or lengthsman (something I have for some time felt should be reintroduced in the U.K. as a useful way of cutting unemployment), who was in the past in England responsible for making sure grass verges, hedges and footpaths were immaculately kept, and does just that role and more still in France. They are employed by the community through the Mairie, to carry out the “fauchage” as it is known in France, but also maintains the other civic areas and keeps the decorative planting that is so much a feature of civic areas of France, looking spick and span. He seems to also be involved with rubbish collection and repairs, including small scale road works – for all intent and purpose a commune caretaker or handyman, who probably also does quite a lot of informal policing! He’s the man who visited us at lunchtime, on the very day we moved in, to explain when the rubbish was collected and which bin (general or recycling) to put out when, and since that first meeting, waves enthusiastically to us whenever we see him.
Obviously, all this at the end of the day comes down to money, and certainly the French seem prepared to pay more in taxes. Whilst appreciating that the role of the Parish Council in England and the Conseil Municipal in France cannot be easily compared, as they have very different responsibilities in areas such as highways and refuse, it is interesting that expenditure per head of population, by the Parish Council, in my parent’s village in Gloucestershire amounts to just short of £10 (about 120 less than the 1342€ in our French village!), perhaps some of the differences lie in the amount of money available at very much the grass root level and the power given to the Conseil Municipal and in particular the Maire. It is widely known that it pays to stay on the right side of the Maire in France, an almost feudal system, which is at the moment being reviewed, but maybe there is at least something to be said for greater amounts of money, with the increased responsibilities, being available lower down the system.
Maybe the above is all rather simplistic, but it does all appear to add up to a corporate and strong Fierté civique (Civic Pride) at this very grass roots level, which I feel is certainly lacking in some areas of U.K. society, and maybe due, in part, to the breakdown of the family unit and lack of respect, both ways, between the generations. How often do you hear older generations praising the youth of today, the word “youth” itself almost taking on a derogatory tone?
De marche par jour, de vivre une semaine (Vieux proverbe français ~ Old French Proverb)
I mentioned walking in the introduction, and I have of late found my feet again, and started to branch out regularly walking between eight and ten miles, or I should say 12.874 – 16.093 kilometres approximately!! Many of these walks have been circuits from the house, but as I have explored the immediate area quite thoroughly, some to spread my winds a little, involve a short car ride or Linda dropping me on the way back from somewhere and me walking the last bit! I’m sure that some of the more observant locals might be thinking that we have rather a lot of tiffs, and I’m left to walk home!!
On the longer walks, sadly Max who has just turned 14 (the equivalent of 98 in human years!!) can’t make and Linda doesn’t share my love of walking, so involve solo walking and lots of time to think, and when I remember to “stand and stare!” However, it was Max who would usually look through a gap in the hedge or climb on the walls to see what was beyond and would pull me up and make me look!! Now it is the camera and growing album of photos that tends to make me stop and look for a good shot!!
In between times, I do shorter walks and Linda often accompanies me and Max, although if he is feeling tired, a bit hot or stiff, he has been known to go so far and then turn around and go home. Unfortunately, he hasn’t quite worked out that if Linda and I are both out walking, then invariably there is no-one in to answer the door when he stands plaintively barking outside!!
But the walks have proved a great way to get to know the surrounding area, and in particular to find off the beaten track gems, such as; le Moulin du Pigeon (Pigeon Mill), la Smagne (River Smagne), GR 364 / GR de Pays de Melusine (a long distance footpath or Grand Randonnée that passes close by, and is a spur of the Santiago de Compostella, the pilgrims route to Northern Spain, marked throughout it’s route by signs containing scallop shells) and Bois de Lavaud (the communal wood of nearby La Caillère-St-Hilaire), all of which I find myself returning to frequently. I’m going to pinch a motto from another region of France, The Lot, which is some way south of here, where they say “A surprise at every step!” I think it applies equally well here!
On one such walk, that took in at least la Smagne, I was to put my new found determination to use French as much as possible and not just a friendly “Bonjour monsieur or monsieur(ma)dame,” that the locals have a habit of rolling together as one quick word, to the test! Having passed through a local village, dodged cars on the main road, although I will say that by and large French motorists are almost as respectful of walkers as they are of cyclists, I turned down a country lane heading towards a farm on one side and a well tended vegetable plot on the other. The plot contained the usual mainstays of the French kitchen garden; chard, carrots, onions, potatoes, beans, salad leaves, courgettes, tomatoes, growing with such profusion that not for the first time I marvelled at the sheer quantity of produce being grown, enough surely to feed a small army, but replicated in almost all the cottages around. There were also several rows of well hung vines, ready for picking and wine making. As I approached I was greeted by the barks of two large dogs and I noticed an elderly gent was tying his hoe onto his bicycle, from the handlebars of which hung a carrier bag of produce, freshly collected for this evening’s meal. Well, here goes I thought and greeted the man, determined to try and have a longer conversation. I received a friendly response to my greeting and we proceeded to pass the time of day, making sure that he knew I only spoke a little French. Having complimented him on his garden and discussed the weather, something I always thought was an English pastime, but certainly a popular topic amongst the farmers and gardeners hereabouts!, struggling a little I asked him, in French, if he spoke English and received a response reminiscent of me having told him an hilarious joke! But nothing ventured I now turned to the vines and tried, as it happens unsuccessfully, to ask if they were ready to harvest, and even wondering if he could answer a long-standing question I have of “How many bunches of grapes does it take to make a bottle of wine? (Answers by email or on a postcard please, to the address above!). But it wasn’t to be and eventually, he mounted his bike and we parted company like long-lost friends, I even nearly got a clap on the back before he meandered off down the road with a friendly wave and goodbye! It was only then that I realised that the two dogs who had stopped barking whilst we talked, didn’t belong to my new friend, and now remembered that they were supposed to be guarding and started to bark again, so not wanting to miss an opportunity I had a chat with them too before wishing them an “au revoir” and following the old man down the road.
There followed two briefer encounters with old woman, which were simply “Bonjour madams!” but on the second further communication was ruled out rather taking madame by surprise as she came out of her front door onto the road outside to tend her various pots, she beat a hasty retreat. As for the first, I turned a corner to see an elderly lady shuffling with a stick out of a small settlement into the middle of nowhere. As I was walking faster than she was and not wanting to alarm her in such an out of the way place, I scuffed my feet a little to announce my presence and as she turned and I “bonjour madamed” her, I received something of a wicked if not maniacal grin, so hurried on my way!! Shortly afterwards, I heard a car coming up behind us, which stopped at the old lady, loud and possibly heated words were exchanged and the next I knew madam, was in the car and being driven past me on a road I discovered went on for ages with not a dwelling in sight. As it appeared that the car stopped some way ahead, after where I was due to turn off, I couldn’t help but let the imagination run riff; was she escaped from an institution and for ever being rounded up, or had she been done in behind the hedge! As I turned off I shall never know if it was the same car that had stopped further up the road or not, but I did drive that way a few days later, and there were no houses where the car had stopped, but then again the nearby field wasn’t bristling with gendarmes and a fenced off scene of crime!!
Finally, on this walk as I was some way from home, a little weary and not wanting to miss my turn, I stopped to look at the map. Starting off again, a man, wearing wellies that appeared too large for him, appeared from out of a small area of woodland just a short distance across a field and rather unnervingly seemed to be trying to head me off. Being initially too far away for a bonjour, I ignored him and continued along the road conscious that the man was still heading my way and appearing to speed up. Had it not been for a large hedge next to where I had consulted the map, I would have thought that maybe he had seen me stop with the map and was wondering if I was lost.
He must have then realised that I was striding on, as he used a universal “hey” to get my attention and bring me to a stop! I then turned to face him, decided he looked harmless enough, and certainly I felt I could outrun him if necessary, if only because of the large boots!! He got to the other side of a straggly hedge that bordered the field said hello and was I out for a walk. I concurred and felt at this stage it to be appropriate to say I only spoke a little French, to which he responded in English, “Do you speak English?” At this point he pushed through the hedge and seeming friendly enough I held out my hand to help him negotiate the shallow overgrown ditch that lay between the road and hedge. When he finally stood next to me, he shook my hand and rather confusingly, as we had established that we both spoke English, we proceeded to have quite a long conversation largely in French, perhaps he knew about my pact!!
He wanted to know if I lived hereabouts, where I was going and how far, and he seemed sufficiently impressed that I would probably cover about 16 kilometres in the three hours I was out. He told me he was also a walker and was going for a three hour walk, the following day in the nearby Mervant Forest area, and did I know it? We talked about how good the forest was for walking and shadier than walking where I was today as it was rather hot! I then told him about the lost walker that had turned up at our house asking the way to Santiago; he was walking the Pilgrim’s Route, but had over the previous hour or so got lost and walked around in a large circle! He said he also cycled, but then so do most Frenchmen, garish lycra being the order of the day most summer Sundays, being replaced in the autumn by altogether more toned down hunting gear, the loudness of the lycra being replaced by the retort of the hunting rifles! Well, on one particular outing in a village not far away, he had stopped to talk to a walker, something he must enjoy doing as it had become obvious he simply wanted a chat, and had met an Englishman walking the Pilgrim’s Route all the way from London to Santiago, and then told me his age. As I didn’t catch this, he held up three fingers on one hand, which I took to mean 30, and obviously didn’t respond as he expected, well if you are going to take on such a walk (2000 k or 1250 miles by fastest road route), 30 seemed a reasonable age at which to try it! But he persevered, and I realised that in addition to the 3 fingers on one hand he was holding up five on the other hand, and then clenching it into a fist. The penny dropped, 5 + 3 and add a nought came to a staggering, “huit-zero” as I realised he was saying - 80, to which I then made the correct response “C’est magnifique!” and he heartily agreed. I then told him that perhaps I would come back in 27 years time and give it a try, raising a chuckle and a light touch of the arm, before we parted company. He bade me a hearty “Good-bye” in English to which I responded with an “Au revoir” in French and left with a friendly wave!
Something of a by product of these walks, is returning with pocket / bag full of something gleaned from the hedgerow, be it walnuts, sweet chestnuts, apples, pears, hazel nuts or blackberries, or sometimes a pin-pointed site to return to with the car and with further willing gatherers. Such items have helped to provide many a tasty morsel and recently whilst finishing off our evening meal the telephone rang, the caller checking that we weren’t in the middle of eating, to which I responded that we had just finished a delicious “ditch apple” pie!
All this walking is perhaps why the time seems to be flying by, as the old French proverb that titles this section simply means: “Walk a day, live a week!,” but I don’t think it means it quite like that!!
“Clever Words”
• Rather topical after the horrendous ferry crossing we have just made: “A sure cure for seasickness is to sit under a tree!” Spike Milligan
• With walking, and perhaps life in general, in mind: “I came to a fork in the road, so I took it” Yogi Berra
• Topical when strolling in our 12 acre private woodland and in similar vein to the last one, about decisions!!! “In the woods we return to reason and faith” Ralph Waldo-Emerson
• And finally, a lovely one spotted outside a New York Irish bar: “There are no strangers here, only friends who haven’t yet met!”
My original “day’s thought!”
Carrying on the walking theme, and as I’ve always thought that I do my best thinking when out walking, many a problem has been sorted out following this maxim!:
“I walk, therefore I think. I think, therefore I do!”
Kind regards, Best Wishes and Love, Roger, Linda and Max
(“It’s great to be back, but we seem to be suffering from ‘winter isolation,‘ been back over three days and apart from one visit by the post van, which I missed altogether, NOTHING, not even a tractor, has come down the road for me to chase!! Mind you, I’ve heard them talking about another trip over the water, it will be good to catch up with friends, but let’s hope for a considerably smoother crossing next time! Wouf!)
End piece: (P.S.) Nearly midday Saturday before the isolation finished and Michel, the farmer, came to fetch water and allow me to keep up the French quest!! True to form we covered; welcome back, the weather (two weeks of solid rain whilst we were away accounts for the ponds filling up) and how good it is that the ponds have filled up, distance we had travelled, had we had a good visit and party for mon parents (on being told about their 60th wedding anniversary before we left he had simply said “soixantième... phew!!!”), and how old are my parents. On being told they were both 84 he commented on their visits to see us and their bon forme, which on reflection he changed to superbe forme (shape)! All I hasten to add in French, well in my case “pigeon French!!”
