Our place in France Chapter 20

This, I think , is going to be the last blog of this series. Life has become quite mundane with daily routines similar to anyone else’s and I can see no reason why I should bore you all to tears. The reason there was no blog last week was because there was just nothing to write about. The whole week was spent trying, mostly unsuccessfully, to sort out matters at the bank, who were supposed to mail us a document which hadn’t arrived; trying, again unsuccessfully, to get our new SIM card to work; and most of all, trying to avoid the heat. We do the obvious thing and keep the shutters closed and the windows open, which works quite well downstairs, but the upper floor gets very hot and the skylight windows have no blinds. We keep the fans going for a lot of the time but all that does is push the hot air around. Roll on Winter when we can layer on the warm clothes!

This week was a bit different . For a start the temperatures reached 35 degrees on Tuesday which I thought quite unfair. This is not a tropical country and temps are supposed to be moderate all year round. Except this year, apparently. Luckily things cooled down on Wednesday, because that evening we went to fetch Tilly from Toulouse. Tilly is Pieters friend and lives in Mallorca. She has a son of four, Jack, who came with her. As things happen sometimes, the only flight she could get left Mallorca at 10 pm, expected to arrivein Toulouse just after midnight, by which time the car hire companies had closed up for the night and although she may have been able to get to Toulouse centre, the trains to Villefranche stopped hours earlier. We really wanted them to come and stay, so we made the long drive down to Toulouse only to find that the flight had been delayed and would only arrive at 12.40 am. One way and another it was a very long night, but jack coped with it amazingly. He had slept from the moment he got into the plane, but managed to walk off it, without realising he had ever been in a plane. Poor little chap kept asking where the plane was!

The following day we all took the day off to recover. Even Jack was suffering and was quite happy to play with his Lego and nap periodically. It is a very long time since I have had a hectic day and have gone to bed at 4 am and had to get up again at a reasonable hour the next morning. On Saturday we drove in to Villeneuve for coffee in the square and found the town decked out with flowers and flags. We found a table outside in the shade and ordered our coffees. Neels felt that a snack with it would be nice so the waitress directed him to the bakery next door. He and Jack went over and after much deliberation returned with three, the last three, of the most delicious-looking chocolate and cream delicacies. I can hardly call them cakes as there was simply no cake involved……oh, perhaps a biscuit base layered with cream and chocolate. Really decadent yummy stuff!

There were lots of people out and about and it was very pleasant sitting in the shade in the square and chatting while we did a bit of ‘people-watching’. After a little while people started arriving for lunch and after seeing the wonderful salads that some of them were ordering, we decided to stay for lunch, which was as good as it looked. Having finished my lunch, and seeing Jack getting rather bored, he and I walked over to one of the other small squares in the town where there was a display of metal sculpture of a very novel variety. The artist uses household items like spoons, forks, coal scuttles and brooms and brushes, and creates weird and wonderful animals, birds and fish. And then he paints them weird and wonderful colours too.

Back at the house, we found great activity in the village. A sports day was in progress, but we must have missed most of it. A running track  had been marked out on the grass and there were poles planted in the ground which must have marked some other sort of activity. By the time we arrived, all that remained was a make shift swimming pool. Round hay bales had been arranged in a rectangle, a large plastic sheet thrown over it all and water poured in to the central hollow. It was only about shin-deep so I am not sure if any events took place in it or if it was just to cool everyone off.  There was a lot of mock wrestling going on as the teenage boys showed off their strength by pushing each other into the water. Later on a band started up, a meal was on offer and disco lights were set up in the village hall so that people could dance. I think that maybe we should have gone to the meal, to show solidarity, but I didn’t really think that it was the right sort of venue for a four year old. How wrong was I! Later on, as he was still awake, he and his Mom went over to see what was going on and came back some time later having had a rare old time. They had been dancing, apparently. By which time he was so hyped up that I heard his little voice still chattering away at midnight.

Our place in France Chapter 19

Our hopes that the weather would cool off a bit and stay dry were not realised, although it did stay dry. The oppressive heat continued though and this week has seen both of us fairly wilting at times. Sitting at the computer with the fan running at top speed, or driving in the car with the air con on are the two best options.

After what seemed like endless problems, with our mobile phone service provider we finally decided to change to another company and it made sense to change to the company which supplies our telephone and internet service. As our closest Orange/France Telekom shop could have supplied us with a new card and set up a contract, they would not have been able to link it to our landline account, so we did everything by phone except, of course, get the new SIM card. For that we had to go to Cajarc about 13 kilometres away on the bank of the Lot River. What a pleasure! A drive in the nice cool car! We had to collect the SIM card from a ‘tabac’ in the town. A tabac is a smallish shop that sells newspapers and magazines, cigarettes and some sweets, souvenirs and knick-knacks and mobile phone time. They also, in this case act as a postal depot for items arriving by courier. A few moments later we were out in the street again clutching a rather large padded envelope which we decided not to open until we got home and could give it our undivided attention. Instead, we went to look for a small pottery down a side street which had heard was owned by a South African couple. We found it quite easily and were just in time to have a look around the shop before he closed for lunch. We had greeted the owner as we arrived, and had introduced ourselves, so he invited us up to his house, which is two doors away, to have something cold to drink and to meet his wife. What a charming couple! We had to drag ourselves away before we used up all his precious lunch hour, but I’m sure we’ll be back again soon.

