Our place in France Chapter 38

I’m sorry! I’m sorry! To all those who looked for something to read on Sunday evening or Monday morning, only to find that there was no blog! The week ran away with me and when I looked again it was gone! But here we are, better late than never.

As you must have gathered, it was quite a busy week. Tilly had arrived the week before and was a huge help in moving the furniture into its new positions enlarging the living space in the lounge and creating a very elegant dining room. However, her real reason for being here was to straighten out some old paperwork, so there was plenty of driving back and forth to both Villeneuve and Viillefranche to find government offices, banks and so on.

We were all invited to enjoy and evening meal with our neighbours, Ann and Laurent, which was a daunting prospect but once again, Tiilly was a star, acting as translator when we got stuck which was quite often. Laurent was the chef and had prepared a delicious lamb and spinach dish which was served with a locally traditional dish called Aligot (pronounced Ally-go) It is made with mashed potatoes mixed with a special cheese and is very tasty. Serving it was a small problem as the cheese becomes stretchy and one has to lift and roll the serving spoon o get any on to the plate without making a huge mess.

Driving into town and back was spectacular as the autumn colours were at their best and we were completely blown away by them. An exceptionally strong wind one night then blew the leaves away and we were delighted to see, the next morning, that they had blown into neat little piles. I  recall the scene in Camelot where Arthur is extolling the virtues of Camelot and Guinevere says to Arthur: “And I suppose the autumn leaves fall into neat little piles.” And Arthur replies: “Oh, no, my lady, they blow away completely at night” Well we may not be Camelot but obviously close.

The cold weather has brought on a completely different way of dressing. There is only one word for it – layers. Sometimes as many as four layers, but usually two with more added if we go outside. The wood burner glows brightly for most of the day keeping the house nice and cosy but both of us don our fluffy slippers as soon as we come indoors and we were pleased to note that Tilly had brought hers along too.

Now that I have written down all that happened during the week, I really don’t know why I should not have had time to write it all yesterday but I was busy for some hours making use of our free-phone-calls-to-anywhere-in-the-world on both Saturday and Sunday and then, of course, we just had to watch the final Formula One Grand Prix race of the season on Sunday afternoon, and that is how time goes.

Our place in France Chapter 37

Our week exploded with a bang on Thursday when Tilly arrived to spend a week with us. Up until then everything had gone along very sedately and fairly slowly. Then on Thursday we had to go and register with our new GP who is divine! He had been recommended by a couple of people, mainly because he spoke English, but apart from that he turned out to be charming and sympathetic too – just what I want a doctor to be. Unfortunately, he is very popular and probably overbooked most of the time, so we had to read the magazines in the waiting room for quite a while which made us quite late leaving and in the end, Tilly got to the house in her hire car from Toulouse, before we did. But it wasn’t as if she was a first-time guest, and was prepared to sit and wait until we got home.  It was lovely to see her again and the evening passed quickly, chatting about all sorts of things.

On Friday we went into Villefranche as there were a number of matters that Tilly had to attend to that  couldn’t be done in Mallorca (Spain) and there was shopping that we needed to do, all of which we managed to get done before lunch.  Aah! We thought. A nice lazy afternoon. Oh wow! Did we ever get that wrong!

I had vaguely mentioned at some stage that the two downstairs rooms were in the wrong places and needed to be changed around.. I knew it was a huge job as it involved moving all the heaviest pieces of furniture from one room into another, and the doors are not extra wide. Anyway, Tilly somehow heard about this idea and thought it was a good one, and next moment it was all go! We heaved and hauled, huffed and puffed until the job had been done – almost. Tilly, being who she is, was not content with just moving the chairs and tables around. Oh no! The carpets were apparently also wrong and had to be moved, or rather turned, around, which involved a lot of planning ahead. Eventually it all started to take shape and by then end of the day we had a lounge where the living room had been and a really stunning dining room where the lounge had been. You will see from the  pictures that it all looks very nice now. And seems to have created masses more space.

A few things had escaped being moved on Friday afternoon, so on Saturday it was back to the grindstone to finish off. Then it was all done and the end result is delightful.

Saturday evening was the rugby game between France and Australia and we had been persuaded that we just had to see it on the big screen in the pub in Villeneuve, which sounded quite exciting, so off we trotted in good time to have supper first and watch afterwards. There was no rush, as the game only started at 9 pm. The pub was crowded but not really noisy which surprised us. No loud cheering when France scored or boos when the Wallabies did. In the end , France lost by two points which was a bit of a let-down, but it had been a good evening out. Strangely enough, there had been only one English voice shouting ‘Go! Go! Go!’. I wonder who that can have been!

