Our place in France Chapter 46

Sorry about last week but I will explain as I go along. After all the coming and going of the previous week, the week that started on the 16^th January seemed boring by comparison. Leigh and Courtney were still with us which was great for me as I am still battling with the hip that I injured when I fell on it four months ago. She may not be qualified, but really knows her stuff when it comes to physiotherapy and she has been doing massages for me almost every day. They certainly ease the pain but are not long-lived enough for my liking. Having already had blood tests and X-rays, next on the list was to be an MRI, or as they call it here an IRM, scheduled for Tuesday of that week.

Before that though, we had signed up for weekly free French lessons at the school in Villefranche, so on Monday evening, off we trotted to the class. We found ourselves in a completely mixed bunch of people. Mainly retired British, with a sprinkling of other nations, about 20 of us in all.  It was much like being back at primary school and equally scary, with our teacher writing on a white board and then firing questions at us each in turn. The only compensation for us was that there were some people there who were much worse than we were. So, as long as we can stay ahead, we might make some progress.

After the MRI there was of course yet another visit to the doctor for him to read the report and give his opinion. But the MRI showed nothing to account for the ongoing pain, so now I have been referred to a rheumatologist on the 6^th of February. Thank goodness we were accepted into the National Health System soon after we arrived!

The following day, Neels and I, with Leigh and Courtney went to visit her new school, and to meet the headmistress, Madame Croux, pronounced Crooks. We were pleasantly surprised on all counts. The head mistress was charming and friendly and took time to explain all aspects of school life in France. Education is free in France but hostel accommodation has to be paid for, so as Courtney will be a weekly boarder, money changed hands and then she became a registered pupil. It was then arranged that she would attend school for a few hours on Monday before going off to catch the plane back to SA to apply for a student visa. So to celebrate finalising all the details, Courtney and Leigh went off to Rodez on Saturday to hit the sales and came back late in the afternoon laden with parcels.

Round about this time, or perhaps the day before, my computers must have done an automatic update which didn’t agree with them, and suddenly I couldn’t get access to quite a lot of my programmes. The two devices were also not talking to each other and I was in a spin. No access to my mail! Unable to send any mail! Unable to get into the Internet or to publish the blog! Disaster! Leigh tried her best to sort it out, and we had Andre on the phone for ages but only got partial solutions. In the end we gave up until the next week and spent all Sunday having a ‘chill-out day’ We watched movies and ate popcorn and became total couch potatoes It was, after all, their last day.

Next morning, not too early, we all set off for Toulouse. There was a little trepidation in the car as the last few trips had been somewhat abortive, but it was unfounded. They left on time and had an uneventful trip home. Now the house was really quiet! Just Darby and Joan rattling around again. Tuesday and Thursday were spent sorting out paying of taxes and doing some shopping but I am not ashamed to admit that on Wednesday we spent the whole day in bed. The forecast maximum temperature was alleged to be 3 degrees, so we thought ‘Why not?’ In fact it never got higher than 2 degrees and with our fully equipped ‘office’ upstairs, we were very happy. We have coffee machine and rusks; telephone; laptop; TV and books. To say nothing of the cosy warm bed with electric blanket. What more could a frozen body want?!

On Friday we nearly repeated this as the wind howled around the house at speeds in excess of 60 kilometres an hour, but decided that one day a week was enough. We had also finished the rusks and I needed to make a new batch. The rusks turned out fine but the wretched wind blew all day and nearly drove us mad. However, as suddenly as it had started, it stopped, and Saturday was a stunning day with just a hint of icy breeze. But we were not without some damage from the wind.The strong  gusts must have moved the satellite dish and out TV is now giving us strange pixilated pictures on some of the channels. It looks like we have some more DIY ahead of us. Does it ever end?!

Our place in France

There will be no blog this week. My computer has been playing up but apart from that, there was just no time.
Sorry!

Our place in France Chapter 45

Brrr!! It has been more than freezing cold this week. So far our record is a maximum daytime temperature of 3 degrees and a night time low of minus 6, but there is worse to come. On Tuesday it is expected to be a maximum of zero degrees and a low of minus 7. I really feel for the people who live ‘off the grid’ in Alaska and who have to cope with far colder times than this, without electricity.