And maybe to come next time? “A glass half full or half empty!” “Wild Gourmet” “Toi Moi” “Keith Floyd and Eddie Izzard!!” “Tupperware” and maybe some more bureaucracy!!
Dear All
Hopefully you will find Missive 12 attached, which does stray into the realms of heaviness in just one small part of one section, but as I’ve said before “I need to keep my mind active!!” At least that’s my excuse, and the last heavy “edition” provoked far more response than any of the others – so that must say something!!
Hopefully, Missive 13 will wing its way to you before Christmas, but we’ll see. This one is a little late as we have been back in the UK recently for the best part of three weeks and are back again on 11th December for; family wedding, Victoria’s graduation (She got a good merit overall for her MA, signed proud parent!!), Christmas and the New Year, so these might get in the way a little!
However, our 2009 Christmas missive will soon feature here on the blog!
Also, The Citizen does finally seem to have sorted out my Reader’s Blog with them. So, should you wish to see the edited highlights of my missives, type in
http://www.thisisgloucestershire.co.uk
and when you get onto the site, click “Stroud” on the toolbar and follow the link. At the moment you can’t miss it as you’ll be confronted with a picture of Linda and I inanely grinning at you!!
Love
Roger
La Loge,
rogerhiggs@hotmail.co.uk
Mes chers amis
Je parle seulement un petit peu français, mais .......................! ~ Missive 12
(I speak only a little French, but .........!)
There was a turning point on the day I sent you the last missive! On the same day I read a passage in a book called: “From here, you can’t see Paris” by an American author who moved, with his family, to live in a remote part of France and chronicle the life of the village in which he lived, and in particular the comings and goings of the local restaurant, and I went for a walk and just on the edge of La Goupillaire, our local hamlet, a lorry driver passed me, backed into a small side road and pulled out, blocking the whole road to ask instructions to somewhere.
The passage in the book made the very valid point that if living in France, it’s impossible to do it fully and properly without being able to get by with speaking French, certainly a laudable sentiment, but to some extent providing difficult as we are living in the middle of nowhere with no neighbours, save the cows that you have previously heard about and an infrequently visiting chateau owner who, likes nothing better than to practise his already excellent English, with smatterings of the other five or six languages that he is fluent in – making opportunities to speak French somewhat limited, although I do always greet the cows in French and, when I’m sure no –one is looking pass the time of day with them!!
Then, later in the day off I go for a walk, through La Goupillaire and out the other side to be confronted by the lorry driver seeking directions, shouting above the noise of the lorry’s engine and catching me unawares. So what do I do, too rapidly and without thinking I ask him: “Parlez vous anglais?,” the response to which is a hasty retreat to find someone who can speak the lingo! I then kicked myself at an opportunity lost to at least try, and for the rest of the walk, tried to work out what I could have said, settling on “Desolé, je parle seulement un petit peu francais, mais c’est possible je aidé vous,” roughly translated as “Sorry, I only speak a little French, but if possible I’ll help you.” At least then I would have tried and maybe, with the help of the large scale map I was carrying, been able to help and rewarded the fact that the driver at least thought that I looked like a native French speaker!!
So, I sort of made a pact with myself to at least have a go in future, and not to resort to the do you speak English question, that more often than not in our area, is met by a friendly but negative response of “Anglais, NON!” followed by incredulous laughter, and when all said and done, why should we expect the everyday man in the street to adopt the tongue of just a few English visitors to this area. So a few days later, when two burly gendarmes (policemen) arrive, fortunately not for us but instead looking for somewhere, despite their obvious discomfort at my excruciating French, I manage to make them understand that I have a large scale map in the house, which I fetch, all to no available as the place they are looking for is nowhere to be seen, - but at least I tried and the gendarmes thanked me warmly for my efforts!! For more “efforts” read on!
Fierté civique
Sitting in France it is easy to start knocking all things English, but on my recent visit to dear old blighty, as I went about the place and watched the news, I kept having a nagging feeling of “Where have we gone wrong in the U.K!” I then asked myself why our small commune (village) in France, population previously 350 and now we are here 352!, has; a floodlit football field with a small pavilion, a part-time Bibliotheque Communale (library), a Salle de Fêtes (parish hall), a community gîte, four large and beautifully maintained and stocked fishing lakes, a small landscaped picnic site complete with a boule pit, attractive flower bedecked name signs at each entrance to the village, well maintained roadside verges and ditches, with little or no evidence of vandalism or litter. The commune also has an Maire (Mayor) with a small purpose-built modern Mairie, set in well maintained gardens and open with secretarial cover on four half days a week, on one of which the Maire himself is in attendance. The Conseil Municipal (“Town” Council) also publishes an annual, full colour, glossy Bulletin Municipal (Parish Magazine) with colour photos on at least 20 of the twenty eight pages, the other pages often sporting full colour graphics or at the very least, as do all the pages, colourful borders!
Further examination of the above mentioned bulletin, shows that it contains the following information about the commune, which is too small to support a shop or a school, but does has the following:
• Various civic events such as; Remembrance Ceremonies (Les Cérémonies), an annual Competition "Landscape Your Town" (Concours "le Paysage de votre Commune") along the lines of “Best Kept,” and a Children’s Christmas Show (Spectacle de Noel pour les enfants).
• Birth, Marriages, Deaths and Welcome to the Village section.
• Brief notes of the monthly Council meetings and key decisions.
• Details, with great and colourful graphics, of the annual budget, which last year amounted to nearly 470 000€ or 1342€ for each inhabitant, and interestingly with Christmas looming, the previous year 2 206.62€ was spent purchasing Christmas decorations!
• A communal building scheme, where serviced building plots are up for sale.
• Practical information including the function of the Mairie, hiring of the Salle de Fêtes, opening times of the local tip (déchèterie), new kerbside recycling facilities, and much more education, religious, leisure, health and social care information, for the commune and the wider Canton (small District.) of which it is a part.
• The following Associations:
• L’association loisirs (spare-time activities such as walks, outings, bingo).
o L’association L’Art-Crée (a private creative arts company that heavily involves the local community and holds an annual Festival of Arts (dance, theatre, comedy) and helps with the children’s Christmas show.
o Les Doryphores, the local football club.
o UNC – AFN who organise the Remembrance Ceremonies.
o Club du 3ème Âge, like the U3A (University of the Third Age) in England.
o La Société de Chasse ~ The Society of Hunters.
o Syndicat Local des Exploitants Agricoles ~ Local Farmers Union.
o Patrimoine Religieux ~ Religious Heritage Group covering the whole Canton.
At this point, let me remind you as it says at the beginning of the second paragraph, we are talking here of a small village with a population of just over 350, and this level of civic activity seems to be replicated, and in the bigger villages expanded on, throughout the 12 Communes that make up our Canton, and indeed it would seem to happen the length and breadth of France. So in answer to “Where have we gone wrong in the U.K.,” I would make the following observations, and I guess this is the slightly heavy bit, but as always, I need to get it off my chest!!:
Family life, and respect for others seems strong, certainly around us in rural France; extended families spend time together and greetings remain important, be it the shake of a hand or a kiss on the cheeks (2 for friends, 3 for family and very good friends and 4 or more if you’re from Paris, which strangely the rest of France almost doesn’t seem to class as France!). Quite naturally children, young and old, will kiss their elders and indeed very noticeable is that when groups of young adults meet, hands are shook and even kisses are, in traditional French manner, exchanged between males. The different generations seem generally at ease with one another.
Our village employs what I guess in England would be a roadman or lengthsman (something I have for some time felt should be reintroduced in the U.K. as a useful way of cutting unemployment), who was in the past in England responsible for making sure grass verges, hedges and footpaths were immaculately kept, and does just that role and more still in France. They are employed by the community through the Mairie, to carry out the “fauchage” as it is known in France, but also maintains the other civic areas and keeps the decorative planting that is so much a feature of civic areas of France, looking spick and span. He seems to also be involved with rubbish collection and repairs, including small scale road works – for all intent and purpose a commune caretaker or handyman, who probably also does quite a lot of informal policing! He’s the man who visited us at lunchtime, on the very day we moved in, to explain when the rubbish was collected and which bin (general or recycling) to put out when, and since that first meeting, waves enthusiastically to us whenever we see him.
Obviously, all this at the end of the day comes down to money, and certainly the French seem prepared to pay more in taxes. Whilst appreciating that the role of the Parish Council in England and the Conseil Municipal in France cannot be easily compared, as they have very different responsibilities in areas such as highways and refuse, it is interesting that expenditure per head of population, by the Parish Council, in my parent’s village in Gloucestershire amounts to just short of £10 (about 120 less than the 1342€ in our French village!), perhaps some of the differences lie in the amount of money available at very much the grass root level and the power given to the Conseil Municipal and in particular the Maire. It is widely known that it pays to stay on the right side of the Maire in France, an almost feudal system, which is at the moment being reviewed, but maybe there is at least something to be said for greater amounts of money, with the increased responsibilities, being available lower down the system.
Maybe the above is all rather simplistic, but it does all appear to add up to a corporate and strong Fierté civique (Civic Pride) at this very grass roots level, which I feel is certainly lacking in some areas of U.K. society, and maybe due, in part, to the breakdown of the family unit and lack of respect, both ways, between the generations. How often do you hear older generations praising the youth of today, the word “youth” itself almost taking on a derogatory tone?
De marche par jour, de vivre une semaine (Vieux proverbe français ~ Old French Proverb)
I mentioned walking in the introduction, and I have of late found my feet again, and started to branch out regularly walking between eight and ten miles, or I should say 12.874 – 16.093 kilometres approximately!! Many of these walks have been circuits from the house, but as I have explored the immediate area quite thoroughly, some to spread my winds a little, involve a short car ride or Linda dropping me on the way back from somewhere and me walking the last bit! I’m sure that some of the more observant locals might be thinking that we have rather a lot of tiffs, and I’m left to walk home!!
On the longer walks, sadly Max who has just turned 14 (the equivalent of 98 in human years!!) can’t make and Linda doesn’t share my love of walking, so involve solo walking and lots of time to think, and when I remember to “stand and stare!” However, it was Max who would usually look through a gap in the hedge or climb on the walls to see what was beyond and would pull me up and make me look!! Now it is the camera and growing album of photos that tends to make me stop and look for a good shot!!
In between times, I do shorter walks and Linda often accompanies me and Max, although if he is feeling tired, a bit hot or stiff, he has been known to go so far and then turn around and go home. Unfortunately, he hasn’t quite worked out that if Linda and I are both out walking, then invariably there is no-one in to answer the door when he stands plaintively barking outside!!
But the walks have proved a great way to get to know the surrounding area, and in particular to find off the beaten track gems, such as; le Moulin du Pigeon (Pigeon Mill), la Smagne (River Smagne), GR 364 / GR de Pays de Melusine (a long distance footpath or Grand Randonnée that passes close by, and is a spur of the Santiago de Compostella, the pilgrims route to Northern Spain, marked throughout it’s route by signs containing scallop shells) and Bois de Lavaud (the communal wood of nearby La Caillère-St-Hilaire), all of which I find myself returning to frequently. I’m going to pinch a motto from another region of France, The Lot, which is some way south of here, where they say “A surprise at every step!” I think it applies equally well here!
