Our place in France Chapter 17

As you will have gathered from the lack of text yesterday, this week was quite eventful. Our guests who were expected on Sunday or Monday, eventually managed to get away from their small-holding on Monday afternoon, spent a night along the way and arrived in the afternoon of Tuesday.They were only ever going to spend one night with us , but it seemed an awfully short time once we got talking. There was so much news to catch up on – their family and our family; what they have been doing in the past few months and what we have done in the same time; tips from them about living in France; all sorts of topics flowed back and forth. As they had taken only three days ‘off’ from the farm, they left the next morning to continue their mini-tour.

On the next day we had to take a drive to Caylus, about 30 kilometers away to collect some documents that we had had to have translated into French. Stupidly, we didn’t take the time to look around but will certainly go back there again and look at all the sights.

On Wednesday we also had to prepare for our next guest, due to arrive on Thursday. The refrigerator and larder were restocked and the bed clean and aired, and we were just waiting for a message some time on Thursday to tell us when the train was going to arrive in Villefranche. We already knew that our guest hadn’t been able to put her phone onto international roaming and was communicating with us by email, so when we hadn’t heard anything, we assumed that she just hadn’t been able to find a wifi hotspot, and prepared to leave the house to go to the station. Suddenly, my phone pinged and there was a message – but not to give us an arrival time in Villefranche, but to say that she was still stuck in Amsterdam as all the planes had been cancelled due to an air traffic controllers strike. After waiting in a queue for four and a half hours, she was given the last seat on the following day’s flight, and a hotel voucher for the night. What a disappointment. It now meant that her two and a half day break was only one and a half days, but we tried to make the best of it. The Friday train came in much earlier than the Thursday one would have, so we were able to come back to the house via the ‘Monkey’s Leap’ (Saut de Mounine) viewsite which gives one a magnificent view out over a great horseshoe bend of the Lot River. It had been a glorious day so the view was quite spectacular. The next day we went off to Figeac as it is the birthplace of Jean-Pierre Champollion, the man who translated the Rosetta Stone. It seemed particularly apt as our visitor told us that Champollion was one of her heroes. He was an incredible linguist and knew about twelve different languages, one of them being the Demotic Greek which helped him with the translation. Sadly he was only 42 when he died in 1852. What a waste! We visited the museum which is dedicated to him, after having done the walking tour of the town, and found it immensely interesting. It is a museum of the evolution of the alphabet and writing, which was his specialty. On the way home again, we took a more roundabout route, joining the northern bank of the Lot River a short distance from Figeac and then followed the course of the river all the way down to Cajarc, where we could once more cross back to ‘our’ side of the river. Along the way we came across several little villages, all of which have their own special charm.

Sunday was to be her last day so we went into Villefranche which we had only skirted previously when we picked her up at the station. The closely packed houses in the old part of town are very picturesque and also have a charm of their own. The fountains were playing in the town square and she seemed amused by the random squirts of water from the flat jets in the paving. We thought of going into the Cathedral but decided against that idea when we found that there was a service going on and the church was packed. We should have known!! This weekend is the Festival of St Jean also known as St Iago, whose famous cathedral at Compostela is the  destination of thousands of pilgrims every year. Just time to get home for  quick lunch and then it was time to get back to the station. When we had driven in in the morning we had seen the barricades all standing ready at various intersections, but the penny didn’t drop until we tried to get back into town that afternoon. Every road leading down to the only bridge across the river Aveyron was blocked and the station was on the other side! Aah! La! La! What now? The next bridge was a little way down the river, so we fought our way out of the traffic and roared down to the next bridge and returned on the other bank. We were still in time and even had to wait a short while for the train!

Having seen our guest on to the train and seen it leave (absolutely on time at 3.42 pm) we returned to the station car park where a huge second hand goods sale was on the go. As we were wandering along not really looking for anything to buy, although I wouldn’t have minded finding a large gardening fork, we became aware of the sound of brass band music. So we tried to trace the source and found that it was coming from the top of the main street through town. Crowds of people were gathering in front of the Town Hall where some temporary stands had been erected, so we found a shady place to wait and joined them. On the dot of 3 pm the parade started – ten floats, ten brass bands and about as many groups of gymnasts, majorettes and other entertainers. As each group got to the Town Hall, they would stop, go through their paces and move on. It was a marvellous show. People were clapping their hands, tapping their feet and jogging their heads in time to the music and it was a truly happy occasion. After two hours, the parade was over and although we could have gone along about two blocks to the town bandstand for more music, we decided that we had had enough and came home – tired and quite sunburnt after a gloriously sunny day.