On Sunday, we had arranged to go to a village ‘do’, a dinner, in fact. Thank goodnesss Tilly was with us and we didn’t have to face a hall full of French-speaking strangers on our own. The poor villagers though, couldn’t make our relationship. First they thought Tilly was Neels’ wife;  then they thought she was our daughter; then grand-daughter and finally because of a grammatical error she ended up being our daughter-in-law! We didn’t even try to explain until a bit later when she met the mayor outside, and he had realised that she wasn’t our daughter-in-law, but assumed there would be a wedding soon and offered her the use of the Salle de Fetes for the reception!! How we chortled.

Apart from this small misunderstanding at the start, the event went off splendidly with plenty of speechifying and explaining where all the money has gone that they have collected over the year, with much jubilation at the fact that we have money left in the kitty. Our tickets for the meal cost us all of two euros each, so we didn’t know what to expect but in the end we had a wonderful meal.

It started with us being offered pieces if quiche and/or pizza and an aperitif. And again. And again. Until we wondered if there was other food coming. There was, but before that the mayor came and stood next to us, to make a speech, we thought. What he was about to do though, was to introduce us and another family threesome to the other inhabitants of the commune. At that point, Tilly had slipped outside for a moment, so missed the moment that she got introduced as our daughter-in-law! Oops!

Then we all took our seats and helped ourselves to a crisp salad with a delicious dressing. Wine and water was on the table and it flowed easily into the glasses and down the throats of the assembled crowd. The huge salad bowls were removed and replaced with giant bowls of the most delicious cassoulet we have ever had.  Baskets of home-baked bread were dotted around on the tables and it is definitely the done thing to wipe your plate clean with a chunk of bread!

Cheese came next, and more red wine. Our new found friends said it just wouldn’t be right to eat cheese without red wine, so what could we do but comply.

Dessert was custard filled profiteroles accompanied by champagne. The choux pastries were melt-in-the-mouth good and although they were initially rationed out at two each, the trays came around again and anyone who still had space could have more. By which time we were all so full we could barely move. Our neighbours from behind us were there and sat next to us and were so friendly and chatty, that we were pleased of the opportunity to get to know them.

The final course of the meal was a fruit course and two little girls came around with baskets of clementines and everyone could help themselves.

All in all it was great chance to meet other people from around here and to be recognised by them.

Lots of fun, but thank goodness for Tilly who smoothed our way by translating where necessary which was often.

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Our place in France Chapter 36

Goodness me! Is this cold or is this freezing?! To warm-blooded South Africans I believe it is freezing. We finally lit the wood-burning stove on Wednesday when the gas heater couldn’t cope any more and the interior temperature battled to get above 9 degrees. Ooh! What a wonderful feeling as the heat started streaming out and within about an hour had raised the room temperature to nearly 15 degrees. Now THAT’S what I call warm. We have also switched on the heated towel rails in the bathrooms and if we remember to keep the doors closed, it is lovely and warm when  one goes to shower.

It has been a cold grey and dreary week all round, but good for doing indoor chores. I have now got my rusk baking down to a fine art and the only problem that I have, apart from not being able to get buttermilk, is that they disappear so fast! I wonder if there is a large mouse in the house? But at least it gives me a worthwhile task every weekend. Apart from writing the blog, that is.

The pull-up washing drier/rail that we installed in the cave is also proving to be a real boon. It is surprisingly dry down there, in spite of the wetness all around, and washing will dry almost overnight. It is so good that I haven’t even been into the garden behind the house since we returned from the UK, which is where the proper washing lines are. In any case the weather changes from dry to wet and back again in an eye-blink and we would be forever rushing in and out retrieving semi-dry clothes from the line.

We also need to take our flower boxes and put them in the cave to ‘winter’. I can’t believe this will work but it is worth trying. Apparently if the geraniums are put in a dry dark place they will survive the winter and will regenerate next season. They have been such a joy this year with their endless flowering, and even now, there are still a few buds popping open, so we must try to save them. The petunias, sadly, are finally dead but I think they have to be replanted every year anyway. They gave a wonderful show for several months though.

We had to leave for the UK just as the fig tree was coming into its best. There was a massive crop so we told all the neighbours to come and pick whenever they wanted too. Next year I want to make some jam because we both adore fig jam. We managed to find a couple of properly ripe ones before we left, so we know that they are super-delicious and super-sweet. I’m not normally a fan of figs, or guavas. I always have to open the fruit and stare at the inside for a long time to make sure none of the little fibres are moving, before I can eat it, but ours don’t seem to have any worms, thank goodness.