On one such walk, that took in at least la Smagne, I was to put my new found determination to use French as much as possible and not just a friendly “Bonjour monsieur or monsieur(ma)dame,” that the locals have a habit of rolling together as one quick word, to the test! Having passed through a local village, dodged cars on the main road, although I will say that by and large French motorists are almost as respectful of walkers as they are of cyclists, I turned down a country lane heading towards a farm on one side and a well tended vegetable plot on the other. The plot contained the usual mainstays of the French kitchen garden; chard, carrots, onions, potatoes, beans, salad leaves, courgettes, tomatoes, growing with such profusion that not for the first time I marvelled at the sheer quantity of produce being grown, enough surely to feed a small army, but replicated in almost all the cottages around. There were also several rows of well hung vines, ready for picking and wine making. As I approached I was greeted by the barks of two large dogs and I noticed an elderly gent was tying his hoe onto his bicycle, from the handlebars of which hung a carrier bag of produce, freshly collected for this evening’s meal. Well, here goes I thought and greeted the man, determined to try and have a longer conversation. I received a friendly response to my greeting and we proceeded to pass the time of day, making sure that he knew I only spoke a little French. Having complimented him on his garden and discussed the weather, something I always thought was an English pastime, but certainly a popular topic amongst the farmers and gardeners hereabouts!, struggling a little I asked him, in French, if he spoke English and received a response reminiscent of me having told him an hilarious joke! But nothing ventured I now turned to the vines and tried, as it happens unsuccessfully, to ask if they were ready to harvest, and even wondering if he could answer a long-standing question I have of “How many bunches of grapes does it take to make a bottle of wine? (Answers by email or on a postcard please, to the address above!). But it wasn’t to be and eventually, he mounted his bike and we parted company like long-lost friends, I even nearly got a clap on the back before he meandered off down the road with a friendly wave and goodbye! It was only then that I realised that the two dogs who had stopped barking whilst we talked, didn’t belong to my new friend, and now remembered that they were supposed to be guarding and started to bark again, so not wanting to miss an opportunity I had a chat with them too before wishing them an “au revoir” and following the old man down the road.
There followed two briefer encounters with old woman, which were simply “Bonjour madams!” but on the second further communication was ruled out rather taking madame by surprise as she came out of her front door onto the road outside to tend her various pots, she beat a hasty retreat. As for the first, I turned a corner to see an elderly lady shuffling with a stick out of a small settlement into the middle of nowhere. As I was walking faster than she was and not wanting to alarm her in such an out of the way place, I scuffed my feet a little to announce my presence and as she turned and I “bonjour madamed” her, I received something of a wicked if not maniacal grin, so hurried on my way!! Shortly afterwards, I heard a car coming up behind us, which stopped at the old lady, loud and possibly heated words were exchanged and the next I knew madam, was in the car and being driven past me on a road I discovered went on for ages with not a dwelling in sight. As it appeared that the car stopped some way ahead, after where I was due to turn off, I couldn’t help but let the imagination run riff; was she escaped from an institution and for ever being rounded up, or had she been done in behind the hedge! As I turned off I shall never know if it was the same car that had stopped further up the road or not, but I did drive that way a few days later, and there were no houses where the car had stopped, but then again the nearby field wasn’t bristling with gendarmes and a fenced off scene of crime!!
Finally, on this walk as I was some way from home, a little weary and not wanting to miss my turn, I stopped to look at the map. Starting off again, a man, wearing wellies that appeared too large for him, appeared from out of a small area of woodland just a short distance across a field and rather unnervingly seemed to be trying to head me off. Being initially too far away for a bonjour, I ignored him and continued along the road conscious that the man was still heading my way and appearing to speed up. Had it not been for a large hedge next to where I had consulted the map, I would have thought that maybe he had seen me stop with the map and was wondering if I was lost.
He must have then realised that I was striding on, as he used a universal “hey” to get my attention and bring me to a stop! I then turned to face him, decided he looked harmless enough, and certainly I felt I could outrun him if necessary, if only because of the large boots!! He got to the other side of a straggly hedge that bordered the field said hello and was I out for a walk. I concurred and felt at this stage it to be appropriate to say I only spoke a little French, to which he responded in English, “Do you speak English?” At this point he pushed through the hedge and seeming friendly enough I held out my hand to help him negotiate the shallow overgrown ditch that lay between the road and hedge. When he finally stood next to me, he shook my hand and rather confusingly, as we had established that we both spoke English, we proceeded to have quite a long conversation largely in French, perhaps he knew about my pact!!
He wanted to know if I lived hereabouts, where I was going and how far, and he seemed sufficiently impressed that I would probably cover about 16 kilometres in the three hours I was out. He told me he was also a walker and was going for a three hour walk, the following day in the nearby Mervant Forest area, and did I know it? We talked about how good the forest was for walking and shadier than walking where I was today as it was rather hot! I then told him about the lost walker that had turned up at our house asking the way to Santiago; he was walking the Pilgrim’s Route, but had over the previous hour or so got lost and walked around in a large circle! He said he also cycled, but then so do most Frenchmen, garish lycra being the order of the day most summer Sundays, being replaced in the autumn by altogether more toned down hunting gear, the loudness of the lycra being replaced by the retort of the hunting rifles! Well, on one particular outing in a village not far away, he had stopped to talk to a walker, something he must enjoy doing as it had become obvious he simply wanted a chat, and had met an Englishman walking the Pilgrim’s Route all the way from London to Santiago, and then told me his age. As I didn’t catch this, he held up three fingers on one hand, which I took to mean 30, and obviously didn’t respond as he expected, well if you are going to take on such a walk (2000 k or 1250 miles by fastest road route), 30 seemed a reasonable age at which to try it! But he persevered, and I realised that in addition to the 3 fingers on one hand he was holding up five on the other hand, and then clenching it into a fist. The penny dropped, 5 + 3 and add a nought came to a staggering, “huit-zero” as I realised he was saying - 80, to which I then made the correct response “C’est magnifique!” and he heartily agreed. I then told him that perhaps I would come back in 27 years time and give it a try, raising a chuckle and a light touch of the arm, before we parted company. He bade me a hearty “Good-bye” in English to which I responded with an “Au revoir” in French and left with a friendly wave!
Something of a by product of these walks, is returning with pocket / bag full of something gleaned from the hedgerow, be it walnuts, sweet chestnuts, apples, pears, hazel nuts or blackberries, or sometimes a pin-pointed site to return to with the car and with further willing gatherers. Such items have helped to provide many a tasty morsel and recently whilst finishing off our evening meal the telephone rang, the caller checking that we weren’t in the middle of eating, to which I responded that we had just finished a delicious “ditch apple” pie!
All this walking is perhaps why the time seems to be flying by, as the old French proverb that titles this section simply means: “Walk a day, live a week!,” but I don’t think it means it quite like that!!
“Clever Words”
• Rather topical after the horrendous ferry crossing we have just made: “A sure cure for seasickness is to sit under a tree!” Spike Milligan
• With walking, and perhaps life in general, in mind: “I came to a fork in the road, so I took it” Yogi Berra
• Topical when strolling in our 12 acre private woodland and in similar vein to the last one, about decisions!!! “In the woods we return to reason and faith” Ralph Waldo-Emerson
• And finally, a lovely one spotted outside a New York Irish bar: “There are no strangers here, only friends who haven’t yet met!”
My original “day’s thought!”
Carrying on the walking theme, and as I’ve always thought that I do my best thinking when out walking, many a problem has been sorted out following this maxim!:
“I walk, therefore I think. I think, therefore I do!”
Kind regards, Best Wishes and Love, Roger, Linda and Max
(“It’s great to be back, but we seem to be suffering from ‘winter isolation,‘ been back over three days and apart from one visit by the post van, which I missed altogether, NOTHING, not even a tractor, has come down the road for me to chase!! Mind you, I’ve heard them talking about another trip over the water, it will be good to catch up with friends, but let’s hope for a considerably smoother crossing next time! Wouf!)
End piece: (P.S.) Nearly midday Saturday before the isolation finished and Michel, the farmer, came to fetch water and allow me to keep up the French quest!! True to form we covered; welcome back, the weather (two weeks of solid rain whilst we were away accounts for the ponds filling up) and how good it is that the ponds have filled up, distance we had travelled, had we had a good visit and party for mon parents (on being told about their 60th wedding anniversary before we left he had simply said “soixantième... phew!!!”), and how old are my parents. On being told they were both 84 he commented on their visits to see us and their bon forme, which on reflection he changed to superbe forme (shape)! All I hasten to add in French, well in my case “pigeon French!!”
And maybe to come next time? “A glass half full or half empty!” “Wild Gourmet” “Toi Moi” “Keith Floyd and Eddie Izzard!!” “Tupperware” and maybe some more bureaucracy!!
Friday, October 9, 2009
Nothing heavy this time! ~ Missive 11
9th October 2009
Dear All
Hopefully you will find Missive 11 attached and after the last one’s somewhat heavy content, this one promises a return to the more light-hearted!! However, I will say that the last missive generated more comments than normally, so maybe I’ll get philosophical again in due course!! However, it’s rather on the lengthy side, but with Monsieur from the chateau awae (tell I’ve been to Scotland!!) back to Spain, life might become less interesting – read on!!!
My flying visit to Edinburgh at the end of last month for a Warden Conference, has been and gone and despite pointing out that living in French might not be the best thing for the Association’s Chairman, I have been returned unopposed! I wonder whether it’s a vote of confidence or that nobody else wanted it!!
Don’t forget we’re back in the UK from 28th October until 16th November for my Mum and Dad’s 60th Wedding Anniversary. We’re in Stroud for the first few days and hope to catch up with some of you then!
Love
Roger
Dear All
Hopefully you will find Missive 11 attached and after the last one’s somewhat heavy content, this one promises a return to the more light-hearted!! However, I will say that the last missive generated more comments than normally, so maybe I’ll get philosophical again in due course!! However, it’s rather on the lengthy side, but with Monsieur from the chateau awae (tell I’ve been to Scotland!!) back to Spain, life might become less interesting – read on!!!
My flying visit to Edinburgh at the end of last month for a Warden Conference, has been and gone and despite pointing out that living in French might not be the best thing for the Association’s Chairman, I have been returned unopposed! I wonder whether it’s a vote of confidence or that nobody else wanted it!!
Don’t forget we’re back in the UK from 28th October until 16th November for my Mum and Dad’s 60th Wedding Anniversary. We’re in Stroud for the first few days and hope to catch up with some of you then!
Love
Roger
La Loge, rogerhiggs@hotmail.co.uk
Mes chers amis
Nothing heavy this time! ~ Missive 11
Great it’s raining cats and dogs (as I’m avoiding heavy!!), perhaps a strange sentiment but the gardens and fish in the ponds desperately need it and apart for some isolated heavy showers about a week ago, I can’t remember the last rain we had (except on our soggy July visit to England!). Apologies however, to our friends from Stroud, who should have just landed on French soil, hopefully, the soil won’t be too soggy and it will get it out of the system before they arrive with us! I am reminded though of when I used many years ago to visit my grandmother, in her sleepy village on the edge of the Forest of Dean, twixt Wye and Severn, although in those days; we’re talking black and white televisions, no mobiles or personal computers and street lights had yet to reach the village, we weren’t allowed to call it “The Forest” as it didn’t fall within the Hundred of St. Briavels!
More night sky gazing
Perhaps inspired by the section in the last missive – What a Shower! – Victoria was determined to make the most of our amazingly clear and unpolluted night skies, on her recent visit. So desperate was she to see a shooting star, that on several evenings we could be found sitting outside the house lying back in the reclining chairs scanning the amazing night sky, before the waning moon rose and still proved to be bright enough to upset our viewing.
Shooting stars proved somewhat elusive or at best very faint and very short-lived, but we were treated to a wealth of satellites that seemed to be crossing the sky in every direction and varying from the very faint to the extremely bright.
But the most amazing of all, was something that in all my time walking and sky gazing at night, I had never experienced before, and no for those of you who know me well it didn’t involve any aliens!! Instead, an inordinately bright satellite appeared, travelling at a fair speed from west to east over the top of our house. Then barely had it come into sight than it was followed by a further dimmer satellite and in a perfect line and perfectly spaced a further dim satellite and the line ended with another very bright one. The line, like a row of racing cars, travelled across the sky and was out of sight almost before we realised what we had seen. Imagination raced and thoughts of star wars or indeed alien invasion came to mind, and I even noted down the time, date and location (9.45 p.m., 10th September 2009, Southern Vendée, so when it hit the news, I could say “I saw that!” But Victoria being ever practical came inside, Googled “four satellites in a row” and in moments found out that the “strange phenomena” was nothing less than a series of well documented weather satellites!!
Joie de vie
It’s another case of gazing skywards, not this time cloud or star watching, but drawn by the unmistakable mewing call of a very close buzzard, Jean Brun, as they are known in the Dordogne, a little south of here or buse in French. It swooped into view low over the nearby avenue of trees, unflapping wings stretched out wide and proud. As it glided passed the barn and out into the cow field opposite it hit a thermal and gracefully circled, gliding higher and higher with not one beat of its wings, until it was lost out of sight in the vast blue expanse of the sky.