When we got home I had to download (?upload?) my photographs which took a very long time as the computer was having one of its silly spells and wouldn’t do anything I wanted, which is why there was no text yesterday. I hope I am forgiven.

Our place in France Chapter 17a

Text to follow tomorrow. Apologies to all.

Our place in France Chapter 16

Another fairly quiet week as we gather our wits for the next visitors, due to arrive on Monday…. Or was it Sunday?? It did, however give us a chance to achieve a bit more around the house.

Carol and Steve had arrived with a loaded car, the result of them having sold their house in St Bee’s a few months earlier and ending up with a houseful of unwanted furniture. They brought us a single bed mattress and were really upset at not being able to fit the bed into the car too. A box of single bed linen accompanied this and two single duvets. Then there were two flat pack hanging rails, similar to the ones used in dress shops which will be very useful as we still have no hanging cupboards in the house, apart from the two camping-style ones in our room which are not exactly stylish or even reliable, as I have previously mentioned. Also in the car was a beautiful brass box with a relief moulded front which we will use for storing wood for the fire. To go with it was a matching set of fire-irons and these two items now stand one on each side of the wood stove.  Finally, there was a packet containing an item which I had ordered from the UK and had delivered to their address. This is a pull-up clothes airer which will be installed in the cellar. I doubt whether clothes will actually dry down there in less than a week, but at least they can hang up and not get all creased in the washing machine while we wait for sun. We went off to get the wooden rails for it yesterday and they are being sanded to a perfect curve as I write. I am looking forward to using it. The weather is so weird here that we never know what to expect. Take today, for example. We awoke to grey skies and a little drizzle, which then cleared up and for a while we had some sun. By lunch time it was pouring with rain and by three o’clock the sun was out again and quite warm too.

On Wednesday afternoon Neels had changed the oil in the car, managing to get old car oil all down his arm, which was fortunately covered with an overall. When he had finished, I suggested he put the overall straight into the washing machine, which he did, and then hung it on the line outside. We forgot about it until it started raining at about eight o’clock that night, so we left it there until next morning, but it was drizzling again when we went off to town, and pouring when we came back. But I am pleased to say that we finally retrieved the overall today during one of the dry spells. Clean, dry and very well rinsed!

Not much to write about this week, I’m afraid. Perhaps we’ll have more to say next week.

Our place in France Chapter 15

My goodness! After a very quiet week last week this week was all go! Go! Go! My sister and her husband arrived on Sunday evening by car, laden with all sorts of odds and bobs for the house. Single bed linen and duvets for our two new single beds, plus a mattress for one of them; table lamps and lampshades for one of the rooms: two ‘rolling rails’ for hanging clothes on which are going to be VERY useful, and plenty of other bits and pieces. It was wonderful to receive all the goods they brought with them but even better to see them again.

The week flew past and was quite obviously not long enough for us to show them all that we had wanted to so we are hoping that they enjoyed it sufficiently to want to come again.  We managed to fit in visits to Carjarc, down by the River Lot and the inevitable visit to Belcastel which is still our favourite village around here. We followed the course of the Lot, travelling upstream as far as Laroque-Toirac with it’s amazing seven-story tower. Somewhere during.the week we took a ride to Lanoujouls and visited a model railway museum where we spent an enjoyable time being shown all the different gauges of model trains each with its own layout and appropriately sized houses and figures, and on another day our friend in the village showed us all the old forge that used to belong to his father which has been left exactly as it was the last time his father worked there, now many years ago. On Thursday we managed to get to the market in Villefranche and get back home again in time for Neels and I to have much needed haircuts. Then as a grand finale we went to Figeac and spent all afternoon on a walking tour of the old town. All too soon it was time for them to leave again and return to the UK.