By then it was also lunch time for us so we looked around for a cheap eating place and found one just up the road. The had tables outside and by then there was a whisper of a breeze, so sat down and enjoyed a long lazy lunch, watching the cars and people go by. Like almost every town in France, Cajarc is on one of the routes to Compostela so there were plenty of hikers coming along. Perhaps the most unusual one was a man with a donkey. I have no idea where he started from but I overheard him telling some-one at another table that he would be taking five months for the walk. As both he and the donkey walk all the way, I imagine that there are several rest days included in that. As we left, I asked him if he would mind if I took a picture of the two of them, standing together. He obliged and I am delighted with my photo of a pilgrim!

As we were out and about already we thought it  a good idea to do a bit of exploring, so we took the road west out of Cajarc and followed the river Lot for a while. We came across some weird semi-troglodytic houses built into the cliffs on the bank of the River which have half the house inside the cliff. Others are just built up against the cliff but it’s a strange way to live. There were also places where the river has carved a course right to the base of the cliffs and the road-builders have had to tunnel through the rock to continue the road.

At Saint Sulplice we turned away from the river and headed back to Cajarc and home having had a lovely day out.

When we got home we opened our package containing the new SIM card and read the instructions a number of times until we were sure we had them right. It was apparently possible to do this all online which is much easier than having to listen to a recorded voice on the phone so we decided to do it that way. Isn’t it just so annoying though when you are instructed to ‘Log on’ to whatever and then ‘select’ something which is not listed. After several attempts I eventually phoned the helpline and got hold of a very pleasant lady who tried but could not help me. ‘For mobile phones’ she said, ‘You will have to call a different number, but they only speak French’. We decided to call it a day and to take the phone into Villefranche next time we were going, which was in a couple of days time

 Although they wouldn’t have been able to do the initial work, they would be able to help with this. So a few days later we found ourselves at the Orange shop only to be told that they were closing for a few days and would open again on the 11^th. Oh phooey! Nothing for it then but to wait.

Meanwhile, the shelving in the cupboard has been going on at a very slow pace, but is now finished. I am so looking forward to hanging all my clothes in a sturdy cupboard on a sturdy rail. When we took everything out of the collapsible cupboards, it all got piled everywhere, and with guests arriving in ten days time, I need to get a little order around the place.

Our place in France Chapter 18

Quite a boring week for all our readers, but a very active one for us. The collapsible wardrobes once again threatened to fall on their faces so we decided that the time had come to do something about it. ‘It’ meant designing, measuring and buying suitable boards for building one, so most of Tuesday was spent carefully measuring height and width and depth, to be sure that we got it all right. In fact we measured a number of times to be absolutely sure, then it was off to the hardware shop to select the right boards and get them cut to size. It was only four pieces – two sides, a base and a top so it really wasn’t a big deal. However, when we assembled the pieces, it turned into an enormous box. Bigger than our double bed and just a tad bigger than we had planned! The light switch was not intended to be inside the finished cupboard! By the time we discovered that though, all the corners had been glued and screwed, and we had heaved and hauled, and puffed and panted, and eventually got the thing off the floor and up against the wall. It was extraordinarily heavy! And there was no way we were going to take it down, dismantle it all and recut the boards. It was a lot easier to move the light switch, which is what Neels did in no time at all. Luckily we had not bought the rails when we bought the boards or we might have been in double trouble, although we did measure the length even more carefully and this time it was right. The rails were soon up; the edging stuck on to the board edges and we could start using it. It may have taken us four days to build a large box and attach it to the wall, but we are pleased with the result and it will certainly not fall on its face any time soon.

All of this physical labour was achieved in daytime temperatures of 31 degrees, and the fan in the room with us was not making much difference. Still, we soldiered on and got the job done. On one of the days it was supposed to rain in the afternoon so I decided to try out my pull-up wash line and hang everything indoors. In the end it didn’t rain but my washing was dry by the following morning which is excellent.  I think that that day also signalled the end of the extreme humidity we have been having which has been quite uncomfortable. Hopefully the hot weather will stay dry now.

With the local schools having closed for the holidays and the summer season well into its stride, the village has livened up a bit. There seem to be a number of small boys who play football in the square every day no doubt encouraged by the TV broadcasting every minute of the World Cup Football.  There are various radio stations chirping from the different houses and new voices call out to each other from time to time. Christian has retired to his house and spends hours practicing his drumming with enthusiasm – his own way of dealing with stress, he tells , driving right up to the bottom of the front steps before giving a long and noisy blast on his hooter. We are not used to this sort of thing and we seldom need anything, but because he has made this special effort to come to the house, we feel almost bound to buy something and we end up buying a baguette, which we don’t really enjoy as his are a bit tough. How silly can one be?!