Not once had it needed to flap its wings and all for the sheer pleasure, as surely even with its extremely keen eyesight it couldn’t have spotted any prey from such a height?
Then, the very next day two buzzards mewing and similarly soaring over the next door lake, not so high but still obviously enjoying the freedom of flight and periodically folding back their wings to swoop low before once more banking upwards their mewing almost changing to whoops of joy!!
Amazement at the Hotel de la Poste
On our second visit to the area last year, to look at houses and generally check out the area, had found us staying at Hotel de La Poste, you’ve guessed it next door to the Post Office, in La Châtaigneraie. It is a very typical old fashioned French hotel, off one of the main thoroughfares through the town, through a frosted glass door by the side of a typical bar invariably frequented just by men, except when we stayed, the whole concept of “men-only” bars being a little like a red rag to a bull, as far as Linda was concerned.
The room was comfortable enough, sparsely furnished with an array of old heavy furniture, no two items, including the bedside tables matching! The unevenness of the floor hinted at a very old building and as you went down the sloop into the bathroom, the plumbing confirmed this. It’s interesting how France seems to have two distinct camps, diagonally opposed, when it comes to la salle de bain; très élégant with everything automatic (lights, taps, flush) or primitive (no shower cubicle / curtain and only a hand held shower head and a cistern that seems to be forever filling up!) and this was clearly in the latter category!
But fortunately, the restaurant and food were altogether far superior to the bedroom and particularly the plumbing! However, it didn’t pay to be in a hurry as you were certainly unrushed, if at times almost feeling ignored, but it was worth waiting for and as our bedroom was, quite literally, just above the dining room, we didn’t have far to go!
It was the quality of the food and the very homely French feel about the place that made us, despite worries about how long it would take to eat and our bed being a good twenty minute drive away, that made us return. Fortunately, the service did seem to have speeded up, without rushing and it made us wonder if it hadn’t been that long before, just this time we had other people to talk too, whereas before it was just Linda and I and after a busy day together we were tired and had run out of things to say!
So we have visited the restaurant fairly regularly, with many of our visitors from the last few months, and on every occasion even on a fateful evening when the regular menu was replaced by a simpler hand written – beef (bœuf) , pork (porc) and fish (poisson) without the interesting sauces and served plainly with chips (frites) the food and service has been excellent and the older lady who seemed to run the place has started to recognise us, and although knowing we live fairly locally, can never remember and asks each time. She also likes to sort out just who is who and where they all come from! We think on the evening of the simplified menu, it was either the chef’s night off or as there was a very large table obviously set up ready for the next day they were busy preparing for a big party the next day? It therefore seemed the obvious choice for a last night dinner for my Mum and Dad, Chris, Chris and Sara (my brother’s family), Victoria (daughter) as well as Linda and myself.
Nothing heavy this time! ~ Missive 11
Great it’s raining cats and dogs (as I’m avoiding heavy!!), perhaps a strange sentiment but the gardens and fish in the ponds desperately need it and apart for some isolated heavy showers about a week ago, I can’t remember the last rain we had (except on our soggy July visit to England!). Apologies however, to our friends from Stroud, who should have just landed on French soil, hopefully, the soil won’t be too soggy and it will get it out of the system before they arrive with us! I am reminded though of when I used many years ago to visit my grandmother, in her sleepy village on the edge of the Forest of Dean, twixt Wye and Severn, although in those days; we’re talking black and white televisions, no mobiles or personal computers and street lights had yet to reach the village, we weren’t allowed to call it “The Forest” as it didn’t fall within the Hundred of St. Briavels!
More night sky gazing
Perhaps inspired by the section in the last missive – What a Shower! – Victoria was determined to make the most of our amazingly clear and unpolluted night skies, on her recent visit. So desperate was she to see a shooting star, that on several evenings we could be found sitting outside the house lying back in the reclining chairs scanning the amazing night sky, before the waning moon rose and still proved to be bright enough to upset our viewing.
Shooting stars proved somewhat elusive or at best very faint and very short-lived, but we were treated to a wealth of satellites that seemed to be crossing the sky in every direction and varying from the very faint to the extremely bright.
But the most amazing of all, was something that in all my time walking and sky gazing at night, I had never experienced before, and no for those of you who know me well it didn’t involve any aliens!! Instead, an inordinately bright satellite appeared, travelling at a fair speed from west to east over the top of our house. Then barely had it come into sight than it was followed by a further dimmer satellite and in a perfect line and perfectly spaced a further dim satellite and the line ended with another very bright one. The line, like a row of racing cars, travelled across the sky and was out of sight almost before we realised what we had seen. Imagination raced and thoughts of star wars or indeed alien invasion came to mind, and I even noted down the time, date and location (9.45 p.m., 10th September 2009, Southern Vendée, so when it hit the news, I could say “I saw that!” But Victoria being ever practical came inside, Googled “four satellites in a row” and in moments found out that the “strange phenomena” was nothing less than a series of well documented weather satellites!!
Joie de vie
It’s another case of gazing skywards, not this time cloud or star watching, but drawn by the unmistakable mewing call of a very close buzzard, Jean Brun, as they are known in the Dordogne, a little south of here or buse in French. It swooped into view low over the nearby avenue of trees, unflapping wings stretched out wide and proud. As it glided passed the barn and out into the cow field opposite it hit a thermal and gracefully circled, gliding higher and higher with not one beat of its wings, until it was lost out of sight in the vast blue expanse of the sky.
Not once had it needed to flap its wings and all for the sheer pleasure, as surely even with its extremely keen eyesight it couldn’t have spotted any prey from such a height?
Then, the very next day two buzzards mewing and similarly soaring over the next door lake, not so high but still obviously enjoying the freedom of flight and periodically folding back their wings to swoop low before once more banking upwards their mewing almost changing to whoops of joy!!
Amazement at the Hotel de la Poste
On our second visit to the area last year, to look at houses and generally check out the area, had found us staying at Hotel de La Poste, you’ve guessed it next door to the Post Office, in La Châtaigneraie. It is a very typical old fashioned French hotel, off one of the main thoroughfares through the town, through a frosted glass door by the side of a typical bar invariably frequented just by men, except when we stayed, the whole concept of “men-only” bars being a little like a red rag to a bull, as far as Linda was concerned.
The room was comfortable enough, sparsely furnished with an array of old heavy furniture, no two items, including the bedside tables matching! The unevenness of the floor hinted at a very old building and as you went down the sloop into the bathroom, the plumbing confirmed this. It’s interesting how France seems to have two distinct camps, diagonally opposed, when it comes to la salle de bain; très élégant with everything automatic (lights, taps, flush) or primitive (no shower cubicle / curtain and only a hand held shower head and a cistern that seems to be forever filling up!) and this was clearly in the latter category!
But fortunately, the restaurant and food were altogether far superior to the bedroom and particularly the plumbing! However, it didn’t pay to be in a hurry as you were certainly unrushed, if at times almost feeling ignored, but it was worth waiting for and as our bedroom was, quite literally, just above the dining room, we didn’t have far to go!
It was the quality of the food and the very homely French feel about the place that made us, despite worries about how long it would take to eat and our bed being a good twenty minute drive away, that made us return. Fortunately, the service did seem to have speeded up, without rushing and it made us wonder if it hadn’t been that long before, just this time we had other people to talk too, whereas before it was just Linda and I and after a busy day together we were tired and had run out of things to say!
So we have visited the restaurant fairly regularly, with many of our visitors from the last few months, and on every occasion even on a fateful evening when the regular menu was replaced by a simpler hand written – beef (bœuf) , pork (porc) and fish (poisson) without the interesting sauces and served plainly with chips (frites) the food and service has been excellent and the older lady who seemed to run the place has started to recognise us, and although knowing we live fairly locally, can never remember and asks each time. She also likes to sort out just who is who and where they all come from! We think on the evening of the simplified menu, it was either the chef’s night off or as there was a very large table obviously set up ready for the next day they were busy preparing for a big party the next day? It therefore seemed the obvious choice for a last night dinner for my Mum and Dad, Chris, Chris and Sara (my brother’s family), Victoria (daughter) as well as Linda and myself.
Fortunately, there was a table for us and the “interesting” menu was on and we were served by a half-English waitress, who despite having a sound grasp of English, was as the dining room wasn’t too full, quite happy to converse and take our order in French, even if this did end up taking a little longer! It seemed that the waitress, who we hadn’t seen before, was on trial as Madam, wearing her slippers, regularly bristled in in a rather shuffling manner from the bar, where it appeared the “men-only” rule didn’t apply to those behind the bar! So it was after a most enjoyable and very tasty evening, having only cursorily exchanged pleasantries earlier with Madame, that she came in towards the end not only to sort out the bill but also to sort out who was who. She remembered Linda and I, but again had to ask where we lived, and has always been surprisingly generous in her praise for my limited command of the French language, on more than one occasion saying “Vous parlez très bien français, Monsieur!” She had obviously not got us totally sorted out in her mind and had mistaken me for someone else, on more than one occasion!!
Well, as best I could I introduced Linda as my wife, Victoria as my daughter, Chris as my brother, Chris as his partner and she wanted to know how old Sara was, amazed at how tall she was compared to her own grand-daughter of a similar age and she fussed over her, stroking her long hair and saying how grown up she seemed. At this point my mother had gone to spend a penny, as her generation tend to say, albeit now often twenty pennies, but that somehow doesn’t have the same ring to it, when Madame turned to my father and said “Monsieur, autre frère?” and was astonished to be told no, this was Papa, who was 84 and had not only driven here from England, to which she was suitably impressed, but incredulously, stood back in amazement went told he was also towing a caravan. All she could manage was a heart-felt and reverential “Superb!!” At this point, with Madame still in wide eyed amazement, my mother reappeared, and Madame indicated that she was the only member of the party she hadn’t had placed and visibly took a step back when I introduced Maman and rather dreamily uttered “tres chic,” and on being told that on Sunday she was also turning 84, stepped forward, told her hand and shook it warmly with a deferential “Bon Anniversaire!”
It rather wonderfully finished off, particularly for my parents who are celebrating their 60th (diamond) wedding anniversary next month, what had been an excellent evening, as Madame saw us out still rather incredulously shaking her head, having just in her amazement and as we were the final customers of the night managed to turn the light off and lock Chris in the loo!!! Joyeux anniversaire!
“Clever Words”
· Seen on a banner held by a fan at George Best’s funeral: “Maradonna Good, Pelé Better, George Best!” (Dec 2005)
· “good friends are like stars. you don’t always see them, but you know they’re always there!” Seen on a card in a New York shop (Feb 2006)
· Des Lynam in a T.V. tribute to the late Fred Perry: “When Fred came into a room, all the lights came on!”
· “An eye for an eye, makes the whole world blind!” Tolstoy
· "A man who has no imagination, has no wings!” Muhammad Ali
I’ll stop there for fear of becoming too profound if not heavy and starting to fly!!
Tea fit for a King!
Monsieur from the Chateau was around the other day, as with his departure back to his beloved Spain looming rapidly, he was trying to tie up loose ends and get the barn roof fixed.
Some months earlier I had been writing an earlier missive in the wee small hours (you can tell I’ve been to Scotland recently!!), when suddenly outside there was a tremendous crash. With a degree of trepidation, and certainly sending the intrepid Max out first, Linda by now sound asleep, although I was a little surprised that the loud deafening noise outside hadn’t woken her up, I ventured out into our courtyard. The outside light and bright torch didn’t at first show any obvious cause of such a commotion and it was only as Max reached far enough down the courtyard to turn on the automatic security light that a large pile of woodwork and tiles, some it transpired amazingly intact, could be seen having fallen from the eaves of the barn some ten or more metres above, leaving a gaping hole.
Each time we had subsequently spoken to Monsieur he had mentioned the need for a repair, often at the same time as complaining that when in France it seemed to be nothing but writing cheque after cheque. Finally, he had got his local roofing contractor in, the one that seemed to do annual checks on all the roofs and who had come a fixed a leak in the roof shortly after we had arrived. Long discussions, both inside and out of the barn ensued and after a good degree of puffing from Monsieur about all the extra expense, and having seemed to originally say that the whole enormous roof needed to be redone, it was agreed that simply the eaves would be cut back and the roof would finish flush with the wall in much the same way as the end pitch of the house.