The weather all week was simply splendid and we couldn’t believe it when every day turned out well. Up until last weekend it had been the sort of changeable weather that we have  become used to so to have six brilliant days was an absolute bonus. It is amazing how much better everything looks with a splash of sun! Belcastel was at its best  with the sun glinting on the flinty stones of the houses and the roofs, while making dancing lights on the fast flowing river that runs through the town.

The market in Villefranche which we have never managed to get to before was spectacular in the sunlight. The square was packed with stalls selling produce and due to the good weather it was very well-attended, so there was quite a buzz from all the people wandering around. The colonnaded pavements all around the square made a good vantage place from which to photograph the multi-coloured umbrellas shading the stalls.

The highlight of the week was definitely the trip to Figeac. Neels and I had been there once before on a very cold and windy day when the freezing breeze howled down the narrow streets, but this time it was warm and beautiful. We picked up a pamphlet from the Tourist Information office which showed a short walking tour of the town and pointed out some of the important buildings etc. There are many half-timbered houses still standing and occupied in the old centre and without the guide, one could easily miss them. Most of the buildings are three stories high and the streets are very narrow so one doesn’t always look high enough to take in details of carvings on pillars and windowsills unless you are warned to look out for them. It was all so fascinating that we just ran out of time in the end and had to come home again, but we will definitely go back again.

Our place in France Chapter 14

What a waste of a week! After all the activity of the previous weeks, this one was not worth writing about. I think I picked up a ‘bug’ while standing in the queue in the Prefecture in Rodez and by Sunday was coughing well. Monday was raining hard, as was Tuesday although Wednesday did clear up in the late afternoon and became a perfect evening. The antibiotics I had started on Monday kicked in and I was feeling much better but still had a cough to make any heavy smoker proud, so on  Thursday we added a delicious cough syrup to the mix and from then on things really started to improve.

Needless to say, what with the inclement weather and the inconvenient malady, it was not a very active or exciting week. But we did watch a lot of TV and followed, with a sort of morbid fascination, the relentless rise of the flood waters in northern and eastern France and Germany. How horrible and how terrifying for all those people. And how long is it going to take to go down again? I read somewhere that in similar floods in about 1910, it took three months for the water to recede and only then could they begin to clear the mud from their homes It is hard to imagine the losses incurred.

Acquaintances of ours who live about twenty to thirty kilometres away told us that on the Sunday, they had taken their daughter to the airport at Brive- le-Gaillard (a drive of about 50 kilometers from where they live) and when they got home again the storm had passed through their village dumping 180 mms of rain in just 20 minutes. The water poured down the road and as their house is at the bottom of the hill, went straight into their house and out the other side. I had to admire her cheerfulness as she told me that it was a good thing it was still raining on Monday and Tuesday so they didn’t need to go out to their work of cutting lawns, and could start clearing the house instead!

Neels spent the time usefully by renovating an old World War II anti-aircraft ammunition box which had brought some of his tools over here. Being a sturdy design, and made of wood, he thought it would make a good storage box for extra towels or other linen. It had been painted a pale air force blue with the words ‘20 mm Oerlikon’ stencilled on the front. Having  sanded it all down, he then painted the whole box the same blue as the window shutters, finishing up with a good coat of white paint for the metal work. The inside then got a couple of coats of bright white paint too and the finished result is very ‘Beach House’ style. I am delighted as storage space is still at a premium here.

After the bad weather at the start of the week, the forecast is looking good for the week to come which is very good news as we are expecting my sister and her husband to stay for a week, and good weather would be very welcome.

The window blind which we had ordered before our previous visitor arrived  is giving us great grief. The order arrived on the same day as our visitor, so we picked them both up and came on home only to find that the wrong blind had been ordered. So we phoned and they said ‘Bring it back and we’ll order the right one” but it was weekend, so our poor visitor had to make do with a sheet of cardboard taped into the window. On returning the blind we discovered that another one had not yet been ordered, but that was rectified straight away and it was promised for Tuesday this week. Well it hasn’t arrived yet so our next visitors will have to put up with a sheet of cardboard too. I wouldn’t normally bother as all our bedroom windows are skylights and only someone sitting on the church roof would be able to peer in, but at this time of the year, with the sun coming up at about 7 am, it shines through the window and directly on to the pillows of the bed in the spare room. I feel that a blind is a must. Hopefully, it will arrive before they leave again next weekend!