Because we are both over 60, we got a letter in the post some time ago telling us that it was time to have a flu injection and that we could get it at the chemist. But it was bit of a surprise to discover that they just provided the filled syringe (for free) but the actual injection would have to be done by a district nurse or someone like that. I did my own, but for some reason Neels wasn’t around to get his and a day or two later he developed a growly throat which stayed with him for a few days. He didn’t develop any further signs of a cold so a few days later, I gave him his injection. Now he is lying in bed coughing now and again but otherwise looking and sounding fine. I hope it is just an excuse to spend a day in a nice cosy bed and not that I have actually given him the dreaded influenza.

Sorry it is such a short chapter this week, but when there is nothing to write about there is nothing that I can write.

Our place in France Chapter 35

My goodness! A whole week gone already! Where did the time go? Well, it went in very long drive;  an overnight ferry crossing and a couple of days of hard work, with a bit shopping for necessities, washing and ironing filling up the empty spaces. Just in case you thought we had given up those aspects of daily life!

We left Garstang at about 11 am on Sunday in weather that pretty much matched our mood – grey and a bit miserable. But we had to get back. There were things that needed to be seen to; that should have been done before we left for the UK, so we had to go. Ahead of us lay a day long drive of about 400 kms. Not far perhaps in South African terms, but given the density of traffic on the English roads, it was a full six and half hour drive for us in our heavily laden, underpowered little van. And of course we had to make allowances for hold-ups along the way. In the end, there were no delays and we ended up in Portsmouth nearly five hours early for the ferry! Plenty of time to find a good place to catch a bite. We asked a guard on the dock where to go and he pointed vaguely and said that there was a ‘good place’ just ‘over there’. Getting to it by car was another story. A confusion of one-way streets had us going round and round in circles until we ended up at another place, which was, of all things, a ‘biker bar’ with ferociously loud music and strange looking customers. A waitress took pity on us and directed us to the one we were looking for by telling us to take the subway under a huge intersection and it was just on the other side. It wasn’t but we could then see it – right next to the parking area for the ferry port and exactly where the dock worker had said it was!

The next morning, after what seemed like far too few hours sleep, we were awakened by a discreet chirping on the public address system and it was still dark when we made our way down to the car deck to leave the ferry.  As we drove off into the very early morning sunrise, leaving Caen behind us, we could see that it was going to be a beautiful day. Once away from the city, the motorway became lined on both sides by vegetation and we were struck by the glorious autumn shades of the foliage.. Needless to say, my chauffeur was not inclined to slow down for me to take photographs  so quite a few excellent examples flashed past before I could snap them, but I did manage to get a few reasonable photographs.

At about morning tea time we found ourselves near the Poiteau-Charentes where we house-sat a couple of years ago. Having called our friends first, we found our way to their house and enjoyed a short stop with them during which plenty of chat was exchanged. Feeling refreshed and rejuvenated we set off again finally reaching home at about 6.30 pm. We were quite exhausted and took only our overnight bag out of the car before falling in to bed for a twelve hour sleep.

The next day, being Tuesday the 1st November, it was hard to get out of our cosy bed (so what’s new) but we had to find some stocks for the grocery cupboard. It was almost midday before we got ourselves together so we lazily decided to leave all that boring stuff until the afternoon but no—one had warned us that November 1^st was a holiday and everything was closed in the afternoon although they had all been open in the morning! Never mind. There is always another day. So we went home and unpacked the car instead.

Among the things that came back with us from the UK was a pile of carpet tiles which we intended to use to finish the tiling in the small bedroom. Not a match to the existing ones, at all but a darker shade which Neels cleverly managed to lay giving the impression of a wall-to-wall carpet with a darker border and paler centre. Very satisfactory! It also made us realise what an amazing job Pieter had done when we first moved in and he laid all the tiles in the rest of the upstairs rooms. Thank you  Pieter.

Something that we noticed while we were away from home was the traffic, or more specifically, the amount of it. French motorways are two or three lanes in each direction but, except for the immediate environs of the various cities, there is relatively little traffic. Get to the UK and one is in for a shock! At times the motorway is four lanes wide in each direction and it is absolutely packed with cars. It is quite unbelievable! Where is everyone going? Or where are they all coming from? Endless miles of road covered edge to edge with cars. It is mind-boggling and made us pleased to be back in France.

It has turned very cold since we returned and tonight,  Sunday, is forecast to be  -1 degree. That’s cold!