As the roofing contractor left with the customary good-byes, handshakes and other parting comments, Monsieur turned to Linda and I who were sitting outside in the late summer sunshine and said “Now I pay you a visit, as I am leaving soon and need to tell you what is going on!”
So Monsieur accepted both the offer of a chair and also a cup of tea, having told me a couple of days earlier that he loved a cup of English tea in the middle of the afternoon, so the timing was just right.
Having put the kettle on, set a tray with cups and saucers, milk jug, sugar bowl and teapot, as it seemed wrong somehow to make the tea with a teabag in a mug, I joined them outside in time to hear what was being done to the roof and further moans about all the expense that he always seemed to incur when visiting France, notably a re-run of the water saga and how some of the pipe was having to be redone. He said that when in France it was spend, spend, spend, but in Spain he “Lived like a King” with no thoughts of France or the Chateau, safe in the knowledge that Monsieur Michel, the local farmer, would be looking after his affairs in France. But then added, that sitting having a cup of English tea made by an Englishman, in the Vendée sunshine would at least for a while suspend his French woes and he could for a while “Live like a King in Spain!” No pressure then!!
The kettle boiled, the pot carefully warmed and just the right number of teabags added and the water, just off the boil added, and I carried the tray outside as “His Majesty!” visibly sank into his chair in anticipation. It felt that much hung on this cup of tea and if it didn’t come up to expectation, a rent rise might be on the cards!! As the tea brewed, conversation turned to the pleasures of sitting surrounded by such a beautiful “English” garden (luckily we had recently done some weeding and dead headed the roses and geraniums, and those geraniums that Linda had recently taken as cuttings were beginning to bloom, and indeed everything in the garden did look rosy. I had even strimmed one side of the front yard that sent Monsieur into raptures about the English, their love of beautiful “louns” (lawns) and how the English “louns” are the greatest in the whole world! He even cast a loving eye over the close cropped weeds and straggly grass, growing along the side of our gravel courtyard, that I had tried my best to make at least presentable, but it certainly a long way from the manicured lawns of Middle England!!
The tea now brewed and I ventured the all important question “Milk in first?” A surprised Monsieur was at first flustered, realising that for years he had been doing it wrong and then perhaps by way of cover, asked if it made a difference? Having been assured that it did and it was all something to do with the relative temperatures of the tea and milk, or something like that I remember reading once!, I somewhat tentatively proffered the tea, that had somehow been built up so much you would have thought that I was giving him the “elixir of life,” perhaps fitting for someone who thinks so much about death. But more of that in a bit, more crucial at the moment was the vital question; “How is your tea?” To which I got the reply “Ah, perfect English tea, now I can go to bed tonight and sleep with the angels, and when I get up in the morning, stand by my bed and sing ‘God save the Queen!!,” never before has one of my cups of tea had such a profound effect, and it was even made in a cheap, badly pouring stainless steel teapot, our proper porcelain one packed away somewhere in Stroud. I must say that it never ceases to amaze me that we have managed to put a man on the moon, but fail miserably to make a stainless steel teapot that pours properly. But I suppose on the plus side, it does keep those trolley dollies at Motorway Services in work, as they constantly should be swiftly manoeuvring their trolleys laden with every type of cleaning material to spray the offending spill with the latest “health and safety” product, passed by the management, carrying the necessary warnings for every eventuality, including the fact that the delivery lorry may have passed a shop that may have been selling nuts!! The fact that the “Spillage Removal Operative” is nowhere to be seen, probably out back having a swift drag, is of little consequence when, the spillage is finally removed and the table wiped down after being spray sanitised, with a cloth that could at best be described as “seeing better days” and at worst as being disgustingly filthy!!
But, I digress; perhaps it’s the effect of being in the presence of “royalty” and the thought of what the citation might say on being awarded in the next honour’s list – “For services to the tea industry and the manufacture of ‘The Perfect Cup of English Tea!”
By now Monsieur had relaxed, thoughts of money far from his mind, how therapeutic is a cup of tea, and conversation turns back to gardening and our obvious way with plants, not sure if he didn’t say “Green Hands!” but I think I was still back at the “Arise Comte and Comtesse ‘iggs” stage!! But he was saying how good it would be to have some Virginia Creeper or Ivy to cover up the old rustic stone walls of the barn and dependencies (outhouses) and the weathered weather boarding of the garage, and would we try and take cutting from the creeper around his stable blocks and plant them to hide what we see as rustic charm and he obviously sees as unrendered, and indeed expensive to render, stone walls!!
We then talked about various things, including the visitors (sister, partner and one of her sons) he had recently had, and how he was always pleased to have the place to himself again, as though there aren’t enough rooms in the chateau to hide away and have your own space. We then talked about our own family and how Victoria had just returned from a cheap break in a rich Middle Eastern tourist hotspot, Dermot having been put up in a five star hotel, one of very few perks I guess you get for being a submariner, having to pay a supplement of £10 a night for double occupancy of the room, not bad for a £200 + a night room!
Talk of this place reminded him of a previous good friend, who in his early thirties had built up what must have been a very prestigious architectural business, and having just been commissioned to design and build a new mega-complex here; mosque, shopping mall and seventy luxury houses, died before its completion. This he said had made him very sad, determined to live life to the full, hence I guess the new sport of kite surfing that he had just taken up, but also made him “think every day about death!”
To change the subject more than anything, Linda asked if he had managed to rent out the gîte long term, rather than just for the summer season? Rather bashfully, he admitted that after 13 years with the same company “Budget Gîtes,” he had something of a soft spot for the English husband and wife who ran the company and so when they had asked about the following year, he hadn’t the heart to say “Not this year, I’m renting it out long term!” So, sadly he would have to spend another summer in France, welcoming visitors to his estate, rather than being able to step out of his penthouse flat onto the beach near Benidorm and spent his day kite surfing across the bay! But he went on to tell us about the “Budget Gîtes” couple and how in the early days they used to tell him off for saying he was old, but had now started to call him an “old man!!” Pre-empting that the conversation might be returning into the realms of death and we might be about to get at least our fourth invite to his funeral, he really does think about death a lot despite seeming to be a very healthy 68 year old who has just taken up kite surfing, to lighten the mood once more I suggested that he should get “Budget Gîtes” to sponsor his funeral. Fortunately, he thought this was hilarious, and through his booming laugh, said he couldn’t wait to share the joke with the company. For a minute I thought he was going to leave straight away and phone them up!! Well, I did say nothing heavy!!
But no, with a second cup of “perfect tea” poured, conversation returned to family matters and where in England I had gone to university. When I said Leeds, he chuckled and said that the family used to have good friends, mill owners who had lived and worked in Leeds and proceeded to tell us how they had met, many years ago when it was unusual to see an English car in deepest Vendée. He had been driving with his parents, in their rather old “rust bucket” (he liked that one!) of a car, to go to an agricultural show, when they came across this English car and family who had crashed into a ditch. He pleaded with his parents to stop and help them, which they duly did, ending up taking them with them to the show and then taken them home whilst their car was rescued and repaired. To this day he remembers well, and it’s a long time ago “I expect they’re dead now!,” the look of amazement when his father turned the battered old car into the front drive of a rather nice chateau!!
After several attempts of “I leave now and leave you alone!,” with other conversations kicking in and covering huge tracts of land, finally Monsieur did rise rather stiffly from his chair as we had been sitting for so long, and bade me a hearty good-bye as he wouldn’t see me before I left for my Edinburgh trip and would be gone after my return. Said to Linda that he would give her some unused food that he didn’t want to take back to Spain, and remembering he must phone “Budget Gîtes” to arrange sponsorship, said “I go now, having drunk your tea, and tonight I lie in a bed of roses without thorns!!” and he turned and with Tottoon, who throughout had been lying peacefully at his feet, trotting behind him and beseeched us to “Be happy!” and left with good-byes, au revior’s, despedida’s, lebewohl’s, arrivederci’s and sbohem’s flying randomly over his shoulder!! He turned the corner and was gone, leaving us as always exhausted by the far ranging and rapid conversation we had just had!! Postscript: How apt, my French word for the day on my google homepage has just come up and is tombe – grave!!
My original “day’s thought”
“Glory be, we’ve found Religieuse!”
Sorry, to those of you who have started to get excited and think we’ve been saved and now spend Sunday morning visiting the local église! No it’s more likely that we will be communing with nature by walking the green aisles beneath the lofty cathedral-like boughs of the chateau wood, in order to walk off the previous evening’s excess – a “Religieuse” is a decidedly wicked French dessert – basically a large profiterole filled with fondant coffee cream, topped with coffee or chocolate icing and piped butter cream around the base of a second smaller, similarly filled and adorned profiterole sometimes topped with a chocolate coffee bean, that sits on top of the first! Pure decadence and with a calorie count that should make the consumption about as infrequent as our visits to the place of worship they are supposed to represent – rather more like the onion domes of a distant Russian church (designed that way to shed rain water and prevent the build up of snow so Google tells me!!) than the ornate, and usually at night, beautifully floodlit spires of the local churches. The only trouble is, it really is something that all our visitors should experience!!
End piece
Well the title said nothing heavy this time, hopefully I’ve achieved that? Linda thought the last missive missed the light hearted banter of previous ones, but I guess I needed to say it, to prove I wasn’t totally vegetating and maybe it had something to do with biorhythms, but I’ll stop there as I’m in danger of getting heavy again!!
Well, as best I could I introduced Linda as my wife, Victoria as my daughter, Chris as my brother, Chris as his partner and she wanted to know how old Sara was, amazed at how tall she was compared to her own grand-daughter of a similar age and she fussed over her, stroking her long hair and saying how grown up she seemed. At this point my mother had gone to spend a penny, as her generation tend to say, albeit now often twenty pennies, but that somehow doesn’t have the same ring to it, when Madame turned to my father and said “Monsieur, autre frère?” and was astonished to be told no, this was Papa, who was 84 and had not only driven here from England, to which she was suitably impressed, but incredulously, stood back in amazement went told he was also towing a caravan. All she could manage was a heart-felt and reverential “Superb!!” At this point, with Madame still in wide eyed amazement, my mother reappeared, and Madame indicated that she was the only member of the party she hadn’t had placed and visibly took a step back when I introduced Maman and rather dreamily uttered “tres chic,” and on being told that on Sunday she was also turning 84, stepped forward, told her hand and shook it warmly with a deferential “Bon Anniversaire!”
It rather wonderfully finished off, particularly for my parents who are celebrating their 60th (diamond) wedding anniversary next month, what had been an excellent evening, as Madame saw us out still rather incredulously shaking her head, having just in her amazement and as we were the final customers of the night managed to turn the light off and lock Chris in the loo!!! Joyeux anniversaire!
“Clever Words”
· Seen on a banner held by a fan at George Best’s funeral: “Maradonna Good, Pelé Better, George Best!” (Dec 2005)
· “good friends are like stars. you don’t always see them, but you know they’re always there!” Seen on a card in a New York shop (Feb 2006)
· Des Lynam in a T.V. tribute to the late Fred Perry: “When Fred came into a room, all the lights came on!”
· “An eye for an eye, makes the whole world blind!” Tolstoy
· "A man who has no imagination, has no wings!” Muhammad Ali
I’ll stop there for fear of becoming too profound if not heavy and starting to fly!!
Tea fit for a King!
Monsieur from the Chateau was around the other day, as with his departure back to his beloved Spain looming rapidly, he was trying to tie up loose ends and get the barn roof fixed.
Some months earlier I had been writing an earlier missive in the wee small hours (you can tell I’ve been to Scotland recently!!), when suddenly outside there was a tremendous crash. With a degree of trepidation, and certainly sending the intrepid Max out first, Linda by now sound asleep, although I was a little surprised that the loud deafening noise outside hadn’t woken her up, I ventured out into our courtyard. The outside light and bright torch didn’t at first show any obvious cause of such a commotion and it was only as Max reached far enough down the courtyard to turn on the automatic security light that a large pile of woodwork and tiles, some it transpired amazingly intact, could be seen having fallen from the eaves of the barn some ten or more metres above, leaving a gaping hole.