Our ‘musical beds’ theme continued into this week when Leigh and Courtney set off for Toulouse with Andre and Cassidy, for the last-named to catch their plane back to South Africa, via Istanbul. On the same day, Tilly and Jack arrived back here after having visited her parents. There was a rapid reorganisation of sleeping arrangements so that Leigh and Courtney each had a bed, while Tilly and little Jack would share the big double. But you all know what is sad about the ‘best laid plans……’. When Leigh and company reached Toulouse they discovered that the airport at Istanbul was snowed in and their flight had been cancelled – along with many other passengers on their, and other, flights. Five hours later, they had finally been given another flight but only destined to leave on Wednesday morning, very early.. The main reason for the incredible delay was that they were continually being offered flights via London, but because of the ridiculous visa rule that decrees that South Africans need a ‘transit’ visa just to cross from one terminal to another – without even going through passport control, so in fact, British soil would not have  been  breached, they had to turn them down as Cassidy does not have a British passport. Eventually they were found seats on a KLM flight leaving at 6.30 am on Wednesday morning. Happily, the airline also gave them a night in a hotel for Tuesday, but that left them bedless for Monday night, so there was no option but to come home again. And that made eight of us in the house! Anyway, another rapid reorganisation and there was sleeping space for all.

In the end, Andre and Cassidy got off safely and arrived back home safe and sound. Tilly and Jack  left again on Thursday and suddenly the house seemed very empty and quiet although there were still four of us here. With bed linen changes having been somewhat glossed over in the previous few days, Leigh and I decided to make use of the giant washing machines at the local supermarket. We stripped ALL the beds and piled the bundle into the car. At the supermarket we found the machines available immediately so used both the 8 kg one as well as the 18 kg one. Then we retired to the warmth of the shop for half an hour while the wash took place. Strangely, all the linen fitted into the tumble drier (also on site) intended for 16 kgs. It may have been just a little overloaded!. An hour later it was all back in the car and we were on the way home again. Job done!

Since then it has been far too cold to do anything except try to stay warm. On Friday morning we happened to look outside and noticed that the drizzly rain drops seemed to be falling very slowly. With shrieks of joy, Courtney rushed outside to play in the ‘snow’. Her pleasure was short-lived though, as the raindrops got bigger and all the snow disappeared in a few moments. Still, there is plenty of winter still come and we may get lucky yet. If lucky is being frozen, that is.

Dear, dear! No pictures again this time. I think my camera has frozen solid. My trigger finger has, anyway.

Our place in France Chapter 44

I somehow doubt if any South Africans who are currently enjoying the summer heat have any concept of just how cold winter can be here in the northern hemisphere. I can assure you that it is very, very cold indeed. Over the last week, temperatures have not risen much above  5 degrees maximum each day and have dropped to as low as  minus 7 at least once. It hasn’t actually snowed yet although one morning there was a sprinkling of snow on the window which quickly slid down the pane and melted away. However, we have been warned that December/January is not the coldest part of winter – the end of January and February are far colder. Oh dear!

The other day when took a drive to town, we discovered that the whole landscape had turned into a winter wonderland. All the trees, bushes and grass were snowy white and the groud was covered with frost. We stopped next  to a creeper that was growing along the fence and took pictures of the stems that were covered in icicles that resembled white thorns. After that my camera had a small tantrum and stopped working so I couldn’t take any further pictures, which was a shame as the countryside was quite, quite beautiful. So I ‘borrowed’ a couple of Cassidy’s photographs instead. They are not bad but one can’t really see how stunning it all looked.

Getting washing dried is a mundane topic that one doesn’t really consider when buying a house, but perhaps we should have done so. Our washing lines in the garden get no sun at all in winter and the days are so cold that it wouldn’t really help much to hang anything out there. So we have a sort of revolving system where washing comes out of the machine and gets hung on the hanging rails in the cellar, for about twelve hours. From there it moves up to the steel expanding rack in the dining room which gets moved to in front of the fire when we go to bed and stays there until the next morning. Anything that is still not dry will then end up either on the towel heaters in the bathrooms or on a wooden clothes horse in our room. But with six people in the house, a fair amount of laundry is generated and most of the time, there is laundry hanging on all the available spaces. And that doesn’t include changing bed linen! It sounds as if I am complaining about it all, but that isn’t the case – our system works well and no-one has had to go naked yet!

On Thursday, Andre Leigh and Cassidy went off to Carcassonne to fetch Courtney who had been spending a few days with her friend Connie. That same day, Pieter arrived, with Tilly and her son Jack. Next morning Tilly and Jack left to go to Tilly’s parents who live further north. And then the rest of the Ferreiras arrived back from Carcassonne again. Talk about ‘Musical Beds’!! Pieter left again today, and Andre and Cassidy return to South Africa tomorrow for the new school term which starts on Wednesday, but then Tilly and Jack return to us on their way south again, also tomorrow, and will be here until Thursday. By then we should have more or less returned to normal, I think. I hope!