Each time we had subsequently spoken to Monsieur he had mentioned the need for a repair, often at the same time as complaining that when in France it seemed to be nothing but writing cheque after cheque. Finally, he had got his local roofing contractor in, the one that seemed to do annual checks on all the roofs and who had come a fixed a leak in the roof shortly after we had arrived. Long discussions, both inside and out of the barn ensued and after a good degree of puffing from Monsieur about all the extra expense, and having seemed to originally say that the whole enormous roof needed to be redone, it was agreed that simply the eaves would be cut back and the roof would finish flush with the wall in much the same way as the end pitch of the house.
As the roofing contractor left with the customary good-byes, handshakes and other parting comments, Monsieur turned to Linda and I who were sitting outside in the late summer sunshine and said “Now I pay you a visit, as I am leaving soon and need to tell you what is going on!”
So Monsieur accepted both the offer of a chair and also a cup of tea, having told me a couple of days earlier that he loved a cup of English tea in the middle of the afternoon, so the timing was just right.
Having put the kettle on, set a tray with cups and saucers, milk jug, sugar bowl and teapot, as it seemed wrong somehow to make the tea with a teabag in a mug, I joined them outside in time to hear what was being done to the roof and further moans about all the expense that he always seemed to incur when visiting France, notably a re-run of the water saga and how some of the pipe was having to be redone. He said that when in France it was spend, spend, spend, but in Spain he “Lived like a King” with no thoughts of France or the Chateau, safe in the knowledge that Monsieur Michel, the local farmer, would be looking after his affairs in France. But then added, that sitting having a cup of English tea made by an Englishman, in the Vendée sunshine would at least for a while suspend his French woes and he could for a while “Live like a King in Spain!” No pressure then!!
The kettle boiled, the pot carefully warmed and just the right number of teabags added and the water, just off the boil added, and I carried the tray outside as “His Majesty!” visibly sank into his chair in anticipation. It felt that much hung on this cup of tea and if it didn’t come up to expectation, a rent rise might be on the cards!! As the tea brewed, conversation turned to the pleasures of sitting surrounded by such a beautiful “English” garden (luckily we had recently done some weeding and dead headed the roses and geraniums, and those geraniums that Linda had recently taken as cuttings were beginning to bloom, and indeed everything in the garden did look rosy. I had even strimmed one side of the front yard that sent Monsieur into raptures about the English, their love of beautiful “louns” (lawns) and how the English “louns” are the greatest in the whole world! He even cast a loving eye over the close cropped weeds and straggly grass, growing along the side of our gravel courtyard, that I had tried my best to make at least presentable, but it certainly a long way from the manicured lawns of Middle England!!
The tea now brewed and I ventured the all important question “Milk in first?” A surprised Monsieur was at first flustered, realising that for years he had been doing it wrong and then perhaps by way of cover, asked if it made a difference? Having been assured that it did and it was all something to do with the relative temperatures of the tea and milk, or something like that I remember reading once!, I somewhat tentatively proffered the tea, that had somehow been built up so much you would have thought that I was giving him the “elixir of life,” perhaps fitting for someone who thinks so much about death. But more of that in a bit, more crucial at the moment was the vital question; “How is your tea?” To which I got the reply “Ah, perfect English tea, now I can go to bed tonight and sleep with the angels, and when I get up in the morning, stand by my bed and sing ‘God save the Queen!!,” never before has one of my cups of tea had such a profound effect, and it was even made in a cheap, badly pouring stainless steel teapot, our proper porcelain one packed away somewhere in Stroud. I must say that it never ceases to amaze me that we have managed to put a man on the moon, but fail miserably to make a stainless steel teapot that pours properly. But I suppose on the plus side, it does keep those trolley dollies at Motorway Services in work, as they constantly should be swiftly manoeuvring their trolleys laden with every type of cleaning material to spray the offending spill with the latest “health and safety” product, passed by the management, carrying the necessary warnings for every eventuality, including the fact that the delivery lorry may have passed a shop that may have been selling nuts!! The fact that the “Spillage Removal Operative” is nowhere to be seen, probably out back having a swift drag, is of little consequence when, the spillage is finally removed and the table wiped down after being spray sanitised, with a cloth that could at best be described as “seeing better days” and at worst as being disgustingly filthy!!
But, I digress; perhaps it’s the effect of being in the presence of “royalty” and the thought of what the citation might say on being awarded in the next honour’s list – “For services to the tea industry and the manufacture of ‘The Perfect Cup of English Tea!”
By now Monsieur had relaxed, thoughts of money far from his mind, how therapeutic is a cup of tea, and conversation turns back to gardening and our obvious way with plants, not sure if he didn’t say “Green Hands!” but I think I was still back at the “Arise Comte and Comtesse ‘iggs” stage!! But he was saying how good it would be to have some Virginia Creeper or Ivy to cover up the old rustic stone walls of the barn and dependencies (outhouses) and the weathered weather boarding of the garage, and would we try and take cutting from the creeper around his stable blocks and plant them to hide what we see as rustic charm and he obviously sees as unrendered, and indeed expensive to render, stone walls!!
We then talked about various things, including the visitors (sister, partner and one of her sons) he had recently had, and how he was always pleased to have the place to himself again, as though there aren’t enough rooms in the chateau to hide away and have your own space. We then talked about our own family and how Victoria had just returned from a cheap break in a rich Middle Eastern tourist hotspot, Dermot having been put up in a five star hotel, one of very few perks I guess you get for being a submariner, having to pay a supplement of £10 a night for double occupancy of the room, not bad for a £200 + a night room!
Talk of this place reminded him of a previous good friend, who in his early thirties had built up what must have been a very prestigious architectural business, and having just been commissioned to design and build a new mega-complex here; mosque, shopping mall and seventy luxury houses, died before its completion. This he said had made him very sad, determined to live life to the full, hence I guess the new sport of kite surfing that he had just taken up, but also made him “think every day about death!”
To change the subject more than anything, Linda asked if he had managed to rent out the gîte long term, rather than just for the summer season? Rather bashfully, he admitted that after 13 years with the same company “Budget Gîtes,” he had something of a soft spot for the English husband and wife who ran the company and so when they had asked about the following year, he hadn’t the heart to say “Not this year, I’m renting it out long term!” So, sadly he would have to spend another summer in France, welcoming visitors to his estate, rather than being able to step out of his penthouse flat onto the beach near Benidorm and spent his day kite surfing across the bay! But he went on to tell us about the “Budget Gîtes” couple and how in the early days they used to tell him off for saying he was old, but had now started to call him an “old man!!” Pre-empting that the conversation might be returning into the realms of death and we might be about to get at least our fourth invite to his funeral, he really does think about death a lot despite seeming to be a very healthy 68 year old who has just taken up kite surfing, to lighten the mood once more I suggested that he should get “Budget Gîtes” to sponsor his funeral. Fortunately, he thought this was hilarious, and through his booming laugh, said he couldn’t wait to share the joke with the company. For a minute I thought he was going to leave straight away and phone them up!! Well, I did say nothing heavy!!
But no, with a second cup of “perfect tea” poured, conversation returned to family matters and where in England I had gone to university. When I said Leeds, he chuckled and said that the family used to have good friends, mill owners who had lived and worked in Leeds and proceeded to tell us how they had met, many years ago when it was unusual to see an English car in deepest Vendée. He had been driving with his parents, in their rather old “rust bucket” (he liked that one!) of a car, to go to an agricultural show, when they came across this English car and family who had crashed into a ditch. He pleaded with his parents to stop and help them, which they duly did, ending up taking them with them to the show and then taken them home whilst their car was rescued and repaired. To this day he remembers well, and it’s a long time ago “I expect they’re dead now!,” the look of amazement when his father turned the battered old car into the front drive of a rather nice chateau!!
After several attempts of “I leave now and leave you alone!,” with other conversations kicking in and covering huge tracts of land, finally Monsieur did rise rather stiffly from his chair as we had been sitting for so long, and bade me a hearty good-bye as he wouldn’t see me before I left for my Edinburgh trip and would be gone after my return. Said to Linda that he would give her some unused food that he didn’t want to take back to Spain, and remembering he must phone “Budget Gîtes” to arrange sponsorship, said “I go now, having drunk your tea, and tonight I lie in a bed of roses without thorns!!” and he turned and with Tottoon, who throughout had been lying peacefully at his feet, trotting behind him and beseeched us to “Be happy!” and left with good-byes, au revior’s, despedida’s, lebewohl’s, arrivederci’s and sbohem’s flying randomly over his shoulder!! He turned the corner and was gone, leaving us as always exhausted by the far ranging and rapid conversation we had just had!! Postscript: How apt, my French word for the day on my google homepage has just come up and is tombe – grave!!
My original “day’s thought”
“Glory be, we’ve found Religieuse!”
Sorry, to those of you who have started to get excited and think we’ve been saved and now spend Sunday morning visiting the local église! No it’s more likely that we will be communing with nature by walking the green aisles beneath the lofty cathedral-like boughs of the chateau wood, in order to walk off the previous evening’s excess – a “Religieuse” is a decidedly wicked French dessert – basically a large profiterole filled with fondant coffee cream, topped with coffee or chocolate icing and piped butter cream around the base of a second smaller, similarly filled and adorned profiterole sometimes topped with a chocolate coffee bean, that sits on top of the first! Pure decadence and with a calorie count that should make the consumption about as infrequent as our visits to the place of worship they are supposed to represent – rather more like the onion domes of a distant Russian church (designed that way to shed rain water and prevent the build up of snow so Google tells me!!) than the ornate, and usually at night, beautifully floodlit spires of the local churches. The only trouble is, it really is something that all our visitors should experience!!
End piece
Well the title said nothing heavy this time, hopefully I’ve achieved that? Linda thought the last missive missed the light hearted banter of previous ones, but I guess I needed to say it, to prove I wasn’t totally vegetating and maybe it had something to do with biorhythms, but I’ll stop there as I’m in danger of getting heavy again!!
Kind regards, Best Wishes and Love
Roger, Linda and Max ~ (“Good job I’m “très sourd” (very deaf) or I’d have been terrified when he sent me out to check out the loud crash the other night – however, I’m finding my feet and getting braver and now realise that the yellow van that comes to the bottom of the yard is La Poste and une bonne chasse !!)
Roger, Linda and Max ~ (“Good job I’m “très sourd” (very deaf) or I’d have been terrified when he sent me out to check out the loud crash the other night – however, I’m finding my feet and getting braver and now realise that the yellow van that comes to the bottom of the yard is La Poste and une bonne chasse !!)
And to come next time, who knows, may be the weather will break, the rain lash down and fill up the empty ponds, on the other hand that could be when we return to England at the end of October!!
Monday, September 14, 2009
Time on my hands ~ Missive 10
14th September 2009
Dear All
You will find attached Missive 10, now becoming something of a monthly affair, which will also now be on the blog, and sorry it’s been a while coming – hurrah I hear you say!! – but we’ve had lots of visitors again and in the words of the Fairport Convention song “Who Knows Where The Time Goes!,” spring to mind.
Dear All
You will find attached Missive 10, now becoming something of a monthly affair, which will also now be on the blog, and sorry it’s been a while coming – hurrah I hear you say!! – but we’ve had lots of visitors again and in the words of the Fairport Convention song “Who Knows Where The Time Goes!,” spring to mind.
I have quite literally, a flying visit to Edinburgh at the end of the month for a Warden Conference, leave Wednesday and back Sunday, but considerably cheaper that ferry, petrol, vet fees etc. Less than €60 return!, and yes I’m planting trees to offset my carbon footprint!
Were back in the UK from 28th October until 16th November for my Mum and Dad’s 60th Wedding Anniversary. We’re in Stroud for the first few days and hope to catch up with some of you then!
Love
Roger
La Loge, FRANCE
rogerhiggs@hotmail.co.uk
rogerhiggs@hotmail.co.uk
Mes chers amis
Time on my hands! ~ Missive 10
Well luvvies, I finished the last blog in theatrical mode so I continue in that vein, sobbing overdramatically as; they have called, the right platform has been found and, if you haven’t already seen Linda and I smiling out at you from the Stroud Life newspaper, I’ve been launched on the unsuspecting Stroud public. However, I’m not letting it go to my head, as 10 days in, two blog entries down and to date not one single comment! The discerning public are too busy commenting and making the most dreadful puns about a woman who was attacked by a cow on the common! So come on Mooove over!! Heady stuff, and I’m sure in this case terrifying for the lady concerned, but don’t you just love provincial newspapers and some of the amazing headlines and earth shattering stories that often make the front page!! ~ “Kids make nutritious snacks,” “Grandmother of eight makes hole in one” and “Drunk gets nine months in violin case!” I rest my case!!
Refund
Remember in the last missive I told you we don’t have a television now, and how “Phonezilla” told us our package comes complete with 40 FREE channels. Well, surprise surprise, perhaps they are not FREE after all, as totally out of the blue we have just received a refund for not having them – confused? So were we!!, but even more of an incentive to avoid putting ourselves through the trauma of subtleties lost in the translation!
Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink- nearly! or
“When the cat’s away the mice will dance!”
Perhaps a strange title as we are in the middle of a severe drought, reservoir levels plummeting and field ponds drying up, marooning large numbers of fish that are simply keeling over or becoming easy pickings for the numerous herons. At our recent family weekend, the intrepid few did manage to precariously wade into the mud, rescue a couple of dozen large carp and release them into a nearby lake. This operation ended up going on late into the night, as someone had the bright idea that they could do with a period in the clear water of our cattle trough, but decanting them into it stirred up the mud on the bottom and introduced even more mud. In the end the trough had to be nearly drained (we did recycle the water and use it for the garden!!), to find the fish, as the fish needed to be removed before the farmer came, possibly at crack of dawn, to draw water for the various drinking troughs dotted around the fields. It was felt that our French wasn’t up to explaining why the trough had, overnight, become a fresh water aquarium!!
However, a couple of days later he said how sad it was that the fish were dying and we told him about the rescue, missing out the bit about the cattle trough! He also did put a couple of full water trailer loads into the pond, but all it really did was dampen the dry mud. I couldn’t help but wonder if his concern was totally humanitarian or at least in part culinary, we are in France after all!! (Postscript: Just been for a walk and when we went to retrieve some of the planks the rescue party had used on the soft mud, Max decided he had read somewhere that hot thick squidgy and sticky mud was good for aged bones and got himself stuck!! He stood there casually drinking the green slimy water, whilst I undertook his rescue, whilst at the same time trying out the healing properties of the hot thick squidgy and sticky mud!! Needless to say we have found another use for the cattle trough – washing filthy hounds!! Perhaps he has also heard about the beneficial effects of hydrotherapy, as he didn’t complain too much, and the swim cooled him down!!)
But, back to the water or should I say lack of it, as a week or so before the family weekend, there was a degree of frantic activity and raised voices, due to the deafness of the people rather than at this time in anger, and we noticed that the trough had duly be emptied to supply the nearby cows, but the tap that normally remains on at a trickle to refill said trough was not running despite being turned on. After, continued activity and much coming and going of cars, slamming car doors and continued shouting, Monsieur appeared to tell us the water had stopped flowing from the well, although the well had thankfully not run dry, and please would we be careful as although we have a large supply tank, it was currently not being refilled as we used water.
This activity carried on for three days, with the occasional update from an increasingly worried Monsieur, who on the second day thought the problem had been solved as tree roots had been discover breaching the supply pipe, which we were informed had been completely re-laid only a couple of years ago. At this point, we were told that the supply would be on in a couple of hours, but night fell and although the water in the house continued to flow the cattle trough tap stubbornly refused, so presumably our tank was also not refilling!
The next morning a by now anxious and unshaven Monsieur, who we have discovered to be one of life’s worriers and who regularly loses sleep and doesn’t eat properly over such problems, did much pacing about and worrying about how he would supply water to his gîte customers and us. In Spain it wouldn’t be a problem, but here – bouf!!
It all went quiet for some time as Monsieur and the farmer disappeared to the well, and it was some hours later that water was restored and things went noisy again. An extremely agitated Monsieur came to tell us that the problem had been resolved but he was furious, the proverbial steam rising thick and fast. Thanking God, quite literally, he recounted how a water diviner had come to the rescue, not interestingly as you might expect with twitching hazel bough, but rather with information that they had noticed a growing puddle of water in a nearby field where one of Monsieur’s tenant farmers had recently done some work. Quite where the water diviner had come from isn’t clear, as from Monsieurs somewhat cynical reaction to the ancient art, I don’t think he had called in their services.
Anyway, briefly, the tenant farmer had been given permission to tap into the supply pipe and had duly unburied it, done the necessary work but left the pipe lying on the surface. The grass had in time grown up and hidden the pipe so that when one of the farmer’s employees was sent to cut the grass, he inadvertently and unbeknown to them cut the pipe and terminated its onward flow.
Standing in the shade, as temperatures were soaring into the 30’s, Monsieur fumed and raved about how “When the cat was away the mice would dance!,” an interesting change to our own saying. He told us, several times that the matter was in the hands of his Notaire (Solicitor) and the farmer was being summoned to explain himself and would certainly not be receiving the lunch invite that was customary. The money Monsieur saved, instead being put towards the cost of repairs and the possible replacement of the water pump at the gîte, which due to lack of water he feared had burnt out. We ended up having to calm him down, suggest he went back to the Chateau and had a steadying drink of water – the only thing he drinks, have a hearty meal to make up for missed meals and then an early night to catch up on lost sleep. When he finally left he had calmed a little, remaining very angry. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall at the meeting with the farmer and Notaire!
Unfortunately, since this incident the water pressure seems to have changed and now our water pump is beginning to make funny noises!
What came first – the trolley or the trap?
Just a quick throwaway item, based on an observation when out walking recently with a friend. I am finding the French farmers to be very inventive and recently stumbled across what looked like a supermarket trolley serving a very useful function as an animal track – lift up the back flap, cover the top and bait the trap and hey presto you’ve caught a coypu, badger, fox or small sangier (wild boar). Then I got to thinking, perhaps when the farmer stacked up the traps in the barn, he suddenly had a brain wave – perhaps with wheels and without the top this would make a great “chariot” for putting the shopping in and with a trap door at the back they could be pushed together and take up less valuable car parking space and use less materials in constructing a suitable trolley park to keep them dry should it rain!!
It’s a chicken and egg situation and will we ever know the answer!?! Time on my hands!!
Something good from Swaziland
Many of you will know that Victoria has just finished her Master’s Dissertation, looking at the Political Economy of AIDS OVC (Orphans And Vulnerable Children) in Swaziland, where she travelled to do her research and subsequently came out to “chill” in the Vendée sunshine, the worry of getting it just right now receded and the mark eagerly awaited. She has taken after her father, something she does in many ways, and started her own blog on which she has posted her dissertation for anyone to read, and despite having something of a vested interest, it is a good read - illuminating and at times disturbing. It can be accessed on http://politicaleconomyofaidsovc.blogspot.com/ , and two rather splendid quotes lead rather neatly onto this missive’s philosophical section that follows:
· Barnett and Whiteside (2002) address how the emotions of a child cannot be quantified, for example “what is the cost of a cuddle foregone?”
· NPA (2006) (National Plan for Action) for OCV (Orphans and Vulnerable Children) “what all children need is love, without love, children have minimal hope for the future, which no provision of basic services can replace.”
I can’t help feeling that these sentiments apply equally well worldwide, not just in Sub Saharan Africa, although they may be more difficult to address there.
Children
Having time on my hands, has got me thinking and as from the back of beyond I try to keep up with news in the education field, (I suppose once a teacher always a teacher!), I continue to be dismayed by what is going on in the UK and thinking what a lucky escape I have had. The news of a day or two ago, that the two major teacher unions are squaring up about whether SATS should remain, in view of the proposed alternatives, which I have to admit raise a wry chuckle!!
What a shame that Education has to be a political animal, and as the adults slug it out with each other, in true playground brawl fashion, it is so often the children who should be at the very core of all that is done, who are forgotten, as the “grown-up” factions try to score points off each other. Any of you who are familiar with school life, can’t fail to notice that in a similar situation between children in a school playground, school staff mediate often finding some middle ground and compromise. What a shame the teaching profession has so many different unions.
I’m also reminded of the dichotomy of how we are all told, and know it to be true, that “a child who lives with encouragement – learns confidence,” yet OFSTED can be hostile and criticise often with little encouragement:
“When the cat’s away the mice will dance!”
Perhaps a strange title as we are in the middle of a severe drought, reservoir levels plummeting and field ponds drying up, marooning large numbers of fish that are simply keeling over or becoming easy pickings for the numerous herons. At our recent family weekend, the intrepid few did manage to precariously wade into the mud, rescue a couple of dozen large carp and release them into a nearby lake. This operation ended up going on late into the night, as someone had the bright idea that they could do with a period in the clear water of our cattle trough, but decanting them into it stirred up the mud on the bottom and introduced even more mud. In the end the trough had to be nearly drained (we did recycle the water and use it for the garden!!), to find the fish, as the fish needed to be removed before the farmer came, possibly at crack of dawn, to draw water for the various drinking troughs dotted around the fields. It was felt that our French wasn’t up to explaining why the trough had, overnight, become a fresh water aquarium!!
However, a couple of days later he said how sad it was that the fish were dying and we told him about the rescue, missing out the bit about the cattle trough! He also did put a couple of full water trailer loads into the pond, but all it really did was dampen the dry mud. I couldn’t help but wonder if his concern was totally humanitarian or at least in part culinary, we are in France after all!! (Postscript: Just been for a walk and when we went to retrieve some of the planks the rescue party had used on the soft mud, Max decided he had read somewhere that hot thick squidgy and sticky mud was good for aged bones and got himself stuck!! He stood there casually drinking the green slimy water, whilst I undertook his rescue, whilst at the same time trying out the healing properties of the hot thick squidgy and sticky mud!! Needless to say we have found another use for the cattle trough – washing filthy hounds!! Perhaps he has also heard about the beneficial effects of hydrotherapy, as he didn’t complain too much, and the swim cooled him down!!)
But, back to the water or should I say lack of it, as a week or so before the family weekend, there was a degree of frantic activity and raised voices, due to the deafness of the people rather than at this time in anger, and we noticed that the trough had duly be emptied to supply the nearby cows, but the tap that normally remains on at a trickle to refill said trough was not running despite being turned on. After, continued activity and much coming and going of cars, slamming car doors and continued shouting, Monsieur appeared to tell us the water had stopped flowing from the well, although the well had thankfully not run dry, and please would we be careful as although we have a large supply tank, it was currently not being refilled as we used water.
This activity carried on for three days, with the occasional update from an increasingly worried Monsieur, who on the second day thought the problem had been solved as tree roots had been discover breaching the supply pipe, which we were informed had been completely re-laid only a couple of years ago. At this point, we were told that the supply would be on in a couple of hours, but night fell and although the water in the house continued to flow the cattle trough tap stubbornly refused, so presumably our tank was also not refilling!
The next morning a by now anxious and unshaven Monsieur, who we have discovered to be one of life’s worriers and who regularly loses sleep and doesn’t eat properly over such problems, did much pacing about and worrying about how he would supply water to his gîte customers and us. In Spain it wouldn’t be a problem, but here – bouf!!
It all went quiet for some time as Monsieur and the farmer disappeared to the well, and it was some hours later that water was restored and things went noisy again. An extremely agitated Monsieur came to tell us that the problem had been resolved but he was furious, the proverbial steam rising thick and fast. Thanking God, quite literally, he recounted how a water diviner had come to the rescue, not interestingly as you might expect with twitching hazel bough, but rather with information that they had noticed a growing puddle of water in a nearby field where one of Monsieur’s tenant farmers had recently done some work. Quite where the water diviner had come from isn’t clear, as from Monsieurs somewhat cynical reaction to the ancient art, I don’t think he had called in their services.
Anyway, briefly, the tenant farmer had been given permission to tap into the supply pipe and had duly unburied it, done the necessary work but left the pipe lying on the surface. The grass had in time grown up and hidden the pipe so that when one of the farmer’s employees was sent to cut the grass, he inadvertently and unbeknown to them cut the pipe and terminated its onward flow.