On Saturday, in spite of the freezing wind, four of the house guests and Neels went to look at the dolmens which we had found the previous week, leaving Leigh and myself behind in the warm house. Being more adventurous than we were initially, they went on to look for more of these amazing relics of the past and found three more. They are huge and today would require at least a large fork lift truck or a crane to get the top stones in position, so one wonders how it was done 4000 years ago. According to a diagram at the site, the dolmens were erected, then covered with earth and the then top stones were hauled into place. Even so, it would have taken a lot of muscle. Horses, perhaps?!

Driving further into the valley they came a across a very damp area that had not had any sun all day but was oozing water between the layers of stone and soil, but this had all frozen and formed icicles, almost like a frozen waterfall. It was a strange sight.

This is what we enjoy though – finding new and strange sights and discovering hidden parts of the countryside. I think there is plenty more to still find!

Our plane in France Chapter 43

The beginning of this week had to be quiet one to recover from our Christmas dinner but that didn’t exclude excursions. I didn’t accompany the rest of the family when they went to visit Figeac but stayed home and caught up with some correspondence. By the next day things were back to normal again. Andre and Leigh decided on a mid-week break so went off on Tuesday morning, returning again on Wednesday afternoon. Meanwhile with the girls in our care, we tried to do things to entertain them. Our days inevitably start rather late (can’t think why!!) so we had an early lunch and then went off to show them the splendid chateau we discovered recently – Loc Dieu. It was a beautiful day with a brilliant blue sky and no wind, and the afternoon sun always has a golden glow about it which we love. The girls were suitably impressed and Cassidy, who is a keen photographer, took masses of rather beautiful pictures. Next day, we had to outdo ourselves, so we set off to find a dolmen to show them. This area is supposedly littered with these 4000-year-old burial sites but after following directions for most of the morning, we came up empty-handed. Instead we took a detour to Promilhanes where there is an ancient dwelling, dating back several hundreds of years , and built entirely of flat stones. We had come across it some time ago but could find no information about it, which is really annoying. The little rectangular house sits in the middle of the complex with a smaller round building attached to each end.  One of the  extensions has a yet smaller bulge on one side. The roofs of all the buildings are made of flat round stones which are balanced on each other without internal supports or rafters. We decided that the central building was where the farmer and his family lived. It is about 7 by 3 metres. The two extensions, we thought, were for animals, perhaps sheep and/or  goats, as the doorways were far too narrow for cattle or horses. The small bulge on the one side, which could possibly have been a bread oven, had no internal workings so we came to the conclusion that it was a lambing area. The whole complex is very neat and clean and all openings are barred to prevent squatters moving in but strangely, absolutely no information board or name of any kind. I must remember to try and find out more about it.

On the way home, as we drove through Monteil, we saw a board that pointed to ‘Dolmens and Gouffre de Lantouy’! It was close to lunch time but having driven around all morning searching for the darn things we didn’t want to pass up a good chance now. I think I explained in a previous blog that a dolmen is and ancient burial place and consists of two or more flat stones placed vertically on either side of the grave, with one or two more laid across the top to form a table-like structure. We came at last to a parking place with an arrow pointing up the hill (of course) saying ‘Dolmens’. As we scrambled up the stony path, I consoled myself with the fact that the return would all be downhill! After about ten minutes we came to the first one and it was a giant! The side ‘walls’ were at least 2 metres long and about a metre apart. Balanced on top were two enormous stones, about 30 cms thick and overhanging the sides. Today one would not consider moving stones of that size without a large piece of machinery, but somehow the people of 4000 years ago managed to lever them up into position. It is quite awe-inspiring.

We didn’t go on to the Gouffre of Lantouy but having now seen pictures of it I am a bit sorry. A gouffre is basically a sink-hole which sometimes is full of water, sometimes not. If there is water, it is coloured by the chemicals and minerals in the soil and can often have a mystical appearance. Lantouy has water that looks like polished lead and could have been quite a sight, but it was already three o’clock and we were all hungry. Next time perhaps.

On Friday, Courtney was going off to spend some time with her penfriend  and the two families wre to meet up in Toulouse, about halfway between the two homes. Andre told us later, on their return, that the outside temperature registered by the car dropped to minus 7 degrees at one point. That’s cold!

We managed to finish our jigsaw puzzle after a week of working on it, and were pleased to discover that there are still no pieces missing. It was a real devil to do but just the thing for a team effort. It is amazing how magnetic a half-done jigsaw  is – no-one can pass it without trying at least one piece.

The winter is really beginning to bite hard now. This morning it was still minus 3 at 10 am and the maximum temperature wasn’t more than 7 degrees. The insulation under the floor is helping a bit but isn’t yet complete and no-one is really keen to go and work down there on these cold days. So we have a fire burning strongly  but are all sitting with blankets around us for warmth. And this may not be the coldest part of winter yet! At this rate, Cassidy’s wish for snow may well be realised.