Standing in the shade, as temperatures were soaring into the 30’s, Monsieur fumed and raved about how “When the cat was away the mice would dance!,” an interesting change to our own saying. He told us, several times that the matter was in the hands of his Notaire (Solicitor) and the farmer was being summoned to explain himself and would certainly not be receiving the lunch invite that was customary. The money Monsieur saved, instead being put towards the cost of repairs and the possible replacement of the water pump at the gîte, which due to lack of water he feared had burnt out. We ended up having to calm him down, suggest he went back to the Chateau and had a steadying drink of water – the only thing he drinks, have a hearty meal to make up for missed meals and then an early night to catch up on lost sleep. When he finally left he had calmed a little, remaining very angry. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall at the meeting with the farmer and Notaire!
Unfortunately, since this incident the water pressure seems to have changed and now our water pump is beginning to make funny noises!
What came first – the trolley or the trap?
Just a quick throwaway item, based on an observation when out walking recently with a friend. I am finding the French farmers to be very inventive and recently stumbled across what looked like a supermarket trolley serving a very useful function as an animal track – lift up the back flap, cover the top and bait the trap and hey presto you’ve caught a coypu, badger, fox or small sangier (wild boar). Then I got to thinking, perhaps when the farmer stacked up the traps in the barn, he suddenly had a brain wave – perhaps with wheels and without the top this would make a great “chariot” for putting the shopping in and with a trap door at the back they could be pushed together and take up less valuable car parking space and use less materials in constructing a suitable trolley park to keep them dry should it rain!!
It’s a chicken and egg situation and will we ever know the answer!?! Time on my hands!!
Something good from Swaziland
Many of you will know that Victoria has just finished her Master’s Dissertation, looking at the Political Economy of AIDS OVC (Orphans And Vulnerable Children) in Swaziland, where she travelled to do her research and subsequently came out to “chill” in the Vendée sunshine, the worry of getting it just right now receded and the mark eagerly awaited. She has taken after her father, something she does in many ways, and started her own blog on which she has posted her dissertation for anyone to read, and despite having something of a vested interest, it is a good read - illuminating and at times disturbing. It can be accessed on http://politicaleconomyofaidsovc.blogspot.com/ , and two rather splendid quotes lead rather neatly onto this missive’s philosophical section that follows:
· Barnett and Whiteside (2002) address how the emotions of a child cannot be quantified, for example “what is the cost of a cuddle foregone?”
· NPA (2006) (National Plan for Action) for OCV (Orphans and Vulnerable Children) “what all children need is love, without love, children have minimal hope for the future, which no provision of basic services can replace.”
I can’t help feeling that these sentiments apply equally well worldwide, not just in Sub Saharan Africa, although they may be more difficult to address there.
Children
Having time on my hands, has got me thinking and as from the back of beyond I try to keep up with news in the education field, (I suppose once a teacher always a teacher!), I continue to be dismayed by what is going on in the UK and thinking what a lucky escape I have had. The news of a day or two ago, that the two major teacher unions are squaring up about whether SATS should remain, in view of the proposed alternatives, which I have to admit raise a wry chuckle!!
What a shame that Education has to be a political animal, and as the adults slug it out with each other, in true playground brawl fashion, it is so often the children who should be at the very core of all that is done, who are forgotten, as the “grown-up” factions try to score points off each other. Any of you who are familiar with school life, can’t fail to notice that in a similar situation between children in a school playground, school staff mediate often finding some middle ground and compromise. What a shame the teaching profession has so many different unions.
I’m also reminded of the dichotomy of how we are all told, and know it to be true, that “a child who lives with encouragement – learns confidence,” yet OFSTED can be hostile and criticise often with little encouragement:
Children Learn What They Live
By Dorothy Law Nolte
If children live with criticism, They learn to condemn.
If children live with hostility, They learn to fight.
If children live with ridicule, They learn to be shy.
If children live with shame, They learn to feel guilty.
If children live with encouragement, They learn confidence.
If children live with tolerance, They learn to be patient.
If children live with praise, They learn to appreciate.
If children live with acceptance, They learn to love.
If children live with approval, They learn to like themselves.
If children live with approval, They learn to like themselves.
If children live with honesty, They learn truthfulness.
If children live with security, They learn to have faith in themselves and others.
If children live with friendliness, They learn the world is a nice place in which to live.
If children live with friendliness, They learn the world is a nice place in which to live.
Copyright © 1972/1975 by Dorothy Law Nolte
This is the author-approved short version.
If
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!
Rudyard Kipling 1910
In short, in this the 20 anniversary year of the UNICEF’s Convention on the Rights of the Child, perhaps we should look back at what was written. These two “Articles” seem particularly pertinent:
In short, in this the 20 anniversary year of the UNICEF’s Convention on the Rights of the Child, perhaps we should look back at what was written. These two “Articles” seem particularly pertinent:
Article 3 (Best interests of the child): The best interests of children must be the primary concern in making decisions that may affect them. All adults should do what is best for children. When adults make decisions, they should think about how their decisions will affect children. This particularly applies to budget, policy and law makers.
Article 29 (Goals of education): Children’s education should develop each child’s personality, talents and abilities to the fullest. It should encourage children to respect others, human rights and their own and other cultures. It should also help them learn to live peacefully, protect the environment and respect other people. Children have a particular responsibility to respect the rights of their parents, and education should aim to develop respect for the values and culture of their parents.......
Why don’t we all, as adults, practise what we preach and get back to genuinely thinking about the needs of the child, and having them at the centre of what we do – isn’t that what child-centred education is all about? Maybe, the government (or better still a Non-Government Education Organisation) could then spend all the money they save from trying to outdo their opposition on addressing issues of family life. I guess what I am really saying is that we should get back to basics and teach children key skills, give them love and work to build their confidence, respect of themselves and others and their imagination:
Confronted with a class of children, hold up a small piece of dull, unremarkable stone and ask the children to imagine it is a diamond – isn’t the struggle won when, most of the class can and the odd doubting Thomas is shouted down, or better still convinced by the others! The excitement and mutual respect is self evident.
For me the beginning of the end I think started, when reviewing the school’s Vision Statement, and against my better judgement, it was voted on to remove the word “love!”
My original (as far as I can ascertain) “day’s thought”
“A good book is like an old friend, you’re sad when they’ve gone!”
More help needed!
Many thanks for those of you who made our life a little easier, by suggesting courgette recipes and contrary to “mother knows best” and having been told – Roger don’t be so silly! - it wasn’t possible to make a courgette cake, well Nigel Slater writing in the Guardian food section came to the rescue and on her last visit (3 so far this year but more later) she thoroughly enjoyed the “Impossible Cake” as I have christened it!!
Indeed, someone who will remain nameless but is our female offspring!, was enterprising enough to add some courgette muffin recipes as a comment on the Blog (In case I forget to mention it anywhere else don’t forget you can get all the missives and much more on the Blog!! – “It happened one Thursday in February”). I can vouch for the chocolate ones, they were delicious, but fortunately Linda was a bit wary of putting in the mentioned tablespoon of ground pepper, and erred on the cautious side!! But, as I said, they were delicious once you had got over the strange tingling after burn, or cooled them down with a drop of crème anglais! On checking with said offspring, the correct quantity should read teaspoon! This has now been corrected, but hopefully nobody tried them before the amendment, or if they did hopefully they served them up after a hot curry, it would have masked the tingling sensation!!
Whilst on the subject of courgettes, amazingly they continue to grow with more flowers regularly appearing – 124 from small to 20 or so of marrow size and we’re still counting – thank you Dave! (see Missive 8)
But now it’s peaches! Not sure if I’ve mentioned it before, but what we initially thought were 4 almond trees growing between our newly dug borders, are in fact peach trees – an easy mistake to make I’m told as they are from the same family! Early on in the season the dry weather seemed to be going to ruin the crop, with the fruit falling off by the bowlful, but then the remaining fruit clung on tenaciously, expanded whilst remaining very solid and filled the trees again. Discovering they were peach trees, we included them in our watering regime and suddenly, although still rather small due to the drought, they have ripened and become sweet, succulent and juicy, but have also started to fall off the trees by the bucketful! They have been frozen in halves and as stew, jammed, chutneyed, eaten whole, made into crumble and still they come – so once again any pet recipes gratefully received, but please go carefully on the seasoning!!
Marker signs have just gone up outside the house for an organised long distance Randonnée (walk and bike ride) and at almost the same time Linda and I thought that if it stays hot tomorrow, the day of the walk, we could offer walkers a bowl of refreshing and revitalising peaches!!
Quotes ~ powerful stuff eh?
For some years I have been a collector of what I like to call “Clever Words,” collected from anywhere – a book I’m reading to the wall of the Gents in the pub I’m visiting. Here’s some to be going on with:
Confronted with a class of children, hold up a small piece of dull, unremarkable stone and ask the children to imagine it is a diamond – isn’t the struggle won when, most of the class can and the odd doubting Thomas is shouted down, or better still convinced by the others! The excitement and mutual respect is self evident.
For me the beginning of the end I think started, when reviewing the school’s Vision Statement, and against my better judgement, it was voted on to remove the word “love!”
My original (as far as I can ascertain) “day’s thought”
“A good book is like an old friend, you’re sad when they’ve gone!”
More help needed!
Many thanks for those of you who made our life a little easier, by suggesting courgette recipes and contrary to “mother knows best” and having been told – Roger don’t be so silly! - it wasn’t possible to make a courgette cake, well Nigel Slater writing in the Guardian food section came to the rescue and on her last visit (3 so far this year but more later) she thoroughly enjoyed the “Impossible Cake” as I have christened it!!
Indeed, someone who will remain nameless but is our female offspring!, was enterprising enough to add some courgette muffin recipes as a comment on the Blog (In case I forget to mention it anywhere else don’t forget you can get all the missives and much more on the Blog!! – “It happened one Thursday in February”). I can vouch for the chocolate ones, they were delicious, but fortunately Linda was a bit wary of putting in the mentioned tablespoon of ground pepper, and erred on the cautious side!! But, as I said, they were delicious once you had got over the strange tingling after burn, or cooled them down with a drop of crème anglais! On checking with said offspring, the correct quantity should read teaspoon! This has now been corrected, but hopefully nobody tried them before the amendment, or if they did hopefully they served them up after a hot curry, it would have masked the tingling sensation!!
Whilst on the subject of courgettes, amazingly they continue to grow with more flowers regularly appearing – 124 from small to 20 or so of marrow size and we’re still counting – thank you Dave! (see Missive 8)
But now it’s peaches! Not sure if I’ve mentioned it before, but what we initially thought were 4 almond trees growing between our newly dug borders, are in fact peach trees – an easy mistake to make I’m told as they are from the same family! Early on in the season the dry weather seemed to be going to ruin the crop, with the fruit falling off by the bowlful, but then the remaining fruit clung on tenaciously, expanded whilst remaining very solid and filled the trees again. Discovering they were peach trees, we included them in our watering regime and suddenly, although still rather small due to the drought, they have ripened and become sweet, succulent and juicy, but have also started to fall off the trees by the bucketful! They have been frozen in halves and as stew, jammed, chutneyed, eaten whole, made into crumble and still they come – so once again any pet recipes gratefully received, but please go carefully on the seasoning!!
Marker signs have just gone up outside the house for an organised long distance Randonnée (walk and bike ride) and at almost the same time Linda and I thought that if it stays hot tomorrow, the day of the walk, we could offer walkers a bowl of refreshing and revitalising peaches!!
Quotes ~ powerful stuff eh?
For some years I have been a collector of what I like to call “Clever Words,” collected from anywhere – a book I’m reading to the wall of the Gents in the pub I’m visiting. Here’s some to be going on with:
· “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.” John Lennon 1940 - 1980
· “Poets don’t draw. They unravel their handwriting and then tie it up again, but differently.” Jean Cocteau 1889 – 1963
· Michael Palin on writing: “It’s the nearest thing to whispering in someone’s ear.”
Hope I’ve manage to whisper in your ear!
Kind regards, Best Wishes and Love
Roger, Linda and Max (“Resting after the onslaught of all the recent visitors – not so much all the walks and all the extra feet to avoid, but rather the extra hands that feed me – I’m not proud I’ll take food from anyone, think I now need some therapy!!”)
Roger, Linda and Max (“Resting after the onslaught of all the recent visitors – not so much all the walks and all the extra feet to avoid, but rather the extra hands that feed me – I’m not proud I’ll take food from anyone, think I now need some therapy!!”)
And to come next time, maybe: “Amazement at the Hotel de la Poste,” more “Clever Words,” “Joie de vie” and “More night sky gazing!”
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